Why dont you get a real walk-around phone? Del asked. Everybody else has one.
Cause then people would call me up, Lucas said. And I couldnt say I mustve been out.
Sloan nodded and he and Del left. Sherrill lingered. Youre going up north?
Yeah. I want to talk to His phone rang and he grabbed it, lifting a finger to Sherrill so shed wait: Davenport.
Lucas this is Sergeant Ogram over in St. Paul. We talked
Yeah, yeah. Whatd you get?
I talked to my pal in the FBI and he called down to the fingerprint people and then he called me back: he says its maybe a hundred to one against having the wrong guy.
So we got him.
You got him. And listen, that slug fragments on the way over in a squad. Oughta be there about now.
Thanks. See ya.
Lucas hung up: We got him… Anyway, I want to go up north and talk to the caretaker and walk the place a little.
Okay. She turned to go, but she was going slowly.
You got a problem? Lucas asked.
She stopped again, looked at him and said, No, and turned back toward the door. Lucas thought, Uh-oh. Hed never in his life gone through a little sequence like that when the womandidnthave something to say, and one way or another, he almost always wound up getting his ass kicked.
Okay, if youre sure.
I may give you a call tonight, she said. She was nibbling the inside of her lip, as if distracted by something. I do have something I sort of want to talk about.
LUCAS CALLED KRAUSE AT THE GARFIELD COUNTY courthouse before he left and arranged to meet Kresges part-time caretaker at the cabin. The trip north was a good one: quick up the interstate, dry and fast on the back highways. The small towns were buckling down for winter: a man on a small green and yellow John Deere was mowing what must have been a glorious summer garden, now all brown stalks and dead leaves; a man in a camouflage jacket was shooting arrows across his backyard at two archery butts made of bundled wood shavings; an Arctic Cat dealership was running a special on snowmobile tune-ups and a closeout on Yamaha ATVs.
Krause was waiting at the cabin, stepped into the yard and frowned when he saw the Porsche slipping down thedriveway. Lucas punched it into an open space next to a Ford truck, climbed out. Below the cabin, the small lake showed a collar of ice, now out six feet from the shoreline.
Didnt recognize the vehicle, Krause said. Boy, thats something; dont see many of those around here.
Had it for years, Lucas said, looking back at the 911. Im thinking about trading it in for something a little larger.
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.