Broken Prey by John Sandford Page A

complexion, with a barbed-wire tattoo around his biceps.”
    “Who’d that be?”
    “Maybe just a fantasy,” Lucas said. “Good job on the hookers.”
     
    HE CALLED MARK FOX , Charlie Pope’s parole officer: “Could you ask the people Pope worked with, if he ever hung out at a place called the Rockyard, in Faribault? It’s not too far . . .”
    “I know it, and it’s Charlie’s kind of place,” Fox drawled. “I’ll ask around and get back to you today. Still haven’t found a car, have we?”
    “No. I worry about that.”
     
    LUCAS TALKED TO SLOAN. Sloan said, “I can’t get Angela Larson and Adam Rice together, except for one thing and it’s weak.”
    “What?”
    “If you look at the transcript of Nordwall’s interview with Rice’s mother, they talk for a minute about Rice’s wife. Laurina Rice says, quote, ‘She liked doing artistic things,’ unquote. Larson worked at an art-supply store . . .”
    “So your theory is . . .”
    “No, no, no, it’s not a theory,” Sloan said. “It’s not that strong. But maybe . . . they could have met? Like on an art-supply buying trip up here? And after his wife dies, when he starts thinking about companionship, he remembers Larson. That they hit it off a little, so he drops by.”
    “Then what?” Lucas asked.
    “I don’t know. Maybe some sort of kinky artist guy is fixated on her, and sees them together . . .”
    Lucas: “That’s not weak—it’s just not quite ridiculous. Why don’t you get one of your millions of investigators and see if he can make the link?”
    “Ah, jeez, they’d think I was crazy.”
    “Get a young one,” Lucas said.
     
    WHEN HE GOT OFF THE PHONE with Sloan, Lucas went down the hall and bought a pack of almonds from a snack machine: they were his permitted midmorning snack. He was back at his desk, counting out the allotted fifteen almonds, when John Hopping Crow stuck his head in the door and said, “They fuckin’ match.”
    Lucas sat up, astonished: “They fuckin’ match ?”
    “They fuckin’ match ,” Hopping Crow repeated, stepping inside. He was wearing the largest smile Lucas had ever seen on him, big white teeth like Chiclets. “How about that for a little CSI: Minneapolis bullshit, huh? We’re going network.”
    “You got enough goop to repeat the procedure?” Lucas asked.
    “We don’t have to . . .”
    “For the trial? For the defense, if there is one?”
    Hopping Crow caught on: “Yes. We’ve got the evidence chain nailed down, everything passed hand to hand and signed for, and we’ve got enough for three or four more tests.”
    “I’d French-kiss you if you weren’t married,” Lucas said, picking up the telephone.
    “It’s always something,” Hopping Crow said.
     
    SLOAN WAS AS ASTONISHED AS LUCAS.
    “Got him. Goddamn it, Lucas. Got him.” Lucas heard him turn away from the phone and shout to somebody, “They matched it. We got him.” Then, back to the phone, “If you get the media hooked up, we can have his face all over five states by six o’clock.”
    “I’m going down to St. John’s today, talk to the people who worked with him. If you’re loose . . .”
    “How soon?”
    “I want to make those media calls, set up a four-o’clock press conference. Say, an hour?”
    “Pick me up at the Mall of America. I’ll go down there now, I wanna buy some shoes.”
     
    LUCAS TOLD CAROL , his secretary, to set up a press conference for four o’clock; called Nordwall and told him.
    “Goddamnit, that’s wonderful,” Nordwall said, his voice warm with relief. “But why four o’clock? Why wait?”
    “I’ve got stuff to do. We need more background on the guy, we should organize some more pictures, and besides, it doesn’t matter—we can’t do it in time for the noon news, and at four o’clock they’ll have it in time for every single evening news program, and both papers.”
    “I’ll see you at four,” Nordwall said.
     
    THE NEXT CALL WAS to St.