Winter Prey

by John Sandford

  "He's a pretty good pilot?"' Lucas could handle helicopters because they didn't need runways. You could get down in a helicopter.

  "Oh, yeah. Learned to fly in Vietnam, been flying ever since." The manager sucked his false teeth, his hands in his overall pockets, staring out the window. "You want some coffee?"

  "A cup'd be good," Lucas said.

  "Help yourself, over by the microwave."

  - _- Oandford A Pyrex pot of acidic-looking coffee sat on a hot plate next to some paper cups. Lucas poured a cup, took a sip, thought nasty, and the manager said, "If you get back late, the place'll be locked up. I'll give you a key for the doors so you can get your truck out.

  Here he comes."

  The chopper was white, with a rakish HOSER AiR scrawled on the side, and kicked up a hurricane of snow as it put down on the pad. Lucas got the door key from the manager , and then, ducking, scurried under the chopper blades and the pilot popped the door open. The pilot wore an olive-drab helmet, black glasses, and a brush-cut mustache.

  He shouted over the beat of the blades, "You got boots?"

  "Back in the truck."

  "Better go get 'em. The heater ain't working quite right."

  They took off three minutes later, Lucas pulling on die pac boots.

  "What's wrong with the heater?" he shouted.

  "Don't know yet," the pilot shouted back. "The whole A,- i 11 H goddamn chopper's a piece of shit."

  "Glad to hear it."

  The pilot smiled, his teeth improbably white and even.

  "Little pilot joke," he said.

  A half hour after takeoff, the pilot got a radio call, answered, and then said, "You'll have a guy waiting for you. Domeier?"

  "Yeah, good."

  They put down at a general aviation airport at the north end of the city.

  The pilot would wait until ten o'clock, he said. "Got that storm coming in. Ten o'clock shouldn't be a problem, but if you were as late as midnight, I might not get out at all."

  "I'll call," Lucas promised, pulling off the pac boots and slipping on his shoes.

  "I'll be around. Call the pilots' lounge. There's a guy waving at us, and I think he means you."

  Domeier was waiting at the gate, hands in his pockets, chewing gum.

  "Didn't expect to see you," Lucas said. "I was told you were off."

  "Overtime," Domeier said. "I got a daughter down at Northwestern, exploring her potentialities, so I need the fuck-in' work. What're we doing?"

  "Talking to Bobby McLain again," Lucas said. "About a thing called an offset negative."

  McLain was at home, with a woman in a red party dress.

  The woman sat on a couch, eating popcorn from a microwave bag. She had dark hair and matched her hair color with too much eye liner.

  "... suppose he could have it," McLain said. "He'll kill me if I send you out there, though."

  "Bobby, you know what we're dealing with," Lucas said.

  "You know what could happen."

  "Jeer..."

  "What could happen?" asked the woman on the couch.

  "Some people have been killed. If Bobby doesn't help us out, you could say he's an accomplice," Domeier said. He shrugged, and looked sorry about it.

  The woman's mouth hung open for a minute, then she looked at Bobby.

  "Jesus Christ, you're dragging your feet about Zeke? The guy would trade you in for a fifty-watt light bulb."

  "Zeke?" said Lucas.

  "Yeah. He's a teacher out at the vo-tech," the woman said. She tried a winning smile, unsuccessfully. "He does all our printing."

  "At the vo-tech?"

  "Sure. He's a teacher there. He's got all this great equipment.

  And if we're not using it, it just sits there all night, doing nothing."

  "Who buys the paper?" Domeier asked.

  McLain's eyes shifted. "Mmm, that's part of his price."

  "Part of the price? You mean the vo-tech is buying your printing paper?"

  McLain shrugged. "The price is right."

  McLain drove the grape-colored van; Lucas and Domeier followed him west through the suburbs. The vo-tech was a one-story orange-brick building surrounded by parking lots. A cluster of thirty or forty crows was settled around a heap of snow at one end of the building, like lost lumps of coal.

  McLain parked and used an electric lift to get himself out the side door of the van. He was in a power chair this time, and rolled along in front of them, up a ramp, and down a long cold hallway lined with student lockers.

  Zeke was alone in his classroom. When McLain rolled through the door, he straightened, started a smile. When Lucas and Domeier followed McLain through the door, the smile vanished.

  "Sorry," McLain said. "I hope we can maintain our business relationship."

  Domeier said, "Milwaukee PD, Zeke."

  Boom "I just... I just... I needed.. Zeke waved his hand, unable to find the right word, and then said, "Money."

  They were standing in his office, a cool cubicle of yellowpainted concrete block, with a plastic-laminated desk and Iwo file cabinets.

  Zeke was short and balding, wore his hair long and combed it in oily strands over his bald spot. He wore a checked sport coat and his hands shook when he talked. "I just... I just... Should I get a lawyer?"

