John Sandford - Invisible Prey

Invisible Prey

John Sandfory

*

Chapter

An Anonymous Van, Some-Kind-Of-Pale, Cruised Summit Avenue, Windows Dark With The Coming Night. The Killers Inside Watched Three Teenagers, Two boys and a girl, hurryin g a long the sidewalk like windblown leaves. The kids were getting somewhere quick , finding shelter before the storm.

The killers trailed them, saw them off, then turned their faces toward Oak Walk.

The mansion was an architectural remnant of the nineteenth century, red brick wit h g reen trim, gloomy and looming in the dying light. Along the wrought-iron fence , well-tended beds of blue and yellow iris, and clumps of pink peonies, were goin g g ray to the eye.

Oak Walk was perched on a bluff. The back of the house looked across the lights of St. Paul, down into the valley of the Mississippi, where the groove of the rive r h ad already gone dark. The front faced Summit Avenue; Oak Walk was the second-riches t h ouse on the richest street in town.

Six aging burr oaks covered the side yard. In sunlight, their canopies created a l eafy glade, with sundials and flagstone walks, charming with moss and violets; bu t m oon shadows gave the yard a menacing aura, now heightened by the lightning tha t f lickered through the incoming clouds.

"Like the Munsters should live there," the bigger of the killers said.

"Like a graveyard," the little one agreed.

The Weather Channel had warned of tornadic events, and the killers could feel a twiste r i n the oppressive heat, the smell of ozone thick in the air.

The summer was just getting started. The last snow slipped into town on May 2, an d w as gone a day later. The rest of the month had been sunny and warm, and by the en d o f it, even the ubiquitous paper-pale blondes were showing tan lines.

Now the first of the big summer winds. Refreshing, if it didn't knock your hous e d own.

On the fourth pass, the van turned into the driveway, eased up under the portico , and the killers waited there for a porch light. No light came on. That was good.

They got out of the van, one Big, one Little, stood there for a moment, listening , obscure in the shadows, facing the huge front doors. They were wearing coveralls , of the kind worn by automotive mechanics, and hairnets, and nylon stockings ove r t heir faces. Behind them, the van's engine ticked as it cooled. A Wisconsin licens e p late, stolen from a similar vehicle in a 3M parking lot, was stuck on the back o f t he van.

Big said, "Let's do it."

Little led the way up the porch steps. After a last quick look around, Big nodde d a gain, and Little pushed the doorbell.

They'd done this before. They were good at it.

They could feel the footsteps on the wooden floors inside the house. "Ready," said Big.

A moment later, one of the doors opened. A shaft of light cracked across the porch , flashing on Little's burgundy jacket. Little said a few words-"Miz Peebles? Is thi s w here the party is?"

A slender black woman, sixtyish, Peebles said, "Why no ..." Her jaw continued t o w ork wordlessly, searching for a scream, as she took in the distorted faces.

Little was looking past her at an empty hallway. The grounds-keeper and the coo k w ere home, snug in bed. This polite inquiry at the door was a last-minute check t o m ake sure that there were no unexpected guests. Seeing no one, Little stepped bac k a nd snapped, "Go."

Big went through the door, fast, one arm flashing in the interior light. Big wa s c arrying a two-foot-long steel gas pipe, with gaffer tape wrapped around the handle-end.

Peebles didn't scream, because she didn't have time. Her eyes widened, her mout h d ropped open, one hand started up, and then Big hit her on the crown of her head , crushing her skull.

The old woman dropped like a sack of bones. Big hit her again, as insurance, an d t hen a third time, as insurance on the insurance: three heavy floor-shaking impacts , whack! whack! whack!

Then a voice from up the stairs, tentative, shaky. "Sugar? Who was it, Sugar?"

Big's head turned toward the stairs and Little could hear him breathing. Big slippe d o ut of his loafers and hurried up the stairs in his stocking feet, a man on the hunt.

Little stepped up the hall, grabbed a corner of a seven-foot-long Persian carpe t a nd dragged it back to the black woman's body.

And from upstairs, three more impacts: a gasping, thready scream, and whack! whack!

whack!

Little smiled. Murder-and the insurance.

Little stooped, caught the sleeve of Peebles's housecoat, and rolled her onto th e c arpet. Breathing a little harder, Little began dragging the carpet toward an interio r h allway that ran down to the kitchen, where it'd be out of sight of any of the windows.

A pencil-thin line of blood, like a slug's trail, tracked the rug across the hardwoo d f loor.

Peebles's face had gone slack. Her eyes were still open, the eyeballs rolled up , white against her black face. Too bad about the rug, Little thought. Chinese, th e o riginal dark blue gone pale, maybe 1890. Not a great rug, but a good one. Of course , it'd need a good cleaning now, with the blood-puddle under Peebles's head.

Outside, there'd been no sound of murder. No screams or gunshots audible on the street.

A window lit up on Oak Walk's second floor. Then another on the third floor, an d y et another, on the first floor, in the back, in the butler's pantry: Big and Little , checking out the house, making sure that they were the only living creatures inside.

When They knew that the house was clear, Big and Little met at the bottom of th e s taircase. Big's mouth under the nylon was a bloody O. He'd chewed into his botto m l ip while killing the old woman upstairs, something he did when the frenzy was o n h im. He was carrying a jewelry box and one hand was closed in a fist.

"You won't believe this," he said. "She had it around her neck." He opened his fist-hi s h ands were covered with latex kitchen gloves- to show off a diamond the size of a q uail's egg.

"Is it real?"

"It's real and it's blue. We're not talking Boxsters anymore. We'r e t alking SLs." Big opened the box. "There's more: earrings, a necklace. There coul d b e a half million, right here."

"Can Fleckstein handle it?"

Big snorted. "Fleckstein's so dirty that he wouldn't recognize the Mona Lisa. He'l l h andle it."

He pushed the jewelry at Little, started to turn, caught sight of Peebles lying o n t he rug. "Bitch," he said, the word grating through his teeth. "Bitch." In a second , in three long steps, he was on her again, beating the dead woman with the pipe, heav y i mpacts shaking the floor. Little went after him, catching him after the first thre e i mpacts, pulling him away, voice hard, "She's gone, for Christ's sakes, she's gone , she's gone ..."

"Fucker," Big said. "Piece of shit."

Little thought, sometimes, that Big should have a bolt through his neck.

Big stopped, and straightened, looked down at Peebles, muttered, "She's gone." H e s huddered, and said, "Gone." Then he turned to Little, blood in his eye, heftin g t he pipe.

Little's hands came up: "No, no-it's me. It's me. For God's sake."

Big shuddered again. "Yeah, yeah. I know. It's you."

Little took a step back, still uncertain, and said, "Let's get to work. Are you okay?

Let's get to work."

Twenty minutes after they went in, the front door opened again. Big came out, looke d b oth ways, climbed into the van, and eased it around the corner of the house an d d own the side to the deliveries entrance. Because of the pitch of the slope at th e b ack of the house, the van was no longer visible from the street.

The last light was gone, the night now as dark as a coal sack, the lightning flashe s c loser, the wind coming like a cold open palm, pushing against Big's face as he go t o ut of the van. A raindrop, fat and round as a marble, hit the toe of his shoe. The n a nother, then more , cold, going pat-pat... pat... pat-pat-pat on the blacktop and concrete and brick.