Winter Prey (30 page)

The Iceman picked up the bottle, poured another glass of bourbon, stepped back.

“Open your eyes. Pick up the glass.”

“It’ll kill me,” Bergen protested feebly. He picked up the glass, looked at it.

“You don’t have to drink this straight down. Just sip it. But I want it gone,” he said. The gun barrel was three feet from Bergen’s eyes, and unwavering. “Now—when was the last time you saw the LaCourts?”

“It was the night of the murder,” Bergen said. “I was there, all right . . .” As he launched into the story he’d told the sheriff, the fear was still with him, but now it was joined by the certainty brought by alcohol. He was right, he was innocent, and he could convince this man. The intruder had kept his mask on: no point in doing that if he really planned to kill.
So he didn’t plan to kill.
Bergen, pleased with himself for figuring it out, took another large swallow of bourbon when the Iceman prompted him, and another, and was surprised when the glass was suddenly empty.

“You’re still sober enough to lie.”

The glass was full again, and the man’s voice seemed to be drifting away. Bergen sputtered, “Listen . . . you,” and his head dropped on his shoulder and he nearly giggled. The impulse was smothered by what seemed to be a dark stain. The stain was spreading through his body, through his brain . . .

Took a drink, choking this time, dropped the glass, vaguely aware of the bourbon on him . . .

And now aware of something wrong. He’d never drunk this much alcohol this fast, but he’d come close a few times. It had never gotten on him like this; he’d never had this dark spreading stain in his mind.

Nothing was right; he could barely see; he looked up at the gunman, but his head wouldn’t work right, couldn’t turn. Tried to stand . . .

Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, felt the coldness at his lips, sputtered, alcohol running into him, a hand on his forehead . . . he swallowed, swallowed, swallowed. And at the last instant understood the Iceman: who he was, what he was doing. He tried, but he couldn’t move . . . couldn’t move.

The Iceman pressed the priest’s head back into the couch, emptied most of the rest of the bottle into him. When he was finished, he stepped back, looked down at his handiwork. The priest was almost gone. The Iceman took the priest’s hand, wrapped it around the bottle, smeared it a bit, wrapped the other hand around it. The priest had sputtered alcohol all over himself, and that was fine.

The Iceman, moving quickly, put two prescription pill bottles on the table, the labels torn off. A single pill remained in one of the bottles to help the cops with identification. The priest, still sitting upright on the couch, his head back, mumbled something, then made a sound like a snore or a gargle. The Iceman had never been in the rectory before, but the office was just off the living room and he found it immediately. A yellow pad sat next to an IBM electric. He turned the typewriter on, inserted a sheet of paper with his gloved hand, pulled off his glove and typed the suicide note.

That done, he rolled the paper out without touching it, got the copy of the Sunday Bulletin from his pocket. Bergen signed all the bulletins.

When he got back to the living room, the priest was in deep sleep, his breathing shallow, long. He’d taken a combination of Seconal and alcohol, enough to kill a horse,
along with Dramamine to keep him from vomiting it out.

The Iceman went to the window and peeked out. The kid who’d been shoveling snow had gone inside. He looked back at the priest. Bergen was slumped on the couch, his head rolled down on his chest. Still breathing. Barely.

Time to go.

CHAPTER
18

Lucas woke suddenly, knew it was too early, but couldn’t get back to sleep. He looked at the clock: 6:15. He slipped out of bed, walked slowly across the room to his right, hands out in front of him, and found the bathroom door. He shut the door, turned on the light, got a drink, and stared at himself in the mirror.

Why Weather?

If she was right about being chased on the night of the LaCourt murders, then the attacks had nothing at all to do with him.

He splashed water in his face, dried it, opened the door. The light from the bathroom fell across Weather and she rolled away from it, still asleep. Her arm was showing the bruises. She slept with it crooked under her chin, almost as though she were resting her head on her fists instead of the pillow. Lucas pulled the bathroom door most of the way shut, leaving just enough light to navigate. He tiptoed across the room and out into the hall, then went through the kitchen, turning on the lights, and, naked and cold, down into her basement. He got his clothing out of the dryer and carried it back up to the other bathroom to clean up and
dress. When he went back to the bedroom for socks, she said, “Mmmm?”

