Storm Prey (20 page)

"How old?" Del asked.

"Thirty-seven. He spent two years in Stillwater for beating up a Minneapolis cop named Lancaster after a Rolling Stones concert back in 'ninety-nine. He said he didn't know Lancaster was a cop, thought he was trying to crack security lines around the Stones."

"I remember that," Lucas said. "Don Lancaster. He had a fractured skull, or something."

"That's it. Lighter's alibi failed to hold up because Lancaster was wearing a uniform at the time."

"That's a bad alibi," Del said.

"Yes. He's been remanded for drug treatment a couple times, all the way back to when he was a juvie, but it looks like it didn't take," Carol said. "You guys be careful."

LIGHTER'S PLACE was a junkyard: three or four acres of buck-thorn, scrubby red cedar, and weeds, punctuated by the rusting hulks of eighties and nineties cars, rotted-out snowmobiles, trashed trail bikes, all surrounding a two-story house covered with thirties-era gray tar shingles.

A deck, a few years old, stuck incongruously out of one side of the house, next to an anachronistic sliding-glass door. An oversized charcoal grill, made out of a metal barrel cut in half, sat on the deck, with the cooking implements still hanging on the side. A Jeep and two Oldsmobiles, though older and rusting out, sat in the driveway and appeared to be in running condition.

"If this guy doesn't have six pit bulls, I'll kiss your ass," Del said.

"I don't see any stakes in the yard," Lucas said.

"You watch," Del said. "Six."

They got out and both of them touched their guns, then Lucas led the way to the front door through the crunchy snow. He knocked on the aluminum storm door, and there was a thump inside, as if somebody had fallen off a couch, and a minute later, the inner door opened a crack, and a woman put her nose in the crack. "What?"

Lucas held up his ID: "Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. We need to chat with Phil Lighter."

"Phil's working," the woman said.

"Would you mind opening the door?" Lucas asked. "I can't hear you."

She opened the door a foot or so. She was a heavy woman with a bad hairdo, played-out blond streaks over natural brown. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said If
I wanted
to talk,
I woulda
worn underwear. "Phil's working," she said again.

"When do you expect him back?"

"Pretty soon," she said. Pause. Then, "You best not be here when he gets back."

"Why's that?" Del asked.

"Because he really doesn't like cops, and he's really pissed off right now," she said. "He was supposed to drive for some rock band, and they blew him off. He called a half hour ago. He's on his way back." She opened the door another inch and peered down the road. Nothing.

"I guess he has a problem when he gets pissed?" Del suggested.

"Yes, he does. I'd say he was a sweetheart under it all, except that under it all, he's an asshole."

"Sounds like the relationship isn't working out," Lucas said.

"Well, you know." She shrugged. "He's a warm body at night."

"How many pit bulls you got?" Del asked.

"Well ... none. We got a cat."

Lucas said, "We're not here to hassle him. We're really looking for an old friend of his, Joe Mack. Joe's not around, is he?"

"I guess not. Not after he fuckin' strangled somebody," the woman said.

"Hasn't even called?"

"No ... uh-oh. Too late."

Lucas and Del looked down the road and saw a several-year-old Cadillac rolling toward them, in a hurry. Not a limo.

"I thought he drove a limo," Del said.

"He doesn't get to bring the work cars home," she said. The door went back to the one-inch crack. "That's his car." And she shut the door.

LIGHTER WAS in the driveway one minute later. He climbed out of the Cadillac, a huge man wearing a navy pea jacket, white dress shirt, black pants, white socks, and a massive scowl.

"Who're you?" he asked, marching around the nose of Lucas's truck.

"Bureau of Criminal Apprehension," Lucas said. "We're looking for Joe."

"Haven't seen him," Lighter said, and he cruised past Lucas on his way to the porch. He was four inches taller than Lucas, six-seven or -eight, with a heavier build. Lucas could feel the weight when he hooked Lighter's arm.

"Take the fuckin' hand off, man," Lighter said, and Lucas let him go.

"Not a social call, Phil," Del said. "We're talking about kidnapping and murder. If you've got Joe in the house, if you know where Joe is, you're not getting any mercy."

"I haven't talked to Joe in a couple weeks," Lighter said. His face was red, and getting redder. He was about to blow, Lucas thought.

"Take it easy, Phil," he said. He gave himself a few more inches of space. "We're not saying that you had anything to do with it. We're just asking you, politely, if you've seen him, and we're telling you the consequences if you're lying to us. We know he's an old pal of yours."

