Sudden Prey by John Sandford Page A

kind of fight. There must’ve been somebody else here.”
    “Unless he’d cut a deal with Sand to turn him loose, and make it look like an escape—then double-crossed him.”
    “Huh. What’d he have to offer Sand? Candy and Georgie were dead, so the source of money had dried up . . .”
    “We’re checking with Michigan, see if Sand had any problems back there. Something to blackmail him with . . .”
    “Nobody saw him walking away.” Lucas made it a statement.
    “Nope. Nobody saw nothing.”
    Sloan jumped in: “I heard his mother says he’s coming after us.”
    “That’s what she says,” Lock said, nodding. “And she could be right. Dick is nuts.”
    “You know him?” Lucas asked.
    “From when I was a kid,” Lock said. “I used to run a trap line up the Red Cedar in the winter. The LaChaises lived down south of here on this broken-ass farm—Amy LaChaise is still out there. I used to see the LaChaise kids every now and then. Georgie and Dick. Their old man was a mean sonofabitch, drunk, beat the shit out of the kids . . .”
    “That’s how it is with most psychos,” said Sloan.
    “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody told me he’d been screwing Georgie, either. She always knew too much, there in school.” Lock scratched his head, caught himself and slicked back his thinning hair. “The old man came after me once, said I was trespassing on his part of the river, and they didn’t even live on the river.”
    “What happened?” Sloan asked.
    “Hell, I was seventeen, I’d baled hay all summer, built fence in the fall and then ran the trap line. I was in shape, he was a fifty-year-old drunk: I kicked his ass,” Lock said, grinning at them over Sand’s body.
    “Good for you,” Sloan said.
    “Not good for his kids, though—living with him,” Lock said. “The whole goddamn bunch of them turned out crazier’n bedbugs.”
    “There’s more? Besides Georgie and Dick?” Lucas asked.
    “One more brother, Bill. He’s dead,” Lock said. “Ran himself into a bridge abutment up on County M, eight or ten years back. Dead drunk, middle of the night. There was a hog in the backseat. Also dead.”
    “A hog,” said Sloan. He looked at Lucas, wondering if Lock was pulling their legs.
    Lock, reading Sloan’s mind, cracked a grin. “Yeah, he used to rustle hogs. Put them in the car, leave them off at friends’ places. When he got five or six, he’d run them into St. Paul.”
    “Hogs,” Sloan said, shaking his head sadly.
    Lock said the only two people who’d showed up for the funeral were Amy LaChaise and Sandy Darling, Candy’s sister. “They’re both still sitting out there. They say they don’t know what the heck happened.”
    “You believe them?” Sloan asked.
    “Yeah, I sorta do,” Lock said. “You might want to talk to them, though. See what you think.”
     
     
     
    AMY LACHAISE WAS a mean-eyed, foulmouthed waste of time, defiant and quailing at the same time, snapping at them, then flinching away as though she’d been beaten after other attempts at defiance.
    “You’re gonna get it now,” she crowed, peering at them from beneath the ludicrous hat-net. “You’re the big shots going around killing people, thinking your shit don’t stink; but you’re gonna see. Dickie’s coming for you.”
     
     
     
    SANDY DARLING WAS different.
    She was a small woman, but came bigger than her size: her black dress was unconsciously dramatic, the silver-tipped black boots an oddly elegant country touch, both sensitive and tough.
    She faced them squarely, her eyes looking into theirs, unflinching, her voice calm, but depressed.
    Sandy had seen Lucas arrive with Sloan, had seen them talking with the sheriff. The big tough-looking guy wore what she recognized as an expensive suit, probably tailored. FBI? He looked like an FBI man from the movies. The other man, the thin one, was shifty-looking, and dressed all in shades of brown. They went in the back, where the dead guard