''The cops scared her,'' Lucas said. ''They were pushing her pretty hard.''
''Not scared that way,'' Sloan said. Lucas tossed him the car keys and Sloan popped the driver's-side door. ''She was scared like…''
They got in, and Sloan fired the car up, and after another moment, continued:
''… she was scared like she was afraid she'd make a mistake. Like she was making up a story, and was afraid we'd break it down. If she isn't involved, she doesn't need a story. But I felt like she was working on one.''
Lucas, staring out the window as they rolled through the small town, said,
''Huh.'' And then, ''You know, I kind of like her.''
''I noticed,'' Sloan said. ''That always makes them harder to arrest.''
Lucas grinned, and Sloan let the car unwind down the snaky road toward the I-94.
''We better take a little care,'' Lucas said finally. ''We'll get the word out, that we're looking for anybody asking about cops. And get some paper going on the guy, and his connections. Roust any assholes who might know him.''
''I've never had any comebacks,'' Sloan said. ''A few threats, nothing real.''
''I've had a couple minor ones,'' Lucas said, nodding.
''That's what you get for sneaking around in the weeds all those years,'' Sloan said. Then: ''Bet I beat your time going back.''
''Let me get my seat belt on,'' Lucas said.
LACHAISE STRETCHED OUT ON A BED, A SOFT MATTRESS for the first time in four years, and breathed the freedom. Or looseness. Later, he made some coffee, some peanut-butterand-Ritz-cracker sandwiches, listened to the radio. He heard five or six reports on his escape and the killing of Sand, excited country reporters with a real story. One said that police believed he might be on foot, and they were doing a houseby-house check in the town of Colfax.
That made him smile: they still didn't know how he'd gotten out.
He could hear the wind blowing outside the trailer, and after a while, he put on a coat and went outside and walked around. Took a leak in the freezing outhouse, then walked down to the edge of the woods and looked down a gully. Deer tracks, but nothing in sight. He could feel the cold, and he walked back to the trailer.
The sun was nearly gone, a dim aspirin-sized pill trying to break through a screen of bare aspen.
He listened to the radio some more: the search in Colfax was done. The Dunn
County sheriff said blah-blah-blah nothing.
Still, nightfall was a relief. With night came the sense that the search would slow down, that cops would be going home. He found a stack of army blankets and draped them across the windows to black them out. After turning on the lights, he walked once around the outside of the trailer, to make sure he didn't have any light leaks, came back inside, adjusted one of the blankets, and climbed back to the bed. The silence of the woods had been forgotten, submerged in his years in a cell, and for a while he couldn't sleep.
He did sleep, but when he heard the tires crunching on the snow, he was awake in an instant. He sat up and took the Bulldog off the floor. A moment later, he heard footsteps, and then the door rattled.
''Who is that?'' he asked.
A woman's voice came back: ''Sandy.''
HER FACE WAS TIGHT, ANGRY. ''YOU JERK,'' SHE SAID. HE was looking down at her, the gun pointed at her chest. Coldly furious, she ignored it. ''I want you out of here. Now.''
''Come in and shut the door, you're letting the cold in,'' he said. He backed away from her, but continued to look out over her head. ''You didn't bring the cops?''
''No. I didn't bring the cops. But I want you out of here, Dick. ..''
''Tomorrow,'' he said. ''We're heading for Mexico.''
''At the funeral home, they said you were gunning for these cops that killed
Candy and Georgie.''
''Yeah, well…'' He shrugged.
''Why'd you kill the prison guard?'' she asked. His eyes shifted, and she felt him gathering a reason, anexcuse: ''He was the meanest sonofabitch on the floor.
If you knew what he'd done…''
''But now they're looking for you for murder .'' He shrugged: ''That's what I was in for.''
''But you didn't have anything to do with that,'' she said.
''Didn't make no difference to them,'' he said.
''My God, Dick, there is a difference…''
''You didn't know this guy,'' LaChaise said. ''If you'd known what Sand put my friends through back in the joint…'' He shook his head. ''You couldn't blame us. No man oughta go through that.''
He was talking about rape, she knew. She didn't buy it, but she wouldn't press him, either. She wanted to believe and if she pressed him, she was afraid she'd find out he was lying.
''Whatever,'' she said. ''But now you've got to move. Martin was bragging about how good his truck is: If you leave tomorrow, you can be in Arizona the day after, driving straight through. You can be in Mexico the day after that, down on the Pacific Ocean.''
''Yeah, we're figuring that out,'' LaChaise said, but again, his eyes shifted fractionally. ''What happened at the funeral home?''
''The police kept us there for a couple of hours-and two detectives from
Minneapolis talked to us-and then they took us down to Menomonie, to the courthouse. We had to sign statements, and then they let us go. A couple of deputies came around again, about dinnertime, and checked the house.''
''They have a warrant?''
''No, but I let them in, I thought it was best,'' she said. ''They looked around and left.''
''What about Elmore?''
''Elmore was at work,'' Sandy said. ''They already talked to him.''
''Would Elmore turn us in?'' LaChaise said.
''No. He's as scared as I am,'' Sandy said, and the anger suddenly leaped to the surface: ''Why'd you do it, Dick? We've never done anything to you, and now you're dragging us down with you.''
''We needed a place to ditch,'' LaChaise said defensively. ''We didn't know what the situation would be. If the cops were right on our ass, we needed some place we could get out of sight in a hurry. I thought of this place.''
''Well, I want you out,'' Sandy said. She poked a finger at him. ''If you're not out, I'll have to take the chance and go to the police myself. When you get out,
I'll come out here and wipe everything you've touched… and I hope to hell if you get caught, you'll have the decency to keep your mouth shut about this place.''
''I won't get caught,'' LaChaise said. ''I'm not going back inside. If I get killed, that's the way it is: but I'm not going back.''
''But if you do get caught… you know, shot and you wake up in a hospital. ..''
''No way I'd tell them about this,'' LaChaise said, shaking his head. ''No way.''
''All right.'' She glanced at her watch. ''I better get going, in case those deputies check back. I'll tell you something, though: one of the Minneapolis cops was this Davenport guy. The guy who's in charge of the group that killed
Candy and Georgie.''
''I know who he is,'' LaChaise said. ''So?''
''He's awful hard,'' she said.
''I'm awful hard, too,'' LaChaise said.
She nodded: ''I'm just telling you,'' she said.
When Sandy left, she walked head-down to her car, and sat inside for a moment before she started it. Now she was guilty of something, she thought. As a hardworking, taxpaying Republican rancher, she should be in favor of sendingherself to prison for what she'd just done. But she wasn't. She'd do anything to stay out-the idea of a prison cell made her knees weak. If Dick had landed anywhere else, she'd have turned him in. But the trailer hideout would be impossible to explain, and she'd had the experience, in LaChaise's earlier trial, of seeing what vindictive cops could do.
Damn. She thought about the weapons in the hall closet back home, a. 22, a deer rifle, a shotgun. She'd never considered anything like this before, but she could go home, get Elmore's deer rifle, come back out here…
Get Dick outside.
Boom.
She could dump his body in a cornfield somewhere, and nobody would know anything until spring. And if the coyotes got to him, probably not even then. She sighed.