Winter Prey

by John Sandford

  Gene?"

  Gene took the photo, looked at it, shook his head. "Could be, but I don't know her that well."

  "Let's check it out," Carr said. "Lucas, what're you going to do?

  It'd be best if you stayed away from the Mueller search, at least for a while."

  Lucas looked at his watch. "I'm going back to Weather's. I'm about to drop dead anyway." He reached across the desk and tapped the photograph. "Why don't you call this a tentative identification and see if you can get a search warrant?"

  "Boy, I'd hate to..." the sheriff started. Then: "Screw it.

  I'll get one as soon as the judge wakes up tomorrow." dwwu@

  P, "Have somebody call me," Lucas said.

  "All right. And Lucas: You couldn't help it about the kid, John Mueller," Carr said. I mean, if he's gone."

  "You really couldn't," Lacey agreed.

  I appreciate your saying it," Lucas said bleakly. "But you're both full of shit."

  CHAPTER 10

  Sleep had always been difficult. The slights and insults of the day would keep him awake for hours, plotting revenge; and there were few days without slights and insults.

  And night was the time that he worried. There was power in the Iceman-movement, focus, clarity-but at night, when he thought things over, the things he'd done during the day didn't always seem wise.

  Lying awake in his restless bed, the Iceman heard the three vehicles arrive, one after another, bouncing off the roadway into the snow-packed parking lot. He listened for a moment, heard a car door slam.

  A clock radio sat on the bedstand: the luminous red numbers said it was two o'clock in the morning.

  Who was out in the pit of night?

  The Iceman got out of bed, turned on a bedside lamp, pulled on his jeans, and started downstairs. The floor was cold, and he stooped, picked up the docks he'd dropped on the floor, slipped them on, and went down the stairs.

  A set of headlights still played across his side window, and he could hear-or feel-an engine turning over, as if people were talking in the lot.

  As he reached the bottom of the stairs, the headlights and engine sounds died and a moment later someone began pounding on the door.

  The Iceman went to the window, pulled back the gingham curtain, and peered out. Frost covered the center of the window in a shattered-paisley pattern, but through a clear spot he could see the roofmounted auxiliary lights on Russ Harper's Toyota truck, sitting under the blue yard-light.

  "Harper," he muttered. Bad news.

  The pounding started again and the Iceman yelled "Just a minute" and went to the door and unlocked it. Harper was on the concrete stoop, stamping the snow off his boots. He looked up when the Iceman opened the door, and without a word, pushed inside, shoving the door back, his face like a chunk of wood. He wore a red-and-plaid wool hunting coat and leather gloves. Two other men were behind him, and a woman, all dressed in parkas with hoods and heavy ski gloves, corduroy or wool pants, and pac boots, faces pale with winter, harsh with stress.

  "Russ," said the Iceman, as Harper brushed past. "Andy.

  Doug. How're you doin', Judy?"

  "We gotta talk," Harper said, pulling off his gloves. The other three wouldn't directly meet the Iceman's inquiring eyes, but looked instead to Harper. Harper was the one the Iceman would have to deal with.

  "What's going on?" he said. On the surface, his face was slack, sleepy. Inside, the beast began to stir, to unwind.

  "Did you kill the LaCourts?" Harper asked, stepping close to him. The Iceman's heart jumped, and for just a moment he found it hard to breathe.

  But he was a good liar. He'd always been good.

  "What? No-of course not. I was here." He put shock on J his face and Harper said "Motherfucker," and turned away, shaking his head. He touched his lip and winced, and the Iceman saw what looked like a tiny rime of blood.

  "What are you talking about, Russ?" he asked. "I didn't have a goddamned thing to do with it. I was here, there were witnesses," he complained. Public consumption: I didn't mean to; they just fell down.

  ..

  As his voice rose, Harper was pulling off his coat. He tossed it on a card table, hitched his pants. "Motherfucker," he said again, and he turned and grabbed the Iceman by his pajama shirt, pulled him forward on his toes, off-balance.

  "You motherfucker-you better not have," Harper breathed in his face.

  His breath smelled of sausage and bad teeth, and the Iceman nearly retched. "We don't want nothing to do with no goddamned half-assed killer."

  The Iceman brought his hands up, shoulder height, shrugged, tried not to struggle against Harper's hold, tried not to breathe. Kill him now...

  Of the people in their group, Harper was the only one who worried him.

  Harper might do anything. Harper had a craziness, a killer feel about him: scars on his shiny forehead , lumps. And when he was angry, there was nothing calculated about it. He was a nightmare you met in a biker bar, a man who liked to hurt, a man who never stopped to think that he might be the one to get damaged. He worried the Iceman, but didn't frighten him. He could deal with him, in his own time.

  "Honest to God, Russ," he said, throwing his hands out to his sides.

  "I mean, calm down."

