Winter Prey

by John Sandford

  Lacey was walking out through the kitchen. When the back door banged shut, Lucas stepped up to Harper. "I believe you spit on deputy Climpt, and I feel kinda shortchanged , you know. You didn't spit on me."

  "Fuck you," Harper said. He looked from Lucas to Climpt and back. "I got my rights."

  Lucas took him by the shirt as Climpt had, jerked him out of the chair, ran him straight back at the wall, slammed him against it.

  Harper covered, still not ready to resist. Climpt caught his right arm, twisted it. Both Lucas and Climpt were bigger than Harper, and pinned him on the wall.

  "Remember what you said about your vise?" Lucas asked, face half-turned to Climpt. Climpt grunted. "Watch this-this is nasty."

  He caught the flesh between Harper's nostrils by his thumb and middle fingers and squeezed, his fingernails digging into the soft flesh.

  Harper's mouth dropped as though he were going to scream, but Climpt's hand came up and squeezed his throat.

  Lucas squeezed, squeezed, then said, "Who's the woman in the picture?

  Who is it?"

  Harper, his body bucking, shook his head. "Better let go of his throat for a minute, Gene," Lucas said, and he let go of Harper's nose.

  Harper groaned, thrashed, sucked air, and Lucas asked, "Who is that, asshole? Who's the woman?"

  "Don't know..."

  "Let me try," Climpt said, and he caught Harper's nose as Lucas had, his thick yellow fingernails squeezing....

  The sound that came from Harper's throat might have been a scream if it had been pitched lower. As it was, it was a kind of blackboard scratching squeak, and he shuddered.

  "Who is it?" Lucas asked.

  "Don't..."

  Climpt looked at Lucas, who shook his head, and they both released him at the same moment. Tears were running down Harper's face and he caught his head in his hands and dropped to his knees. Lucas squatted beside him.

  "You know some stuff," Lucas said. "You know the woman or you know somebody who knows the woman."

  Harper got one foot beneath him, then heaved himself up. His eyes were red, and tears still poured down his face.

  "Motherfuckers."

  Climpt cuffed him on the side of the head. "You ain't listening.

  You know who this is, this woman. If you don't spit out the name.

  .

  "You're gonna what? Beat me around?" Harper asked, defiant. "I been beat around before, so go ahead. I'll get my fuckin' lawyer."

  "Yeah, you put a fuckin' lawyer out there and I'll pin this fuckin' picture on the bulletin board at the goddamn Super Valu with the note that you sold Jim's ass," Climpt said. "They'll find your fuckin' skin hanging from a tree out here, and you won't be in it."

  "Go fuck yourself," Harper snarled. There was blood on his upper lip, trickling down from his nose.

  Climpt pulled back his hand but Lucas blocked it. "Let it go," he said.

  Outside, as they were loading into the trucks, Lacey said, "Where's Harper?"

  "Probably fixin' some dinner," Climpt said. Then, "He's okay, Henry, don't get your ass in an uproar."

  Lacey shook his head doubtfully, then said, "Can I see that Polaroid again, just for a minute?"

  Lucas handed it to him and Lacey turned on his truck's dome light and peered at the photo.

  "Check this, right here," Lacey said. He touched the edge of the holograph with a fingernail. Lucas took it.

  p "It looks like a sleeve."

  "Sure does," said Lacey, holding the photo four inches from his face.

  "Now, this here is a Spectra Polaroid. Spectras come with a remote control, a radio thing, so it might of been that there were only the two of them. But if that's a sleeve, and if there's somebody else behind the camera...

  "The camera angle's downward," Lucas said. "That'd be high for a tripod."

  So there must be a bunch of them," Lacey said.

  "Yeah, probably," Lucas said, nodding. "We already know he was with a heavy white guy and here's a woman "Damn-if it's a bunch of people, it's gonna tear this county up," Climpt said.

  "I'd say the county's already torn up," Lucas said.

  Climpt shook his head: "This'd be worse'n the murders, a bunch of people screwing children. Believe me, around here, this'd be worse."

  ...........

  CHAPTER 9

  They headed back to town, Climpt riding with Lucas.

  "Kind of liked your style back there," Climpt said.

  "Thanks. I've worked on it," Lucas said.

  The radio burped: Carr. Need to see you guys at the courthouse.

  "Did you find the kid?" Lucas asked.

  Nothing yet, Carr said.

  Off the air, Lucas told Climpt, "I fucked up. The school principal was worried about cops talking to kids without the parents' permission. I took the kid out to his house so I could explain to his father. God damnit."

  "You didn't fuck up," Climpt said. He fumbled a cigarette out of a crumpled pack and lit it with a paper match.

  "That's not the kind of thing you can know. You're dealing with a crazy man. And you've got a reputation. People around here think you're Sherlock Holmes."

  "I'm not. But I have dealt with psychos before. I should have known better than to show an interest in one witness," Lucas said. "I...

