Twisted Prey (Lucas Davenport #28)(6)
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BUT THERE WAS ONE OPENING, one source of interesting investigations, which Lucas still wasn’t sure would develop into a full-time gig. He wasn’t sure that he wanted it to. The jobs were coming out of Washington, D.C. From politicians in trouble.
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THE PREVIOUS SPRING, a Democratic congressman from Illinois had gotten in touch through the former governor of Minnesota, who was a friend of both the congressman and Lucas.
The congressman, Daniel Benson, had a college dropout daughter who’d gotten herself a flaming skull tattoo above the crack of her ass and a boyfriend in a sleeveless jeans jacket with a Harley. Benson hadn’t worried about it too much until he learned that the boyfriend was an ex-con and a member of a neo-Nazi party and that the daughter had made a YouTube video with him. She was largely unclothed in it, except for the fake German SS helmet and a red-and-black swastika armband. The congressman couldn’t get in touch with her, either on her cell phone or by email.
The congressman thought she might have been kidnapped—or, if not exactly kidnapped, at least was being held against her will. Lucas was asked to take a look. The Marshals Service director was consulted, and he was more than happy to approve a quiet favor for a ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Lucas found the Nazi and the daughter in eight days, at their Ohio hideout. He and another marshal had retrieved the girl and had gotten her enrolled in a sex-and-drugs rehab center. The boyfriend had resisted arrest, and one of his legs had been broken in the fight. Because resisting arrest with violence is a crime, they were able to enter the rented hideout, where they found two thousand hits of hydrocodone in a plastic baggie and four semiautomatic pistols.
Charges of possession with intent to distribute and possession of firearms by a convicted felon were added to the resisting arrest charges, and the boyfriend was shipped off to a federal prison.
Lucas couldn’t do much about the videos, which were out on the Internet, but the daughter was obscure enough, and the video was stupid enough, that the congressman thought he could probably let it go.
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WORD ABOUT THE CASE got around, and that led to another. A U.S. senator from Wyoming had a sprawling ranch and a lot of cattle. The ranch backed up to an area of Yellowstone National Park that had wolves in it. Shot wolves began showing up on his property and then across the fence into the park. The senator had no problem with dead wolves personally but didn’t like the idea of a criminal action that would have every environmentalist in the nation on his back, along with CBS and, worse, CNN.
“I’m not shooting the wolves, and my kids aren’t shooting the wolves, and my hands aren’t shooting the wolves, because I told them all we’re a hell of a lot better off with a few dead heifers than we are with a few dead wolves, and that if I got even a hint that they were involved, I’d have their asses,” he told Lucas. “I need this to stop, like, now.”
He said the federal wildlife people hadn’t been able to get anywhere because, basically, they weren’t criminal investigators, and because everybody knew them by sight.
Lucas went out to Wyoming, spent a few days asking around, eventually found three brothers, all cowboys, who had a little sideline rustling cattle, spoke quietly to them about who might be doing what. They called it blackmail, but not wishing to have their sideline revealed, the cowboys were willing to speculate about the wolf shootings.
With a wildlife guy in tow to make everything legal, Lucas ambushed the senator’s southern neighbor, who was stalking a decoy that looked a lot like a wolf, in the park. The senator and the neighbor had feuded over the years, some kind of complicated water dispute that Lucas didn’t try to understand.
“That sonofabitch,” the senator had said when Lucas called him. “He embarrasses the shit outta me and he gets rid of wolves that he don’t want, neither. Two birds with one stone. I know for sure he’s a fuckin’ Democrat.”
The neighbor didn’t actually shoot anything, though, so wouldn’t face much of a penalty, even if he was convicted. He claimed he’d been out for a walk and had taken his scoped semiauto .223 with him as protection against wolves . . . and bears and owls and chickadees and . . . whatever.
The senator told Lucas, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about that, Lucas. That boy leases three thousand acres of BLM land to run his cattle on. I believe he’s gonna find his contracts under review. That sonofabitch . . . Oh, hey, send me a couple of your business cards, would you?”
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THOSE JOBS left Lucas feeling slightly corrupt—an ordinary citizen wouldn’t get his kind of help. On the other hand, the confluence of crime, money, and political power did hold his interest. In both of the cases, the Marshals Service director had called him at home to hear what he had to say, and at the end of each report had said, “Keep up the good work. If you fuck up, I never heard of you.”
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AFTER THE ROUTINE WICHITA JOB, Lucas was sitting at the gate at Dwight Eisenhower National, reading an Outside magazine, when Porter Smalls called.
“I need you to come talk to me,” Smalls said. “Soon as you can. Sooner.”