  "You gotta right..." Domeier started.

  Lucas broke in: "I don't care about your goddamn printing business. I just don't have time to fuck around. I want the goddamn negatives or I'll put some handcuffs on you and we'll drag you out a the school by your fuckin' hair, and then we'll get a search warrant and we'll tear this place apart and your house and any other goddamn thing we can find. You show me the fuckin' negatives and I'm gone. You and Domeier can make any kind of deal you want."

  Zeke looked at Domeier, and when the Milwaukee cop rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, he said, "I keep the negatives at home."

  "So let's go," Lucas said.

  "How about me?" McLain asked.

  "Take off," said Domeier.

  Halfway to his house, Zeke, in the backseat of Domeier's Dodge, began to weep. "They're gonna fire me," he gasped.

  "You're gonna put me in jail. I'll get raped."

  "Do you print for more than Bobby McLain or is he the only one?"

  Domeier asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.

  "He's the only one," Zeke said, his body shuddering.

  "Shit. If there was more, you had some names, maybe we could work something out."

  The weeping stopped and Zeke's voice cleared. "Like what?"

  An aging black labrador with rheumy eyes met them at the door.

  "If I went to jail, what'd happen to Dave?" Zeke asked Domeier.

  The dog wagged his tail when his name was mentioned.

  Domeier shook his head and said, "Jesus Christ."

  The dog watched as they went through a closet full of offset negatives.

  The negatives were filed in oversized brown envelopes, with the name of the publication scrawled in the corner. They found the right set and the right negative, and Zeke held it up to the light. "Yup, this is it. Looks pretty sharp."

  They trooped back to the vo-tech. The printer was the size of a Volkswagen, but the first print was done in ten minutes. Zeke stripped it out and handed it to Domeier.

  "That's as good as I can get it," he said. "It's still a halftone, so it won't be as sharp as a regular photograph."

  Domeier glanced at it and handed it to Lucas, saying, "Same old shit.

  You wasted your time."

  The print was still black-and-white, but considerably sharper. Lucas put it under a table light and peered at it.

  A man with an erection and a nude boy in the background.

  Nothing on the walls.

  "The guy's leg looks weird." He took the folded newsprint version out of his pocket. The leg was so washed-out that no detail was visible.

  "Is this... whatever it is... is this the picture or is there something wrong with his leg?"


  Lucas asked.

  Zeke brought a photo loupe over to the table, put it on the print, bent over it, moved it. "That's his leg, I think. It looks like it's stitched together or something, like a quilt."

  "Goddamn," Lucas said. His throat tightened. "Goddamn. That's why he wants Weather. She must've fixed his leg."

  "You got him?" asked Domeier.

  "Got something," Lucas said. "Is there a doc around I can talk to?"

  "Sure. We can stop at the medical examiner's on the way to the airport. There'll be somebody on duty."

  "Can I go home now?" asked Zeke.

  X VEr, no," Domeier said. "Actually, we gotta go get a truck, the two of us."

  "What for?"

  "I'm gonna take every fuckin' envelope out of your house, and we're gonna find somebody to print them up for us. And I'm gonna want those names."

  Lucas stopped on the way out of the house to call the airport, and got the pilot in the general aviation lounge. "It didn't take long. I'm on my way."

  "Hurry. That storm's coming in fast, man," the pilot said.

  "I want to get out of here quick."

  The assistant medical examiner was sitting in his office, feet on his desk, reading a National Enquirer.

  4" 1!@ He nodded at Domeier, looked without interest at Lucas U.: and Zeke. "Breaks my heart, what the younger women have done to the British Royal Family," he said. He balled up the paper and fired it at a wastebasket. "What the fuck do you A: want, Domeier? More pictures of naked dead women?"

  "Actually, I want you to look at my friend's photograph," Domeier said.

  Lucas handed the doc: the print and said, "Can you tell what's wrong with his leg?"

  Zeke asked, "You don't really have pictures of naked dead women, do you?"

  The doctor, bent over the photo, muttered, "All the time.

  If you need some, maybe L can get you a rate." After a minute he straightened and said, "Burns."

  "'Y"at?"

  He flipped the photo across his desk to Lucas. "Your man's been burned. Those are skin grafts."

  CHAPTER 23

  Lucas tried to get Carr or Lacey from the airport; the dispatcher said they were out of touch. He called Weather at home, got a busy signal.

  The pilot was leaning against the back of a chair, impatiently waiting to go. Lucas waited two minutes, tried again: busy.

  "We gotta go, man," the pilot said. Lucas looked out the lounge windows. He could see airplanes circling ten miles out. "It looks pretty clear."

  "Man, that storm is coming like a fuckin' train. We're gonna get snowed on as it is."

  "Once more..." Weather's line was still busy. He punched in the dispatcher's number again: "I'm on my way back. Got something. And if the chopper crashes, a guy named Domeier has the negative. He's with the Milwaukee sex unit."