Lighter stepped closer to Lucas and jabbed a hand in the general direction of Minneapolis. "You know what those fuckers just did to me? I was supposed to get two hundred bucks, plus tips, today. I turned down other work, and I get there and they tell me to go fuck myself. The fuckin' supervisor's ass-fuck brother-in-law got the job, and I can't say a fuckin' thing or they'll fire my ass. I been working there for ten fuckin' years ..."

"Hey, man, we know nothing about that," Del said, his hands out, and down, trying to make peace. "We're just asking ..."

"... ten fuckin' years. And you know what I figured out after all that time, the one big thing? The one huge fuckin' thing?" He held a thick index finger in front of Del's nose, in a "one."

"What's that?" Del asked, and Lucas winced. Some questions were best left unanswered.

"I really, really HATE fuckin' cops," Lighter said, and he launched himself at Del, who'd moved a step forward.

Lucas gave him a hard elbow as he went by and they both lost their footing and fell, and they rolled and Del was yelling, "Hey now, hey now," and then both Lucas and Lighter were on their feet. Lighter launched a roundhouse punch that would have knocked Lucas's head off, and Lucas dodged it and grabbed his arm, but his arm was like a fence post and Lighter yanked it free and hit Lucas on the forehead with a backhand and Lucas went down again, not hurt badly, but his city shoes gave him no traction in the snow.

As Lucas was rolling and scrabbling back to his feet, Lighter went after Del and Del hit him, hard, in the chest, with no effect at all--a heavy wool coat was like armor on a guy as big as Lighter--and Lighter grabbed Del by the shoulders and head-butted him, and then Lucas was on Lighter's back, trying to get an arm around his neck.

Lighter twisted round and round, and Lucas hung on, best he could, and Lucas, in the spinning, saw Del, his nose pouring blood, coming back into the fight. Lighter suddenly screamed and went down, sideways, and Lucas saw Del coming through on a low roundhouse kick, which had taken out one of Lighter's knees.

Lucas tried to pin him, but Lighter threw him off and grabbed one of Del's legs and pulled him into the pile, and Lucas half-stood and hit Lighter on the side of the face, hard as he could. Lighter let go of Del, and Del, jerking away, sprayed blood over Lighter's face, and Lighter came back at Lucas, snarling like a dog.

Del shouted "fuck it" and ran away. Lucas didn't know what had happened except that he was on his own, ducking and rolling, faster than the other man; now on Lighter's back again, hanging on for dear life, on the ground, in the bloody snow.

He and Lighter rolled over once and then again, with Lighter trying to pull Lucas's arms free from his neck, then Del was back and he shouted, "Roll him once more," and Lucas pushed with one leg and rolled Lighter faceup, on top of Lucas, and then Lucas heard a metallic
WHANK
and Lighter groaned and jerked and pushed against Lucas, and there was another
WHANK
and Lighter went slack.

Lucas rolled him over one last time, with the last of his strength, and Del, looking crazy, his face a mass of blood, stood there with the cast-iron briquette shovel from the charcoal grill. "Bend his arms back, let's get some cuffs on him."

They did, and then sat there in the snow for a minute, Lighter blowing bubbles of blood into the snow, and Lucas asked Del, "How bad?"

Del said, "My whole face hurts."

Lucas said, "Thanks, man. He was kicking my ass."

Del laughed and licked blood off his lips. "We gotta call somebody. I'm not hauling this asshole back to town."

"Need to get you to a hospital," Lucas said. He fumbled out his cell phone and punched in 911. A woman asked, "Is this an emergency?"

WHILE THEY SAT in the snow and waited for the Washington County deputies, the woman came out on the porch and said, "You took him. Didn't think you could."

"Piece of cake," Del said.

THE WASHINGTON COUNTY deputies showed up with an ambulance, and one cop car and the ambulance headed to the hospital in St. Paul, Del riding with the cop.

Lucas and the other deputy decided that since the assault took place at the house, they could look around to see if there was evidence that might apply to the crime. They walked through, found a bag of marijuana in the refrigerator and added that to the list, and a bottle of a hundred or so little white pills in the Cadillac, which they agreed was speed, and bagged up for the lab.

They also bagged both Lighter's cell phone and the woman's. Her name, she said, was Butch. Alice, really, but nobody called her that. "Joe never called," she said. "I'll tell you, Phil probably would've helped him out, if he called, but he never called."

