Easy Prey

Olson said.
    “But you won’t be, if they’re home,” Lucas said.
    “I’ll know--”
    “People are dying,” Del said.
    Olson made the calls from the motel phone, with Lucas listening on an extension. Both couples were at home. “Couldn’t be them,” Olson said.
    “You only told four people,” Lucas said.
    “Only those four. We walked across the street to Perkins and had dinner together before they left. Right after dark, on Friday.”
    Lucas thought for a moment. Burnt River, Burnt River. What if they’d been going about this all wrong? Or half wrong? A deep, old connection, but not family. Someone who’d known her from the old days, someone who’d—He picked up the phone and called Lane. “You know that genealogy you made up? Who was the guy who nailed Alie’e on the baseball diamond?”
    “Gimme a minute, I’m watching the game,” Lane said. A moment later, he was back. “Louis Friar,” he said. “The people up there call him the Reverend, but he doesn’t know why.”
    “Thanks. I’m running. Talk to you tomorrow,” Lucas said. He turned back to Olson. “Who is Louis Friar?”
    “He’s a guy up in Burnt River.”
    “Would either the Bentons or Packards know him?” Lucas asked.
    “Yes. His parents, especially. Louie’s parents and my parents and the Bentons and the Packards and a few other families, we’re all in the same social circle. Play cards and stuff.”
    “He once had a sexual relationship with Alie’e.”
    “That’s just a rumor.”
    “Everybody in Burnt River believes it. They all seem to think it happened.”
    “Yes. I know,” Olson said.
    “Do you think he might have felt protective toward her? You think he might have--”
    “No, no . . . he’s just a guy. He’s got a lawn service. He goes around to resorts and stuff, and does landscape maintenance.”
    “Single guy?” Del asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Deer hunter?”
    “Probably. I don’t know him that well. He was a couple years behind me in school.”
    Lucas got back on the phone, called Rose Marie. “Call the airport, authorize the big chopper. We need to go to Burnt River, right now, tonight. Three of us.”
    “You think you might make the fifteen hours?” she asked.
    “Got my fingers crossed,” Lucas said.
    “Get over to the airport. I’ll call.”

28
    TO LUCAS IT felt like three in the morning—like he’d been up forever—but the chopper lifted off a few minutes before ten o’clock, with Lucas, Del, and Olson in the back. Before they left the metro area, Lucas called the Howell County sheriff’s department, got switched to the sheriff, and gave him a quick summary. He asked if a sheriff’s department car could meet them at the Sheridan airport, the nearest to Burnt River. The sheriff said he’d send a couple of cars, and would ride along himself. “Kind of interesting,” he said.
    The flight took a little over an hour. Lucas was unaffected. Fixed-wing planes scared him; when they came down unexpectedly, the people inside wound up as postage stamp-sized pieces of meat. With a helicopter, you always had a chance.
    The sky had been mostly cloudy in the Cities, but they put down at Sheridan under crystalline skies, with stars as brilliant as those that Lucas had watched from his cabin the week before. They were met by two Ford Explorers with light racks. The sheriff and two deputies climbed out to shake hands, and the sheriff said, “Who do we want to find first? This Friar guy?”
    “Yeah,” Lucas said. “If he’s not around, we’ll want to talk with his parents, and take a look at his house—see if there’s any sign that he might be involved with Alie’e.”
    “You might have trouble getting a warrant if you’ve got nothing more than an urge to look around,” the sheriff said. He was a square-shouldered, square-faced man with a brush mustache. He wore jeans and cowboy boots, even with the snow. “Our judges aren’t all that cooperative.”
    “We’ve narrowed down the number of people outside the police department who knew about the man who was shot tonight,” Lucas said. “There were exactly five. That includes Mr. Olson here—and we know where he was tonight—and two Burnt River couples, who are here, at home. But if Friar isn’t here—and he couldn’t be, if he’s involved in the shooting tonight, not unless he’s got his own chopper—then we think he’s worth looking at. He once had a sexual involvement with Alie’e.”
    “Okay, I know the guy now,” one