Winter Prey

snapping as they expanded when the furnace came on, a scraping sound from outside—a snow shovel.
    He went to the kitchen for a glass of water, caught sight of himself in a glass-fronted cabinet as he drank it. An older man now, permanent wrinkles in his forehead, hair thinning, paunch descending; a man coarsened by the work, a man whose best days were behind him. A man who would never leave Ojibway County . . . Ah, well.
    He heard the ragged drag of a shovel again, went to the front window, parted the drapes with his fingertips, looked out. Across the street and three houses down, one of the McLaren kids was scraping at a sidewalk with a snow shovel. Small kid, eleven o’clock at night. The McLarens were a family in distress: alcohol again, McLaren himself gone most of the time. Bergen turned back to his work chair, made a few more changes on the word processing screen, then saved the sermon to both the hard disk and a backup floppy, printed a new copy for himself.
    There’s a devil among us. And somebody here in this church may know who it is.
    Maybe he should harden it:
    Somebody here in this church knows who it is.
    But that might suggest more than he wanted.

    The knock at the door startled him.
    He stopped in midsentence, turned, looked at the door, and muttered to himself, “Bless me.” And then smiled at himself. Bless me? He was getting old. Must be Shelly Carr, coming to talk. Or Joe, making a check?
    Stepping to the window, he parted the drapes again and looked out sideways at the porch. A man on the porch, a big man. Davenport, his interrogator, was a big man. With Lucas’ face in his mind, Bergen went to the door, opened it, could see almost nothing through the frosted-over storm-door glass, pushed open the storm door and peered out.
    “Yes?”

    The Iceman’s face was wrapped in a red-plaid scarf, the top of his head covered by a ski mask rolled up and worn like a watch cap. From the street, his face would be a furry unrecognizable cube, muffled and hatted, like everybody else. When he passed the time and temperature sign on the bank, it had been four below zero.
    He was high from the attack on Weather, and angry. He’d missed again. Things didn’t work like he thought they would. They just did not. He needed to plan better. He didn’t foresee the possibility that the deputy would keep the truck rolling. Somehow, in his mind, the first shotgun blasts derailed the truck. But why would he think that? Too much TV?
    Now the cops would focus on Weather. Who did she know that was involved in the case? He had to give them an answer, something that would hold them for a while.
    And thinking about it, he became excited. This plan would work. This one would . . .
    He stood on the rectory stoop, his left hand wrapped around the stock of the .44. Bergen was home, all right. The lights were on, and he’d seen a shadow on the drapes from where he’d been watching down the street. Facing the house, he reached up with his gloved right hand and pulled the ski mask down across his face. Then he knockedand half-turned to look back across the street, where some crazy kid was piling snow in a heap in his front yard. The kid paid no attention to him. He turned back to the house and gripped the storm-door handle with his right hand.
    Bergen came to the door, pushed the storm door open two or three inches, leaned his head toward it. “Yes?”
    The .44 was already coming up in the Iceman’s left hand. With his right he jerked the door open, surged forward, the gun out, pointed at Bergen’s forehead.
    The priest reeled back, one hand up, as though to ward off the bullet.
    “Get back,” the Iceman snarled. “Get back, get back.”
    He thrust the oversized pistol at the priest, who was backing through his living room. “What?” he said. “What?”
    The Iceman jerked the storm door shut, then backed against the inner door until he heard the latch snap.
    “Sit down on the couch. Sit down.”
    “What?” Bergen’s eyes were large, his face white. He made a broom-whisking motion with his hand, like he’d sweep the Iceman away. “Get out of here. Get out.”
    “Shut up or I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out,” the Iceman snapped.
    “What?” Bergen seemed stuck on the word, uncomprehending. He dropped onto the couch, head tilted back, mouth open.
    “I want the truth about the LaCourts,” the Iceman rasped. “They were my friends.”
    Bergen stared at him, trying to penetrate the ski mask. He