Dark of the Moon

4

AT THE HOLIDAY INN, Virgil spread the Gleason murder files across the bed and the small desk, isolating names and scratching out a time line on a yellow legal pad.

The sheriff himself had served as the case manager, with a deputy named Larry Jensen as lead investigator. A woman named Margo Carr was the crime-scene tech, and a variety of other deputies provided backup. The medical examiner was based in Worthington and covered an eight-county area of southwest Minnesota. The pathology looked competent, but didn't reveal much more than the first cop figured out when he got to the scene: four shots, two dead.

Carr, the crime-scene tech, had recovered all four slugs, but they were so distorted that their use in identifying the weapon would be problematic. The.357 was almost certainly a revolver-Desert Eagle semiautos, made in Israel, were chambered for.357, but that would be a rare specimen out on the prairie. The fact that no brass was found at the scene also suggested a revolver, or a very careful killer.

A heavy-load.357 was not a particularly pleasant gun to shoot, because of recoil. A lot of samples passed through the hands of lawmen, who were more interested in effect than in pleasant shooting. A.357 would reliably penetrate a door panel on a car, which made them popular with highway patrolmen and sheriffs' deputies, who were often working in car-related crime.

Something to think about.

JENSEN AND CARR both mentioned in their reports the possibility that the break-in had been drug related, an attempt to find prescription drugs in the doctor's house. Two aspects militated against the possibility: Gleason had been retired for years, and anybody who had known where to find him would have known that; and Carr had found several tabs of OxyContin in a prescription bottle in a medicine cabinet, left over from a knee-replacement operation on Anna. A junkie would not have missed them.

Russell Gleason still had a hundred and forty-three dollars in his wallet. Anna had seventy-six dollars in her purse. Junkies wouldn't have missed that, either. The money hadn't been missed, Virgil thought. The killer simply wasn't interested.

THE COPS HAD INTERVIEWED fifty people in the case, including the housekeeper, and all the neighbors, friends, relatives, business associates, members of the golf club. There were some people who had disliked the Gleasons, but in a small-town way. You might go to a different doctor, or you might have voted against Anna when she was running for the county commission, but you wouldn't shoot them.

One question popped out at him: why the lights on the body? The body would have been discovered the next morning, at the latest, sitting, as it was, so close to the street. If the killer had left the body in the dark, he'd have been certain of more time to get away. Was it possible that he didn't need more time, that he'd come from very close by?

VIRGIL GOT A MAP at the front desk and asked the clerk about the Gleason house. The clerk was happy to put an ink dot on its precise location: "You go up this little rise here, and you come around to the right, I think, or is it left? No, right. Anyways, you'll see a mailbox down on the street that says Gleason, and the house is reddish-colored and modern-looking."

"Thank you."

"Folks say you're with the BCA," the clerk said. He was young and ginger haired and weathered, and looked a little like Billy the Kid.

"Yup. We've been asked to look in on the Gleason case, bring a new point of view," Virgil said.

"Seen anything yet?"

"Got a couple of things going," Virgil said. He smiled and wrinkled his nose: "Can't talk about them, though. You know, though, you could give me a little help…"

"Me?"

"I've had one too many meals here. They're fine, but you know what I mean. Could you recommend another restaurant…?"

THE PRAIRIE LANDS around Bluestem were not exactly flat; more a collection of tilted planes, with small creeks or farm ditches where the planes intersected, the water lines marked by clumps of willow and cottonwood and wild plum. The creeks and ditches eventually collected into larger streams, usually a snaky line of oxbows cut a few dozen feet deep in the soil; and sometimes into marshes or shallow lakes. Sticking out of the planes were isolated ridges and bumps, with outcrops of red rock, much of the rock covered with green lichen.

The Gleasons lived on one of the bumps.

Virgil took a left out of the hotel parking lot, drove five or six blocks north into town, took a right on Main Street through the business district, and headed east. He could see the Gleasons' neighborhood as soon as he turned: straight ahead, a wooded slope, with a hint of glass and shingles. He crossed the murky Stark River and drove up the hill, past a couple of well-kept suburban ranch houses and split-levels, with decks facing west toward the river. Up on top, coming around to the right, he saw the Gleason mailbox right where the motel clerk said it would be.

The Gleason house was built of redwood and glass, with the requisite deck. He pulled up to the garage door, climbed out, remembered what Davenport told him about going into strange houses without his gun, thought, Fuck it, life is too short, and ambled once around the house, looking at it from the outside.

Nice house.

Single living level, with a basement, a dozen maple trees on an acre of land, reasonably healthy-looking lawn, a garden shed in a cluster of lilacs at the back. The deck looked both west and south over the river, toward town, and out toward the interstate, a mile away. It'd be pretty at night, Virgil thought, but the way the house sat up high, it'd be colder'n a bitch in the winter. The northwest wind would blow right up into the garage door.

