"Aw, no," Lucas sputtered.

He should have seen it. He stepped out of the shower, mopped his face and walked down the hall to the kitchen, found the telephone. He got Carr at his office.

"You get any sleep?" he asked.

"Couple hours on the office couch," Carr said. "We got a search warrant for Judy Schoenecker's place. You can take it out there."

"I'd like to take Gene along. He was pretty good with Harper."

"I understand Russ might have a sore nose this morning," Carr said.

"It's the cold weather," Lucas said. "Listen, how many people live down Storm Lake Road, beyond the LaCourts' house? How many other residences?"

"Hmp. Twenty or thirty, maybe. Plus a couple resorts, but those are closed, of course. Nobody there but the owners."

"Could you get a list for me?"

"Sure. The assessor'll know. We can get his plat books. What're you looking for?"

"I'll know it when I see it. I'll be there in twenty minutes," Lucas said.

When he hung up, he realized he was freezing, hustled back to the bathroom, and jumped into the shower. After two more minutes of hot water, he toweled off, dressed, and let himself out of the house.

Carr was munching on a powdered doughnut hole when Lucas got in. He pointed at a white paper bag and said, "Have one. Why do you want those names down the road?"

"Just to see what's down there," Lucas said, fishing a sweet roll out of the bag. "Did you get them?"

"I told George-he's the assessor-I told him we needed them ASAP, so they should be ready," Carr said. "I'll take you down."

George was tall and dark, balding, with fingers pointed like crow-quill pens. He pulled out a plat map of the lake area and used a sharp-nailed index finger to trace the road and tick off the inhabitants, right down to the infants. Three of the houses were lived in by single men.

"Do you know these guys?" Lucas asked Carr, touching the houses of the three single men.

"Yup," Carr said. "But the only one I know well is Donny Riley, he's in the Ojibway Rod and Gun Club. Pretty good guy. He's a retired mail carrier. The other two, Bob Dell works up in a sawmill and Darrell Anderson runs the Stone Hawk Resort."

"Are they married? Divorced, widowed? What?"

"Riley was married for years. His wife died. Darrell's gone off-and-on with one of the gals from the hospital, but I don't know much about him. Bob is pretty much a bachelor-farmer type."

"Any of them Catholics?" Lucas asked.

"Well…" Carr looked at the assessor, and then they both looked at Lucas. "I believe Bob goes to Sunday Mass."

"Does he come from here?"

"No, no, he comes from Milwaukee," Carr said. "What're we pushing toward here?"

"Nothing special," Lucas said. "Let's go back upstairs." And to the assessor he said, "Thanks."

Lacey was sitting in Carr's office, his feet on the corner of the sheriff's desk. When they came in, he quickly pulled his feet off, then crossed his legs.

"You're gonna ruin my desk and I'll take it out of your paycheck," Carr grumbled.

"Sorry," Lacey said.

"Now what the heck was all that about? Down there with George?" Carr asked Lucas as he settled into his swivel chair.

"There's a rumor around-just a rumor-that Phil Bergen's gay. That why I asked him last night if he'd ever had any homosexual contacts."

"That's the worst kind of bull," Carr blurted. "Where'd you hear that gay stuff?"

"Look: I keep trying to figure why he says he was at the LaCourts' when the LaCourts were dead," Lucas said. "Why he won't back off of it. And I got to thinking, what if he was somewhere else down the road, but can't say so?"

"Dammit," Carr said. He spun and looked out his window through the half-open venetian blinds. "You got a dirty mind, Davenport."

"Are you thinking about anybody in particular?" Lacey asked. Lucas repeated the three names. Lacey stared at him for a moment, then cleared his throat, edged forward in his chair, and looked at the sheriff. "Um, Shelly, listen. My wife knows Bob Dell. I once said something about he's a good-looking guy, just kidding her, and she said, 'Bob's not the sort that goes for women, I kinda think.' That's what she said."

"She was saying he's gay?" Carr asked, turning, pulling his head back, staring owlishly at his deputy.

"Well, not exactly," Lacey said. "Just that he wasn't the type who was interested in women."

"This is awful," Carr said, looking back to Lucas.

"It would explain a hell of a lot," Lucas said. "If people down there know that this Bob Dell is gay… maybe Bergen was down there, got caught in a lie, and then couldn't back off of it. Look at his drinking. If he's innocent, where's all the pressure coming from?"

"From this office for one thing," Carr said. He climbed out of his chair, took a meandering walk around the office, a knuckle pressed to his teeth. "We've got to check on Dell," he said finally.

"See if you can get his birthdate. Query the NCIC and Milwaukee, if that's where he's from," Lucas said. "And think about it: if this is Bergen's problem, then he's in the clear on the murder."

"Yeah." Carr spun and stared through his window, which looked out at a snowpile, a drifted-in fence and the backs of several houses on the next street. "But he wouldn't be clear on the gay thing. And that'd kill him."

They all thought about it for a minute, then Carr said, "Gene Climpt will meet you out at the Mill restaurant at noon." He passed Lucas a warrant.

Lucas glanced at it and stuck it in his coat pocket. "Nothing at all on John Mueller?"

Carr shook his head: "Nothing. We're looking for a body now."

Lucas spent the morning at the LaCourts'. An electric heater tried to keep the garage warm, but without insulation, and with the coming and going of the lab crew, couldn't keep up. Everybody inside wore their parkas, open, or sweaters; it was barely warm enough to dispense with gloves. A long makeshift table had been built out of two-by-fours and particle board, and was stacked with paper, electronic equipment, and a computer with a printer.

The crew had found a badly deformed slug in the kitchen wall. Judging from the base and the weight, allowing for some loss of jacketing material, the techs thought it was probably a.44 Magnum. Definitely not a.357. The gun Lucas found the night of the killings had not been fired.

"The girl was alive when her ear was cut off, and also some other parts of her face apparently were cut away while she was alive," a tech said, reading from a fax. "The autopsy's done, but there are a lot of tests still outstanding."

The tech began droning through a list of other findings. Lucas listened, but every few seconds his mind would drift from the job to Weather. He'd always been attracted to smart women, but few of his affairs had gone anywhere. He had a daughter with a woman he'd never loved, though he'd liked her a lot. She was a reporter, and they'd been held together by a common addiction to pressure and movement. He'd loved another woman, or might have, who was consumed by her career as a cop. Weather fit the mold of the cop. She was serious, and tough, but seemed to have an intact sense of humor.

Can't fuck this up with Weather, he thought, and again, Can't fuck this thing up.

Crane came in, blowing steam, stamping his feet, walked behind Lucas to a coffee urn. "He used the water heater to start the fire," he said to the back of Lucas' head.

"What?"

Lucas turned in his chair. Crane, still wrapped in his parka, was pouring himself a cup of coffee. "The hot water faucet was turned on over the laundry tub, and a lot of premix was splashed around the water heater. The heater's a mess, of course, but it looks like there might be traces of charred cotton coming out of the pilot port."

"Say it in English," Lucas suggested.

Crane grinned. "He splashed his premix around the house, soaked a rag in it and laid it across the burner in the water heater. He had to be careful to keep it away from the pilot light. Then he turned on the hot water faucet, let the water dribble out. Not too fast. Then he left. In a few minutes, the water level drops in the tank, cold water refills it…"