Night Prey

"I read a file that said you might have done a couple of liquor stores, that some people got hurt. Old man got beat with a pistol," Co

"Not me," Price said, but his eyes slid away.

"Took some booze with the cash," Co

"Look, I admitted the stealing," Price said. He licked his lips. "But I didn't kill the bitch."

"When you were in the store, did you see anybody else that might have been with her?"

"Man, I was drunk, " Price said. "When the cops come for me, I couldn't even remember seeing this gal, until they reminded me a lot."

"So you don't know shit about shit," Lucas said.

A little coal sparked in Price's eye that said he'd like to be alone with Lucas. "That's about it," Price said. Lucas held his eyes, and the coal died. "There were people down in the bookstore that night that nobody ever found. They were reading poems down there, and there was a whole bunch of people. It could have been any of them, more'n me."

Co

"Noooo…" He had to think about it. "Closest one is out."

"I wonder, do you mind? Could you?"

"Sure." The escort looked at Price. "You sit still, okay?"

Price spread his hands. "Hey, these guys are trying to help me out."

"Sure," the guard said. And to Co

Lucas winced, but Co

"I doubt it," Lucas said, shaking his head. "This is a defendant's interview room. If they got caught, they'd be in deep shit."

Price looked around at the pale walls, as though trying to spot a microphone. "I gotta take the chance," he said.

"On what?" Lucas asked, letting the skepticism ride in his voice.

Price leaned toward him again, talking in a harsh whisper. "At my trial I said I saw another con in the bookstore. A guy with a beard and PPP on his hand. Prison tattoo, ballpoint ink and straight pin. Nobody ever found him."

"That's why we're here," Lucas said. "We're trying to track the guy."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't PPP," Price said. He looked around at the walls again, then back to Lucas. He was literally sweating, his hammered forehead glistening in the lights. "Jesus Christ. You can't tell anybody."

"What?"

"I've seen the tattoo again. It wasn't PPP. I was looking at it upside down, and got it backwards. It was 666."

"Yeah? What is it-some kind of cult?"

"No, no," Price whispered. "It's the goddamn Seeds."

Now Lucas dropped his voice. "You sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. There are four or five of them in here right now. That's what's got me nervous. If they knew I was talking about them, I'd be a dead motherfucker. The 666 comes from Bad Seeds; that used to be the bikers."

"Can you describe him?"

"I can do better than that. His name is Joe Hillerod."

"How'd you get that?" They were both talking in whispers now, and Lucas had picked up Price's habit of sca

"They brought me up here, and after I got through orientation and went into the population, one of the first guys I see, shit, I thought it was him. They looked just fuckin' exactly alike. The guy even had the same tattoo."

"This is the Joe guy?"

"No, no, this is Bob. The guy in here was Bob Hillerod, Joe's brother."

"What?"

"See, I started lifting weights, just to get close to this guy. Bob. I find out he's been in for a while-from way before this chick gets killed. And I see he's older than the guy in the store. I couldn't figure it out. But then I hear, Bob's got a brother, six or seven years younger. It's got to be him. Got to be."

Lucas leaned back, his voice rising. "Sounds like bullshit."

"No, no, I swear to Christ. It's him. Joe Hillerod. And this Joe-he's been inside. For sex." Price reached out and touched Lucas's hand. His eyes were wide, frightened.

"Sex?"

"Rape."

"Did you ask Bob… is it Bob in here?"

"Yeah, Bob was here, Joe was out. Joe is the guy. Bob is out now, but Joe is the guy."

"Did you ask Bob if Joe has the tattoo?"

Price leaned back. "Fuck no. One thing you learn in here is, you don't ask about those fuckin' tattoos. You just pretend they're not there," he said. "But Joe was inside. He was one of the Seeds. He's got it, I bet. I bet anything."

When Co

"But that's all you got?" Lucas asked.

"You got everything else." D. Wayne slumped on the couch, smoking a second cigarette. He picked up the pack and put them in his pocket.

"I won't bullshit you," Lucas said. "I don't think that's enough."

"It will be if you catch the right guy," Price said.

"Yeah. If there is one," Lucas said. He stood up and said to Co

CHAPTER

14

"What do we have?" Co

"A hell of a coincidence," Lucas said. He told her briefly about Price's nervous statement, and about Del's investigation at the fire, the dead deputy, and the. 50-caliber tubes. "So the Seeds are in the Cities."

"And this Joe Hillerod was convicted of rape?"

"Price said sex, so I don't know exactly what it was. If our guy is a member of the Seeds, it'd explain a lot," Lucas said. "Gimme a couple of chips."

She passed the pack. "What does it explain?"

Lucas crunched: starch and fat. Excellent. "They've had years of hassles with the law, they've even got a lawyer on retainer. They know how we operate. They move around all the time, but mostly in the Midwest, the states we're talking about. The gaps in the killings-this Joe guy might have been inside."

"Huh." Co

Co

"Hillerod lives up near Superior," Co

"That's neat. He didn't do any other time?"

"Yeah. A couple of short jail terms, and then in January of '90, he was convicted for sexual assault and served twenty-three months, and got out a month before Gina Hoff was assaulted in Thunder Bay."

"But wasn't the South Dakota case-"

"Yeah," she said. "It was in '91, while he was inside. But that was the weirdest of all the cases I found. That's where the woman was stabbed as much as ripped. Maybe that was somebody else."

"What's he done since he got out?" Lucas asked.

Co

"Did your friend ask them about the Hillerods?"

"No. I thought we ought to do that in person."

"Good. Let's get our ass back to the Cities. I want to talk to Del before we start messing with the Seeds," Lucas said. He looked across the lounge at the pilot, who was sipping a cup of coffee. "Assuming that we make it back."