He could see how somebody could walk in with near-invisibility, especially in a rainstorm. Park on any of the streets near the edge of town, jog across the bridge and drop down into the Stark River cut, and follow it right around to the Gleason house. Climb the bank, a matter of a hundred yards in distance and fifty feet in height, and there you were. Back out the same way. There'd probably be enough light from the houses along the edges of the slope, and coming in from town, that you wouldn't even need a flashlight.

Huh.

HE FINISHED his circuit of the house, took the key out of his pocket, unlocked the front door, and stepped inside. The inside smelled like a crime scene: like whatever was used to clean up blood, some kind of enzyme. He stepped into the stillness, to the sense of dustiness, and walked through the entry, past the entrance to the kitchen, into the living room.

The couch where Anna was shot was in a semicircular niche off the living room, designed as a small theater, and aimed at a wide-screen television. The bullet hole was in the far left back-cushion, next to an end table with a TV remote and several magazines, a crossword-puzzle book, a wood cup with a selection of pens and pencils, and a couple of books. That was, he thought, Anna's regular spot, because Russell's regular spot was in a leather recliner at the other end of the couch, under a reading light. The bloodstain on the seat and back of the couch had been doused with the blood-eating enzyme.

The other scrubbed-out stain was in the entrance to the dining room. There were three dug-out bullet holes in the carpet. Standing there, in the quiet, Virgil saw how it must have happened. They knew the killer-Anna was comfortable in her regular spot, and hadn't bothered to get up. Russell and the killer had both been standing, and fairly close to each other. The killer pulled the gun, if it wasn't already out, and leaned into Anna and fired once. She hadn't made a move to get off the couch. Russell turned, got three steps, and was shot in the back.

But they knew the killer, Virgil thought: they must have. Anna was facing the TV, as though she might not even have been part of the conversation. If she'd been ordered to sit down, or forced to sit, she would have been facing into the room, where the killer was; she wouldn't have been facing the TV.

He quickly checked the end table for any possible effort by Anna to leave something behind-a scribbled name, anything. Felt foolish doing it, but would have felt more foolish if he hadn't, and something was found later. Nothing. The books were a novel by Martha Grimes and a slender volume titled Revelation, which turned out to be, indeed, the book of Revelation.

Virgil muttered, to nobody but the ghosts, "And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him…"

HE CHECKED the table by Russell's reading light; nothing interesting. Drifted out of the shooting area, through the rest of the place. A den opened off the dining room, with file cabinets and an older computer. A hallway next to the den led to a big bathroom, but without a tub or shower-the public bath-and three large bedrooms, each with a full bath.

He walked through the master bedroom, looking, not touching, and into the kitchen. He was in the kitchen when he heard the sound of a vehicle outside. He went back to the front door, and found a sheriff's patrol car stopped behind his, and a deputy looking at his license plate.

He stepped out on the porch, and the deputy's hand drifted to his hip, and Virgil called, "Virgil Flowers, BCA." Across the way, at the next house down the ridge, he could see a man standing in his backyard, watching them with binoculars.

The deputy said, "Larry Jensen. I'm the lead investigator for the sheriff."

Jensen was another of the tall, thin types, burned and dry, sandy hair, slacks and cowboy boots, sunglasses. They shook hands and Jensen asked, "See anything in there?"

"Nope. I'd like to come back later and go through those file cabinets."

"You're welcome to…" Jensen turned and waved at the man in the next yard, who waved back. "That's the guy who ratted you out."

"Too bad he wasn't watching the night the Gleasons were killed," Virgil said.

"Got that right."

Jensen was easy enough, took him in the house, told him how he thought the killings must have happened, and his reconstruction jibed with Virgil's. They walked through the rest of the house, including the basement, and on the way back up, Jensen said, "I have the feeling…" He hesitated.

"Yeah?"

"I have the feeling that this was something that stewed for a long time. I went through every scrap of business dealings that the Gleasons had in the last ten years, I talked to about every single person that they knew, interviewed the kids and the kids' spouses. I have the feeling that this goes back to something we don't know about. I'm thinking, Russell was a doctor. What if he did something bad to somebody. You know, malpractice. What if back there somewhere, years ago, he killed somebody, or maybe didn't save somebody, a wife or somebody's daddy, and they just stewed and stewed and now they snapped? I mean, Russell dealt with a lot of death in his time-he was the county coroner for years-and what if it goes back to something that just…happened? Like happens to all doctors?"

Virgil nodded. "That's a whole deep pit…"

Jensen nodded. "When I worked through it, I decided that it meant everybody in the county would be a suspect. So it's meaningless."

Virgil said, "I've got a question for you, but I don't want you to take offense."

"Go ahead."

"Did your office ever issue.357s? To your deputies?"

