Winter Prey

were blue. Her nose seemed to be slightly crooked. “I remember that he killed an awful lot of people,” she said.

    The doctor was freezing, she said, and she led the way toward the front door, the deputy following, Carr stumbling behind. Lucas lingered, looking down at the dead woman. As he turned to leave, he saw a slice of nickeled metal under a piece of crumbled and blackened wallboard. From the curve of it, he knew what it was: the forepart of a trigger guard.
    “Hey,” he called after the others. “Is that camera guy still in the house?”
    Carr called back, “The video guy’s in the garage, but the other guy’s here.”
    “Send him back here, we got a weapon.”
    Carr, Weather, and the photographer came back. Lucas pointed out the trigger guard, and the photographer took two shots of the area. Moving carefully, Lucas lifted the wallboard. A revolver. A nickel-finish Smith and Wesson on a heavy frame, walnut grips. He pushed the board back out of the way, then stood back as the photographer shot the gun in relation to the body.
    “You got a chalk or a grease pencil?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah, and a tape measure.” The photographer groped in his pocket, came up with a grease pencil.
    “Shouldn’t you leave it for the lab guys?” Carr asked nervously.
    “Big frame, could be the murder weapon,” Lucas said. He drew a quick outline around the weapon, then measured the distance of the gun from the wall and the dead woman’s head and one hand, while the photographer noted them. With the measurements done, Lucas handed the grease pencil back to the photographer, looked around, picked up a splinter of wood, pushed it through the fingerguard, behind the trigger, and lifted the pistol from the floor. He looked at the doctor. “Do you have another one of those Ziplocs?”
    “Yes.” She opened her bag, supported it against her leg, dug around, and opened a freezer bag for him. He dropped the gun into it, pointed the barrel at the floor, and through the plastic he pushed the ejection level and swung the cylinder.
    “Six shells, unfired,” he said. “Shit.”
    “Unfired?” Carr asked.
    “Yeah. I don’t think it’s the murder weapon. The killer wouldn’t reload and then drop it on the floor . . . at least I can’t think why he would.”
    “So?” Weather looked up at him.
    “So maybe the woman had it out. I found it about a foot from her hand. She might have seen the guy coming. That means there might have been a feud going on; she knew she was in trouble,” Lucas said. He read the serial number to the photographer, who noted it: “You could try to run it tonight. Check the local gun stores, anyway.”
    “I’ll get it going,” Carr said. Then: “I n-n-need some coffee.”
    “I think you’re fairly hypothermic, Shelly,” Weather said. “What you need is to sit in a tub of hot water.”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    As they climbed down from the front door, Lucas carrying the pistol, another deputy was walking up the driveway. “I got those tarps, Sheriff. They’re right behind me in a Guard truck.”
    “Good. Get some help and cover up the whole works,” Carr said, waving at the house. “There’ll be guys in the garage.” To Lucas he said, “I got some canvas sheets from the National Guard guys and we’re gonna cover the whole house until the guys from Madison get here.”
    “Good.” Lucas nodded. “You really need the lab guys for this. Don’t let anybody touch anything. Not even the bodies.”

    The garage was warm, with deputies and firemen standing around an old-fashioned iron stove stoked with oak splits. The deputy who’d been doing the filming spotted them andcame over with one of Lucas’ Thermos jugs.
    “I saved some,” he said.
    “Thanks, Tommy.” The sheriff nodded, took a cup, hand shaking, passed it to Lucas, then took a cup for himself. “Let’s get over in the corner where we can talk,” he said. Carr walked around the nose of LaCourt’s old Chevy station wagon, away from the gathering of deputies and firemen, turned, took a sip of coffee. He said, “We’ve got a problem.” He stopped, then asked, “You’re not a Catholic, are you?”
    “Dominus vobiscum,” Lucas said. “So what?”
    “You are? I haven’t been in the Church long enough to remember the Latin business,” Carr said. He seemed to think about that for a moment, sipped coffee, then said, “I converted a few years back. I was a Lutheran until I met Father Phil. He’s the parish