corners: a motel, two bars, a general store, a cafe, and the Amoco station. The station was brightly lit, with snow piled twenty feet high along the back property lines. One car sat at a gas pump, engine off, the driver elsewhere. An old Chevy was visible through the windows of the single repair bay. They stopped in front of the big window, the other two trucks swinging in behind. A teenager in a ragged trench coat and tennis shoes peered through the glass at them: he was all by himself, like a guppie in a well-lit aquarium.
Lucas followed Climpt inside. Climpt nodded at the kid and said, 'Hello, Tommy. How you doing?'
'Okay, just fine, Mr. Climpt,' the kid said. He was nervous, and a shock of straw-colored hair fell out from under his watch cap, his Adam's apple bobbing spasmodically.
'How long you been out?' Climpt asked.
'Oh, two months now,' the kid said.
'Tommy used to borrow cars, go for rides,' Climpt said.
'Bad habit,' Lucas said, crossing his arms, leaning against the candy machine. 'Everybody gets pissed off at you.'
'I quit,' the kid said.
'He's a good mechanic,' Climpt said. Then: 'Where's Russ?'
'Down to the house, I guess.'
'Okay.'
'It'd be better if you didn't call him,' Lucas said.
'Whatever,' the kid said. 'I'm, you know, whatever.'
'Whatever,' Climpt said. He pointed a finger at the kid's face, and the kid swallowed. 'We won't be tellin' Russ we talked to you.'
Back outside, Climpt said, 'He won't call.'
'How far is Harper's place?'
'Two minutes from here,' Carr said.
'Think he'll be a problem?'
'Not if we get right on top of him,' Climpt said. 'He won't win no college scholarship, but he's not stupid enough to take on a whole… whatever we are.'
'A posse,' Lucas said.
Climpt laughed, a short bark. 'Right. A posse.'
John Mueller came back to Lucas' mind, like a nagging toothache, a pain that wouldn't go away but couldn't be fixed. Maybe he was at a friend's; maybe they'd already found him…
Harper's house huddled in a copse of birch and red pine, alone on an unlit stretch of side road, a free-standing garage in back, a mercury-vapor yard-light overhead. Windows were lit in the back of the house. Climpt killed his lights and pulled into the end of the drive, and Lucas pulled in behind him.
Climpt and Lacey got out, pushed the truck doors shut instead of slamming them. 'Are you carrying?' Climpt asked.
'Yeah.'
'Might loosen it up. Russ's always got something around.'
'All right.' Lucas turned to Lacey, who had his hands in his pockets and was staring up at the house. 'Henry, why don't you sit out here by the truck. Get the shotgun and just hang back.'
Lacey nodded and walked back toward the Suburban.
'I'll try to get a little edge on him right away,' Lucas told Climpt as they started up the driveway. 'I won't pull any real shit, but you can act like you think I might.'
Woodsmoke drifted down on them, an acrid odor that cut at the nose and throat. Two feet of pristine snow covered the front porch. 'Looks like he doesn't use the front door at all,' Climpt said.
As they walked around the side of the house, they heard the gun rack rattle as Lacey unlocked the shotgun and took it out, then the ratcheting sound of a twelve-gauge shell being pumped home. At the back door, Lucas could hear the sounds of a television-not the words but the rhythms.
'Stand down at the bottom where he can see you,' Lucas told Climpt. He went to the top of the stoop and knocked on the door, then stepped to the side. A moment later the yellow porch light came on, and then a curtain pulled back. A man's head appeared behind the window glass. He looked at Climpt, hesitated, made a head gesture, and fumbled with the doorknob.
'We're okay,' Lucas muttered.
Harper pulled open the inner door, saw Lucas, frowned. He was an oval-faced man, with a narrow chin, thick, short lips, and scar tissue on his forehead and under his eyes. His eyes were the size of dimes, and black, like a lizard's. He was unshaven. He pushed open the storm door, looked down at Climpt and said, 'What do you want, Gene?'
'We need to talk to you about the death of your son, and we need to look through Jim's stuff again,' Climpt said.
Harper's thick lips twisted. 'You got a warrant?'
'Yeah, we got a warrant.'
After another long moment Harper said, 'Now what the fuck are you fuckin' with me for, Climpt?' The question came in a low voice, rough and guttural, angry but unafraid.
'We're not fuckin' with you,' Lucas snapped back. He hooked the storm door handle with his left hand and jerked it open. Harper pulled back an inch, then settled in a fighting stance, ready to swing. He was round- shouldered but hard, with hands that looked granite-gray in the bad light. Lucas took his right hand out of his pocket, a bare hand with a.45. 'Swing on me and I'll beat the shit out of you,' he said. 'And if I start to lose I'll blow your fuckin' nuts off.'
'What?' Harper stepped back, dropping his right hand.
'You heard me, asshole.'
'Oh, yeah,' Harper said. He straightened, let the left hand drop. 'You're the big city guy, uh? Big city guy, big city asshole gonna blow my nuts off.' He took another step back, the anger spreading from his eyes over his face, ready to go again.
'Come on, motherfucker,' Lucas said. He lifted the.45 out to the side. 'You put your own boy out on the corner givin' blowjobs to fat guys, there's nobody in this county'd blame me if I spread your brains all over the house. So you wanna do it? Come on, come on…'
'You're fuckin' nuts,' Harper said. But his voice had changed again, uncertainty near the surface, and his eyes shifted past Lucas to Climpt. 'Why are you fuckin' with me, Gene?'
'The LaCourt girl, the one who was killed, had a picture of your boy, naked, with a grown-up male,' Climpt said.
Lucas dropped the gun to his side, moved forward, one foot inside, shoulder against the door, forcing Harper back. 'She showed it around and then the family was wiped out,' he said. 'We want to look at Jim's things, see if there's anything that might indicate who it was.'
'Sure as shit wasn't me.'
'We're looking for a guy who's blond and a little fat,' Lucas said. He stepped through the storm door into a mudroom, crowding Harper, who backed through an inner door into the kitchen. Climpt was a step behind. 'You don't have any friends that look like that, do you?'
Climpt called out to the truck, 'Henry, c'mon.'
'I want to see that warrant,' Harper said, backing farther into the kitchen. The kitchen smelled of onions and bad meat and old soured milk.
'Henry's got it,' Climpt said. Harper looked past Lucas as Lacey walked up. Lacey pulled a paper out of his pocket and handed it to Lucas, who handed it to Harper. While Harper looked at it, Lucas decocked the.45. At the latching sound, Harper looked up and said, 'Smith and Wesson. Is that the.40 or the.45?'
'The.45,' Lucas said.
'I'd have gone with the.40,' Harper said as the two deputies came in behind Carr. He'd gone into the asshole- cooperative mode, an almost imperceptible groveling learned in prisons.
'Right,' said Lucas, ignoring the comment. He put the pistol back in his coat pocket. 'Where's the kid's room?'
'You don't think I know about guns? I…'
