VIRGIL ROLLED OFF THE BED, looked at the clock-he'd been down an hour-brushed his teeth, and stood in the shower. At the end of a case, when the facts were piling up, a nap often worked to clarify his thoughts: instead of being scattered around like crumbs, they tended to clump together.
ABOUT FEUR: Jim Stryker was at least partly correct. When Virgil thought about it, it seemed unlikely that a town the size of Bluestem would be home to two, separate but simultaneous, very large crimes. Yet Feur had denied the connection, even when it wouldn't make any difference to him. Could he have been protecting someone? Seemed unlikely-seemed unlikely that in Bluestem he could have an unknown relationship so close that he would die protecting it; that he would swear on a Bible.
ABOUT THE OTHER SUSPECTS: Stryker, now, or some other cop-the Curlys, or the Merrill guy, or even Jensen or Carr-or one of the Laymons, or Williamson. Did he, Virgil, have a perceptual problem? Did he come to town and view certain people as suspects because those were the only people he saw, or spoke to, or heard about? He'd gotten all over Williamson. Had he been conditioned to do that, because Joan had mentioned Williamson's name the first time he met her? He thought about it and decided: No. That might have been the case, except for the Revelation…
The book of Revelation at the Gleasons', the cigarette butt at the Schmidts', the anonymous note, and the corporate evidence on Judd's secretary's computer, all had pointed him at Feur, or Judd and Feur together. He was being pushed by somebody.
A PASSING THOUGHT: Bill Judd's secretary. Who was she? The evidence for the Judd-Feur connection came right out of her computer. He'd heard her name, but didn't remember it…
MORE IDEAS: Could he clear anyone? If he could clear Stryker or Williamson, or the Curlys, the Laymons, or the Judds, then he'd know something. Other suspects would come into sharper focus. Was Joan a suspect? She'd gotten close to him by noon on his first day in town. How about Jesse Laymon, or her mother, Margaret? How long had they really been waiting for Judd to die?
ALSO: In one way or another, the killer of the Gleasons and the Schmidts, and probably the Judds, had been in Jesse Laymon's closet. Stryker had been there, he thought. Who else? Technically, her mother, but her mother wouldn't be framing Jesse…at least, not for any reason that Virgil knew of. There was the additional problem that the Laymons' house could be entered by any teenager with a stick…