Winter Prey

a doc around I can talk to?”
    “Sure. We can stop at the medical examiner’s on the way to the airport. There’ll be somebody on duty.”
    “Can I go home now?” asked Zeke.
    “Er, no,” Domeier said. “Actually, we gotta go get a truck, the two of us.”
    “What for?”
    “I’m gonna take every fuckin’ envelope out of your house, and we’re gonna find somebody to print them up for us. And I’m gonna want those names.”
    Lucas stopped on the way out of the house to call the airport, and got the pilot in the general aviation lounge. “It didn’t take long. I’m on my way.”
    “Hurry. That storm’s coming in fast, man,” the pilot said. “I want to get out of here quick.”

    The assistant medical examiner was sitting in his office, feet on his desk, reading a National Enquirer.
    He nodded at Domeier, looked without interest at Lucas and Zeke. “Breaks my heart, what the younger women have done to the British Royal Family,” he said. He balled up the paper and fired it at a wastebasket. “What the fuck do you want, Domeier? More pictures of naked dead women?”
    “Actually, I want you to look at my friend’s photograph,” Domeier said.
    Lucas handed the doc the print and said, “Can you tell what’s wrong with his leg?”
    Zeke asked, “You don’t really have pictures of naked dead women, do you?”
    The doctor, bent over the photo, muttered, “All the time. If you need some, maybe I can get you a rate.” After a minute he straightened and said, “Burns.”
    “What?”
    He flipped the photo across his desk to Lucas. “Your man’s been burned. Those are skin grafts.”

CHAPTER

23
    Lucas tried to get Carr or Lacey from the airport; the dispatcher said they were out of touch. He called Weather at home, got a busy signal. The pilot was leaning against the back of a chair, impatiently waiting to go. Lucas waited two minutes, tried again: busy.
    “We gotta go, man,” the pilot said. Lucas looked out the lounge windows. He could see airplanes circling ten miles out. “It looks pretty clear.”
    “Man, that storm is coming like a fuckin’ train. We’re gonna get snowed on as it is.”
    “Once more . . .” Weather’s line was still busy. He punched in the dispatcher’s number again: “I’m on my way back. Got something. And if the chopper crashes, a guy named Domeier has the negative. He’s with the Milwaukee sex unit.”
    “If the chopper crashes . . .” the pilot snorted as they walked out of the lounge.
    “Got the heater fixed?” Lucas asked.

    They lifted out of Milwaukee at seven o’clock, six degrees above zero, clear skies, Domeier standing at the gate withZeke until the chopper was off the ground. Zeke waved.
    “Glad you called,” the pilot said. He grinned but he didn’t look happy. “I was getting nervous about waiting until ten. The storm’s already through the Twin Cities. The weather service says they’re getting three to four inches of snow an hour, and it’s supposedly headed right up our way.”
    “You’re not out of Grant, though,” Lucas said.
    “Nope, Park Falls. But we’re both gonna get it.”
    The ground lights were sharp as diamonds in the dry cold air, a long sparkling sweep north and south along the Lake Michigan waterfront, fed by the long, living snakes of the interstates. They headed northwest, past the lesser glitter of Fond du Lac and Oshkosh, individual house lights defining the blankness of Lake Winnebago. Later, they could see the distant glow from Green Bay far off to the east; to the west, there was nothing, and Lucas realized that they’d lost the stars and were now under cloud cover.
    “Do any good?” the pilot asked.
    “Maybe.”
    “When you catch the sonofabitch, you oughta just blow him away. Do us all a favor.”
    They caught the first hint of snow twenty miles from Grant. “No sweat,” said the pilot. “From here we’re on cruise control.”
    They settled down five minutes later, Lucas ducking under the blades, fumbling for the key to the airport Quonset. As soon as he was inside, he could hear the chopper’s rotors pick up, and a moment later it was gone.
    He rolled out of the Quonset, locked the door, and started for town. The snow was light, tiny flakes spitting into his windshield, but with authority. This wasn’t a flurry, this was the start of something.
    Weather’s house was lit up, a sheriff’s Suburban in the drive. He used the remote to lift the garage door, drove in, parked.
    Inside,