Wouldnt imagine itd do you too much good out here in the winter.
Not too much, Lucas agreed. A weathered, whitehaired man in his late sixties or early seventies had come around a corner of the cabin, carrying a gas-powered brush cutter. He put it down by the cabin steps and Krause said, Marlon, this heres Chief Davenport from Minneapolis, and Chief, this is Marlon Wiener.
They shook hands, and Lucas said, I just sorta need to walk around the place and chat for a while…
Ill leave you to it, Krause said. I got some paperwork with me, Im gonna sit inside with Mrs. Wiener and drink some coffee. Holler if you need me.
LUCAS WANTED TO LOOK AT ALL THE TREE STAND LOCATIONS. The transcripts of Sloans interrogations had given the order in which the hunters had dispersed to the stands, but said nothing about the terrain itself.
We got a six-wheeler here, we could ride up, unless you rather walk, Wiener said.
Lets walk, Lucas said. They all walked the morning of the shoot, right?
Thats right, Wiener said.
So tell me about Kresge, Lucas said, as they started through the fallen leaves toward the track around the lake. Good guy, bad guy, what do you think?
Wouldnt have wanted to work for him on a daily basisyou know, right next to him, Wiener said. He was all right with me. Told me what he wanted done and sometimes Id suggest stuff, and he usually told me to do thattoo. My wifed keep the place clean, come down a couple of times a week to dust and vacuum and so on.
That seems like quite a lot of work, Lucas said.
Well, he liked to have cars in his driveway. He was always worried he was gonna be burglarized or something. Not saying that it couldnt happen. He told me once that instead of working all day on a job, hed be happier if Id break it up so Id be around here every day, one time or another.
Did he have parties, or lots of guests? People coming and going?
No, not a lot of thembut he did have one big party every summer for management people at the bank,
Wiener said. Theyd come up here and swim off the dock and drink and the kidsd fish for bluegills and everybodyd go down to the range and shoot for a while.
Hes got a gun range here?
Just a gully, shooting against the end of it. You know, twenty-five feet to a hundred yards.
Twenty-five feet? These are handguns?
Yeah, and. 22 rifles for the kids. You know, just fartin around.
Huh. Handguns. A handgun would be interesting, especially a big one, like a. 44 Mag or a. 45 Colt or a. 357 Maximum. McDonald could have carried it in concealed, come back, shot Kresge, thrown the gun away. Although the ME thought the killing shot had come from a rifle, a powerful handgun might be an alternative. The sheriff took an inventory of guns in the cabin. I didnt see any handguns on the list.
I dont know, they never asked me about it. They just cleaned out the gun cabinet, and that was it.
Was Kresge big on handguns?
Naw, not really. I mean, some. Most of the handguns were brought down by the guests. City people dont get to shoot that much, and they all seemed to like it, get a few beers in them. Mr. Kresge had a handgun, because I saw it: it was a Smith and Wesson. 357 Magnum, silver. But Ithink he brought it with him, when he came up from the Cities.
A. 357 Magnum? Or maximum?
Oh, I think… a Magnum. Never heard of maximum.
And he brought it with him.
I think. Then, its not exactly a handgun, or maybe it is… but he had a Contender. That should have been on the sheriffs list. That was up here.
A Contender? A Contender would be perfect.
You know, one of the
I know Contenders. Scoped?
Yeah.
I dont think that was on the inventory.
Should have been. He keeps it in the gun cabinet. At least, he did. Unless he took it back.
Well check that, Lucas said. Do you know Wilson McDonald? Big guy?
Wiener nodded. Yeah, Ive seen him a time or two.
Whatd he shoot when he came up here?
Wiener shook his head: Couldnt tell you. Dont even know if he was a shooter, tell you the truth. Mr. Robles, he was a shooter: hed help instruct the kids and shoot off his mouth about everything about guns. But I think Mr. McDonald was mostly a drinker. Thats what I remember about him.
THEY FOLLOWED THE SHORELINE AROUND THE LAKE to the first stand, where Robles had been stationed. Lucas went down to the stand, climbed the tree, and eased himself out onto the platform of two-by-fours.
Did you build the stands? Lucas called down to Wiener.
Naw, a couple of boys up from Wyoming built em, he said. They were joking about putting in electricity.
The tree stand was one of the more comfortable that Lucas had been in. He could stretch his legs, lean back against the tree trunk, and still look out over the hillside edging the alder swamp. The swamp itself was dotted withstands of aspen, signs of higher ground, with a big, thick island in the middle. Here and there he could see shiny lenses of ice, where a stretch of open water lay at the surface. All around, he could make out the faint telltale trails threading through the brush, signs that deer were working the place. Robless stand was uphill from what looked like a major deer interchange.
Theres a finger of land goes out into the swamp from there, Wiener called. Deer can walk right out into that stand of aspens in the middle. Mand probably drown if he tried to follow; before freeze-up, anyway.
Okay…
They checked all the other stands in turn, spread out over three quarters of a mile of trail, but all focused on the swamp, and pathways into it and out of it. McDonalds stand was uphill and not far to the left of one of the big lenses of thin ice.
Suppose, Lucas thought, McDonald had lifted the Contender from the gun cabinet in the early morning just before the group left the cabin. That would explain why it was missing. And the Contender, long for a pistol, was still short enough that he could have concealed it under a hunting parka. Then, in the dark, he walks back down the track to the hillside above Kresges stand, waits for the shooting to begin, fires a shot killing Kresge, walks back to his stand, and pitches the Contender into the swamp. Climbs the tree… shazam. Hes up in his tree stand just like the others, and never fired his gun…
Lets go, he said to Wiener, as he climbed down.
You figure anything out? Wiener asked.
Maybe, Lucas said. What time did you get here the day Kresge was shot?
About ten oclock, after I heard… I was supposed to come in around noon with my trailer and wed haul any deer carcasses into the registration station and then over to the meat locker. They figured to be out of there about noon, one way or the other, the old man said. The sheriff asked me about the guy the telephone man sawthe one walkingalong the edge of the woodsbut I just wasnt around. Sorry.
The hunter in the woods. Lucas had almost forgotten. Of course, it could have been anybody, another hunter just crossing the property to get back to his car. Damn it, he said aloud. Another hunter didnt feel right; Lucas was a believer in coincidences, except when they explained too much. And if the man in the hunting coat was the killer, and if the telephone man had been right about his size, then McDonald wasnt the killer.
Beg pardon?
If somebody was walking in the woods like the telephone guy said, whered he be going?
Sounds like he was heading back to the cabin.
Thatd be a problem, Lucas said.
KRAUSE WAS WORKING ON THE KITCHEN TABLEWHEN he got back, a battered leather briefcase next to his foot. Mrs. Wiener was washing dishes, and the odor that came from the cabins oven was so wonderful that Lucas almost fainted with the impact.
Whats cooking?
Cinnamon rollsthey should be just about ready, she said, turning from the sink. She was a chubby, pink-faced woman with kinky white hair. She took a dish towel from the stove handle, dried her hands, and opened the oven. Perfect, she said.
Krause had gotten up from the table to look. I get the first one, he said.