“Another unnecessary risk,” he told himself. “I won’t drive by, though. Only close enough to watch.”

From a traffic signal a block away, he could see at least four police cars at the motel. As he waited for the light to change, a television truck rolled up to the motel and a dark-haired girl got out of the passenger side. He recognized her at once, Annie McGowan, the woman who said he was impotent.

A car horn sounded from behind and he glanced in the rearview mirror and then at the traffic signal, which had turned green. He turned the corner and pulled over to the curb. McGowan was talking to a cop and the cop was shaking his head. A group of people walked down the sidewalk past the maddog’s car, attracted by the police lights and the television truck.

The maddog was tempted to join them, but decided against it. Too risky; he’d taken risks enough. Besides, there was enough of a glow from the killing that he should go home where he could relax and enjoy it. A long hot bath, close the eyes, and rerun the part where the light went out in Heather Brown.

CHAPTER

14

It had been one of the best weekends of the year, with warm days and crisp, cold nights. Brilliant color lingered in the woods, and the faint scent of burning birch logs hung in the air.

“We’ve got at least another week for the leaves. Maybe two,” Carla said. A stand of maples on the north end of the lake was a flaming orange. “Too bad you don’t have more maples.”

“I thought about that when I bought the place,” Lucas said. “I didn’t want maples. They’re pretty, but I wanted the pines. They give the place a North Woods feel. A little further south, down in the maples and oaks, it feels like farm country.”

They drifted along the shoreline, working the bucktail lures around emergent weeds, docks, and fallen timber. “There are some people who’d say it’s already too late for bucktails, but I don’t hold with that. And they’re more fun to throw,” Lucas said.

In three hours of casting they caught five northern pike and had two musky follows.

“Bad day for musky, huh?” Carla said as they headed back to the dock.

“Hate to tell you this, but that was a good day. Two follows is all right. Lots of days, you don’t see any.”

“Great sport.”

“Don’t have to fool around with cleaning any fish, anyway,” he said with a grin.

“When do I have to leave here?” she asked.

“What do you mean, have to leave?”

“I assume that the hot pursuit by the television people will have tapered off by now. I could go back. But jeez, you know, I’ve been living in that studio with a hot plate. I hate to go.”

“Hey, stay a month if you want,” Lucas said. “I’ve got to come up in two or three weeks and pull the dock out. After that, there won’t be much to do until the freeze and the snow comes in.”

“I accept,” Carla said, laughing. “Maybe not a month, but for a couple of more weeks. You don’t know how much of a break this is for me. I brought up a couple of drawing pads and some pastels and I’m having a great time.”

“Good. That’s what the place is for.”

She looked over at him. “I’m glad you could stay an extra day. It’s quiet here all the time, but on Saturday and Sunday there are a few people around. Today we had it to ourselves. It’s kind of special on the weekdays.”

After dinner, Lucas started a fire in the fireplace, dragging in birch logs cut the previous fall. When the fire was going, they sat on the couch and talked and watched television and then a rental movie, The Big Chill.

Toward the end of the movie Lucas started working on her blouse buttons. When the phone rang, he had her blouse off and she was straddling his hips, tickling him. He looked up at her and said, suddenly somber, “I don’t want to answer. He’s killed somebody else.”

Carla stopped giggling and half-turned and reached out to grab the receiver and thrust it at him. He looked at it for a second and then reluctantly took it.

“Davenport,” he said, sitting up.

“Lucas,” said Anderson, “we’ve got another one.”

“Shit.” He looked at Carla and nodded.

“You better get down here.”

“Who is it?”

“A hooker. We’ve got a street name, that’s all. Heather Brown. Maybe fifteen. Knife, just like the others. The note’s there.”

“I don’t know her. You check on Smithe?”

“Yeah, he’s up at the family farm. We figure she was done around seven o’clock. A TV crew followed him up to the farm. They did some film at six. He’s still up there. He’s out of it.”

“How about the girl’s pimp?”

“We’re looking for him. That’s one reason we need you down here—we need you to look at her, see if you recognize her, shake down some of her people.”

“Vice working it?”

“Yeah. They know her, but they haven’t come up with anything yet.”

“Where was it?”

“Down on South Hennepin. Randy’s.”

“Yeah, I know it. Okay, I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

He hung up and turned to Carla, who was slipping into her blouse. He reached out and pressed a palm against one of her breasts.

“I’ve got to go,” he said.

“Who was it?” Her voice was low, depressed.

“A hooker. In a hot-bed hotel. It’s the guy, all right, but it’s kind of . . . weird. It sounds almost spontaneous. And it’s the first time he’s gone near a hooker.” He hesitated. “I’ve got a favor to ask you, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”

She wrinkled her forehead and shrugged. “So ask.”

“Could you take a walk down to the dock for a few minutes?”

“Sure . . .”

“I’ve got to make a phone call, and . . .” He gestured helplessly. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but it would be best if I was talking in private. Sometimes I do things that are considered mildly outside the law. If there were ever a grand jury . . . I wouldn’t want you to perjure yourself or even think you had to.”

She smiled uncertainly. “Sure. So I take a walk. No problem.”

“It feels like a problem,” Lucas said, running his hands through his hair. “Every time I get into this situation with a woman, they think I don’t trust them.”

“You’ve been in it a lot?” she asked.

“A couple of times. Drives me crazy.”

“Okay. So you’re a cop.”

She picked up one of his long-sleeved flannel shirts that she’d been wearing in the cool evenings and smiled at him. “Don’t worry about it, for God’s sake. I’ll be down at the dock, just call when you’re done.”

He watched her go down the steps and along the path through the front yard, and a moment later saw her silhouette against the dark water as she stepped out on the dock. He picked up the phone and dialed.

“I need to talk to Annie McGowan immediately. This is an emergency.”

“Can I tell her who’s calling please?”

“Tell her Red Horse.”

A moment later McGowan was on the line. “Red Horse?”

“Annie, there’s been another killing. Have you heard yet?”

“No.” Her voice was quick, excited. “Where’s it at?”

“It’s a hooker at Randy’s Motel, down on Hennepin. Young girl. Her street name was Heather Brown. We’ve got people on the scene right now, you better get a crew up there. And let me give you one more piece of information about him, that our shrinks worked out. The chief and the other detectives will probably try to deny it, because they don’t want this kind of sensitive information getting out, but we were expecting him to kill a hooker.”

“Jeez, why?”

“Our shrinks think the guy is probably so ugly, so unattractive to women that not only can’t he get it up, he can’t get a woman on his own, either. One probably contributes to the other. We don’t know that it’s appearance, though. Maybe it’s body chemistry or something. You know, maybe he’s got like world-class body odor.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, you get the idea. Really repellent, like a human lizard. I wouldn’t give this to anybody, but I liked the way you blended my last tip, about the impotence, into your story. Now that he’s killed the hooker, I think maybe this last piece of information will give the Now Report viewers some exclusive insight into the mind of a serial murderer, you know.”