Winter Prey

hospital can fit them on one nursing shift. One surgical tech, one anesthesiologist, one circulating nurse. Keeps the costs down.”
    “Yeah, surgeons are famous for that,” Lucas mumbled. “Go the fuck away.”
    “You didn’t say that last night,” she said. But Lucaspulled the bed covers over his head. She bent over him, pulled the blanket down, kissed him on the temple, and pulled the cover back up and walked out, humming.
    Five minutes later she was back. She whispered, “You awake?”
    “Yes.”
    “Rusty’s here to take me down to the hospital,” she said. “I checked the TV weather. There’s another storm coming up from the southwest and we could get hit. They say it should start late tonight or early tomorrow. I’m outa here.”

    Lucas made it down to the courthouse at nine o’clock, yawning, face braced by the cold. The sky overhead was sunny, but a finger of slate-colored cloud hung off to the southwest, like smoke from a distant volcano. Dan Jones, the newspaper editor, was just climbing out of his Bronco as Lucas got out of his truck and they walked up to the sheriff’s department together.
    “So Bergen’s not the guy?” he asked.
    “I don’t think so. We should hear something from Milwaukee today.”
    “If he’s not the guy, how long before you get him?” Jones asked.
    “Something’ll break,” Lucas said. The words sounded hollow. “Something’ll give. I’d be surprised if it was a week.”
    “Will the FBI help?”
    “Sure. We can always use extra resources,” Lucas said.
    “I meant really  . . . off the record.”
    Lucas looked at him and said, “If a reporter screws me one time, I never talk to him again.”
    “I wouldn’t screw you,” Jones said.
    Lucas looked him in the eyes for a moment, then nodded. “All right. The goddamn FBI couldn’t find a Coke can in a six-pack of Budweiser. They’re not bad guys—well, some of them are—but most of them are basically bureaucrats, scared to death they’ll fuck up and get a bad personnelreport. So they don’t do anything. They’re frozen. I suggested some computer stuff they could do and they jumped at it. High-tech, nothing to foul up, don’t have to go outdoors.”
    “What’ll break it? What are you looking at?”
    “Still off the record?” Lucas asked.
    “Sure.”
    “I can’t figure out why Bergen was killed. He was involved right from the first day, so there must be something about him. He was seen leaving the LaCourts’, admitted it, but they couldn’t have been alive when he left. Or if they were, something’s seriously out of whack. We’ve gone back to the firemen who saw him, and they’re both solid, and there’s no reason to think that they’re lying. Something’s screwed up and we don’t know what. If I can figure that out . . .” Lucas shook his head, thinking.
    “What else?”
    “That picture I showed you. We think the killer was looking for it, but there’s nothing in it,” Lucas said. “Maybe he just hasn’t seen it and doesn’t know the top of his body’s cut off. But that’s hard to believe, ’cause it was a Polaroid.”
    “You need a better print than the one you’re looking at,” Jones said.
    “The original was destroyed. So was the what-cha-callit, not the stickup . . .”
    Jones grinned. “The pasteup?”
    “Yeah, the pasteup,” Lucas said. “They were shoved into a shredder and sent out to the landfill, like six months ago.”
    “What about the offset negative?”
    “The what?” Lucas asked.

    Carr was unhappy: “ . . . I don’t want you leaving. Too much is going on,” he said. He hunched over his desk, head down. A man confused, perhaps desperate. Mourning.
    “It’s the only thing I’ve got,” Lucas said. “What am I supposed to do, go interview more school kids?”
    “Then fly,” Carr said. “You can be there in an hour and a half.”
    “Man, I hate planes,” Lucas said. He could feel his stomach muscles contract at the thought of flying.
    “How about a helicopter?” Lacey asked.
    “A helicopter? I can deal with a helicopter,” Lucas said, nodding.
    “We can have one at the airport in twenty minutes,” Lacey said.
    “Get it,” said Lucas, stepping toward the door.
    “I want you back here tonight, whatever happens,” Carr called after him. “We got a storm coming in.”
    Climpt had been standing in the doorway, smoking. “Take care of Weather,” Lucas said.

    Domeier, the Milwaukee cop, had the day off. Lucas left a