Winter Prey (37 page)

CHAPTER
25

The Wisconsin state trooper had buried himself in a snowdrift across from the fire station. He wore an insulated winter camouflage suit that he’d bought for deer hunting, pac boots, and a camo face mask. He kept a pair of binoculars in a canvas bag with the radio, and a Thermos of hot chocolate in another bag. He’d been in place for two hours, reasonably warm, fairly comfortable.

He’d watched Davenport and Climpt go into the station to nail Helper down. After they’d been inside for a minute, the FBI man, the black guy, jogged up from the back, used a key to go through the access door into the truck bay. Two minutes later the FBI man slipped out and disappeared into the snow. Then Davenport and Climpt pulled out, followed by the crime techs from Madison. Since then, nothing. The trooper had expected immediate action. When it hadn’t come, sitting in the drift out of the wind, he’d felt a bit sleepy; the winter storm muffled all sound, dimmed all color, eliminated odors. He unscrewed the top of the Thermos, took a hit of chocolate, screwed the top back on. He was pushing the jug back into his carry sack when he saw movement. The door on the far truck bay, where the
FBI man had gone in, was rolling up.

The trooper pulled the radio from the bag, put it to his face: “We got movement,” he said. “You hear me?” The radio was unfamiliar, provided by the FBI, all talk scrambled.

We hear you. How’s he moving?

“Hang on,” the patrolman said. He studied the open door through the binoculars. A moment later Helper bumped out through the door on his snowmobile, looked right and left, then turned toward the highway.

“He’s on the sled,” the patrolman said into the radio. “He’s moving, he’s on the trail down 77. He’s coming up toward your post . . . He’s not moving too fast . . . wait a minute, he’s moving now, he’s really taking off.”

Davenport, are you monitoring?.

“Yes, I heard.” Lucas was at the hospital, among the smells of alcohol and disinfectant and the stray whiffs of raw meat and urine. “Are you tracking him?”

We got him, and he’s moving your way.
The caller was the FBI man who’d provided them with the special handsets and the radio beacons now attached to Helper’s sled and truck.
He’s coming up on us. We’ll let him pass and then try to hang on.

“We’re set here. Keep us posted,” Lucas said. He looked at Weather. “He’s coming.” Lucas pulled the magazine from his .45, checked it. Climpt, who’d been sitting on an examination stool, picked up his Ithaca twelve-gauge and jacked a shell into the chamber. “He ought to be here in twenty minutes.”

“If he’s coming here,” Carr said. The sheriff had buckled on his pistol again, but left it untouched in its holster.

“I got a buck that says he is,” Lucas said. He slipped the magazine back into the .45 and slapped it tight with the heel of his hand.

“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” Weather asked.

“We’re not trying to kill him,” Lucas said levelly. “But he has to make his move.”

“I don’t see how you won’t kill him,” Weather said. “If he has a gun in his hand . . .”

“We’ll warn him. If he opts to fight, what can we do?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “If we had more time, I could think of something.”

“Women shouldn’t be involved in this sort of thing,” Climpt said.

“Hey, fuck you, Gene,” she said harshly.

“Take it easy,” Lucas said mildly. He put the .45 up to his face and clicked the safety on and off, on and off, on. He saw the look on her face and said, “Sorry.”

“I’m not being silly about this,” she said. “Better he dies than anyone else. This ambush just seems so . . . cold.”

“We ain’t playing patty-cake,” Climpt said.

The FBI came back:
He’s passing us . . . Okay, he’s past, he looked us over pretty good. No chance that we can keep up with him, Jesus, this snow is something else, it’s like driving into a funnel . . . He must be doing forty down there in the ditch, he must be flying blind . . . we’re doing thirty . . . Manny, he’ll be coming up on you in five minutes.

A second voice, the other FBI man:
Got him on the scope . . . Davenport, we’re five minutes out, he’s still coming, he’s maybe two miles back.

“Got that,” Lucas said. To Climpt, Weather, and Carr: “Get ready. I’ll talk to the twins.” He ran down the hall, pushed open the double doors at the end of the corridor. Two cops were climbing onto snowmobiles, pistols strapped around their waists, one with a shotgun in a jury-rigged scabbard hung on the side of the sled.

“You been listening?”

“Got it,” said one of the cops. Rusty and Dusty. In their helmets they were unidentifiable.

“All right. Stand off behind the lot, there. As soon as he gets off his sled, we’ll bring you in. If something happens, be ready to roll. One way or another, we take him.”

“Got it.”

The two men took off and Lucas ran back down the corridor, clumping along in his boots, zipping his jacket over the body armor. Henry Lacey trotted down the hall toward him.

“Good luck,” he called as he passed Lucas.

Carr was hanging up the phone when Lucas got back. “More stuff coming in on the sonofabitch. Lot of stuff from Duluth. He resigned there, just like he told us, but if he hadn’t, the cops were gonna get him for ripping off homes after fires. A couple of arson guys think he might have set some of the fires himself.”

