Easy Prey

of the deputies said. “If he’s the guy who nailed Alie’e. They call him the Reverend.”
    “What do you think?” the sheriff asked the deputy. “You think he could do it?”
    “Far as I know, he’s just a good ol’ boy,” the deputy said. “He might’ve had a couple of DWIs over the years. Nothing serious.”
    “How about if his parents tell us they told him about Spooner?” Lucas asked.
    “Might get you a warrant on that,” the sheriff said. “Especially since it’s Alie’e.”
    “So let’s go,” Lucas said.
     
 
DEL AND LUCAS got in the back of the sheriff’s truck, while Olson got in with the other two deputies. Once inside, Del told the sheriff, “I told your guys to kinda keep an eye on Olson,” he said. “He’s not entirely out of the woods yet.”
    “They can do that,” the sheriff said. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket, turned it on, ran through a call list, and pushed a button. A minute later, he said, “Hey, Carl, this is me, you get anything on Friar? Yeah? When? At McLeod’s? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, we’re going out that way, then.”
    He rang off and looked at Lucas. “You may have wasted a trip. The Burnt River town cop says a guy he ran into at the Yer-In-And-Out Store saw Friar shooting pool with some friends at McLeod’s Tavern out on the lake. They were there a half hour ago.”
    “Goddamnit,” Lucas said.
    “So what do you want to do?” the sheriff asked.
    “We’re here, let’s talk to him,” Lucas said. “Then we can go wake up the Bentons and Packards and find out what they have to say. It had to come out of here—someplace along the line, it had to come from Olson, the Bentons, or the Packards.” But he was no longer sure of it; what if it was a departmental leak? Or what if Olson was lying, and he was running another guy, one of his disciples? Maybe somebody who thought Olson was Jesus?
    “Whatever you say,” the sheriff said. He called the other car, and they swung toward McLeod’s.
     
 
MCLEOD’S LOOKED EXACTLY like five hundred other lakeside taverns: snow-covered parking lot with mounds of plowed snow on the side; fake dark-brown log-cabin styling; small windows under the eaves at the front; a Christmas wreath on the door; snowmobile parking at the lakeside. “We don’t have any snow in the Cities yet,” Lucas said as they pulled in.
    “That’s because you’re practically living in Miami,” the sheriff said.
    “I guess that accounts for the palm trees outside the office,” Del said to Lucas.
    Talk in the bar stopped when they all walked in; Lucas could feel the heads turning. They clumped down toward the game room, through a haze of barbecue smoke. The deputy who knew the Reverend said, “That’s him in the red shirt.”
    Louis Friar was focusing on the five-ball when he saw them all coming. He stood up and grounded his cue and said, “Evening, Sheriff.” He looked puzzled, then saw Olson and said, “Hi, Tom. Sorry about Alie’e, jeez--”
    The sheriff said, “Could you come back over here and talk with us for a bit?”
    “Sure . . . what’d I do?” Friar handed his cue to a friend.
    “Nothing, apparently. But we need to talk,” the sheriff said.
    They got in a corner, away from the bar, and Lucas quickly told Friar the problem. “Well, yeah, my folks told me,” he said. “I mean, I couldn’t have told you the guy’s name tonight, but I could’ve told you Friday night and all day yesterday. Spooner, right? Banker.”
    “Did you tell anybody?” Lucas asked.
    “Well, sure . . . those guys over there.”
    They all turned and looked at the three men Friar had been shooting pool with. “When did you tell them?”
    “Friday night, I guess. My folks got home about ten o’clock, and we just had that snow come through. I was over there blowing out their drive, and they told me. I came down here afterwards for a couple brewskies, you know. . . . I told a couple people.”
    “Do you think . . . they might have told anybody?” Lucas asked.
    “Look,” Friar said. “I doubt there’s anybody in Burnt River who hasn’t heard this guy’s name by now. The Bentons told my folks, and my folks probably told a couple more friends, and I imagine the Bentons told more. Everybody’s interested in what happened to Alie’e, she’s the most famous person ever come from here—or ever will. She’s the only person in the whole county or maybe all the counties around whoever had her face on a