  Oh, shit."

  "What?"

  "Do you know where the doctor's house is? Weather Karkinnen?" Lucas asked, his voice urgent.

  "Sure. Down on Lincoln Lake."

  Weather lived in a rambling, white-clapboard house with a steep, snow-covered roof A field stone chimney, webbed with naked vines, climbed one end, a double garage anchored the other. A stand of red pines protected it from the north wind. Two huge white pines, one with a rope dangling from a lower branch, stood in back, along the edge of the frozen lake. The neighboring homes were as large or larger than Weather's, most of them with aging boat houses at the edge of the lake.

  As Lucas and Climpt pulled into the driveway, a pod of snowmobiles whipped by on the lake, heading for a bar sign at the far end.

  Weather's house was dark.

  ..Just be a minute or two," Lucas said, but a chilly anxiety plucked at his chest, growing heavier as he climbed out of the truck and hurried up to the house. He rang the doorbell, and when he didn't get a response, pounded on the front door and rattled the knob. The door was locked. He stepped back off the porch and started down the sidewalk, intending to try the garage doors, when a light came on inside.

  He felt like a boulder had been lifted off his back. He turned and hurried back to the door, rang the doorbell again.

  And suddenly he was nervous again, afraid that she might think he was here to hustle her.

  A moment later Weather opened the inner door, peered through the glass of the storm door, then pushed the storm door open. She was wearing a heavy throat-to-ankle terrycloth robe. She pulled the robe together at the neck as she leaned out and looked past him at the truck, still running in the driveway, and said, "Okay, what happened?"

  Another boulder came off his back. She didn't think...

  "There's a kid missing-after I talked to him at school today," Lucas blurted. "He might have wandered away from his house, but nobody really thinks so. He may have been taken by whoever did the LaCourts.

  Since we've spent some M!

  time together, you and I... You see..."

  "Who's out in the truck?"' Weather asked.

  "Gene Climpt."

  She waved at the truck, then said to Lucas, "Come on in for a moment and tell me about it."

  Lucas kicked snow off his boots and stepped inside.

  The house smelled subtly of baking and herbs. A modern watercolor of a vase of flowers hung on an eggshell-white wall that faced the entry.

  Lucas knew almost nothing about modern art, but he liked it.

  "Who's the kid?" Weather asked.

  "John Mueller," Lucas said. "Do you know him?"

  "Oh, God. His mom works at the bakery?"

  "I
guess..."

  "Aw, jeer, I've seen him up there doing his homework.

  Aw, God..." She had her arms crossed over her chest, and was gripping the material on the sleeves of her robe, her knuckles white.

  "If the killer took the kid, then he's out of control. Nuts," Lucas said.

  He felt large and awkward in the parka and boots and hat and gloves, looking down at her in her bath-robe. "It'd be best if you got out of here. At least until we can set up.some security."

  Weather shook her head: "Not tonight. I've got surgery in"-she looked at her watch----@"seven hours. I've got to be up in five."

  "Can you cancel?" Lucas asked.

  "No." She shook her head. "My patient's already in the hospital, fasting and medicated. It wouldn't be right."

  "I've got to go downtown," Lucas said. "I could come back and bag out on your couch."

  "In other words, wake me up again," she said, but she smiled.

  "Look, this is getting nasty." He was so serious that she tapped his chest, to hold him where he was standing, and said, "Wait a minute."

  She walked into the dark part of the house and a light came on. There was a moment of rattling, then she came back with a garage-door opener.

  "C'mere... don't worry about the snow on your boots, it's only water."

  She led him through the living room to the hallway, opened the first door in the hall. "Guest room.

  The right bay in the garage is empty. You come through the garage door to the kitchen, then through here. I'll leave a couple of lights on."

  Lucas took the garage-door opener, nodded, said, "I'll walk around your house, look in back. Keep your doors locked and stay inside. You've got dead bolts?"' "Yes."

  "Then lock the doors," he said.

  "You've got a lock on your bedroom door?"

  "Yes, but just a knob lock. It's not much."

  "It'd slow somebody down," Lucas said. "Lock it. How about a gun. Do you have a gun?"

  ........... "A.22 rifle. My dad shot squirrels off the roof with it."

  "Know how to use it? Got any shells?"

  "Yes, and theresa box of shells with the gun."

  "Load it and put it under your bed," Lucas said. "We'll talk tomorrow morning. Wake me up when you get up."

  "Lucas, be careful."

  "You be careful. Lock the doors."

  He went to the entry, pulled open the inner door. As he was about to go out, she caught his sleeve, tugged him back, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, and in almost the same movement, gave him a little shove that propelled him out through the storm door.

  "See you in the morning," she said and closed the door.

  He waited until he heard the lock snap, then went back down the walk to the truck, still feeling the fleeting pressure of her lips on his.

  "She okay?" Climpt asked.