"Yeah, you could of gone all day without asking me that," Jensen said. "We did, but years ago. We went to high-capacity.40s when the FBI did."

"What happened to the.357s?"

"That was before my time. As I understand it, guys were allowed to buy them at a discount. Some did, some didn't. Tell you the truth, some went away, we don't know where. Record keeping wasn't what it should have been. This was two sheriffs ago, so it doesn't have anything to do with Jim."

"But you thought of that," Virgil said.

"Sure."

THEY TALKED for another fifteen minutes, and Jensen said that he was looking through medical records at the partnership that had taken over Gleason's practice, and also at the regional hospital. "It's buried back there somewhere. Maybe the same guy killed Bill Judd, if Judd is really dead. He and Gleason were almost exactly the same age, so there's gotta be a tie. Maybe this killer-guy is waiting to go after somebody else, sitting out there thinking about it."

"Could have gone all day without saying that," Virgil said.

VIRGIL FOLLOWED JENSEN back into town, cut away when Jensen turned north toward the courthouse. The motel clerk had recommended two lunch spots, Ernhardt's Cafe and Johnnie's Pizza, both on Main Street. Virgil decided Italian might be too much, and checked out Ernhardt's.

The cafe turned out to be a combination German deli and bakery, cold meat, fresh-baked potato bread, pickles, and sauerkraut. Virgil got a roast beef on rye with rough mustard, a pickle, and a half pound of bright yellow potato salad, and took it to one of the low-backed booths that lined the wall opposite the ordering counter.

A minute or so after he sat down, the sheriff's sister stepped in, blinked in the dimmer light, said hello to the woman behind the counter, ordered a salad and coffee, spotted Virgil in the back booth and nodded to him. He nodded back, and a moment later, she carried her lunch tray over and slid into the seat on the other side of the booth.

"Are you going to save Jimmy's job?" she asked.

She was not perfectly good looking-her eyebrows might have down sloped a little too much, her mouth might have been a quarter-inch too wide-but she was very good-looking, and certainly knew it. She was smiling when she asked her question, but her green eyes were serious.

"Does it need saving?" Virgil asked.

"Maybe," she said. And, "My name's Joan Carson. Jimmy said you had some nice things to say about my ass."

"Jimmy's job just got in deeper trouble," Virgil said, but she was still smiling and that wasn't bad. "Tell me about that, though. His job."

She shrugged, dug into her salad. "This is his second term. Most sheriffs have to get over the third-election hump. That's just the way it is, I guess. You've pissed off enough people to get fired, if they're not so impressed that they feel obligated to vote for you."

"They're not impressed?"

"They were, until the murders," she said. "Jimmy runs a good office, he's fair with his deputies. Now, he's got these murders and he's not catching who did it."

"Did he tell you that?" Virgil asked.

"Common knowledge," she said. She picked a raw onion ring out of her salad and crunched half of it, and pointed the crescent-moon remainder at Virgil. "Everybody knows everybody, and the deputies talk. Nobody's got any idea who did the shooting."

"Who do you think did it?"

"It's just a goddamn mystery, that's what it is," she said. "I know every single person in this town, and most of the relationships between them, and I can't think of anybody who'd do something like that. Just can't think of anybody. Maybe…" She trailed off.

"Maybe…"

She fluffed her hair, like women do sometimes when they think they're about to say something silly. "This is really unfair. The newspaper editor, Todd Williamson, has only been here for three or four years, so I know him less than I know other people. So maybe, before he came here, there was some knot in his brain that we can't see because we didn't grow up with him."

"That's it?" Virgil asked.

"That's it," she said.

"That's nothing," Virgil said.

"That's why I said it's unfair. But I lie in bed at night, going through everybody in town over the age of ten, figuring out who could have done this. Maybe…"

"What?"

"Could we have some little crazy thrill-killer in the high school? Maybe somebody who had some kind of fantasy of killing somebody, and for some reason picked out the Gleasons? You read about that kind of thing…"

"I hope so," Virgil said. "If it's like that, I'll get him. He'll have told his friends about it, and they'll rat him out."

Virgil's cell phone rang, and he slipped it out of his pocket and she said, "I hate it when that happens during lunch," and Virgil said, "Yeah." The call was coming in from a local number, and he opened the phone and said, "Hello?"

"Virgil, Jim Stryker. You know that Bill Judd had a heart bypass fifteen years ago, and also had some work done on his lumbar spine?"

"Yeah?"

"My crime-scene girl found a coil of stainless-steel wire in the basement of Judd's house, and she swears it's what they used to close up his breastbone after the bypass. And eight inches away, she found a couple of titanium screws and a steel rod that she says came out of Judd's spine. She says there should be X-rays up at the medical center, and she can check, but she thinks that's what she's got. She also thinks she found the back part of a skull, looks like a little saucer, pieces of two kneecaps and maybe some wrist and ankle bones."

