Winter Prey

Some were burned, but every step or two, a clear, happy face would look up at him, wide-eyed, well-lit. Better days.
    Two deputies were working through the house with cameras: one with a video camera, the power wire running down his collar under his parka, the other with a 35mm Nikon.
    “My hands are freezing,” the video man stuttered.
    “Go on down to the garage,” Carr said. “Don’t get yourself hurt.”
    “There’re a couple gallon jugs of hot coffee and some paper cups in my truck. The white Explorer in the parking lot,” Lucas said. “Doors are open.”
    “Th-thanks.”
    “Save some for me,” Carr said. And to Lucas: “Where’d you get the coffee?”
    “Stopped at Dow’s Corners on the way over and emptied out their coffeemaker. I did six years on patrol and I must’ve froze my ass off at a hundred of these things.”
    “Huh. Dow’s.” Carr squinted, digging in a mental file. “That’s still Phil and Vickie?”
    “Yeah. You know them?”
    “I know everybody on Highway 77, from Hayward in Sawyer County to Highway 13 in Ashland County,” Carr said matter-of-factly. “This way.”
    He led the way down a charred hall past a bathroom door to a small bedroom. The lakeside wall was gone and blowing snow sifted through the debris. The body was under a burnt-out bedframe, the coil springs resting on the girl’s chest. One of the portable lights was just outside the window, and cast flat, prying light on the scorched wreckage, but left the girl’s face in almost total darkness: but not quite total. Lucas could see her improbably white teeth smiling from the char.
    Lucas squatted, snapped on the flash, grunted, turned it off and stood up again.
    “Made me sick,” said Carr. “I was with the highway patrol before I got elected sheriff. I saw some car wrecks you wouldn’t believe. They didn’t make me sick. This did.”
    “Accidents are different,” Lucas agreed. He looked around the room. “Where’s the other one?”
    “Kitchen,” Carr said. They started down the hall again. “Why’d he burn the place?” Carr asked, his voice pitching up. “It couldn’t have been to hide the killings. He left Frank’s body right out in the yard. If he’d just taken off, it might have been a day or two before anybody came out. Was he bragging about it?”
    “Maybe he was thinking about fingerprints. What’d LaCourt do?”
    “He worked down at the res, at the Eagle Casino. He was a security guy.”
    “Lots of money in casinos,” Lucas said. “Was he in trouble down there?”
    “I don’t know,” Carr said simply.
    “How about his wife?”
    “She was a teacher’s aide.”
    “Any marital problems or ex-husbands wandering around?” Lucas asked.
    “Well, they were both married before. I’ll check Frank’s ex-wife, but I know her, Jean Hansen, and she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And Claudia’s ex is Jimmy Wilson and Jimmy moved out to Phoenix three or four winters back, but he wouldn’t do this, either. I’ll check on him, but neither one of thedivorces was really nasty. The people just didn’t like each other anymore. You know?”
    “Yeah, I know. How about the girl? Did she have any boyfriends?”
    “I’ll check that too,” Carr said. “But, uh, I don’t know. I’ll check. She’s pretty young.”
    “There’s been a rash of teenagers killing their families and friends.”
    “Yeah. A generation of weasels.”
    “And teenage boys sometimes mix up fire and sex. You get a lot of teenage firebugs. If there was somebody hot for the girl, it’d be something to look into.”
    “You could talk to Bob Jones at the junior high. He’s the principal and he does the counseling, so he might know.”
    “Um,” Lucas said. His sleeve touched a burnt wall, and he brushed it off.
    “I’m hoping you’ll stay around a while,” Carr blurted. Before Lucas could answer, he said, “Come on down this way.”
    They picked their way toward the other end of the house, through the living room, into the kitchen by the back door. Two heavily wrapped figures were crouched over a third body.
    The larger of the two people stood up, nodded at Carr. He wore a Russian-style hat with the flaps pulled down and a deputy sheriff’s patch on the front. The other, with the bag, was using a metal tool to turn the victim’s head.
    “Can’t believe this weather,” the deputy said. “I’m so fuck—uh, cold I can’t believe it.”
    “Fucking cold is what you meant to say,” said the figure still