  "Yeah. Gimme the flashlight. In the glove compartment."

  Climpt grunted, dug around in the glove compartment, handed him the flash, and Lucas said, "I'll be right back."

  The snow around the house was unbroken as far back as he could see. A low railed deck stuck out of the back, in front of a long sliding-glass door. A bird feeder showed hundreds of bird tracks and the comings and goings of a squirrel, but nothing larger. As he waded ponderously through the snow, returning to the truck, another pod of snowmobiles roared by on the lake, and Lucas thought about the sled used in the LaCourt attack.

  Climpt was standing next to the truck, smoking an unfiltered Camel.

  When he saw Lucas coming, he dropped the cigarette on the driveway, stepped on it, and climbed back into the passenger seat.

  "Find anything?" he asked as Lucas got in.

  "No.

  "We could get somebody down here, keep an eye on her."

  "I'm gonna come back and bag out in her guest room," Lucas said.

  "Maybe we can figure something better tomorrow.

  Lucas backed out of the drive and they rode in silence for a few minutes. Then Climpt, slouching against the passenger-side door, drawled, "That Weather's a finelooking woman, uh-huh. Got a good ass on her." He was half-grinning. "She's single, I'm single. I'm quite a bit older, of course, but I get to feeling pretty frisky in the spring," Climpt continued. "I been thinking about calling her up. Do you think she'd go out with an old guy like me? I might still be able to show her a thing or two."

  "I don't believe she would, Gene," Lucas said, looking straight out through the windshield.

  Climpt, still smiling in the dark, said, "You don't think so, huh?

  That's a damn shame. I think she could probably show a fellow a pretty good time. And it's not like puttin' a little on me would leave her with any less of it, if you know what I mean."

  "Stick a sock in it, Gene," Lucas said.

  Climpt broke into a laugh that was half a cough, and after a minute, Lucas laughed with him. Climpt said, "Looking at you when you went up to her door, I'd say you're about half-caught, my friend. If you don't want to get all-caught, you better be careful. If you want to be carefuU , U Carr was gray-faced, exhausted. Old.

  "I've got to get back out there, on the search line," he said when Climpt and Lucas walked into his office. Lacey was with him and four other deputies. "It's a mess. We got people who want to help who just aren't equipped for it.

  Not in this cold. They'll be dying out there, looking for the kid."

  "The kid's dead if he's not inside," Climpt said bluntly.

  "And if he's inside somewhere, looking for him outside won't help."

  "We thought of that, but you can't really quit, not when there's a chance," Carr said. "Where's this photograph Henry's been telling me about?"

  Lucas took it out of his pocket and flipped it on Carr's desk. Carr looked at it for a moment and said, "Mother of God." To one of the deputies, he said, "Is Tony still down the hall?"

  "Yeah, I think so."

  Carr picked up the phone, poked in four numbers. They all heard a ringing far down the hall, then Carr said, "Tony?

  Come on down to my office, will you?"

  When he'd hung up, Lucas said, "I had dinner with Weather Karkinnen and people have seen us talking. Gene and I stopped at her place. She's all right for now."

  "I'll send somebody over," Carr suggested.

  Lucas shook his head. "I'll cover it tonight. Tomorrow I'll try to push her into a safer place, maybe out of town, until this thing is settled. I just hope it doesn't start any talk in the town."

  The sheriff shrugged. "It probably will, but so what? The truth'11 get out and it'll be okay."

  "There's another problem," Lucas said. "Everything we I do seems to be all over town in a few minutes. You need to put the lid on, tight. If John Mueller's missing, and if he's missing because he talked to me, it's possible that our killer heard about it from a teacher or another kid.

  But it's also possible that it came out of the department here.

  Christ, everything that we've done..."

  Carr nodded, pointed a finger at Lacey. "Henry, write up a memo Anyone who talks out of place, to anyone, about this case, is gonna get terminated. The minute I hear about it. And I don't want anybody talking about substantive stuff on the radios, either. Okay? There must be a hundred police-band monitors in this town, and every word we say is out there."

  Lacey nodded and opened his mouth to say something when a short dark-haired man stuck his head in the office and said, "Sheriff?"

  Carr glanced upat him, nodded and said, "I need to talk to Tony for a minute. Could we get everybody out of here except Lucas and Henry?

  And Gene, you stay... Thanks."

  When the others had gone, Carr said, "Shut the door."

  To Lucas: "Tony's my political guy." When the dark-haired man had closed the door, Carr handed him the Polaroid and said, "Take a look at this picture."

  Tony took it, studied it, turned it, said "Huh," and nibbled on a thumbnail. Finally he looked up and said, "Sheriff?."

  "You know that woman?"' "There're half-d
ozen people it could be," he said.

  "But something about her jaw..

  "Say the name."

  "Judy Schoenecker."

  "Damn," the sheriff said. "That's what I thought soon as I saw it.