Part 20 (1/2)
”I doubt it,” Lucas said, shaking his head. ”This is a defendant's interview room. If they got caught, they'd be in deep s.h.i.+t.”
Price looked around at the pale walls, as though trying to spot a microphone. ”I gotta take the chance,” he said.
”On what?” Lucas asked, letting the skepticism ride in his voice.
Price leaned toward him again, talking in a harsh whisper. ”At my trial I said I saw another con in the bookstore. A guy with a beard and PPP on his hand. Prison tattoo, ballpoint ink and straight pin. n.o.body ever found him.”
”That's why we're here,” Lucas said. ”We're trying to track the guy.”
”Yeah, well, it wasn't PPP,” Price said. He looked around at the walls again, then back to Lucas. He was literally sweating, his hammered forehead glistening in the lights. ”Jesus Christ. You can't tell anybody.”
”What?”
”I've seen the tattoo again. It wasn't PPP. I was looking at it upside down, and got it backwards. It was 666.”
”Yeah? What is it-some kind of cult?”
”No, no,” Price whispered. ”It's the G.o.dd.a.m.n Seeds.”
Now Lucas dropped his voice. ”You sure?”
”Sure I'm sure. There are four or five of them in here right now. That's what's got me nervous. If they knew I was talking about them, I'd be a dead motherf.u.c.ker. The 666 comes from Bad Seeds; that used to be the bikers.”
”Can you describe him?”
”I can do better than that. His name is Joe Hillerod.”
”How'd you get that?” They were both talking in whispers now, and Lucas had picked up Price's habit of scanning the walls.
”They brought me up here, and after I got through orientation and went into the population, one of the first guys I see, s.h.i.+t, I thought it was him. They looked just f.u.c.kin' exactly alike. The guy even had the same tattoo.”
”This is the Joe guy?”
”No, no, this is Bob. The guy in here was Bob Hillerod, Joe's brother.”
”What?”
”See, I started lifting weights, just to get close to this guy. Bob. I find out he's been in for a while-from way before this chick gets killed. And I see he's older than the guy in the store. I couldn't figure it out. But then I hear, Bob's got a brother, six or seven years younger. It's got to be him. Got to be.”
Lucas leaned back, his voice rising. ”Sounds like bulls.h.i.+t.”
”No, no, I swear to Christ. It's him. Joe Hillerod. And this Joe-he's been inside. For s.e.x.” Price reached out and touched Lucas's hand. His eyes were wide, frightened.
”s.e.x?”
”Rape.”
”Did you ask Bob . . . is it Bob in here?”
”Yeah, Bob was here, Joe was out. Joe is the guy. Bob is out now, but Joe is the guy.”
”Did you ask Bob if Joe has the tattoo?”
Price leaned back. ”f.u.c.k no. One thing you learn in here is, you don't ask about those f.u.c.kin' tattoos. You just pretend they're not there,” he said. ”But Joe was inside. He was one of the Seeds. He's got it, I bet. I bet anything.”
WHEN CONNELL AND the escort returned, Lucas was taking notes. ”Harry Roy Wayne and Gerry Gay Wayne,” Price was saying, ”They're brothers and they work at the Caterpillar place down there. They'll tell you.”
”But that's all you got?” Lucas asked.
”You got everything else.” D. Wayne slumped on the couch, smoking a second cigarette. He picked up the pack and put them in his pocket.
”I won't bulls.h.i.+t you,” Lucas said. ”I don't think that's enough.”
”It will be if you catch the right guy,” Price said.
”Yeah. If there is one,” Lucas said. He stood up and said to Connell, ”Unless you've got some more questions, we're outta here.”
14.
”WHAT DO WE have?” Connell asked as they waited for the car. She was digging into a pack of chive-flavored potato chips, sixty cents from a machine.
”A h.e.l.l of a coincidence,” Lucas said. He told her briefly about Price's nervous statement, and about Del's investigation at the fire, the dead deputy, and the .50-caliber tubes. ”So the Seeds are in the Cities.”
”And this Joe Hillerod was convicted of rape?”
”Price said s.e.x, so I don't know exactly what it was. If our guy is a member of the Seeds, it'd explain a lot,” Lucas said. ”Gimme a couple of chips.”
She pa.s.sed the pack. ”What does it explain?”
Lucas crunched: starch and fat. Excellent. ”They've had years of ha.s.sles with the law, they've even got a lawyer on retainer. They know how we operate. They move around all the time, but mostly in the Midwest, the states we're talking about. The gaps in the killings-this Joe guy might have been inside.”
”Huh.” Connell took the chips back, finished them. ”That sounds very good. G.o.d knows, they're crazy enough.”
CONNELL MADE A long phone call from the airport, talked to a woman at her office, took some notes. Lucas stood around, looking at nothing, while the pilot avoided him.
”Hillerod lives up near Superior,” Connell said when she got off the phone. ”He was convicted of aggravated a.s.sault in Chippewa County in March of '86 and served thirteen months. He got out in April of '87. There was a killing in August of '87.”
”That's neat. He didn't do any other time?”
”Yeah. A couple of short jail terms, and then in January of '90, he was convicted for s.e.xual a.s.sault and served twenty-three months, and got out a month before Gina Hoff was a.s.saulted in Thunder Bay.”
”But wasn't the South Dakota case-”
”Yeah,” she said. ”It was in '91, while he was inside. But that was the weirdest of all the cases I found. That's where the woman was stabbed as much as ripped. Maybe that was somebody else.”
”What's he done since he got out?” Lucas asked.