Sudden Prey

Weather, told her about Kupicek’s wife: “I’m not coming. But you gotta hide out and I’m not bullshitting you, Weather, I swear to God, you gotta get out of sight, someplace where I can get you. The guy could be in the hospital right now.”
    “I’m going,” she said.
    “Take care, please, please, take care,” he said.
    And he got Sherrill: “Did you reach Mike?”
    “No, Lucas, they can’t find him.” Her voice was high, scared. “He’s supposed to be there, but they can’t find him. I’m going there.”
    “I’m sending a squad.”
    “Lucas, you don’t think . . . ?” Her marriage had been on the rocks for a while.
    “We don’t know what to think,” Lucas said. Sherrill didn’t know about Danny’s wife. He didn’t tell her. “Get on up there.”
    Back to Dispatch: “Two cars, get them up there. You gotta beat Sherrill up there . . .”
     
     
     
    LUCAS WENT STRAIGHT though the city traffic, not slowing for any light, green, yellow or red, his foot on the floor: driving the Explorer was like driving a hay wagon, but he beat Kupicek by two minutes, pulling in a car length behind Rose Marie Roux. The chief was pale, nearly speechless: She said, “This . . .” and then shook her head and they ran inside, Lucas banging the doors out of the way.
    Del, covered with blood, stood in the hallway, talking to a doctor in scrubs: “Sometimes she gets stress headaches in the afternoon and she takes aspirin. That’s all. Wait, she drinks Diet Coke, that’s got caffeine. I don’t know if she took any aspirin this afternoon . . .”
    He saw them coming, Lucas and Rose Marie, and stepped toward them.
    “He hit her hard,” he said. He seemed unaware that tears were running down his seamed face: his voice was absolutely under control. “But if there aren’t any complications, she’ll make it.”
    “Aw, Jesus, Del,” Lucas said. He tried to smile, but his face was desperately twisted.
    “What happened?” Del said. He looked from one of them to the other. “What else happened?”
    “Danny’s wife’s been shot; she’s dead. And we can’t find Mike Sherrill.”
    “The motherfuckers,” Del rasped.
    Then Danny Kupicek banged through the entryway, a kid tagging along behind, still in his hockey uniform, wearing white Nikes that looked about the size of battle-ships, a shock of blond hair down over his eyes. He seemed impressed by the inside of the hospital.
    “Del,” Kupicek said, “Jesus, how’s Cheryl? Is she okay?”
    “Danny . . .” said Lucas.
    Ten minutes later, they found Mike Sherrill. Marcy Sherrill arrived just in time to see the cops gathering around the Firebird, and thrust through them just in time to see the door pop open, and look straight into her husband’s open eyes, upside down, dead.
    She turned, and one of the uniforms, a woman, wrapped her up, and a moment later she made a sound a bit like a howl, a bit like a croak, and then she fell down.
     
     
     
    LACHAISE WAS THE first to get back to the house. Martin had called from a pay phone and LaChaise sent him to get Butters.
    “You bad?” Martin had asked, his voice low, controlled.
    “I don’t know, but I’m bleeding,” LaChaise told him. “Hurts like hell.”
    “Can you breathe?”
    “Yeah. I just don’t want to,” LaChaise said.
    “Can you get in the house?”
    “Think so. Yeah.”
    “Get inside. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
    LaChaise hurt, but not so bad that he couldn’t make it to the house. That encouraged him. Except for the burning pain, which was localized, he didn’t feel bad. There was no sense of anything loose inside, anything wrecked.
    But when he got in the house, he found he couldn’t get the jacket off by himself. When he lifted his arm, fire ran down his rib cage. He slumped on the living-room rug, and waited, staring at the ceiling.
    Martin came in first, Butters, stamping snow off his sleeves, just behind him.
    “Let’s take a look,” Martin said.
    “You get yours?” LaChaise asked.
    Martin nodded and Butters said, “Yep. How about you?”
    “I got somebody, there were ambulances all over the place . . .”
    They helped him sit up as they talked, and LaChaise told them about making the call, and then Del popping up behind his wife. “And the fucker recognized me . . . careful, there . . .”
    They peeled the parka off, then the vest, then the flannel shirt, each progressively heavier with blood. His undershirt showed two small holes and a bloodstain the