“Are you awake?” he whispered.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I’m calling in. I’ll get somebody down here until you’re ready to leave.”

As he said it, the phone rang, and she rolled and looked up at him, her voice morning-rough. “Every morning it rings and somebody’s dead.”

Lucas said “Just a moment” and padded into the kitchen. Carr was on the phone, ragged, nearly incoherent: “Phil’s dead.”

“What?”

“He killed himself. He left a note. He did it. He killed the LaCourts.”

For a moment Lucas couldn’t track it. “Where are you, Shelly?” Lucas asked. He could hear voices behind Carr.

“At the rectory. He’s here.”

“How many people are with you?” Lucas asked.

“Half-dozen.”

“Get everybody the fuck out of there and seal the place off. Get the guys from Madison in there.”

“They’re on the way,” Carr said. He sounded unsure of himself, his voice faltering.

“Get everybody out,” Lucas said urgently. “Maybe Bergen killed himself, but I don’t think he killed the LaCourts. If the note says he did, then he might have been murdered.”

“But he did it with pills and booze—and the note’s signed,” Carr said. His voice was shrill: not a whine, but something nearer hysteria.

“Don’t touch the note. We need to get it processed.”

“It’s already been picked up.”

“For God’s sake put it down!” Lucas said. “Don’t pass it around.”

Weather stepped into the hallway with the comforter wrapped around her, a question on her face. Lucas held up a just-a-moment finger. “How’d he do it? Exactly.”

“Drank a fifth of whiskey with a couple bottles of sleeping pills.”

“Yeah, that’d do it,” Lucas said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Look, it may be a suicide, but treat it like a homicide. Somebody almost got away with killing the Harper kid, making it look like an accident. He might be fucking with us again. Hold on for a minute.”

Lucas took the phone down. “Do you know who Bergen’s doctor is? GP?”

“Lou Davies had him, I think.”

To Carr, Lucas said, “Bergen’s doctor might have been a guy named Lou Davies. Call him, find out if Bergen had those prescriptions. And have somebody check the drugstore. Maybe all the drugstores around here.”

“Phil Bergen’s dead?” Weather asked when Lucas hung up the phone.

“Yeah. Might be suicide—there’s a note. And he confesses to killing the LaCourts.”

“Oh, no.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Lucas . . . I’m getting scared now. Really scared.”

He put an arm around her shoulder. “I keep telling you . . .”

“But I’m not getting out,” she said.

“You could go down to my place in the Cities.”

“I’m staying. But this guy . . .” She shook her head. Then she frowned. “That means . . . I don’t see how . . .”

“What?”

“He would have been the guy who tried to shoot me last night. And the guy who was chasing me the first night.”

“You were still at the LaCourts’ when Shelly and I left, and we went into town to interview Bergen. Couldn’t have been him,” Lucas said.

“Maybe the guy wasn’t chasing me—but after last night, I was sure that he was. I was sure, because it was so strange.”

“Get dressed,” Lucas said. “Let’s go look at it.”

Seven o’clock in the morning, utterly dark, but Grant was awake, starting the day, people scurrying along the downtown sidewalks in front of a damp, cold wind. One city police car, two sheriff’s cars, and the Madison techs’ sedan were waiting at the rectory. Lucas nodded at the deputy on the door. Weather followed him inside. Carr was sitting on a couch, his face waxy. A lab tech from Madison was in the kitchen with a collection of glasses and bottles, dusting them. Carr wearily stood up when Lucas and Weather came in.

“Where is he?” Lucas asked.

“In here,” Carr said, leading them down the hall.

Bergen was lying faceup, his head propped on a pillow, his eyes open, but filmed-over with death. His hands were crossed on his stomach. He wore a sweater and black trousers, undone at the waist. One shoe had come off and lay on the floor beside the couch; that foot dangled off the couch. His black sock had a hole at the little toe, and the little toe stuck through it. The other foot was on the couch.

“Who found him?” Lucas asked.