  "If the chopper crashes.. the pilot snorted as they walked out of the lounge.

  "Got the heater fixed?" Lucas asked.

  They lifted out of Milwaukee at seven o'clock, six degrees above zero, clear skies, Domeier standing at the gate with Zeke until the chopper was off the ground. Zeke waved.

  "Glad you called," the pilot said. He grinned but he didn't look happy. "I was getting nervous about waiting until ten.

  The storm's already through the Twin Cities. The weather service says they're getting three to four inches of snow an hour, and it's supposedly headed right up our way."

  "You're not out of Grant, though," Lucas said.

  "Nope, Park Falls. But we're both gonna get it."

  The ground lights were sharp as diamonds in the dry cold air, a long sparkling sweep north and south along the Lake.0 Michigan waterfront, fed by the long, living snakes of the interstates. They headed northwest, past the lesser glitter of Fond du Lac and Oshkosh, individual house lights defining the blankness of Lake Winnebago.

  Later, they could see the distant glow from Green Bay far off to the east; to the west, there was nothing, and Lucas realized that they'd lost the stars and were now under cloud cover.

  "Do any good?" the pilot asked.

  "Maybe "When you catch the sonofabitch, you oughta just blow him away.

  Do us all a favor."

  They caught the first hint of snow twenty miles from Grant. "No sweat," said the pilot. "From here we're on cruise control."

  They settled down five minutes later, Lucas ducking under the blades, fumbling for the key to the airport Quonset. As soon as he was inside, he could hear the chopper's rotors pick up, and a moment later it was gone.

  He rolled out of the Quonset, locked the door, and started -4. for town.

  The snow was light, tiny flakes spitting into his :1:!@1 windshield, but with authority. This wasn't a flurry, this A was the start of something.

  Weather's house was lit up, a sheriff's Suburban in the J drive. He used the remote to lift the garage door, drove in, parked.

  Inside, the house was quiet. "Weather?" No answer. His h tightened and he walked through the front room.

  stomac No sign of trouble. "Hey, Weather?"

  Still no answer. He noticed that the curtain was caught in the sliding door, walked over to it, and turned on the porch light. There were fresh tracks across the snow-covered deck.

  He pushed the door open.

  And heard her laughing, and felt something go loose in his knees.

  She was all right. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Weather..

  ."

  "Yeah, yeah, we're coming."

  She came up the lake bank on skis, out of the night; fifty feet behind her, floundering, lathered with sweat, Climpt followed ; "Gene s never been on skis before," she said, laughing.

  "I've been embarrassing him."

  "Never fuckin' again," Climpt rasped as he toiled behind in her tracks.

  "I'm too old for this shit. My goddamn crotch feels like it's gonna fall off. Christ, I need a cigarette."

  Weather's smile faded. "Henry Lacey called. He said you might have something."

  "Yeah. Come on in and get your skis off," Lucas said.

  He started to turn back to the house, but first stooped and kissed her on the nose.

  "Now, that's embarrassing," Climpt said. "On the nose?"

  Lucas shook the photo out of the manila envelope onto the kitchen counter and Weather bent over it. "Better picture ," she said. She looked at it, then up at Lucas, puzzled.

  "What?"

  "Look at the guy's leg. It looks like a quilt. I'm told they might be skin grafts."

  Weather peered at the photo, looked up at Lucas, stunned, looked at the photo again, then turned to Climpt. "Jesus, it's Duane."

  "Duane?" asked Lucas. "The fireman?"

  "Yeah-Duane Helper. The fireman who saw Father Phil.

  He was at the station... how'd he do that?"

  Carr had spent the afternoon at a motel, but still looked desperately weary. He was unshaven, his hair uncombed, his eyes swollen as though he'd been crying. He looked curiously at Weather and then back to Lucas. "What'd you get.

  Lacey came in just as Carr asked the question, and Lucas pushed the door shut behind him.

  "Got a better picture," Lucas said, handing it to him across the desk.

  "If you look really close-you couldn't see it in the newsprint picture-you can see that his leg looks patched up. Those are skin grafts. Weather says it's Duane Helper."

  "Duane? How could it be... T' "We've been talking, Gene and I, and we think the first thing we gotta do, tonight, is pick up Dick Westrom," Lucas said. "We don't know what he has to do with it, except that he backs up Helper's story. We put him on the grill.

  If we need to, we lock him up until we find out more about i Helper."

  "Why don't we just grab him? Helper?" Carr asked.

  "We've been thinking about a trial," Lucas said, tipping his head toward Climpt. Climpt was rolling an unlit cigarette around his mouth.

  "Helper dropped the gun and knife on Bergen. A defense attorney will use that-he'll put Bergen on trial. All
we've got is a bad picture, and the only witness we know for sure is Jim Harper, and he's dead.