He had to stay. He had to find out about the photograph. Had to go back for Weather. He'd missed her twice now, and he was uneasy about it. When he'd been a kid, working the schoolyard, there'd always been a few people he'd never been able to get at. They'd always outmaneuvered him, always foiled him, sometimes goading him into trouble. Weather was like that: he needed to get at her, but she turned him away.
He bucked up over another intersection, down a long bumpy lane cleared through the woods by the local snowmobile club, onto the next lake, and across. He came off the lake, took the boat landing road out to the highway, sat for a moment, then turned left.
The yellow-haired girl was waiting. So was her brother, Mark. Mark with the dark hair and the large brown eyes. The yellow-haired girl let him in, helped him take off his snowmobile suit. Mark was smiling nervously: he was like that, he needed to be calmed. The Iceman liked working with Mark because of the resistance. If the yellow-haired girl hadn't been there…
"Let's go back to my room," she said.
"Where's Rosie?"
"She went out drinking," the yellow-haired girl said.
"I gotta get going," said Mark.
"Where're you going?" Smiling, quiet. But the shooting still boiled in his blood. God, if he could get Weather someplace alone, if he could have her for a while…
"Out with Bob," said Mark.
"It's cold out there," he said.
"I'll be okay," Mark said. He wouldn't meet his eyes. "He's gonna pick me up."
"And I'll be here," said the yellow-haired girl. She was wearing a sweatsuit, old and pilled, wished it were something more elegant for him. She plucked at the pants leg, afraid of what he might say; of cruelty in his words.
But he said, "That's great." He touched her head and the warmth flowed through her.
Later in the evening he was lying in her bed, smoking. He thought of Weather, of Davenport, of Carr, of the picture; of Weather, of Davenport, round and round…
The yellow-haired girl was breathing softly next to him, her hand on his stomach.
He needed time to find out about the photo. If he could just put them off for a few days, he could find out. He could get details. Without the photo, there wouldn't be a link, but he needed time.
CHAPTER 14
The telephone rang in the kitchen.
Lucas let it ring, heard a voice talking into the answering machine. He should get it, he thought. He rolled over and looked at the green luminous numbers on the bedstand clock. Nine-fifteen.
Four hours lying awake, with a few sporadic minutes of sleep. The air in the house was cool, almost cold, and he pulled the blankets up over his ears. The phone rang again, two rings, then stopped as the answering machine came on. There was no talk this time. Whoever it was had hung up.
A minute later the phone rang twice again. Irritated, Lucas thought about getting up. The ringing stopped, and a moment later began again, two more rings. Angry now, he slipped out of bed, wrapped the comforter around his shoulders, stomped down the hall to the kitchen, and glared at the phone.
Ten seconds passed. It rang again, and he snatched it up. "What?" he snarled.
"Ah. I knew you were sleeping in," the nun said with satisfaction. "You've got a message on the answering machine, by the way."
Lucas looked down at the machine, saw the blinking red light. "I'm freezing my butt off. Couldn't…"
"The message isn't from me. I know you've got one because your phone's only ringing twice before the machine answers, instead of four or five times," she said, sounding even more pleased with herself.
"How'd you get the number?"
"Sheriff's secretary," Elle said. "She told me what happened last night, and that you're guarding the body of some lady doctor who's quite attractive. Are you okay, by the way?"
"Elle…" Lucas said impatiently, "You sound too smug for this to be a gossip call."
"I'll be gone for the day and I wanted to talk to you," she said. "I found a couple of Phil Bergen's friends. I didn't want to put it on an answering machine."
"What'd they say?"
"They say he was awkward around women but that he was certainly oriented toward them. He was not interested in men."
"For sure?" Lucas thought, Shit.
"Yes. One of them laughed when I asked the question. Bergen's not a complete 'phobe, but he has a distaste for homosexuals and homosexuality. That attitude wasn't a cover for a secret interest, if you were about to ask me that."
Lucas chewed on his lower lip, then said, "Okay. I appreciate your help."
"Lucas, these are people who would know," Elle said. "One was Bergen's college confessor. He wouldn't have talked to me if homosexuality had ever been broached in confession, so it must not have been. And it would have been."
"All right," Lucas said. "Dammit. That makes things harder."
"Sorry," she said. "Will you be down next week?"
"If I get done up here."
"We'll see you then. We'll get a game. By the way, something serious was happening at the sheriff's office. Nobody had any time to speak to me, something about a lost kid…"
"Oh, my God," Lucas said. "Elle, I'll talk to you later."
He hung up, started to punch in the number for the sheriff's office, saw the blinking light on the answering machine and poked it.
Carr's voice rasped out of the speaker: "Davenport, where'n the heck are you? We found the Mueller kid. He's dead and it wasn't an accident. I'm going to send somebody over to wake you up."
Just before the phone hung up, Carr called to someone in the background, "Get Gene over to Weather Karkinnen's house."
There was a motor sound outside. Lucas used two fingers to separate the curtain over the kitchen sink and looked out. A sheriff's truck was pulling into the driveway. Lucas hurried to Weather's bedroom. The door was unlocked, and he opened it and stuck his head inside. She was curled under a down comforter, and looked small and innocent.
"Weather, wake up," he said.
"Huh?" She rolled, half-asleep, and looked up at him.
"They found the Mueller kid and he's dead," Lucas said. "I'm going."
She sat up, instantly awake, and threw off the bedcovers. She was wearing a long-sleeved white flannel nightgown. "I'm coming with you."
"You've got an operation."
"I'll be okay, a few hours is fine."
"You really don't…"
"I'm the county coroner, Lucas," she said, "I've got to go anyway." Her hair stuck out from her head in a corona and her face was still morning-slack. She had a red pillow-wrinkle on one cheek. Her cotton nightgown hid all of her figure except her hips, which shaped and moved the soft fabric. She started toward the bath that opened off her bedroom, felt him watching her, said, "What?"
"You look terrific."
"Jesus, I'm a wreck," she said. She stepped back to him, stood on her tiptoes for a kiss, and Climpt began banging on the door.
"That's Gene," Lucas said, stepping back toward the hall. "Five minutes."
"Ten," she said. "I mean, it won't make any difference to John Mueller."
She said it offhandedly, a surgeon and a coroner who dealt in death. But Lucas was stricken. She saw it in his face, a quick tightening, and said, "Oh, God, Lucas, I didn't mean it."
"You're right, though," he said, his voice gone hard. "Ten minutes. It won't make any difference to the kid."
Lucas let Climpt in, and while the deputy looked at the damage from the night's shooting, went back to the bathroom for a quick cleanup.
When he came back out, Weather was coming down the hall, dressed in insulated jeans and a wool shirt, carrying the bag she'd had at the LaCourts'. "Ready?"