"Yeah. They were outside, right under us, looking up. Just a reaction, I guess."

"How high were you?"

"Oh, thousand feet, more or less."

"An Army-green Huey?"

I nodded.

"Black Helicopter. Great observers," he said. "Must have shaken the whole house. Hey, while we're out here, show me where they went over the fence." He sighed.

"Yeah. We better go to Grossman's and check the damned VINs on those snowmobiles."

On the way, I showed him the entry tracks. It was pretty dark by then, and I had my headlights on. I shined a flashlight out the window, showing him the path. All he did was make that little humming sound. With my window rolled down, I found myself thinking about how alert I was, again. Nothing like bitterly cold air to wake you up.

We went directly to Grossman's, and I cashed in my marker with a request to look at the VIN numbers on the snowmobiles. It took about five minutes, but I found them all, and wrote them down. I thanked him.

Davies gazed out the window on the way back. "You know, without anything linking him to the inside of that house, Fred could walk." He leaned back in his seat. "All we got him on is conspiracy to commit a burglary. That works. He said he took 'em there for the purpose of burgling. They sure were where he said they'd be. Packaged. Nicely packaged."

"What… you think he delivered them?"

He snorted. "No, probably not. But it's a possibility, isn't it? Somebody says, 'Hey, I wanna kill your cousins…' and Fred sets the boys up."

I thought about it for a second. "Too many possibilities, not enough leads," I said. "We could be chasing our tails forever…"

We drove about another mile.

"You get the feeling," I said, "that there's something missing?"

He snorted. "Like evidence?"

"Not so much evidence… more like information."

We got back to the Sheriffs Department fully intending to have supper with Art. Instead, we found a bit of a flap. Fred had bonded out on the burglary charges.

Art was pissed off, and Lamar was simply frustrated. Fred's bond had been set at $13,000.00, a so-called "scheduled" bond, that was used when a magistrate wasn't immediately available to set one. Lawyer Priller found one, though, and he convinced him to agree on a 10 percent posting. Fred had left us for the princely sum of $1,300.00.

"Don't worry about it," said Davies. "I'm just glad you didn't do something dumb, like charge him with murder."

As it turned out, that's exactly what Art had wanted to do, and had been dissuaded by Lamar, who had maintained that there was insufficient evidence to smack him with a murder charge.

"Let's put it this way," said Davies. "You lay a murder charge on him, I've got forty-five days to make the entire case, unless he waives his right to a speedy trial." He shook his head. "You know about backlogs at the lab. No guarantee everything will be done in forty-five days. I have other trials scheduled, in the next forty-five days. You charge him now, he demands speedy trial, he walks, free. Period."

He looked at Art. "What's the hurry? He ain't goin' nowhere." He grinned. "I assume, at least, that you told him not to leave town?"

"Absolutely." Art seemed a bit mollified.

I'd been checking the VINs I'd gotten from the snowmobiles against the list Sally had given me. Two were from Cletus Borglan. I announced that.

"Is this, like, significant?" asked Art.

"Beats me," I said. "Just an error in memory, maybe." Cletus had said that he gave Grossman one and junked the rest.

"I prefer to go to trial with a ninety-five percent chance of winning," said Davies, ignoring the Art and Carl show. "The five percent being the whim of the jury. I'll be happy with seventy-five percent, and I've gone in with about a sixty percent chance, but I really don't like to do that. Right now, this one would be about fifty-fifty. Maybe less. With a circumstantial case, and a local jury, I don't think we could pull it off."

"What if the lab doesn't give us anything linking Fred to the scene?" I asked. "Then what do we do?"

"If that happens," said Davies, "you do lots and lots of interviews, of lots and lots of people. And if we still come down with Fred being the only possibility, then…" He paused. "Then we go the grand jury route, get an indictment, and see if we can convince him to cop a plea."

"Nothing personal," said Art, "but that's not much of a plan."

"You are so right," said Davies. "And that's just the best possible scenario if the lab doesn't link him. The very best."

"So," I said, "where's that leave us?"

"The no-link bit, you mean?"

"Yep."

"That leaves us with very little," said Davies. "Or, to use a legal term, up Shit Creek without a paddle."

"Don't worry," said Art. "He did it, and the lab will find a link."

Davies looked at him. "You must have taken a confidence-building course recently."

"I just don't accept defeat," said Art, "when I know I'm right."

I was glad for him. He was just full of admirable traits.

After much discussion, it was left at this: Absent any other viable suspect, it appeared that Fred was the only person who could have done the deed. Period. We took a short poll, and it was decided that we would diligently seek other suspects. And, in the meantime, we would do all we could to link Fred to the scene.

"We don't have much pressure today," said Davies. "Tomorrow, there'll be more. And each day we go without an arrest, the pressure increases. So long as you understand that."

"Just like always," I said.

The dispatch desk called, and said there were several members of the press in the outer office. Art and Davies took the job of talking to them. Lamar went out the unused back way. And I mean, unused. We never opened that door, and never shoveled the snow outside it. I last saw him slogging through two-foot snow drifts, going around behind the building. He really hates the press.

I was tired when I got home around 8:30. Sue had laid in a supply of frozen, microwaveable food. Murder rations, so to speak. Although I couldn't discuss details, I let her know that things were going slowly.

"How about Madison this weekend?" she asked.

Ooh. We'd been planning to do that since Christmas, and this weekend was the one per month I was scheduled off.

"Not sure. Let me see how it goes tomorrow…" Damn. Another delay would put us into March. Too long. It was going to be difficult, though, getting things arranged for a weekend off. If stuff happened fast, then we would be able to go in March. If it continued at this pace, we'd be going in August if we didn't go now.

"I know you're really into this case, but if we don't go now…"

"I know. Now or six months from now."

"I got lots of frozen vegetables today. Be sure to eat some." She smiled. "You need to be healthy, either way."

I put the frozen vegetables into my microwaved couscous, added a can of mushrooms, sliced a low-fat sausage, and topped the whole thing with fat-free grated cheese. Eleven minutes from opening the first package to a complete, satisfying, and sort of tasty meal.

"I don't know how you can eat that…"

"Oh," I said, "thanks. I forgot the Thai sauce…"

"God." She shook her head. "Your stomach won't last till spring. If you want to eat at a good restaurant in Madison, you better go soon."

That was about as close to a clincher as you could get. I popped the top of a can of Diet Cherry Coke, and silently drank a toast to Madison. Hitting directly on top of the Thai sauce, it produced an instant reaction, and I belched.

"You may have to go by yourself…"