FALLEN ANGELS

Ike Redden held the telephone away from his head and stared at it. Then he put it back against his ear. "What do you mean, you can't get north of Lancaster? A blizzard? Impossible. This is September. How do you know? I see. A truck pulled into Patch Grove with snow on its roof. No, you can't argue with evidence like that." Wherever the hell Patch Grove is. He glanced at the Air Force Intelligence captain fiddling with a pen on the other side of the desk and shrugged helplessly.

"Yes, I understand," he said into the phone. "But we received a report about a maroon van with Mi

"Do you plan to check out every van in Mi

"I suppose you have a better lead, Captain?" Arteria smiled but said nothing and Redden made a steeple of his fingers. Does that mean the Air Force has a lead and they're not going to tell me? Or does it mean the Air Force wants me to think they have a lead?

"You could wait for the information from the DMV," Arteria suggested. "At least, it would narrow the list of vans."

Redden waved a disparaging hand. "Ahh. It's been three days already. Some sort of bug in the computer. They're still trying to straighten it out. Goddamn DMV can't find its own asshole if they used both hands."

Arteria considered that in silence, then nodded. "Any word on possible contacts in the Fargo area?"

"Not yet. That moron, Moorkith, is supposed to be ru

Arteria grunted humorlessly, stood and stretched. The side wall of the office was taken up by a large-scale map of the upper Midwest. Arteria studied it carefully, ru

"Which one? We've had two dozen reports."

"The last one; where you put a bug up that badger sheriff's ass."

"Oh. Crawford County."

Arteria traced a route. "And heading southeast?"

Redden frowned. "On 18. Is that significant?"

Arteria straightened. "Probably not."

Meaning it probably is, Redden thought. What was Arteria's lead? Damn it, didn't the Air Force believe in teamwork? Everyone was concerned about getting credit for the arrest. That Army colonel, he had something going on the side, too. Some co

Well, Ms. Arteria, we'll see just how smart you think you are. "If they went that direction," he said, "they drove straight into a blizzard. If we can believe the hicks. Probably just a light dusting. You know how the squareheads like to yank our chains."

"I don't know. Weather is something farmers don't joke about; especially nowadays. A blizzard, out in the country; that's a life or death issue."

"Well, if the van Wilson spotted was our quarry, there's no rush."

"Why not?"

"It's been three days since the blizzard hit. They'll be froze dead by now."

Deputy Andy Atwood kicked at the back end of the van with his snowshoe. The crusted, half-melted snow slid off into a pile on the ground. "Mi

The snow was two-, three-feet deep. Even with the snowshoes he found it rough going. His feet broke through the crust and he sank several inches into the cold, wet powder beneath. It must have been a hell of a storm this end of the county. It was melting now; but it would never melt all the way. Not 'till spring. If then. He glanced behind to see his partner following in his footsteps.

They were met at the door of the church by a crusty old man in a red-checkered lumberman's cap. He was racking a pair of cross-country skis against the side of the church. "Yes, deputies," he said. "Can I help you?"

"We'll see, old timer." Atwood nodded toward the church. "What's going on in there? It isn't Sunday."

"Nope. Funeral. We hold a few of those after it snows." He worked his jaws, as if he were chewing tobacco and was wondering where to spit. "We don't get much heating oil in these parts anymore," he went on. "Not like you folks in the cities, where the newspapers and teevee cameras are. So when it freezes here…" And again there was a drawn out, introspective silence and when he resumed speaking, it was in a lower, quieter voice. "When it freezes hereabouts, why we've all got to huddle right quick. Some folks don't make it in time. This time it was a feller did some chores for me. He and a couple of his friends."

"I see. Do you mind if we check it out, Mr…?"

"Wallace. Enoch Wallace." The old man held out a heavily bundled mitt and the deputy touched it briefly with his own. "It's God's house, aina? All are welcome." He held the door open for them.

The deputies stamped the snow off their snowshoes in the narthex. There was a thin layer of snow on the wooden floor, unmelted and trod hard by a great many boots. They unstrapped their snowshoes and hung them on pegs on the wall. Atwood noticed several other pairs of snowshoes, as well as a few more skis. One pair of skis he recognized as the high-tech fiber glass Alpine type. A family heirloom, no doubt, from the days when people skied for fun.

"Huddle," he said. It was not quite a question. He had heard stories. In Grant County, you heard stories.

Wallace tugged off his mittens and stuffed them in his heavy wool jacket. "For the warmth, deputy. For the warmth. Every farmstead hereabout has a huddle room or a shut bed where folks can gather when the cold hits. Folks lie in, under the blankets, hugging each other until it gets warm again outdoors. Those on the outside of the huddle are generally a bit colder; and those on the inside have got to be mighty tolerant of body odor. You don't get much sleep, but you don't freeze, neither."

"Jesus Christ. What do you do during the winter?" Atwood's partner was a young kid new to the force. A town boy. He would see enough before the winter was over.

Wallace seemed not to mind the swearing, even standing in the narthex of a church. "We huddle all winter, deputy," he said with flint in his voice. "Every man-jack, woman and child in the township. We come right here t' St. Olaf's and we huddle."

"Like hibernating bears?"

The old man's eyes were hard as coal. "We don't quite hibernate. Come spring we're mighty thin. And some of us are ready to do murder and some are ready to get married, but mostly we're still alive." He opened the door to the nave. "Mostly," he repeated. "My handyman and some friends of his got caught in the open by Friday's storm. They didn't all make it."