Winter Prey

the house was quiet. “Weather?” No answer. His stomach tightened and he walked through the front room. No sign of trouble. “Hey, Weather?”
    Still no answer. He noticed that the curtain was caught inthe sliding door, walked over to it, and turned on the porch light. There were fresh tracks across the snow-covered deck. He pushed the door open.
    And heard her laughing, and felt something go loose in his knees. She was all right. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Weather . . .”
    “Yeah, yeah, we’re coming.”
    She came up the lake bank on skis, out of the night; fifty feet behind her, floundering, lathered with sweat, Climpt followed.
    “Gene’s never been on skis before,” she said, laughing. “I’ve been embarrassing him.”
    “Never fuckin’ again,” Climpt rasped as he toiled behind in her tracks. “I’m too old for this shit. My goddamn crotch feels like it’s gonna fall off. Christ, I need a cigarette.”
    Weather’s smile faded. “Henry Lacey called. He said you might have something.”
    “Yeah. Come on in and get your skis off,” Lucas said. He started to turn back to the house, but first stooped and kissed her on the nose.
    “Now, that’s embarrassing,” Climpt said. “On the nose?”

    Lucas shook the photo out of the manila envelope onto the kitchen counter and Weather bent over it. “Better picture,” she said. She looked at it, then up at Lucas, puzzled. “What?”
    “Look at the guy’s leg. It looks like a quilt. I’m told they might be skin grafts.”
    Weather peered at the photo, looked up at Lucas, stunned, looked at the photo again, then turned to Climpt. “Jesus, it’s Duane.”
    “Duane?” asked Lucas. “The fireman?”
    “Yeah—Duane Helper. The fireman who saw Father Phil. He was at the station . . . how’d he do that?”

    Carr had spent the afternoon at a motel, but still looked desperately weary. He was unshaven, his hair uncombed,his eyes swollen as though he’d been crying. He looked curiously at Weather and then back to Lucas. “What’d you get?”
    Lacey came in just as Carr asked the question, and Lucas pushed the door shut behind him.
    “Got a better picture,” Lucas said, handing it to him across the desk. “If you look really close—you couldn’t see it in the newsprint picture—you can see that his leg looks patched up. Those are skin grafts. Weather says it’s Duane Helper.”
    “Duane? How could it be . . . ?”
    “We’ve been talking, Gene and I, and we think the first thing we gotta do, tonight, is pick up Dick Westrom,” Lucas said. “We don’t know what he has to do with it, except that he backs up Helper’s story. We put him on the grill. If we need to, we lock him up until we find out more about Helper.”
    “Why don’t we just grab him? Helper?” Carr asked.
    “We’ve been thinking about a trial,” Lucas said, tipping his head toward Climpt. Climpt was rolling an unlit cigarette around his mouth. “Helper dropped the gun and knife on Bergen. A defense attorney will use that—he’ll put Bergen on trial. All we’ve got is a bad picture, and the only witness we know for sure is Jim Harper, and he’s dead. Nothing on the Schoeneckers?”
    “No. Can’t find Harper either,” Lacey said. “They dropped off the earth.”
    “Or they’re out in the goddamn snow somewhere, with coyotes chewing on them,” Climpt said.
    “Dammit.” Lucas bit his thumbnail, thinking, then shook his head, looked at Carr. “Shelly, I really think we gotta get Westrom in here. We gotta figure out what happened.”
    Carr nodded. “Then let’s do it. You want to go get him?”
    “You should,” Lucas said. “One way or another, we’re gonna break this thing. Since you’re an elected sheriff . . .”
    “Right.” Carr took a set of keys out of his pocket, opened his bottom desk drawer, and pulled out a patrol-style gun belt with a revolver. He stood up and strapped it on. “Haven’t seen this thing in months. Let’s go get him.”

    Carr, Climpt, and Lucas went after Westrom while Lacey and Weather waited at Carr’s office. “We’ll bring him in the front so we don’t have to go by dispatch,” Carr told Lacey as they left. “We want to keep this quiet. We’ll call you before we start back so you can open the door for us.”
    “Okay. What about his wife?” Lacey asked.
    Carr looked at Lucas. “We oughta ask her to come along,” Lucas said. “I mean, if Westrom’s in this with Helper, then