Winter Prey

gonna confine us to the boy’s room, but I got him to include his other personal effects—we can look inside closets and cupboards and so on, in the main rooms. Of course, if we see anything that’s clearly illegal . . .”
    “Yeah. By the way, Gene Climpt . . .”
    “ . . . invited himself along, which is fine with me. Gene’s a tough old bird. And Lacey’s coming; said he didn’t want to miss it.”
    They’d walked around the church and started down the carefully shoveled sidewalk to the rectory.
    “How many accidents has Bergen had? Car accidents?” Lucas asked.
    Carr looked at him, frowning, and said, “Why?”
    “I heard you fixed a couple of drunk-driving tickets for him,” Lucas said. “I just wondered if he ever hit anything.”
    “Where’d you hear . . .”
    “Rumors, Shelly. Has he ever hit anything?”
    They’d stopped on the sidewalk and Carr stared at him for a moment and said, finally, “I got no leverage with you. You don’t need the job.”
    “So . . .”
    Carr started down the walk again. “He was in a one-car accident three years ago, hit a pylon at the end of a bridge, totaled out the car. He was drunk. He got caught two other times, drunk. One was pretty marginal. The other time he was on his butt.”
    “Gotta be careful about your relationship with him,” Lucas said. “People are talking about this. The driving problems.”
    “Who?”
    “Just people,” Lucas said.
    Carr sighed. “Darn it, Lucas.”
    “Bergen lied to me yesterday,” Lucas said. “He told me he was a good driver . . . a small lie but it kind of throws some doubt on the rest of what he said.”
    “I don’t understand it,” Carr said. “I know in my soul that he’s innocent. I just can’t understand what he’s hiding. If he’s hiding anything. Maybe we just don’t understand the sequence.”
    They were at the rectory door. Carr pushed the doorbell and they fell silent, hands in their pockets, breathing long gouts of steam out into the night air. After a moment Carr frowned, pushed the doorbell again. They could hear the chimes inside.
    “I know he’s here,” Carr said. He stepped back from the porch, looked at the lighted windows, then pushed the doorbell a third time. There was a noise from inside, a thump, and Carr stood on his tiptoes to peer through the small window set in the door.
    “Oh, no,” he groaned. He pulled open the storm door and pushed through the inner door, Lucas trailing behind. The priest stood in the hallway, leaning on one wall, looking at them. He was wearing a white t-shirt, pulled out of his black pants, and gray wool socks. His hair stood almost straight up, as though he’d been electrocuted. He was holding a glass and the room smelled of bourbon.
    “You idiot,” Carr said quietly. He walked across the room and took the glass from the priest, who let it go, his hand slack. Carr turned back toward Lucas as though looking for a place to throw it.
    “You know what they’re saying,” Bergen said at Carr’s back. “They’re saying I did it.”
    “Jesus, we’ve been trying . . .” Lucas started.
    “Don’t you blaspheme in this house!” the priest shouted.
    “I’ll kick your ass if you give me trouble,” Lucas shouted back. He crossed the carpet, walking around Carr, who caught at his coat sleeve, and confronted the priest: “What happened out at the LaCourts’?”
    “They were alive when I saw them!” Bergen shouted.
    “They were alive—every one of them!”
    “Did you have a relationship with Claudia LaCourt? Now or ever?”
    The priest seemed startled: “A relationship? You mean sexual?”
    “That’s what I mean,” Lucas snapped. “Were you screwing her?”
    “No. That’s ridiculous.” The wind went out of him, and he staggered to a La-Z-Boy and dropped into it, looking up at Lucas in wonder. “I mean, I’ve never . . . What are you asking?”
    Carr had stepped into the kitchen, came back with an empty Jim Beam bottle, held it up to Lucas.
    “I’ve heard rumors that the two of you might be involved.”
    “No, no,” Bergen said, shaking his head. He seemed genuinely astonished. “When I was in the seminary, I slept with a woman from a neighboring college. I also got drunk and was talked into . . . having sex with a prostitute. One time. Just once. After I was ordained, never. I never broke my vows.”
    His face had gone opaque, either from whiskey or calculation.
    “Have you ever had a homosexual