'And maybe I'll get elected homecoming queen,' Lucas said as they started down the hall.
Lacey looked at him. 'Did you know your new girlfriend was the homecoming queen?'
'What?' There was no longer any point in being obtuse about his relationship with Weather.
'That's right,' Lacey said enthusiastically. 'Around homecoming time, people still talk about the dress she wore on the float. It was like one of those real warm days and she had this silver dress. Oh, boy. They called her…' He suddenly snapped his mouth shut and flushed.
'Called her what?'
Lacey looked at Carr and Carr shook his head. 'You can't get your foot any deeper in your mouth than it already is, Henry. You might as well tell him,' he said.
'Um-Miss Teen Tits of Ojibway County,' Lacey said feebly.
'Glad you told me-gives me an edge on her,' Lucas said.
'I hope you got an edge on the feebs,' Lacey said gloomily. 'About two minutes with them, I felt like I had big clods of horseshit on my shoes and straw sticking outa my ears.'
'Dat's da feebs,' Lucas said. 'That's what they do best.'
They talked for an hour with the two advance agents, Lansley and Tolsen. The two would have been hard to tell apart except that Lansley was the color of well-sanded birch plywood while Tolsen was polished ebony. They both wore gray suits with regimental neckties, long, dark winter coats with leather gloves, and rubbers on their wingtips.
'… think there's some prospect that our man may be a traveler…'
Lucas, sitting behind Lansley, who was talking, looked past him at Carr and shook his head. No chance it was a traveler: none.
And after a while: '… name of the game is cooperation, and we'll do everything we can…'
Lucas broke in: 'What we really need is computer support.'
Tolsen was quick and interested. 'Of what nature?'
'There are only about seven thousand permanent residents in this county. We can eliminate all women, all children, anyone with dark hair. Our man is obviously psychotic and may have a history of violence. If there's some way your computers could interface with the state driver's license bureau, process Ojibway County drivers and crosscheck the blond-male population with the NCIC records…'
Lansley and Tolsen took notes, Lansley using a hand-sized microcomputer. They came up with some ideas of their own and left in a hurry.
'What the heck was all that about?' Carr asked, scratching his head.
'They've got something to do,' Lucas said. 'It might even help if we need help three weeks from now.'
A deputy knocked, stuck his head in the door. 'Harper's out. Put up his gas station with Interstate Bond.'
'That really frosts my butt,' Carr said.
'Go home and get some sleep. Or check into a motel. You look so bad I'm seriously worried,' Lucas said.
'That's a thought-the motel,' Carr said distractedly. 'What're you going to do?'
'Go someplace quiet and think,' Lucas said.
Weather got home a few minutes after six, came in with a deputy, and found Lucas staring into a guttering fire. 'This is Marge, my bodyguard,' she said to Lucas. The deputy waved and said, 'You got it from here,' and left. Weather shed her coat and boots, came over to sit beside him. He put an arm around her shoulder. 'You ought to throw another log on,' she said.
'Yeah… goddammit, there are fewer people in this county than there are in some buildings in Minneapolis. We oughta be able to pick him out. There can't be that many candidates,' Lucas said.
'Still think Phil Bergen was murdered?'
'Yeah. For sure. I don't know why he was killed, though. Did he know something? Was he supposed to distract us? What?'
'Schoeneckers'?'
'Not a goddamn thing,' Lucas said.
'Could they be dead?'
'We've got to start considering the possibility,' Lucas said. 'We were lucky to find the Mueller kid. He could've laid out there until spring. Hell, if the killer had driven him two minutes back into the woods, we might not ever have found him.'
'Are you watching Harper?'
'That's impossible. Where're you gonna watch him from? We'll check on him every couple of hours, though.'
Weather shivered. 'The man scares me. He's one of those people who just does what he wants and doesn't care who gets hurt. Sociopath. I don't think he even notices if somebody gets hurt.'
They sat quietly for a moment, then Lucas smiled, remembering, and glanced at her. She was looking into the fire, her face serious. 'We've been having a pretty good time in bed, haven't we?' he asked.
'Well, I hope so,' she said, laughing. She patted his leg. 'We fit pretty well.'
'Um…' He pulled at his chin, looking into the fire. 'There's something… I've always wanted to do, you know… sexually… and I haven't been able to find a woman who could do it.'
Her smile flickered. With an edge of uncertainty, she asked, 'Well…?'
'I always wanted to jump a homecoming queen wearing nothing but her white high heels and her crown. What do you think?' He pulled her closer.
'Those rotten jerks,' she said, pushing him away. 'I wasn't going to tell you until ten years from now.'
'Miss Teen Tits of Ojibway County,' he said.
'You should have seen me,' she said, pleased. 'The dress was cut fairly low in front, but really low in back. People said I had two cleavages.'
'I like the image.'
'Maybe we could work something out,' she said, snuggling closer. 'I don't know if I've still got the crown.'
CHAPTER 21
Harper was released at noon. He asked a deputy at the property window how he'd get back home, since the cops had brought him in.
'Fuckin' hitchhike, Russ,' the cop said, and slammed the window down. Harper called his station. No answer. He finally found a kid smoking a cigarette outside a game parlor and offered him five bucks to give him a ride. The kid said ten, Harper argued, the kid tossed his cigarette in the street and told him to go fuck himself. Harper paid the ten.
The gas station was closed and locked. Harper went inside, checked the register. There was money in the till and a note: 'Russ, had to close. People are pissed at you they think your in on it.'
'Motherfucker.' Harper crumbled the note, threw it in the corner, locked up and walked out to his truck. The tires were flat, all four of them. Cursing, he checked them, found no sign that they'd been slashed. That was something. He pulled an air hose out of the lube bay and filled the tires. Worried about his house, he drove down to it, parked, checked the front and sides. No one had been there since he left it. Okay. Inside, he made a fried egg and onion sandwich, and wolfed it down. The anger was growing. The cops would get them all if they didn't hang together. He'd done his part.
He picked up the phone, thought about it, put it down, got in his truck, drove to the station, parked and walked across the highway to the Duck Inn. There was a wall phone between the men's and women's restrooms, and he dropped a quarter.
The Iceman answered.
'This is Russ. We gotta talk.'
'I heard you were in jail,' the Iceman said.
'I bailed out. Where can we get together?'
'I don't think that's a good idea, Russ. I think we better…'
'Fuck what you think,' Harper snarled. His voice had gone up and he looked quickly back toward the bar and