  "I'm having a hard time calmin' down. The cops was out to my house tonight and they flat jacked me up," Harper said. "That fuckin' guy from Minneapolis and old Gene Climpt, they jacked my ass off the floor, you know what I'm telling you?" Spit was spraying out of his mouth, and the Iceman averted his face. "You know?"

  "C'mon, Russ..."

  Harper was inflexible, boosted him an inch higher, his work-hardened knuckles cutting into soft flesh under the Iceman's chin. "You know what we been doing? We been diddlin' kids. Fuckin' juveniles, that's what we been doin', all of us. All that fancy bullshit talk about teachin' 'em this or that-it don't mean squat to the cops. They'd put us all in the fuckin' penitentiary, sure as bears shit in the woods."

  "There's no reason to think I did it," the Iceman said, forcing sincerity into his voice. And the beast whispered, Let's kill him.

  Now now now...

  "Horseshit," Harper snarled. He snapped the Iceman away as though he were a bug. "You sure you didn't have nothing to do with it?" Harper looked straight into his eyes.

  "I promise you," the Iceman said, his eyes turning away, down, then back up. He pushed the beast down, caught his "Listen, this is a time to be calm." breath.

  The man called Doug was bearded, with the rims of old pock-scars showing above the beard and dimpling his purple nose. "The Indians think a windigo did it," he said.

  "That's the most damn-fool thing I ever did hear," Harper said, turning his hostility toward Doug. "Fuckin' windigo."

  Doug shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I hear. Everybody's talking about it, out at the Res."

  "Jesus Christ."

  "Judy and I are out a here," the man called Andy said abruptly, and they all turned to him. Judy nodded. "We're going to Florida."

  "Wait-if you take off..." the Iceman began.

  "No law against taking a vacation," Andy said. He glanced sideways at Harper. "And we're out of this. Out of the whole deal. I don't want to have nothing to do with you. Or any of the others, neither. We're taking the girls."

  Harper stepped toward them, but Andy set his feet, unafraid, and Harper stopped.

  "And I won't talk to the cops. You know I can't do that, so you're all safe. There's no percentage in any of you coming looking for us," Andy finished.

  "That's a bullshit idea, running," Harper said. "Runnin'll only make people suspicious. If something does break, bein' in Florida won't help none. They'll just come and get you."

  "Yeah, but if somebody just wants to come and talk, offhand , and we're not around... Well, then, maybe they'll just forget about it," Andy said. "Anyway, Judy and I decided : we're out a here. We already told the neighbors. Told them this weather was too much, that we're going away for a while. Nobody'll suspect noth
ing."

  I got a bad feeling about this," said Doug.

  "A car rolled by outside, the lights flashing through the window, then away. They all looked at the window.

  "We gotta get going," Andy said finally, pulling on his gloves. To the Iceman he said, "I don't know whether to believe you or not. If I thought you did it..

  "What?"

  "I don't know..." Andy said.

  "Why did you people think..."

  "Because of that goddamn picture Frank LaCourt had. As far as I know, the only person he talked to was me. And the only person I talked to was you."

  "Russ... I..." The Iceman shook his head, put a sad look on his face.

  He turned to Andy. "When're you leaving ?"

  "Probably tomorrow night or the next day," Judy said.

  Her husband's eyes flicked toward her, and he nodded.

  "Got a few things to wind up," he muttered.

  Andy and Judy left first, flipping up their hoods, stooping to look through the window for car lights before they went out into the parking lot. As Harper zipped his parka he said, "You better not be bullshitting us."

  "I'm not." The Iceman stood with his heels together, fingertips in his pants pockets, the querulous, honest smile fixed on his face.

  " 'Cause if you are, I'm going to get me a knife, and I'm gonna come over here and cut off your nuts, cook them up, and make you eat them," Harper said.

  "C'mon, Russ..."

  Doug was peering at him, and then turned to look at Harper. "I don't know if he did it or not. But I'll tell you one thing: Shelly Carr couldn't find his own asshole with both hands and a flashlight. No matter who did it, we'd be safe enough if Shelly is doing the investigation."

  "So?"

  "So if something happened to that cop from Minneapolis Harper put the lizard look on him. "If something happened to him, it'd be too goddamned bad, but a man'd be a fool to talk about it to anyone else," he said. "Anyone else.

  "Right," said Doug. "You're right."

  When they were gone, the Iceman took a turn around the room, the beast rising in his throat. He ran a hand through his hair, kicked at a chair in frustration. "Stupid," he said.

  He shouted it: "STUPID!"

  And caught himself. Controlled himself, closed his eyes, let himself flow, regulated his breathing, felt his heartbeat slow. He locked the door, turned off the lights, waited until the last vehicle had left the parking lot, then climbed the stairs again.

  He could go to Harper's tonight, with the..44. Take him off. Harper had handled him like he was apiece of junk, a piece of garbage. Yes, said the beast, take him.

  No. He'd already taken too many risks. Besides, Harper might be useful. Harper might be a fall guy.