“One of the parishioners, when he didn’t show up for early Mass,” Carr said. “The front door was unlocked and a light was still on, but nobody answered the doorbell. They looked in the garage windows and they could see his car. Finally one of the guys went inside and found him here. They knew he was dead—you could look at him and see it—so they called us.”

“You or the town police?”

“We do the dispatching for both. And the Grant guys only patrol from seven in the morning until the bars close. We cover the overnight.”

“So you got here and it was like this.”

“Yeah, except Johnny—he’s the deputy who responded—he picked up the note, then he handed it to one other guy, and then I picked it up. I was the last one to handle it, but we might of messed it up,” Carr confessed.

“Where is it?”

“Out on the dining room table,” Carr said. “But there’s more than that. C’mon.”

“I’ll want to look at him,” Weather said, bending over the body.

Lucas took a last look at Bergen, nodded to Weather, then followed Carr through the living room and kitchen to the mudroom, then out to the garage. The back gate of the Grand Cherokee was up. A pistol lay on the floor of the truck, along with a peculiar machete-like knife. The knife looked homemade, with wooden handles, taped, and a squared-off tip. Lucas bent over it, could see a dark encrustation that might be blood.

“That’s a corn-knife,” Carr said. “You don’t see them much anymore.”

“Was it just laying here like this?”

“Yeah. It’s mentioned in the note. So’s the gun. My God, who would’ve thought . . .”

“Let me see the note,” Lucas said.

The note was typed on the parish’s letterhead stationery.

“I assume he has an IBM typewriter,” Lucas said.

“Yes. In his office.”

“Okay . . .” Lucas read down through the note.

I have killed and I have lied. When I did it, I thought I did it for God; but I see now it was the Devil’s hand. For what I’ve done, I will be punished; but I know the punishment will end and that I will see you all again, in heaven, cleansed of sin. For now, my friends, forgive me if you can, as the Father will.

He’d signed it with a ballpoint:
Rev. Philip Bergen.

And under that:
Shelly—I’m sorry; I’m weak when I’m desperate: but you’ve known that since I kicked the ball out from under that pine. You’ll find the implements in the back of my truck.

“Is that his signature?”

“Yes. I knew it as soon as I looked at it. And there’s the business about the pine.”

Crane, the crime tech, stepped into the room, heard Lucas’ question and Carr’s answer, and said, “We’re sending the note down to Madison. There might be a problem with it.”

“What?” asked Lucas.

“When Sheriff Carr said you thought it could be a homicide, we got very careful. If you look at the note, at the signature . . .” He took a small magnifying glass from his breast pocket and handed it to Lucas. “ . . . you can see what looks like little pen indentations, without ink, at a couple of places around the signature itself.”

“So what?” Lucas bent over the note. The indentations were vague, but he could see them.

“Sometimes, when somebody wants to forge a note, he’ll take a real signature, like from a check, lay it on top of the paper where he wants the new signature. Then he’ll write over the real signature with something pointed, like a ballpoint pen, pushing down hard. That’ll make an impression on the paper below it. Then he writes over the impression. It’s hard to pick out if the forger’s careful. The new signature will have all the little idiosyncrasies of an original.”

“You think this is a fake?”

“Could be,” Crane said. “And there are a couple of other things. Our fingerprint guy is gonna do the Super-Glue trick on the whiskey bottle and pill bottles, but he can see some prints sitting right on the glass. And except for the prints, the bottles are absolutely clean. Like somebody wiped them before Bergen picked them up—or printed Bergen’s fingerprints on them after he was dead. Hardly any smears or partials or handling background, just a bunch of very clear prints. Too clear, too careful. They have to be deliberate.”

“Sonofagun,” Carr said, looking from the tech to Lucas.

“Could mean nothing at all,” Crane said. “I’d say the odds are good that he killed himself. But . . .”

“But . . .” Carr repeated.

“Are you checking the neighborhood,” Lucas asked Carr, “to see if anybody was hanging around last night?”

“I’ll get it started,” Carr said. A deputy had been standing, listening, and Carr pointed to him. He nodded and left.

Weather came in, shrugged. “There aren’t any bruises that I can see, no signs of a struggle. His pants were undone.”

“Yeah?”

“So what?” asked Carr.