No Joe.

The cop asked Lucas, "How bad are you hurt?"

"I'm okay. He backhanded me."

"You're limping."

"I don't know what happened, but the sole of my shoe came off," Lucas said, lifting one foot off the ground. Four hundred and fifty bucks of Italian calfskin, and the shoes looked like suede rags after a car wash.

"Man, I'm glad you took him on. Somebody was going to have to do it, sooner or later. I was afraid it was gonna be me," the cop said. "So, what do you want to do?"

"I'll write up my part, you write up your part. Del can handle the arrest ... you can do the search ... whatever." He stood up, bent over and touched his toes, then bent backward. Aches and pains. "I'm tired. I'm going home."

WHEN HE GOT HOME, Shrake eased out the back door, took a look at Lucas and said, "Holy shit. What happened to you?"

"Tap dancing with a steroid freak," Lucas said. "Del got his face messed up. He's down at Regions."

"How bad?"

"They've got him sitting in the waiting room, waiting, so apparently it's not so bad. He hit the guy with a shovel."

"With a shovel?" Shrake's face lit up. "Man, I miss all the good stuff."

"Yeah, well, I need a shower."

"Listen. Weather's on the warpath," Shrake said, his voice dropping. "That's why I snuck out. Virgil told her what was going on, with the Frenchman, and she freaked out."

"Ah, man. Just what I needed."

Shrake said, "If you wait a minute, I'll get a shovel out of the garage."

Made Lucas smile, for the first time since the fight.

WEATHER WAS WAITING in the kitchen, arms crossed under her breasts in what Letty called the "You're goin' down" pose. That fell apart when Lucas dragged in, and she said, "Oh my God--what happened?"

"Fight," he said. He detected the possibility of some sympathy, so he added, "Del's down at Regions. Guy head-butted him, eyebrows got ripped up, just about bit through his lip. Saved my ass. The guy was crazy, a goddamned Frankenstein's monster. Del hit him in the face with a shovel."

"A shovel?"

"Twice."

Shrake, who'd come in behind Lucas, chortled, and said, "Twice? That's my boy."

Weather looked past Lucas and snapped, "Shrake, go play the piano. I need to talk to Lucas. Privately."

Shrake stepped hastily across the kitchen and out, and Weather turned back to Lucas and asked, "Really--you're okay?"

"I'm okay. I need to take a shower. I got blood on my coat and it has to go to the cleaner's, and my shirt and pants are probably ruined, and my shoes are gone."

"So what? You've got more clothes than Brooks Brothers," she said. "Are you hurt? Your forehead's all scraped."

"I'm fine. Del's not so fine. I mean, nothing serious, but he's gonna be in some pain," Lucas said. "The thing is, it was all pointless. The guy freaked and jumped us because he was pissed off about losing a limo-driving job. Ah, Christ, I stink. I had the guy all over me. I smell like the ass-end of a limo driver."

Weather crossed her arms again. "Virgil told me about the French-accent thing. If you think for one second that Gabe had anything to do with it ..."

"I don't think it for one second," Lucas said. "I've already got Virgil looking for other people with French accents."

"Well, that's just fine," Weather said. "Virgil told me that. He also told me that he didn't want me alone with Gabe, which means he's thinking about Gabe. I was screaming at him: at Virgil. But he wouldn't budge. You know what he gets like."

Lucas thought, silently, Good. "I'll talk to him."

"Do that," she said. She looked at him for a second, and said, "Don't go telling him behind my back that he's doing the right thing."

"I won't," Lucas lied. They could hear Shrake playing "White Christmas" on the piano, and it echoed strangely through the house. "Listen, you want to come up and wash my back? I'm sorta hurtin' here."

"No, because then you'll try to jump me, to make sure you're still alive. I'm not sure that I'm not still pissed off at you."

"Looking for some comfort," Lucas said, trying to put a little pathos into it.

"Well, I'm going down to Regions and comfort Del," she said. "I bet Cheryl's freaked out. You call Virgil."

"Take Shrake with you." Shrake was banging out "Silent Night" with a jazz beat. He only knew how to play the piano one way, and only knew Christmas tunes, so that was what you got--honky-tonk Baby Jesus.

"And Jenkins," Weather said. "Jenkins is out driving around the block again. This whole thing is driving me insane."