Winter Prey

his elbows on his knees, laced his fingers, leaning toward the priest.
    “Yes?” Bergen frowned.
    “When I called, you said the LaCourts were okay when you left.”
    “Yes, they were fine,” Bergen said, his head bobbing. He was assured, innocent. “They didn’t seem nervous. How were they killed, anyway? Is it possible that one of them . . .” He answered his own question, shaking his head. “No, not them.”
    “A fireman saw your Jeep passing the station,” Carr continued. “A few seconds later the fire call came in. When the firemen got there, maybe five or six minutes later, it appeared that the LaCourts had been dead for some time. A half hour, maybe more.”
    “That’s not possible,” Bergen said promptly. He straightened, looked from Lucas to Carr, a shadow in his eyes. Suspicion. “Shelly . . . you don’t think I was involved?”
    “No, no, we’re just trying to straighten this out.”
    “So what were they doing when you left?” Lucas asked.
    Bergen stared at him, then said, “You’re the homicide fellow who lives over in Sawyer County. The man who was fired from Minneapolis.”
    “What were you doing?” Lucas repeated.
    “Shelly?” The priest looked at the sheriff, who looked away.
    “We’ve got to figure this out, Phil.”
    “Mr. Davenport is a mercenary, isn’t he?” Bergen asked, looking again at Lucas.
    “We need him, Phil,” Carr said, almost pleading now. “We’ve got nobody else who can do it. And he’s a good Catholic boy.”
    “What were you doing?” Lucas asked a third time. He put glass in his voice, a cutting edge.
    The priest pursed his lips, moving them in and out, considering both Lucas and the question, then sighed and said, “When I left, they were fine. There was not a hint of a problem. I came right back here, and I was still here when Shelly called.”
    “The firemen say there’s no mistaking the time,” Lucas said. “They’re certain.”
    “I’m certain, too,” Bergen snapped.
    Lucas: “How long were you there at the house?”
    “Fifteen minutes, something like that,” Bergen said. He’d turned himself to face Lucas more directly.
    “Did you eat anything?”
    “Cupcakes. A glass of milk,” Bergen said.
    “Were the cupcakes hot?”
    “No, but as a matter of fact, she was frosting them while we talked.”
    “When you left, did you stop anywhere on the way out? Even pause?”
    “No.”
    “So you went right out to your Jeep, got in, drove as fast as seemed reasonable to get out of the road.”
    “Well . . . I probably fiddled around in the Jeep for a minute before I left, a minute or two,” Bergen said. He knewwhere they were going, and began to stretch the time. “But I didn’t see any sign of trouble before I left.”
    “Was the television on?” Lucas asked.
    “Mmm, no, I don’t think so.”
    “How about the radio?”
    “No. We were talking,” Bergen said.
    “Was there a newspaper on the table?”
    “I just can’t remember,” Bergen said, his voice rising. “What are these questions?”
    “Can you remember anything that would be peculiar to this day, that you saw inside the LaCourt house, that might still be there, that might have survived the fire? A book sitting on a table? Anything?”
    “Well . . .” The priest scratched the side of his nose. “No, not particularly. I’ll think about it. There must be something.”
    “Did you look at the clock when you got home?”
    “No. But I hadn’t been here long when Shelly called.”
    Lucas looked at Carr. “Shelly, could you call in and have somebody patch you through to the LaCourt house, and tell somebody to go into the kitchen and check to see if there was a bowl of frosting.”
    He turned his head back to Bergen: “Was the frosting in a bowl or out of one of those cans?”
    “Bowl.”
    To Carr: “ . . . check and see if there was a frosting bowl or a cupcake tin in the sink or around the table.”
    “Sure.”
    “She might have washed the dishes,” Bergen suggested.
    “There couldn’t have been too much time,” Lucas said.
    “Use the office phone, Shelly,” the priest said to Carr.
    He and Lucas watched the sheriff pad down the hall, then Lucas asked, “Did Frank LaCourt come outside when you left?”
    “No. He said good-bye at the door. At the kitchen table, actually. Claudia came to the door. Did you go to Catholic schools?”
    “Through high school,” Lucas said.
    “Is this what they taught you? To interrogate