Night Prey Read Online Free PDF Page B

started breathing again. "Some of it's covered with blood. It's like she crumbled a cigarette on herself."
    "What're you thinking?" Helstrom asked.
    "That the guy was smoking when he killed her," Lucas said. "That she snatched it out of his mouth. I mean, she wouldn't have been smoking, not if she was being attacked."
    "Unless it wasn't really an attack," Sloan said. "Maybe it was consensual, they were relaxing afterwards, and he did her."
    "Bullshit," Connell said.
    Lucas nodded at her. "Too much violence," he said. "You wouldn't get that much violence after orgasm. That's sexual excitement you're looking at."
    Helstrom looked from Lucas to Connell to Sloan. Connell seemed oddly satisfied by Lucas's comment. "He was smoking when he did it?"
    "Get them to make the cigarette, if that's what it is. I can see the paper," Lucas told Helstrom. "Check the lot, see if there's anything that matches."
    "We've picked up everything in the parking lot that might mean anything-candy wrappers, cigarettes, bottle tops, all that."
    "Maybe it's marijuana," Connell said hopefully. "That'd be a place to start."
    "Potheads don't do this shit, not when they're smoking," Lucas said. He looked at Helstrom. "When was the Dumpster last cleaned out?"
    "Friday. They dump it every Tuesday and Friday."
    "She went missing Friday night," Sloan said. "Probably killed, brought here at night. You can't see into the Dumpster unless you stand on your tiptoes, so he probably just tossed her in and pulled a couple of garbage bags over her and let it go at that."
    Helstrom nodded. "That's what we think. People started complaining about the smell this morning, and a guy from the marina came over and poked around. Saw a knee and called us."
    "She's on top of that small white bag, like she landed on it. I'd see if there's anything in it to identify who threw it in," Lucas suggested. "If you can find the guy who dumped the garbage, you might nail down the time."
    "We'll do that," Helstrom said.
    Lucas went back for a last look, but there was nothing more to see, just the pale-gray skin, the flies, and the carefully colored hair with the streak of white frost. She'd taken care of her hair, Lucas thought; she'd liked herself for her hair, and now all that liking was gone like evaporating gasoline.
    "Anything else?" Sloan asked.
    "Nah, I'm ready."
    "We gotta talk," Connell said to Sloan. She was squared off to him, fists on her hips.
    "Sure," Sloan said, an unhappy note in his voice.
    Lucas started toward the car, then stopped so quickly that Sloan walked into him. "Sorry," Lucas said as he turned and looked back at the Dumpster.
    "What?" Sloan asked. Connell was looking at him curiously.
    "Do you remember Junky Doog?" Lucas asked Sloan.
    Sloan looked to one side, groping for the name, then snapped his fingers, looked back at Lucas, a kernel of excitement in his eyes. "Junky," he said.
    "Who's that?" Connell asked.
    "Sexual psychopath who fixated on knives," Lucas said. "He grew up in a junkyard, didn't have any folks. Guys at the junkyard took care of him. He liked to carve on women. He'd go after fashion models. He'd do grapevine designs on them and sign them." Lucas looked at the Dumpster again. "This is almost too crude for Junky."
    "Besides, Junky's at St. Peter," Sloan said. "Isn't he?"
    Lucas shook his head. "We're getting older, Sloan. Junky was a long time ago, must've been ten or twelve years..." His voice trailed off, and his eyes wandered away to the river before he turned back to Sloan. "By God, he was seventeen years ago. The second year I was out of uniform. What's the average time in St. Peter? Five or six years? And remember a few years ago, when they came up with that new 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