Night Prey

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Book: Read Night Prey for Free Online
Authors: John Sandford
Tags: thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Adult, Politics
rehabilitation theory, and they swept everybody out of the state hospitals? That must’ve been in the mid-eighties.”
    “First killing I found was in ’84, in Minneapolis, and it’s still open,” Connell said.
    “We need to run Junky,” Sloan said.
    Lucas said, “It’d be a long shot, but he was a crazy sonofabitch. Remember what he did to that model he followed out of that Dayton’s fashion show?”
    “Yeah,” Sloan said. He rubbed the side of his face, thinking. “Let’s get Anderson to look him up.”
    “I’ll look him up too,” Connell said. “I’ll see you back there, Sloan?”
    Sloan was unhappy. “Yeah. See you, Meagan.”
     
     
     
    BACK IN THE car, Sloan fastened his seat belt, started the engine, and said, “Uh, the chief wants to see you.”
    “Yeah? About what?” Lucas asked. “About this?”
    “I think so.” Sloan bumped the car out of the ramp and toward the bridge.
    “Sloan, what did you do?” Lucas asked suspiciously.
    Sloan laughed, a guilty rattle. “Lucas, there’s two people in the department who might get this guy. You and me. I got three major cases on my load right now. People are yelling at me every five minutes. The fuckin’ TV is camped out in my front yard.”
    “This wasn’t my deal when I came back,” Lucas said.
    “Don’t be a prima donna,” Sloan said. “This asshole is killing people.”
    “If he exists.”
    “He exists.”
    There was a moment of silence, then Lucas said, “Society of Jesus.”
    “What?”
    “Society of Jesus. That’s what Jesuits belong to. They put the initials after their name, like, Father John Smith, SJ. Like the SJ on Wannemaker.”
    “Find another theory,” Sloan said. “The Minneapolis homicide unit ain’t chasin’ no fuckin’ Jesuits.”
     
     
     
    AS THEY CROSSED the bridge, Lucas looked down at the Dumpster and saw Connell still talking to Helstrom. Lucas asked, “What’s the story on Connell?”
    “Chief’ll tell you all about her,” Sloan said. “She’s a pain in the ass, but she invented the case. I haven’t seen her for a month or so. Goddamn, she got here fast.”
    Lucas looked back toward the ramp. “She’s got a major edge on her,” he said.
    “She’s in a hurry to get this guy,” Sloan said. “She needs to get him in the next month or so.”
    “Yeah? What’s the rush?”
    “She’s dying,” Sloan said.

3
    THE CHIEF’S SECRETARY was a bony woman with a small mole on her cheekbone and overgrown eyebrows. She saw Lucas coming, pushed a button on her intercom, and said, “Chief Davenport’s here.” To Lucas she said, “Go on in.” She made her thumb and forefinger into a pistol and pointed at the chief’s door.
     
     
     
    ROSE MARIE ROUX sat behind a broad cherrywood desk stacked with reports and memos, rolling an unlit cigarette under her nose. When Lucas walked in, she nodded, fiddled with the cigarette for a moment, then sighed, opened a desk drawer, and tossed it inside.
    “Lucas,” she said. Her voice had a ragged nicotine edge to it, like a hangnail. “Sit down.”
    When Lucas had quit the force, Quentin Daniel’s office had been neat, ordered, and dark. Roux’s office was cluttered with books and reports, her desk a mass of loose paper, Rolodexes, calculators, and computer disks. Harsh blue light from the overhead fluorescent fixtures pried into every corner. Daniel had never bothered with computers; a late-model IBM sat on a stand next to Roux’s desk, a memo button blinking at the top left corner of the screen. Roux had thrown out Daniel’s leather men’s-club furniture and replaced it with comfortable fabric chairs.
    “I read Kupicek’s report on the tomb burglaries,” she said. “How is he, by the way?”
    “Can’t walk.” Lucas had two associates, Del and Danny Kupicek. Kupicek’s kid had run over his foot with a Dodge Caravan. “He’s gone for a month.”
    “If we get a media question on the tombs, can you handle it? Or Kupicek?”
    “Sure. But I

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