Winter Prey

little dingbats—that’s what they call them, dingbats—at the ends of the stories. They look like playing-card suits. Hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs. I’ve never seen that anywhereelse, but I’ve seen it with this guy.” Domeier’s voice was rusty but casual, the kind of cop who chewed gum while he drank coffee.
    “Can we get our hands on him?” Lucas asked.
    “No problem. He works out of his apartment, up on the north side off I-43. He’s a crippled guy, does Macintosh services.”
    “Macintosh? Like the computer?”
    “Exactly. He does magazine stuff, cheap,” Domeier said. “Makeup, layout, that stuff.”
    “We got four dead up here,” Lucas said.
    “I been reading about it. I thought it was three.”
    “There’ll be another in the paper tomorrow morning, a little kid.”
    “No shit?” Polite interest.
    “We think the killer might have hit the family because of the picture on that page,” Lucas said.
    “I can talk to this guy right now or you could come down and we could both go see him,” Domeier said. “Whatever you want.”
    “Why don’t I come down?”
    “Tomorrow?”
    “How about this afternoon or tonight?” Lucas said.
    “I’d have to talk to somebody here about overtime, but if your chief called down . . . I could use the bucks.”
    “I’ll get him to call. Where’ll we meet?” Lucas asked.
    “There’s a doughnut place, right off the interstate.”

    Carr was unhappy about the trip: “We need pressure up here. I could send somebody else.”
    “I want to talk to this guy,” Lucas said. “Think about it: he may have seen our man. He may know him.”
    “All right. But hurry, okay?” Carr said anxiously. “Have you heard about Phil?”
    “Bergen? What?”
    “He showed up for Mass. We’d been looking for him, couldn’t find him, then he drove up a half hour before Mass, wouldn’t talk to us. After his regular sermon atMass this morning, he said he needed to talk to us as friends and neighbors. And he just let it out: he said he knew about the talk in town. He said he had nothing to do with the LaCourts or John Mueller, but that the suspicion was killing him. He said that he’d gotten drunk the night we found him, and said last night he’d gone to Hayward and started drinking again. Said he got right to the edge, right to the place where he couldn’t get back, and he stopped. Said he talked to Jesus and stopped drinking. He asked us to pray for him.”
    “And you believe him?” Lucas asked.
    “Absolutely. But you’d have to have been there to understand it. The man spoke to Jesus Christ, and while he was talking to us, the Holy Spirit was there in the church. You could feel it—it was like a . . . warmth. When Phil was walking away from the altar after the Mass, he broke down and began to cry, and you could feel the Spirit descending.” Carr’s eyes were glazing as he relived it. Lucas stepped away, spooked.
    “I got a call from my nun friend,” Lucas said. Carr wrenched himself back to the present. “She checked out some Church sources. They say Bergen’s straight. Never had any sexual interest in men. That’s not a hundred percent, of course.”
    Carr said, “Which leaves us the question of Bob Dell.”
    “We’ve got to talk to Bergen again. You can do it today or wait until I get back.”
    “We’ll have to wait,” Carr said. “After this morning, Phil’s way beyond me.”
    “I’ll try to get back tonight,” Lucas said. “But I might not. If I don’t, could you put somebody with Weather?”
    “Yeah. I’ll have Gene go on over,” Carr said.
    Weather declared John Mueller dead under suspicious circumstances and ordered the body shipped to a forensic pathologist in Milwaukee. Lucas told her he was leaving, explained, and said he would try to get back.
    “That’s a twelve-hour round trip,” she said. “Take it easy.”
    “Gene’ll take me into town. Could you catch a ride with Shelly?”
    “Sure.” They were standing next to Climpt’s truck, a few feet from Climpt and Carr. When he turned to get in, she caught him and kissed him. “But hurry back.”
    On the way back, Climpt said, “You ever thought about having kids?”
    “I’ve got one. A daughter,” Lucas said. And then remembered Weather’s story about Climpt’s daughter.
    Climpt nodded, said, “Lucky man. I had a daughter, but she was killed in an accident.”
    “Weather told me about it,” Lucas said.
    Climpt glanced at him and grinned. He could