Winter Prey

his wife’s probably involved at some level. If she tipped Helper off, we’d be screwed.”
    “What if she doesn’t want to come?” Carr asked.
    Lucas shrugged. “Then we bust her. You can always apologize later.”
    Westrom was wearing blue flannel pajamas when he came to the door. He first peeked out, saw Carr, frowned, opened the inner door and pushed open the storm door. “Shelly? What’s going on? Nothing’s happened to Tommy?”
    “No, nothing happened to Tommy,” Carr said. He stepped forward, into the house, and Lucas and Climpt pressed in behind them. “We need to talk to you, Dick,” Carr said. “You better get dressed.”
    If Westrom was guilty of anything, Lucas decided, he deserved an Academy Award for acting. He was getting angry. “Why dressed? Shelly, what the hell is going on?”
    Westrom’s wife, a small woman with pink plastic curlers in her hair, stepped into the room, wearing a robe. “Shelly?”
    “You better get dressed, too, Janice. We need you to come down to the courthouse. We’ll talk about it there.”
    “Well, what’s it about?” Westrom asked.
    “About the LaCourt killings,” Carr said. “We’ve got more questions.”

    While the Westroms were dressing, Carr asked, “What do you think?”
    “They don’t know what’s happening,” Lucas said. “Who’s Tommy?”
    “That’s their boy,” said Climpt. “He goes to college down in Eau Claire.”

    The Westroms thought they wanted a lawyer. And they didn’t want Weather in the room. “What’s she here for?”
    “She’s another witness,” Carr said, glancing at Weather.
    “About a lawyer . . .”
    “And we’ll get you a lawyer if you really want one. But honestly, if you haven’t done anything, you won’t need one, and it’ll be a big expense,” Carr said. “You know me, Dick. I won’t bust you just for show.”
    “We didn’t do anything,” Westrom protested. His wife, in jeans and a yellow sweatshirt, kept looking between Carr and her husband.
    “What happened the night of the fire?” Lucas asked. “You were cooking and Duane was there, and he was looking out the window . . .”
    “We’ve told you a hundred times,” Westrom insisted. “Honest to God, that’s what happened.”
    Lucas stared at him for a moment, then said, “Did you actually see Father Phil’s Jeep? I mean . . .”
    “Yeah, I saw it.”
    “ . . . could you have identified it from where you were standing if Helper hadn’t been there? Could you have said, ‘That’s Father Bergen’s Jeep’?”
    Westrom stared down at the floor for a moment, thinking, then said, “Well, no. I mean, I saw the lights as it went by—and Father Phil admitted it was him.”
    “Like regular truck lights?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Bergen was pulling a trailer,” Lucas said suddenly.
    Westrom frowned. “I didn’t see any trailer lights,” he said.
    Weather had been looking at Lucas and she picked up on him. “If you don’t mind me asking, Dick, what were you doing before you were cooking? Just hanging out?”
    Lucas glanced up at her and nodded, cracked a small smile. Westrom said, “Well, kinda. I came on, took a nap, then Duane called and I went down . . .”
    “How long were you sleeping?” Lucas asked intently.
    “An hour maybe,” Westrom said. He looked around at them. “What?”
    “Do you usually take a nap when you go on duty at the fire station?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “How often? What percentage of times?”
    “Well, it’s just my routine. I get out there around five, take a nap for an hour or so. Nothing to do. Duane’s not much company. Maybe we watch a little TV.”
    “Duane’s got a snowmobile?”
    “Arctic Cat,” said Westrom.
    Lucas nodded, glanced at Carr. “That’s it. It took timing, but that’s it.”
    Carr leaned across his desk. “Dick, Janice, I hate to inconvenience you, but we’d like you to stay here overnight—for your own protection. You don’t have to stay in jail—we could find an empty office and put some bedding inside—but we want you safe until we can arrest him.”
    Westrom looked at Lucas, at Carr, and then at his wife. Janice Westrom spoke up for the first time since she arrived at the courthouse. “We’ll do anything you want if you think he might come looking for us,” she said. She shivered. “Anything you want.”

    When they were gone, Lucas said, “You want me to run it down?”
    “Go ahead,” said Carr, leaning back in his chair. He