Storm Prey

said, had come in with black bags; had dropped the bags on the floor before they’d taped up Baker and Peterson.
    Lucas stirred a bit more, started finding more fragments. Stood up, walked back to the house: “Marcy, Bill ...”
    Marcy and the sheriff came over, and Lucas showed them the strap. “Looks like it came off a nylon bag. The ashes are fresh.”
    “Dorothy Baker ...” Marcy began.
    Lucas nodded, and said to Stephaniak, “The nurse who was in the pharmacy said the robbers brought big black nylon bags, or packs, to carry the drugs. There are more pieces out there in the ash. We need your crime-scene guy to go through it.”
    “It’s suggestive,” Stephaniak said. He meant, That doesn’t prove much.
    “It’ll worry them,” Lucas said. “If it’s the bags, it’ll help crank the pressure. And if we find there’s more than one bag, then we’ll know. The shit came through here. Ike’s involved. That’s always a help.”
    The sheriff nodded. “I’ll get my boy on it.”
    A deputy said, “Ike’s here.”
     
     
    IKE WAS A STOUT MAN, but hard fat, beer-belly fat, with a shiny red bald head and black-plastic-rimmed glasses on a full nose; with little yellow shark teeth under the nose, and water-green shark eyes. He was wearing a sixties army parka over a T-shirt. He was angry but was suppressing it: he’d dealt with the cops before.
    Marcy held up her badge and said, “We’re picking up evidence that your boys were here with the drugs. We’re talking about murder, Ike. You’re, what, sixty-five? We’ll slam you in Stillwater for thirty years if you’re in on it. So: where’s Joe?”
    “I ain’t seen him.” He put on a phony wild-eyed look, appealing to the cops. “I ain’t seen him. He ain’t been here. He knows better’n to draw the shit down on his old man.”
    Lucas said, “We’re gonna get him, Ike. He’s killed three or four people now. We’re tearing the country up, and he’s gonna fall. And when we get the lab results back, on these straps, your ass is grass.”
    “You find any dope? You won’t find dope here, nosir. You’ll find some Millers, but there’s no dope. I don’t allow it.”
    “Well, shoot, Ike, you made meth for ten years,” one of the deputies said. “Everybody in the county knows it. You could smell it all the way down to Barronett.”
    “I don’t know anything about any meth—”
    “Ah, bullshit, you’re wasting our time, Ike,” Stephaniak said. “You could cooperate for fifteen seconds and we’d let you skate on the murder.”
    “... Maybe ...” Marcy said.
    “Maybe,” Stephaniak agreed. “But if you don’t talk to us, and we find out you been hiding that boy, or that you know where he is ...”
    “You went and burned the bags out in the incinerator, but you didn’t burn them well enough,” Lucas said. “We’ll get them identified by the witness, and you’re done.”
    Ike didn’t ask, “What bags?” but said, “I don’t know everything that goes in the fire. If Joe was up here, he didn’t tell me. I work all day. I don’t know everything that happens out here.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, sniffed, and said, “I’m old. I’m gonna go lay down. If you don’t mind.”
    “Put a cold rag on your head and think about it,” Marcy said. “If you talk to us before I leave, we can deal. Once we’re gone, you’re toast. You get no second chances.”
    Ike looked around at all the cops, shook his head, muttered “fuckin’ ...” and stalked through the house to the back bedroom.
    When he was out of earshot, Stephaniak said to Lucas, “You were right about the bags. That’s them, and he knows it.”
     
     
    IKE WAS IN the bedroom for fifteen minutes, then came out, got a beer, and sat in a platform rocker in front of the television and watched the cops take the place apart. No drugs. No anything, but the bag straps from the incinerator.
    Marcy got her coat on, said to Ike, “We’re leaving. Your last chance is walking out the door.”
    “Don’t let it hit you in the ass,” Ike said.
     
     
    WEATHER AND VIRGIL got the names of French-passport employees. Virgil called Jenkins, who’d been down in the cafeteria, and went off to talk to some of the employees. Jenkins showed up, leaned against a wall. Weather put a copy of the list in her briefcase, and then went down and found the Rayneses, Jenkins tagging behind. She’d thought the Rayneses seemed shell-shocked before, and they weren’t