Winter Prey

experienced barehanded fighter, elbows in. The Iceman threw the rock at Wynan’s forehead. Since his hand was only a foot away when he let go, there was almost no way to miss.
    Wynan went down with a depressive fracture of the skull. He almost died.
    And the Iceman to the cops: I was scared, he was coming with his whole gang, that’s all he does is beat up kids, I just picked up the rock and threw it.
    His mother had picked him up at the police station (his father was gone by then, never to be seen again). In the car, his mother started in on him: Wait till I get you home, she said. Just wait.
    And the Iceman, in the car, lifted a finger to her face and said, You ever fuckin’ touch me again I’ll wait until you’re asleep and I’ll get a hammer and I’ll beat your head in. You ever touch me again, you better never go to sleep.
    She believed him. A good thing, too. She was still alive.

    He turned off the hot water, dried his hands on a dish towel. Need to think. So much to do. He forgot about the soup, went and sat in his television chair, stared at the blank screen.
    He had never seen the photograph as it had been reproduced, although he’d seen the original Polaroid. He had been stupid to let the boy keep it. And when the boy had sent it away . . .

    “We’re gonna be famous,” the kid said.
    “What?” They were smoking cigarettes in the trailer’s back bedroom, the boy relaxing against a stack of pillows; the Iceman had both feet on the floor, his elbows on his knees.
    The boy rolled over, looked under the bed, came up with what looked like a newspaper. He flipped it at the Iceman. There were dozens of pictures, boys and men.
    “What’d you do?” the Iceman asked; but in his heart he knew, and the anger swelled in his chest.
    “Sent in the picture. You know, the one with you and me on the couch.”
    “You fuck.”
    The Iceman lurched at him; the boy giggled, barely struggling, not understanding. The Iceman was on his chest, straddling him, got his thumbs on the boy’s throat . . . and then Jim Harper knew. His eyes rolled up and his mouth opened and the Iceman . . .
    Did what? Remembered backing away, looking at the body. Christ. He’d killed him.

    The Iceman jumped to his feet, reliving it and the search for a place to dump the body. He thought about throwing it in a swamp. He thought about shooting him with a shotgun,leaving the gun, so it might look like a hunting accident. But Jim didn’t hunt. And his father would know, and his father was nuts. Then he remembered the kid talking about something he’d read about in some magazine, about people using towel racks, the rush you got, better than cocaine . . .
    The Iceman, safe at home, growled: thinking. Everything so difficult. He’d tried to track the photo, but the magazine gave no clue to where it might be. Nothing but a Milwaukee post office box. He didn’t know how to trace it without showing his face. After a while he’d calmed down. The chances of the photo being printed were small, and even if it was printed, the chances of anyone local seeing it were even smaller.
    And then, when he’d almost forgotten about it, he’d gotten the call from Jim Harper’s insane father. The LaCourts had a photo.
    Remember the doctor.
    Yes. Weather . . .
    If the photo turned up, no one would immediately recognize him except the doctor. Without the doctor, they might eventually identify him, but he’d know they were looking, and that would give him time.
    He got to his feet, went to wall pegs where he’d hung his snowmobile suit over a radiator vent. The suit was just barely enough on a night like this. Even with the suit, he wouldn’t want to be out too long. He pulled it on, slipped his feet into his pac boots, laced them tight, then dug into his footlocker for the .44. It was there, wrapped in an oily rag, nestled in the bottom with his other guns. He lifted it out, the second time he’d use it today. The gun was heavy in his hand, solid, intricate, efficient.
    He worked it out, slowly, piece by piece:
    Weather Karkinnen drove a red Jeep, the only red Jeep at the LaCourt home. She’d have to take the lake road out to Highway 77, and then negotiate the narrow, windblown road back to town. She’d be moving slow . . . if she was still at the LaCourt house.

    Weather’s work was finished. The bodies were covered and would be left in place until the crime lab people arrived from Madison. She’d performed all her legal