'The tracks come right up to where he was chopped,' Lucas said.
'Yeah-but we don't know if he walked down to the lake on snowshoes to look at something, and then came back up and was killed, or if the killer came in and went out.'
'If they were his snowshoes, where are they now?'
'There's a set of shoes in the mudroom, but they were so messed up by the firehoses that we don't know if they'd just been used or what… no way to tell,' Lacey said. 'They're the right kind, though. Bearpaws. No tails.'
'Okay.'
'But we still got a problem,' Carr said, looking reluctantly down at the body. 'Look at the snow on him. The firemen threw the tarps over them as soon as they got here, but it looks to me like there's maybe a half-inch of snow on him.'
'So what?'
Carr stared down at the body for a moment, then dropped his voice. 'Listen, I'm freezing and there's some strange stuff to talk about. A problem. So do you want to see the other bodies now? Woman was shot in the forehead, the girl's burned. Or we could just go talk.'
'A quick look,' Lucas said.
'Come on, then,' Carr said.
Lacey broke away. 'I gotta check that commo gear, Shelly.'
Lucas and Carr trudged across a layer of discolored ice to the house, squeezed past the front door. Inside, sheetrock walls and ceiling panels had buckled and folded, falling across burned furniture and carpet. Dishes, pots and pans, glassware littered the floor, along with a set of ceramic collector's dolls. Picture frames were everywhere. Some were burned, but every step or two, a clear, happy face would look up at him, wide-eyed, well-lit. Better days.
Two deputies were working through the house with cameras: one with a video camera, the power wire running down his collar under his parka, the other with a 35mm Nikon.
'My hands are freezing,' the video man stuttered.
'Go on down to the garage,' Carr said. 'Don't get yourself hurt.'
'There're a couple gallon jugs of hot coffee and some paper cups in my truck. The white Explorer in the parking lot,' Lucas said. 'Doors are open.'
'Th-thanks.'
'Save some for me,' Carr said. And to Lucas: 'Where'd you get the coffee?'
'Stopped at Dow's Corners on the way over and emptied out their coffeemaker. I did six years on patrol and I must've froze my ass off at a hundred of these things.'
'Huh. Dow's.' Carr squinted, digging in a mental file. 'That's still Phil and Vickie?'
'Yeah. You know them?'
'I know everybody on Highway 77, from Hayward in Sawyer County to Highway 13 in Ashland County,' Carr said matter-of-factly. 'This way.'
He led the way down a charred hall past a bathroom door to a small bedroom. The lakeside wall was gone and blowing snow sifted through the debris. The body was under a burnt-out bedframe, the coil springs resting on the girl's chest. One of the portable lights was just outside the window, and cast flat, prying light on the scorched wreckage, but left the girl's face in almost total darkness: but not quite total. Lucas could see her improbably white teeth smiling from the char.
Lucas squatted, snapped on the flash, grunted, turned it off and stood up again.
'Made me sick,' said Carr. 'I was with the highway patrol before I got elected sheriff. I saw some car wrecks you wouldn't believe. They didn't make me sick. This did.'
'Accidents are different,' Lucas agreed. He looked around the room. 'Where's the other one?'
'Kitchen,' Carr said. They started down the hall again. 'Why'd he burn the place?' Carr asked, his voice pitching up. 'It couldn't have been to hide the killings. He left Frank's body right out in the yard. If he'd just taken off, it might have been a day or two before anybody came out. Was he bragging about it?'
'Maybe he was thinking about fingerprints. What'd LaCourt do?'
'He worked down at the res, at the Eagle Casino. He was a security guy.'
'Lots of money in casinos,' Lucas said. 'Was he in trouble down there?'
'I don't know,' Carr said simply.
'How about his wife?'
'She was a teacher's aide.'
'Any marital problems or ex-husbands wandering around?' Lucas asked.
'Well, they were both married before. I'll check Frank's ex-wife, but I know her, Jean Hansen, and she wouldn't hurt a fly. And Claudia's ex is Jimmy Wilson and Jimmy moved out to Phoenix three or four winters back, but he wouldn't do this, either. I'll check on him, but neither one of the divorces was really nasty. The people just didn't like each other anymore. You know?'
'Yeah, I know. How about the girl? Did she have any boyfriends?'
'I'll check that too,' Carr said. 'But, uh, I don't know. I'll check. She's pretty young.'
'There's been a rash of teenagers killing their families and friends.'
'Yeah. A generation of weasels.'
'And teenage boys sometimes mix up fire and sex. You get a lot of teenage firebugs. If there was somebody hot for the girl, it'd be something to look into.'
'You could talk to Bob Jones at the junior high. He's the principal and he does the counseling, so he might know.'
'Um,' Lucas said. His sleeve touched a burnt wall, and he brushed it off.
'I'm hoping you'll stay around a while,' Carr blurted. Before Lucas could answer, he said, 'Come on down this way.'
They picked their way toward the other end of the house, through the living room, into the kitchen by the back door. Two heavily wrapped figures were crouched over a third body.
The larger of the two people stood up, nodded at Carr. He wore a Russian-style hat with the flaps pulled down and a deputy sheriff's patch on the front. The other, with the bag, was using a metal tool to turn the victim's head.
'Can't believe this weather,' the deputy said. 'I'm so fuck-uh, cold I can't believe it.'
'Fucking cold is what you meant to say,' said the figure still crouched over the body. Her voice was low and uninflected, almost scholarly. 'I really don't mind the word, especially when it's so fucking cold.'
'It wasn't you he was worried about, it was me,' Carr said bluntly. 'You see anything down there, Weather, or are you just fooling around?'
The woman looked up and said, 'We've got to get them down to Milwaukee and let the pros take a look. No amateur nights at the funeral home.'
'Can you see anything at all?' Lucas asked.
The doctor looked down at the woman under her hands. 'Claudia was shot, obviously, and with a pretty powerful weapon. Could be a rifle. The whole back of her head was shattered and a good part of her brain is gone. The slug went straight through. We'll have to hope the crime lab people can recover it. It's not inside her.'
'How about the girl?' Lucas asked.
'Yeah. It'll take an autopsy to tell you anything definitive. There are signs of charred cloth around her waist and between her legs, so I'd say she was wearing underpants and maybe even, um, what do you call those fleece pants, like uh…'
'Sweat pants,' Carr said.
'Yes, like that. And Claudia was definitely dressed, jeans and long underwear.'
'You're saying they weren't raped,' Lucas said.
The woman stood and nodded. Her parka hood was tight around her face, and nothing showed but an oval patch of skin around her eyes and nose. 'I can't say it for sure, but just up front, it doesn't look like it. But what happened to her might have been worse.'
'Worse?' Carr recoiled.
