Invisible Prey by John Sandford Page A

said. “This is dreadful.”
    “Kline said his old lady never…”
    “Hey, hey—forget it.” Mitford rubbed his face, and shuddered. “I know his old lady. Anyway, he took the kid to the Burnsville Mall and groped her and she cooled him off…Is that a big deal?”
    “That’d be up to you,” Lucas said. “We can make an argument that he was buying the clothes in return for sex, because of the kid’s testimony. And then there was the touching in the car, what you call your basic manual stimulation. So one element of the crime happened at the mall.”
    “So what?”
    “The mall is in Burnsville,” Lucas said, “which happens to be in Dakota County. Dakota County, in its wisdom, elected itself a Republican as county attorney.”
    Mitford instantly brightened. “Holy shit! I knew there was a reason we hired you.”
    “That doesn’t mean…” Lucas began.
    Mitford was on his feet, circling his desk, shaking a finger at Lucas. “Yes, it does. One way or the other, it does. If we can get a Republican to indict this cocksucker…”
    “Actually, he wasn’t the…”
    “…then we’re in the clear. Our hands are clean. There is no Democratic involvement in the process, no goddamn little intransigent Democratic cockroach publicity-seeking motherfucking horsefly Ramsey County attorney to drag us all down. It’s a Republican problem. Yes, it is.”
    “Virgil is coming up here today to brief some people on the details,” Lucas said.
    “Yeah. I’ll be going. I’ve been hearing some odd things about Flowers,” Mitford said. “Somebody said he once whistled at a guy in an interrogation cell until the guy cracked and confessed.”
    “Well, yeah, you have to understand the circumstances, the guy belonged to a cult…”
    Mitford didn’t care about Flowers and whistling. “Goddamn! Lucas! A Republican county attorney! You my daddy!”
     
    L UCAS WAS FEELING okay when he took the hill down into the St. Paul loop. He zigzagged southeast until he got to a chunky red-brick building that had once been a warehouse, then a loft association, and was now a recently trendy condominium.
    One of the good things about the Bucher and Kline cases was that the major crime sites were so close to his house—maybe ten minutes on residential streets; and they were even closer to his office. He knew all the top cops in both cases, and even most of the uniformed guys. In the past couple of years he’d covered cases all over the southern half of Minnesota, on the Iron Range in the north, and in the Red River Valley, which was even farther north and west. Minnesota is a tall state, and driving it can wear a guy out.
    Not these two cases. These were practically on his lawn.
    He was whistling as he walked into the condo. An elderly lady was coming through the inner doors with a shopping bag full of old clothes. He held it for her, she twinkled at him, and he went on inside, skipping past the apartment buzzers.
     
    K IDD CAME to the door looking tired and slightly dazed. He had a wrinkled red baby, about the size of a loaf of Healthy Choice bread, draped over one shoulder, on a towel. He was patting the baby’s back.
    “Hey…” He seemed slightly taken aback. Every time Lucas had seen him, he’d seemed slightly taken aback.
    “Didn’t know you had children,” Lucas said.
    “First one,” Kidd said. “Trying to get a burp. You want to take him?”
    “No, thanks,” Lucas said hastily. “I’ve got a two-year-old, I just got done with that.”
    “Uh…come on in,” Kidd said, stepping back from the door. Over his shoulder he called, “Lauren? Put on some pants. We’ve got company. It’s the cops.”
    Kidd led the way into the living room. He was a couple inches shorter than Lucas, but broader through the shoulders, and going gray. He’d been a scholarship wrestler at the university when Lucas played hockey. He still looked like he could pull your arms off.
    He also had, Lucas thought, the best apartment in St. Paul,