“Good. The more we can pile up, the better, if there’s a trial.”

Davenport, you got it right. He’s coming, he’s past us, he’s on the hospital road, he’s on the hospital road, we’re running parallel down the highway . . . Goddamn, it’s hard to see anything out here.

“Shelly, you know where to go. Weather, get your coat on. Tighten up the straps, goddammit.” He pulled the adjustments tight on the body armor, helped her with her mountain parka. She’d be cold without her regular jacket, but it’d only be for a minute or two. “You know what we’re doing now.”

“Pace it out, take it slow, stay with you. As soon as anybody yells, get down. Stay on the ground.”

“Right. And everybody knows the panic drill if he decides to come inside.” Lucas looked at Climpt and Carr, and they nodded, and Carr gulped and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“Nervous?” Lucas asked Weather, trying a smile.

“I’m okay.” She swallowed. “Cottonmouth,” she said.

Even on a blizzard day, there’d be twenty or thirty people in the hospital—nurses, orderlies, maintenance people. Unless Helper had freaked out, he wouldn’t try a frontal assault on
the building. And he knew that Weather had a deputy as a bodyguard. His only chance was to snipe her with a rifle or to get in close with a pistol or shotgun, shoot it out with her bodyguard, like he’d tried when he ambushed Weather and Bruun. They’d set up Weather’s Jeep within a rough circle of cars, they’d given him places to hide, places they could reach with snipers on the roof. They’d show her to him, just long enough.

As soon as he flashed a gun, they’d have him.

He’s thirty seconds out.

Anybody see a weapon?

Didn’t see a thing when he went by. He didn’t show a long gun on the machine.

He’s ten seconds out. All right, he’s slowing down, he’s slowing down. He’s stopped right at the entrance to the parking lot. Davenport, you got him?

Lucas put the radio to his mouth, stared through the waiting room window out to the parking lot. He was looking into a bowl of snowflakes. “We can’t see a thing from in here, the goddamn snow.”

He’s still sitting there, can you guys on the roof see anything?

I can see him, he’s not moving.

What’s he doing?

He’s just sitting there.

“Is he coming in?” Weather asked.

“Not yet.”

Wait a minute, wait a minute, he’s moving . . . He’s moving past the lot, he’s going past the lot down the hospital road. He’s moving slow.

Where’s he going?

He’s going on past the hospital.

Lucas: “You guys on the sleds, he’s coming your way, stay out of sight.”

We’re up in the woods, don’t see him. Where is he? Still coming your way.

Don’t see him.

He’s on the road by that gas thing, that natural-gas pump thing, he’s just going by.

Wait a minute, we got him, he’s moving slow. What do we do?

“Stay right there, let the FBI guys track him,” Lucas said.

He’s passing us. Boy, you can hardly see out here.

The FBI man’s voice came in over the others:
He’s stopped. He’s stopped. He’s two hundred yards behind the hospital, by that big woods.

“Janes’ woodlot,” Climpt said. “He’s gonna come through the woods, sneak in through the back door by the dumpsters.”

“That’s always locked,” Weather said.

“Maybe he’s got some way to get in.”

He’s not moving. Somebody’s got to take a look.

Carr, fifty feet away, by radio:
Lucas, if he doesn’t move in the next minute or so, I think the guys on the sleds ought to cruise by. If he’s just sitting there, they can keep going, like club riders. If he’s back in the woods, we ought to know.

Lucas put the radio to his mouth. “You guys on the sleds—cruise him. Stuff your weapons inside your suits, out of sight. And be careful. Don’t stop, keep going. If you see him, just wave.”

Lucas turned to Climpt. “We better get set up by the back door. If he comes through, we should be able to see if he’s carrying.”

You guys on the roof—we might have to turn you around, he may come in the back. One of you go out
back right now, keep a lookout.

Got that.

“If we spot him coming in, we could have Weather just walk across the end of the t-corridor,” Climpt said. “He’d be able to see her from the door, but he wouldn’t have time to react. If he starts running down that way . . .”

They worked it out as they ran to the back of the hospital, Weather and Carr hurrying behind. Henry Lacey, palefaced, stood by the reception desk with his .38. The nurses had been moved down to the emergency room, where they had concrete walls to huddle behind.

Rusty:
We just passed his sled. He’s not here. It looks like he’s gone up in the woods. Doesn’t look like he’s wearing snowshoes, Let’s, uh
 . . .

There was a moment of silence, then the same voice.

We’ll cruise him again.

“What are they doing?” Lucas asked Climpt. “They’re not going back . . . ?” He put the radio to his mouth: “What’re you doing? Don’t go back!”

Just coming back now.

There was a dark, abrupt sound on the radio, a sound like a cough or a bark, and a last syllable from the deputy that might have been . . .

He’s
 . . .

Silence. One second, two. Lucas straining at the radio. Then an anonymous radio voice from the roof.