Part 27 (1/2)

”This guy who was attacked this morning,” Lucas said impatiently.

”Uh . . . well, he was stabbed in the stomach,” Reed said, startled by the sudden roughness in his voice. ”Two or three times. He was really messed up. I guess they're still trying to put him together in the operating room.”

”With a switchblade. The kid from the Strib said it was a switchblade.”

”A witness said that,” Reed said. ”Why?”

”I gotta go,” Lucas said, looking at his watch. He threw a handful of dollars on the table. ”I'm sorry, but I really got to run. I'm sorry. . . .”

Now she looked distinctly startled, but he did run, once he was out of sight. His office was locked, n.o.body around. He went down the hall to homicide and found Anderson eating an egg-salad sandwich at his desk. ”Have you seen Connell?”

”Uh, yeah, she just went into the women's can.” He had a fleck of egg white on his lip.

Lucas went down to the women's can and pushed the door open. ”Connell?” he shouted. ”Meagan?”

After a moment, a reluctant, hollow, tile-walled ”Yeah?”

”Come out here.”

”Christ . . .” She took two minutes, Lucas walking up and down the hall, cooling off. Very unlikely, he thought. But the wound sounded right. . . .

Connell came out, tucking her s.h.i.+rt into her skirt. ”What?”

”The guy that was attacked this morning,” Lucas said. ”He was ripped in the stomach by a guy with a switch- bladelike knife.”

”Lucas, it was a guy, it was daylight, he doesn't fit anything . . .” She was puzzled.

”He'd spent the night with his girlfriend, Sara Jensen.”

Still she looked puzzled.

Lucas said, ”SJ.”

22.

THEY FOUND SARA Jensen at Hennepin General, distraught, pacing the surgical waiting room. A uniformed cop sat in a plastic chair reading Road & Track. They took Jensen to an examination room, shut the door, and sat her down.

”It's about G.o.dd.a.m.n time somebody started taking this seriously,” Jensen said. ”You had to wait until Evan got stabbed. . . .” Her voice was contained, but with a thread of fear that suggested she was at the edge of her self-control. ”It's the G.o.dd.a.m.n burglar. If you'd find him . . .”

”What burglar?” Lucas asked. The place smelled like medical alcohol and skin and adhesive tape.

”What burglar?” Her voice rose in anger, until she was nearly shouting. ”What burglar? What burglar? The burglar at my place.”

”We don't know anything about that,” Connell said quickly. ”We work homicide. We're looking for a man who has been killing women for years. The last two he's marked with the initials SJ-your initials. We're not sure it's you, but it might be. The attack on Mr. Hart resembles the technique he has used to kill the women. The weapon appears to be similar. He fits the descriptions we've had. . . .”

”Oh, G.o.d,” Jensen said, her hand going to her mouth. ”I saw it on TV3, the man with the beard. The man who attacked Evan had a beard.”

Lucas nodded. ”That's him. Do you know anybody who looks like that? Somebody you've dated, somebody you have a relations.h.i.+p with? Maybe with some frustration? Or maybe somebody who just watches you, somebody you can feel in your office?”

”No.” She thought about it again. ”No. I know a couple of guys with beards, but I haven't dated them. And they seem to be ordinary enough . . . Besides, it's not them. It's the G.o.dd.a.m.n burglar. I think he's been coming back to my apartment.”

”Tell us about the burglar,” Lucas said.

She told them: the initial burglary, the loss of her jewelry and belt, the smell of saliva on her forehead. And she told them about the sense she had, that somebody had been in and out of her apartment since the burglary-and the feeling that it was the same man. ”But I'm not sure,” she said. ”I thought I was going crazy. My friends thought it was stress from the burglary, that I was imagining it. But I don't think so: the place just didn't feel right, like there was something in the air. I think he sleeps in my bed.” Then she laughed, a short, barely amused bark. ”I sound like the Three Bears. Somebody's been eating my porridge. Somebody's been sleeping in my bed.”

”So you say that when he came in the first time, he must've touched you-kissed you on the forehead.”

”More like a lick,” she said, shuddering. ”I can remember it, like a dream.”

”What about the actual entry?” Lucas asked. ”Did he break the door?”

There hadn't been a sound, she said, and the door had been untouched, so he must have had a key. But she was the only one with a key-and the building manager, of course.

”What's he like? The manager?”

”Older man. . . .”

They went through the list: who had the key, who could get it, who could copy it. More people than she'd realized. Building employees, a cleaning woman. How about valet-parking places? A few valets-”But I changed the locks again after the burglary. He'd have to get my key twice.”

”Gotta be somebody in the building,” Connell said to Lucas. She'd grabbed his wrist to get his attention. She was sick, but she was a strong woman, and her grip had the strength of desperation.

”If somebody's actually coming back,” Lucas said. ”But whoever it was is a pro. He knew what he wanted and where it was. He didn't rip the place apart. A cat burglar.”

”A cat burglar?” Jensen said doubtfully.

”I'll tell you something: movies romanticize cat burglars, but real cat burglars are cracked,” Lucas said. ”They get off on creeping in apartments while the residents are home. Most burglars, the last thing they want is to run into a home owner. Cat burglars get off on the thrill. Every one of them does dope, cocaine, speed, PCP. Quite a few of them have rape records. A lot of them eventually kill somebody. I'm not trying to scare you, but that's the truth.”

”Oh, G.o.d. . . .”

”The way the attack happened would suggest that the guy knows about you and Mr. Hart,” Connell said. ”Do you talk to anybody in your building about him?”

”No, I really don't have any close friends in the building, other than just to say h.e.l.lo to,” Jensen said. Then, ”Last night was the first time Evan stayed over. It was actually the first time we'd slept together. Ever. It's like whoever it is, knew about us.”

”Did you tell anybody at work that he was coming over?”

”I have a couple of friends who knew we were getting close. . . .”

”We'll need their names,” Lucas said. And to Connell: ”Somebody at the office might have occasional access to her purse; they could get the keys that way. We should check all the apartments that adjoin hers, too. People in her hallway.” To Jensen: ”Do you feel any attention from anybody in your apartment? Just a little creepy feeling? Somebody who seems sort of anxious to meet you, or talk to you, or just looks you over?”

”No, no, I don't. The manager is a heck of a nice guy. Really straight. I don't mean, you know, repressed, or weird, or a Boy Scout leader or anything. He's like my dad. G.o.d, it gives me the shakes, thinking about somebody watching me,” she said.

”How about an outsider?” Lucas asked. ”Is there a building across the street where you could be watched from? A Peeping Tom?”

She shook her head. ”No. There's a building across the street-that's the building where that woman was killed last week-but I'm on the top floor, which is higher even than their roof,” Jensen said. ”I look right across their roof into the park, and the other side of the park is residential. There's nothing as high as me on the other side of the park. Besides, that's a mile away.”