Sudden Prey

DEL AND Small stood around the television while Jennifer packed the kids: The regular Nightline host was on vacation, and an anonymous ABC newsman fronted the show. He started with “a significant bit of breaking news,” and a black-and-white photograph of Ansel Butters filled the screen.
    “If you have seen this man . . .”
    A moment later, he launched into his prepared introduction, and said, “Minneapolis, a city crouched in shock and terror this wintry night,” and all three of them—Lucas, Del and Small—said “Jesus” at the same time.
     
     
     
    JENNIFER LEFT WITH the kids in a three-car convoy. Neighbors were wakened, and cops installed in corner houses. The snow stopped at midnight, and Lucas, Small and Del, trying to keep the house looking awake, watched on the weather radar as the snow squalls drifted off to the northeast and into Wisconsin.
    At 12:30, which Small said was their usual time, they began turning off lights and killed the television. Moving cars were scarce. They sat behind the darkened windows and grew sleepy.
    “Maybe it was just a bullshit call,” Small said.
    “Maybe, but we’ve got nothing else working,” Lucas said. “Whoever it was had my card and my direct line. That says something.”
    “Maybe somebody’s jerking you around,” Del said.
    Lucas yawned. “I don’t think so. The guy knew something.”
    “I hope they come in,” Del said fervently, in the dark. “I hope they come.”

10
    WHILE LUCAS DASHED to Small’s home, Stadic crossed the St. Croix at Taylors Falls and headed into the Wisconsin night on Highway 8. The going was slow: there were no lights, and at times, as he passed through the intermittent snow squalls, the highway virtually disappeared. A green sign—Turtle Lake 17—flicked past; and much later a John Deere sign, and then lights.
    He was running on adrenaline now: only five hours since the attacks, and it seemed like a lifetime.
    At Turtle Lake, he passed a hotel with a No Vacancy sign, and then the casino loomed out of the snow like an alcoholic hallucination. He turned into the lot and had to drive halfway to the back to find a parking space. The casinos were always full, even at midnight, even in a blizzard.
    A uniformed security officer stood just inside the doors, eyes watchful. Stadic asked, “Where’s the phone?” and the security man pointed down the length of the casino. “Outside any of the restrooms,” he said.
    The first phone, mounted on the wall between the men’s and women’s restrooms, was occupied by a woman who appeared to be in crisis: she had a handkerchief in her hand and she twisted it and untwisted it as she cried into the phone. Stadic moved on, found another one. The noise from the slots might be a problem, he thought, but he needed the phone. He cupped his hand around the receiver and dialed the fire station.
    A sleepy man answered. Stadic, watching the casino traffic, said, “This is Sergeant Manfred Hamm with the Minnesota Highway Patrol out of Taylors Falls, Minnesota. To whom am I speaking?”
    The sleepy man said, “Uh, this is Jack, uh, Lane.”
    “Mr. Lane, you’re with the Turtle Lake Fire Department?”
    “Uh, yeah?”
    “Would you by any chance cover a rural fire route, Mr. and Mrs. Elmore Darling?”
    “Uh, yeah.” Lane was waking up.
    “Mr. Lane, we’ve got a problem here. Mrs. Darling has been involved in an automobile accident outside of Taylors Falls, and we need to send a man to speak to Mr. Darling. We don’t know exactly where his house is, as all we have is a rural route address. Would you have a location on the Darling house?”
    “Well, uh . . . Just a minute there.”
    Stadic heard the fireman talking to somebody, and a moment later he came back: “Sergeant Baker?”
    “Sergeant Hamm,” Stadic said.
    “Oh, yeah, Hamm, sorry. The Darlings live at fire number twelve-eighty-nine. You stay on Highway 8, and you go a little more than a mile past the Highway 63 turnoff, and you’ll see Kk going to the south. They’re about a mile down that road . . . You’ll see a red sign by the driveway, says, Township Almena and the number. Twelve-eighty-nine. Got that?”
    “Yes, thank you,” Stadic said, scribbling it down. “We’ll send a man.”
    “Was, uh, the accident . . . ?”
    “We’re not allowed to say more until the next of kin are located,” Stadic said formally. Then: “Thank you again.”
     
     
     
    THE SNOWFALL HAD eased as he crept out Kk, trying to stay in