'Seal the place off,' Lucas said. 'I'll send down our crime-scene crew…'
'It's sealed off now. I'm calling in all our guys, we're gonna do the streets, and the sheriff is running the county.'
'Don't quit on it-there's a possibility that he's still down there.'
'That cocksucker, if he's killed Carlita Peterson, he's a dead man,' Goode said.
'You know her?'
'Yes, a little bit. She seemed like a nice lady.' 'I'm coming down,' Lucas said. 'I've got a guy to talk to first, I might be a couple of hours.'
IGNACE CAME UP: 'Listen, instead of running over here, I got a transcript that I can cut and paste to Microsoft Word and ship it to you. You could have it in one minute.'
'Do that,' Lucas said. 'I should have thought of it myself. Here's the address…'
HE CHECKED THREE TIMES, five seconds apart, and then the document came rolling in. At the top: 'This is verbatim.'
Lucas read down through the conversation between Pope and Ignace. Pope said they had until tomorrow morning. Some time, then. Not much, and he might be lying. Still, there was a chance.
He sent the document to the printer, then looked again at the language, searching for the kind of things he'd pulled out of the first call, Nothing struck him that seemed particularly important. Pope said he had the woman in his car, which implied a sedan or coupe, but not a pickup or an SUV. That eliminated about half the vehicles heading north… unless he was lying. Pope said he was 'leaving.'
Leaving from Burnsville? Was that where he was hiding? A big town, a major suburb. Lots of people around.
Most likely, Lucas thought, Pope meant that he was leaving the area, not that he was leaving that very minute. Lucas was still mulling over the conversation when Carol came in: 'Channel Three just called. They've heard about the network alert from their cops reporter. Everybody else will hear about it in the next ten minutes. What do you want me to do?'
'Tell them that we've got no comment at this time…Do they have Peterson's name yet?'
'They didn't say anything.'
Lucas stood up, picked up his sport coat. 'Put them off. Tell them you can't talk without an okay from me, and I'm somewhere in my car. You don't know where.'
'So where will you be?'
'Northfield. I'll be on the cell,' Lucas said.
'And you're okay to drive?'
'Huh?'
'Your nose-your face. You don't look so good.'
'Nah. I'm fine. Couple more Aleves, I'm good for the day.' He touched his nose, gave it a tentative push, and winced.For ten minutes there, he'd forgotten about it.
He stopped at the co-op center, three guys, three computers, and three telephones in a room the size of a closet. Lucas said, 'Probably a sedan or coupe. White, maybe an Olds.' They all nodded, and he was out the door.
EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, Carlita Peterson would get together both the energy and the angle to give the backseat a good thump. She was lying on her face, or had been, and it gave him a hard-on thinking about her back there, desperate, trying to kick, feeling the rope cut into her.
Knowing the power.
The Gods Down the Hall always said that was the best part. The killing and the pain were fine, but when you could look into their eyes, and know they were feeling the power…
He'd stash her for the rest of the day, take her out tonight, just like he'd told Ruffe that he would. And tomorrow morning… He could feel the need coming on him, stronger than ever. The Gods Down the
Hall had talked to him about this, about the power and the need, so closely tied together, about the ecstasy that was coming…
ONE NIGHT WALKING BACK to Millie Lincoln's town house, Mihovil said, 'Is Sherrie a very close friend with you?'
'Well… yeah. I guess,' she said. 'I mean, we don't hang out so much now that you're around, but we used to, you know, Hang out.'
'I think she watches us make love.'
'What?'
'The other night when I came over and we go back to the playroom and do it, and then we are resting, and I see a spot of light on the door. A minute later, I look back and it's gone. No light. Then a couple of minutes later, I see the light again. Just a little spot. So then we are doing it again, and I see no light.'
'What was it?' Millie was intrigued.
'There is a very small hole in the door, like a nail hole, right under the bar that runs across the middle of it. When we are done, and you and Sherrie are in the kitchen, I look through the hole. All you can see is the bed, but you can see all of the bed. I think… when there is no light, she is watching. When you can see light, then her eye is not at the hole.'
Millie could feel herself going a flame pink. The witch. What did she see? What had they been doing the last time…? Millie thought about it and, if anything, got a little pinker.
'Why didn't you say anything?'
'Well, I am not sure. And you are friends. And I'm not sure she was watching. But I think she was.'
Now a surge of anger. 'Goddamnit. We're gonna have it out right now…' She stepped out a little faster.
'Wait, wait wait…,' Mihovil said. 'Maybe, let it go this night.'
'What?'
'What can it hurt? She watches, she doesn't do anything. You can't take pictures through the hole. She has no boyfriend, she just enjoys herself.'
'You sound like you liked it.'
'Well…' He shrugged and grinned. 'Maybe I did like it…'
'God, Mihovil…' But, in fact, his comment produced a little thrill.
That night, when they were doing it, Millie kept an eye on the door-and that meant she had to keep her glasses oil, because she couldn't see the little spot without them. Would Sherrie be suspicious? Millie didn't know, but she wanted to see if the little spot was there- and before they went in the bedroom, Mihovil had carefully turned on a living-room desk lamp that they'd calculated would provide the light.
And Millie saw the tiny light blink at her. This time, she got more than a little thrill: Mihovil had his head down between her thighs, and her head was propped on the pillow, her eyes cracked just enough to watch the light, and when the light blinked out-when Sherrie started watching-Millie felt a rush so intense that she wasn't sure she could stand it.
She cried out once, and again, and felt her heels drumming on the mattress as Mihovil had said they would, when she really got into it, and then an orgasm rolled over her brain like a tsunami. She could remember yipping, a noise she'd never heard herself make before, and then nothing was anything except the feeling of Mihovil's tongue in the middle of her existence, and her own self, going off…
14
LUCAS HAD TAKEN the truck to work, because the softer ride was easier on his broken nose. Now he stuck the flasher on the roof, punched the address of Carlita Peterson's house into his dashboard navigation system, cut too fast through the traffic on I-35, and got clear of St. Paul.