  Doug and Judy and Andy... so many problems.

  So many branching pathways to trouble. If anybody cracked...

  Judy's face came to mind. She was a plain woman, her face lined by forty-five winters in the North Woods. She worked in a video rental store, and she looked like... anybody. If you saw her in a K Mart, you wouldn't notice her. But the Iceman had seen her having sex with the Harpers, father and son, simultaneously, one at each end, while her husband watched. Had watched her, watching the Iceman, as he taught her daughters to do proper blowjobs.

  She had seen her husband with their own daughters, had seen the Iceman with Rosie Harris and Mark Harris and Ginny Harris, the yellow-haired girl.

  She'd seen all that, done all that, and yet she could lose herself in a K Mart.

  He again approached the problem of what to do. Fight or run? This time, though, the problem seemed less like an endless snaky ball of possibilities and more like a single intricate but manageable organism.

  He was far from cornered. There were many things he might do. The image of John Mueller came to mind: red spots on white, like the eight of hearts, the red in the snow around the boy.

  John Mueller was an example.

  Action eliminated problems.

  It was time for action again.

  ..........

  CHAPTER 11

  Lucas stepped quietly into the house, pulled off his boots, and stopped to listen. The furnace had apparently just come on: the heating ducts were clicking and snapping as they filled with hot air and expanded.

  Weather had left a small 01 light on over the sink. He tiptoed through the kitchen and livin room, down the hall to the guest room, and turned on the light.

  The room felt unused, lonely. The bureau had been dusted, but there was nothing on top of it and the drawers were empty. A lamp and a small travel alarm sat on a bedstand, with a paper pad and a pen; the pad appeared to be untouched. The room was ready for guests, Lucas thought, but no guests ever came.

  He peeled off his parka, shirt, pants, and thermal underwear and tossed them on the bureau. He'd stopped at the motel and picked up his shaving kit and fresh underwear.

  He put them on the bedstand with his watch, took his.45 from its holster, jacked a shell into the chamber, and laid it next to the clock. After listening for another moment at the open bedroom door, he turned off the light and crawled into bed. The bed was too solid, too springy, as though it had never been slept in. The pillow pushed his head up. He'd never get to sleep.

  The bed sagged.

  Somebody there. Disoriented for a moment, he turned his head, opened his eyes. Saw a light in the hallway, remembered the weight. He half-sat, supporting himself with his elbows, and found Weather sitting on the end of thebed.

  She was dressed for work, carrying a cup of coffee, sipping from it.

  "Jesus, what time is it?"

  "A little after six. I'm out a here," she said. She was stone-cold awake. "Thanks for coming over."

  "Let me get up."

  "No, no. Shelly's sending a deputy over. I feel silly."

  "Don't. There's nothing silly about it," he said sharply.

  "And you should go somewhere else at night. Pick someplace at random.

  A motel in Park Falls. Tell us you're leaving, and we'll have somebody run interference for you Nil out the highway to make sure you're not followed."

  "I'll think about it," she said. She patted his foot. "You look like a bear in the morning," she said. "And your long underwear is cute.

  I like the color."

  Lucas looked down at the long underwear; it was vaguely pink.

  "Washed it with a red shirt," he mumbled. "And this is not the goddamn morning. Morning starts when the mailman arrives."

  "He doesn't get here until one o'clock," Weather said.

  "Then morning starts at one o'clock," he said. He dropped back on the pillow. "John Mueller?"

  "They never found him," she said. "When the deputy called, I asked."

  "Ah, God."

  "I'm afraid he's gone," she said. She glanced at her watch.

  "And I've got to go. Make sure all the doors are locked, and go out through the garage when you leave. The garage door locks automatically."

  "Sure. Would you..

  "What?"

  "Have dinner with me tonight? Again?"

  "God, you're rushing me," she said. "I like that in a man.

  Sure. But why don't we have it here? I'll cook."

  "Terrific."

  "Six o'clock," she said. She nodded at the bedstand as she went out the door. "That's a big gun."

  He heard the door to the garage open and close, and after that the house was silent. Lucas drifted back to sleep, now comfortable in the strange bedroom. When he woke again, it was eight o'clock. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, then staggered down the hall to the bathroom, shaved, half-fell into the shower, got a dose of icy water for his trouble, huddled outside the plastic curtain until the water turned hot, then stood under it, letting the stinging jets of water beat on his neck.

  Harper. They had to put the screws on Harper. So far, he was the only person who might know something. He stepped out of the shower, looked in the medicine cabinet for shampoo. There wasn't any, but there were two packs of
birth control pills. He picked them up, turned them over, looked at the prescription label. More than two years old.

  Huh. He'd hoped he'd find that they'd been taken out the day before.

  Vanity. He dropped them back where he'd found them. Of course, if she hadn't been on the pill for two years, she probably didn't have much going.

  He looked under the sink, found a bottle of Pert, got back in the shower and washed his hair.