Sudden Prey

sonofabitch, drunk, beat the shit out of the kids . . .”
    “That’s how it is with most psychos,” said Sloan.
    “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody told me he’d been screwing Georgie, either. She always knew too much, there in school.” Lock scratched his head, caught himself and slicked back his thinning hair. “The old man came after me once, said I was trespassing on his part of the river, and they didn’t even live on the river.”
    “What happened?” Sloan asked.
    “Hell, I was seventeen, I’d baled hay all summer, built fence in the fall and then ran the trap line. I was in shape, he was a fifty-year-old drunk: I kicked his ass,” Lock said, grinning at them over Sand’s body.
    “Good for you,” Sloan said.
    “Not good for his kids, though—living with him,” Lock said. “The whole goddamn bunch of them turned out crazier’n bedbugs.”
    “There’s more? Besides Georgie and Dick?” Lucas asked.
    “One more brother, Bill. He’s dead,” Lock said. “Ran himself into a bridge abutment up on County M, eight or ten years back. Dead drunk, middle of the night. There was a hog in the backseat. Also dead.”
    “A hog,” said Sloan. He looked at Lucas, wondering if Lock was pulling their legs.
    Lock, reading Sloan’s mind, cracked a grin. “Yeah, he used to rustle hogs. Put them in the car, leave them off at friends’ places. When he got five or six, he’d run them into St. Paul.”
    “Hogs,” Sloan said, shaking his head sadly.
    Lock said the only two people who’d showed up for the funeral were Amy LaChaise and Sandy Darling, Candy’s sister. “They’re both still sitting out there. They say they don’t know what the heck happened.”
    “You believe them?” Sloan asked.
    “Yeah, I sorta do,” Lock said. “You might want to talk to them, though. See what you think.”
     
     
     
    AMY LACHAISE WAS a mean-eyed, foulmouthed waste of time, defiant and quailing at the same time, snapping at them, then flinching away as though she’d been beaten after other attempts at defiance.
    “You’re gonna get it now,” she crowed, peering at them from beneath the ludicrous hat-net. “You’re the big shots going around killing people, thinking your shit don’t stink; but you’re gonna see. Dickie’s coming for you.”
     
     
     
    SANDY DARLING WAS different.
    She was a small woman, but came bigger than her size: her black dress was unconsciously dramatic, the silver-tipped black boots an oddly elegant country touch, both sensitive and tough.
    She faced them squarely, her eyes looking into theirs, unflinching, her voice calm, but depressed.
    Sandy had seen Lucas arrive with Sloan, had seen them talking with the sheriff. The big tough-looking guy wore what she recognized as an expensive suit, probably tailored. FBI? He looked like an FBI man from the movies. The other man, the thin one, was shifty-looking, and dressed all in shades of brown. They went in the back, where the dead guard was, and a few minutes later came back out, and talked to Amy LaChaise. She could hear Amy’s crowing voice, but not the individual words.
    After five minutes, the two men left Amy LaChaise and walked over to where she was sitting. She thought, Hold on. Just hold on.
    “Mrs. Darling?” The big guy had blue eyes that looked right into her. When he smiled, just a small polite smile, she almost shivered, the smile was so hard. He reminded her of a Montana rancher she’d met once, when she’d gone out to pick up a couple of quarter horses; they’d had a hasty affair, one that she remembered with some pleasure.
    The other guy, the shifty one, smiled, and he looked like Dagwood, like a nice guy.
    “I’m Lucas Davenport from Minneapolis,” the big guy said, “And this is Detective Sloan . . .”
    She caught Lucas’s name: Davenport. Wasn’t he . . . ? “Did you shoot my sister?” she blurted.
    “No.” The big man shook his head. “Detective Sloan and I were at the credit union, but neither one of us fired a gun.”
    “But you set it up,” she said.
    “That’s not the way we see it,” Lucas said.
    Sandy’s head jerked, a nod: she understood. “Am I going to be arrested?”
    “For what?” the thin man asked. He seemed really curious, almost surprised, and she found herself warming to him.
    “Well, that’s what I want to know. I came to the funeral, and now they won’t let me go anywhere. I’ve got to ask before I go to the bathroom. Nobody’ll talk to