Rules of Prey by John Sandford Page A

marveled at the implacable ugliness of City Hall. He went in the back doors and down to his office.
    When he’d been removed from the robbery detail, administration had to find a place to put him. His rank required some kind of office. Lucas found it himself, a storage room with a steel door on the basement level. The janitors cleaned it out and painted a number on the door. There was no other indication of who occupied the office. Lucas liked it that way. He unlocked it, went inside, and dialed Carla Ruiz’ phone number.
    “This is Carla.” She had a pleasantly husky voice.
    “My name is Lucas Davenport. I’m a lieutenant with the Minneapolis Police Department,” he said. “I need to interview you. The sooner the better.”
    “Jeez, I can’t tonight . . .”
    “We’ve had another killing.”
    “Oh, no. Who was it?”
    “A real-estate saleslady over here in Minneapolis. The whole thing will be on the ten-o’clock news.”
    “I don’t have a TV.”
    “Well, look, how about tomorrow? How about if I stopped around at one o’clock?”
    “That’d be fine. God, that’s awful about this other woman.”
    “Yeah. See you tomorrow?”
    “How’ll I know you?”
    “I’ll have a rose in my teeth,” he said. “And a gold badge.”
     
    The briefing room was jammed with equipment, cables, swearing technicians, and bored cops. Cameramen negotiated lighting arrangements, print reporters flopped on the folding chairs and gossiped or doodled in their notebooks, television reporters hustled around looking for scraps of information or rumor that would give them an edge on the competition. A dozen microphones were clipped to the podium at the front of the room, while the tripod-mounted cameras were arrayed in a semicircle at the rear. A harried janitor fixed a broken standard that supported an American flag. Another tried to squeeze a few more folding chairs between the podium and the cameras. Lucas stood in the doorway a moment, spotted an empty chair near the back, and took a step toward it. A hand hooked his coat sleeve from behind.
    He looked down at Annie McGowan. Channel Eight. Dark hair, blue eyes, upturned nose. Wide, mobile mouth. World-class legs. Wonderful diction. Brains of an oyster.
    Lucas smiled.
    “What’s going on, Lucas?” she whispered, standing close, holding his arm.
    “Chief’ll be here in five minutes.”
    “We’ve got a newsbreak in four minutes. I would be very grateful if I knew what was going on in time to call it in,” she said. She smiled coyly and nodded at the cables going out the door. The press conference was being fed directly to her newsroom.
    Lucas glanced around. Nobody was paying any particular attention to them. He tilted his head toward the door and they eased outside.
    “If you mention my name, I’ll be in trouble,” he whispered. “This is a personal two-way arrangement between you and me.”
    She colored and said, “Deal.”
    “We’ve got a serial killer. He killed his third victim today. Rapes them and then stabs them to death. The first one was about six weeks ago, then another one a month ago. All of them in Minneapolis. We’ve been keeping it quiet, hoping to catch him, but now we’ve decided we have to go public.”
    “Oh, God,” she said. She turned and half-ran down the hallway toward the exit, following the cables.
    “What’d you tell that bitch?” Jennifer Carey materialized from the crowd. She’d been watching them. A tall blonde with a full lower lip and green eyes, she had a degree in economics from Stanford and a master’s in journalism from Columbia. She worked for TV3.
    “Nothing,” Lucas said. Best to take a hard line.
    “Bull. We’ve got a newsbreak in . . .” She looked at her watch. “Two and a half minutes. If she beats me, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’m very smart and you’ll be very, very sorry.”
    Lucas glanced around again. “Okay,” he said, pointing a finger at her, “but I owed her one. If you tell