Broken Prey

"You mean everything?" Ignace demanded. "When you get him, I get it first? If you get him?"

"No, not that. That's going to be a breaking news story that we can't contain," Lucas said. "I mean an inside feature, a blow-by-blow of who said what and how we pushed this to where we are…"

A moment of silence, then: "Deal. I think. I'm go

"Tell her to call me. Tell her to call. In the morning. I gotta hang up now and listen to the tape. I gotta find out where the call came from. I'll be in touch."

O'DONNELL HAD CALLED from Chicago. Lucas called the Chicago cops, asked for help: a detective called back half an hour later and said, "Not much we can do for you, pal. That number's a pay phone out at O'Hare. This guy going somewhere?"

"The phone's in the airport?" Lucas asked.

"No. A hotel just outside. A Hilton, with a phone in the lobby."

"Could you check the register?"

"Nobody by that name," the cop said. "What is it with this guy?"

"I kinda hate to tell you this…"

The Chicago cops were not happy with the news. "We got enough of this shit without importing yours."

HE CALLED THE Mi

"We already did that," an airport cop said.

"Yeah, but you did it in the afternoon. Now the guy shows up out by O'Hare at midnight. Maybe he was in the airport when you were looking for tickets. Maybe he didn't fly until two o'clock."

"Listen, I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but we've got limited resources."

"How about if the governor called you?"

WHEN HE WASN'T talking with cops, he listened to the recording of Ignace's phone call. In terms of factual information, there wasn't much, but there was that voice. He got Cale out of bed: "Who socialized with O'Do

"The junior staff… Probably the most active social person is Dr. Beloit."

"Got her number?"

Beloit's husband answered, got irate when Lucas asked for his wife, was skeptical when told it was a police emergency, and finally Lucas shouted at him: "I'm a state BCA agent, and I need to talk to your wife. Now. Or should I have a cop come over there and take her downtown?"

Beloit was dazed, being awakened at two in the morning. When she finally understood who was calling, he said, "I want you to call our headquarters in St. Paul. There's a guy there, his name is Ted. He'll play a tape of a call to a newspaper reporter earlier this evening. None of this is public: if you let this out, I'll come down and run over you with my truck, okay?"

"Okay, but what do you want me to hear?"

"I want to know if it might be Sam O'Do

"I heard people were looking for Sam… We were a little worried."

"Who's we?"

"Everybody."

Lucas thought: Ah, shit. Everybody in the state would know in a couple of days… He said, "Just call Ted, okay? Here's the number…"

SHE CALLED BACK five minutes later. "I hate to say this, but that could be Sam."

"You think?"

"We have a Christinas play every year, and Bob Turner, I don't think you've met Bob…"

"No."

"… Bob plays Santa, and Sam plays one of Santa's elves. Some of the patients have parts. You know. Anyway, Sam always plays the elf as a, mmm, pervert, for lack of a better word. He talks about going down chimneys and catching people making love. I mean, that's sort of the ru

Lucas couldn't think of anything to say for a moment, then blurted out, "An elf?"

"Yeah, you know, everybody gets a little weird and we have a play…"

"But it could be him."

"I don't… I can't see Sam O'Do

If THE KILLER was in Chicago, and he certainly was, then there wasn't much to do except identify him-somebody else would make the eventual bust. And though they didn't have a hard identification on O'Do

Nothing to do now, at night…Lucas tried to sleep, and sometimes made it, mostly not. If they couldn't make a clear identification, and if the killer ran far enough, interest would fall off…he could be gone for years.

He thrashed around, thrashed around, and finally got up at six o'clock. He'd never make it through the day like this, so he popped an amphetamine, quickly felt a lot better, shaved, showered, and dressed. Still early, but he called Sloan anyway. Sloan had Caller ID and groaned into the phone, "Lucas, you gotta get yourself a life. It's not even seven o'clock in the morning."

"Yeah, yeah, listen…" Then, Sloan was suddenly awake: "Jesus: he didn't do another one?" "No, but he did call Ignace. He was in Chicago when he called." He and Sloan agreed to meet downtown at nine o'clock. "I'm go

TWO DAYS WENT BY:

ON THE FIRST DAY, Sam O'Do

On the second day, the lab finished sequencing the DNA. The blood in the truck was Peterson's.

"At some point, Peterson was in the back of that Acura and dribbled a little blood out," John Hopping Crow told Lucas. "There wasn't much, maybe an ounce or two… maybe blood that had gathered in her throat after he cut her windpipe and trachea when he gutted her…"

"Did you look at it through a scope?"

"Yeah. It was never frozen."

The blood from inside the freezer had been frozen, of course-and the DNA was Charlie Pope's.

"The sonofabitch cut a chunk out of Pope, a finger or something, and stored it in his freezer in case he needed it," Hopping Crow said.

"He knew he was go

"But we know some shit now…"

"Maybe. Listen, tell the crime-scene guys to pull anything out of the back of that truck that would carry DNA. We're looking for something besides blood that has Peterson's DNA. There must be hair, there must be something. Spit?"

ON BOTH THE first and second days, Lucas spoke with the Chicago cops and the Illinois State Police.

An investigator had interviewed the desk staff at the Hilton: "There's not much," he told Lucas. "Nobody recognized the O'Do

"Taxis? Car rentals?"

"We're covering them with the mug shots. If the Xerox machine don't break down, we'll get them to everybody. Not coming up with anything so far."