Winter Prey

know where he’s at. But I’ll tell you this: I was nukin’ a couple of ham sandwiches . . .”
    “Yeah?” Lucas said, a neutral noise to keep Westrom rolling.
    “And Duane said, ‘There goes Father Phil. Hell of a night to be out.’ Duane was standing by the front window and I saw Phil going by. Just then the buzzer went off on the microwave. I mean right then, when I was looking at the taillights. I says, ‘Well, he’s a big-shot priest with a big-shot Grand Cherokee, so he can go where he wants, when he wants.’ ”
    “Sounds like you don’t care for him,” Lucas said. And Lucas didn’t care for Westrom, the eyes always slipping and sliding.
    “Well, personally, I don’t. But that’s neither here nor there, and he can go about his business,” Westrom said. He pursed his lips in disapproval. His eyes touched Lucas’ face and then skipped away. “Anyway, I was taking the sandwiches out, they’re in these cellophane packets, youknow, and I was just trying to grab them by the edges and not get burned. I said ‘Come and get it,’ and the phone rang. Duane picked it up and he said, ‘Oh, shit,’ and punched in the beeper code and said, ‘It’s LaCourts’, let’s go.’ I was still standing there with the sandwiches. Never got to open them. Phil hadn’t gone by more’n ten seconds before. Shelly was trying to get me to say it was a minute or two or three, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t more’n ten seconds and it might have been five.”
    “Huh.” Lucas nodded.
    “Check with Duane,” Westrom said. “He’ll tell you.”
    “Is Duane a friend of yours?”
    “Duane? Well, no. I like him okay. We just don’t, you know . . . relate.”
    “Do you know of anything that Father Bergen might have against the LaCourts?”
    “Nope. But he was close to Claudia,” Westrom said, with a distinct spin on the word close.
    “How close?” Lucas asked, tilting his head.
    Westrom’s eyes wandered around Lucas without settling. “Claudia had a reputation before she married Frank. She got around. She was a pretty thing, too, she had big . . .” Westrom cupped his hands at his chest and bounced them a couple of times. “And Phil . . . He is a man. Being a priest and all, it must be tough.”
    “You think he and Claudia could have been fooling around?” Lucas asked.
    Westrom edged forward in his chair and said confidentially, “I don’t know about that. We probably would have heard if she was. But it might go way back, something with Father Phil. Maybe Phil wanted to get it started again or something.” Westrom’s nose twitched.
    “How many black Jeeps in Ojibway County?” Lucas asked. “There must be quite a few.”
    “Bet there aren’t, not in the winter. Not Grand Cherokees—those are mostly summer-people cars. I can’t think of any besides Phil’s.” He looked at Lucas curiously: “Are you a Catholic?”
    “Why?”
    “ ’Cause you sound like you’re trying to find an excuse for Phil Bergen.”

    Lucas’ notebook cover said, “Westrom, Helper.” He drew a line through Westrom, started the Explorer, headed out Highway 77 to the fire station.
    In the daytime, with sunlight and the roads freshly plowed, the half-hour trip of the night before was cut to ten minutes. From the high points of the road, he could see forever across the low-lying land, with the contrasting black pine forests cut by the silvery glint of the frozen lakes.
    The firehouse was a tan pole barn built on a concrete slab, nestled in a stand of pine just off the highway. One end of the building was dominated by three oversized garage doors for the fire trucks. The office was at the other end, with a row of small windows. Lucas parked in one of four plowed-out spaces and walked into the office, found it empty. Another door led out of the office into the back and Lucas stuck his head through.
    “Hello?”
    “Yeah?” A heavyset blond man sat at a worktable, a fishing reel disassembled in the light of a high-intensity lamp. A thin, almost transparent beard covered his acne-pitted face. His eyes were blue, careful. A small kitchen area was laid out along one wall behind him. At the other end of the room, a broken-down couch, two aging easy chairs and two wooden kitchen chairs faced a color television. Lockers lined a third wall, each locker stenciled with a man’s last name. Another door led back into the truck shed. A flight of stairs went up to a half-loft.
    “I’m looking for Duane Helper,”