"So he's dead," Virgil said.

"I believe so-DNA will tell, if they can get some out of the bone marrow. The arson investigator says that there was an accelerant, probably ten or twenty gallons of gasoline, because he says the fire did a broad lateral flash through the house, instead of burning up," Stryker said. "He means it spread laterally much faster than up, and with all this wood, it should have gone up faster."

"How can he tell?"

"Beats me. That's what he said-so, we've got another murder."

"Huh," Virgil said.

"What's that mean?" Stryker asked.

"You up there? At the Judds'?" Virgil asked.

"I am. I'll be here for a while."

"See you in a bit," Virgil said.

JOAN POINTED her fork at him. "Bill Judd?"

"Yeah." Virgil dabbed his lips with a napkin. "They think they might have found some remains. I gotta go."

"If I was a forensic anthropologist, I'd come up and help," she said. "Unfortunately, I don't know anything about forensics or anthropology and I don't much care for bodies."

"What do you do?" Virgil asked.

"Run the family farm," she said. "Twelve hundred and eighty acres of corn and soybeans north of town."

"That's a mighty big farm for such a pretty little woman," Virgil said.

"Bite me," she said.

"Thank you, ma'am. You want to go into Worthington tonight?" Virgil asked. "Tijuana Jack's ain't too bad."

"Maybe," she said. "Give me your cell number. I have to drive over to Sioux Falls for some parts. If I get back in time…Mexican'd be okay."

VIRGIL, pleased with himself, went back through town, up to Buffalo Ridge, through the park gates, and around the corner of the hill to the Judd house. He was astonished when he saw what was left. In most fires, a corner of a house will burn, and at least a wall or two will survive. Of the Judd mansion, nothing was left but the foundation, cracked and charred, and a pit full of twisted metal, stone, and ash.

Stryker and one of his deputies, an older fat man with blond curly hair, were talking to a third man, who had a reporter's notebook. A man in a suit was peering into the pit, and three people scuffled around the bottom like diggers on an archaeological site.

Virgil walked up, looked in the hole: picked out ductwork and air conditioners, two furnaces, the crumbled remains of what must have been a first-floor fireplace, three hot-water tanks, a couple of sinks, three toilets, a twisted mass of pipes. The diggers in the bottom were working next to the wreck of a wheelchair; the guy in the suit, Virgil realized, was Bill Judd Jr.

VIRGIL WALKED OVER to Stryker: "How'n the hell they find anything in there?"

Stryker said, "This is Todd Williamson, he's editor of the Bluestem Record; and Big Curly Anderson." A warning to watch his mouth.

"I met a Little Curly the other night…" Virgil said, shaking hands with the two men. Big Curly's hands were small and soft, like a woman's. Williamson's, on the other hand, were hard and calloused, as though he ran his own printing press.

"That's my boy," Big Curly said.

Stryker: "To answer your question, it was pretty much luck. They saw the wheelchair down there and started digging around, looking for a body, and they found that coil of surgical wire. Now they're trying to figure out how the wheelchair got on top of all that trash and the ash, and the body was under it. They're starting to think that Judd was in the basement, and the wheelchair was upstairs, on the second or third floor, and dropped down when the fire burned through the floor."

"Coincidence?"

"Seems like. I don't know what else it could be," Stryker said.

"You gonna take this case?" Williamson asked.

"I'm working the Gleason investigation," Virgil said. "Our contact with the press either runs through the local sheriff or the BCA spokesman in St. Paul. I can't talk to you about it."

"That's not the way we do things out here," Williamson said.

"They must've changed then, because I'm from out here," Virgil said. "I played high school baseball against Jimmy here, and kicked his ass three years running."

"You were seven and two, and three of those wins were pure luck," Stryker said. "People still talk about it. Haven't ever seen a run of luck like it, not after all these years."

"Bite me," Virgil said.

"You've been talking to Joan," Stryker said.

VIRGIL TIPPED his head toward the burn pit, and asked, "That's Judd, right?"

Stryker said, "Yup. I gave him a call, he came right up."

Big Curly said, "Probably been down at the bank, reading the old man's will."

Williamson said quietly, "He's about to inherit my newspaper. That won't be good. I'm job hunting, if any of you guys own a printing press."

THEY ALL LOOKED at Judd for a few seconds, then Virgil asked Big Curly, "What's this about a will?"

Big Curly shrugged: "I don't know. I was jokin'."

Virgil to Stryker: "The will's an idea, though. Have you looked for a will?"

Stryker shook his head: "I imagine it's in the bank. Or Bob Turner's got it. Turner was the old man's attorney."

"We ought to take a look at it," Virgil said. "Get a writ to open his safe-deposit box, get his attorney and his kid to go with us. Could be something in it."

Williamson said, "What if he left all of his money to George Feur?"

Stryker cracked a smile. "That'd give old Junior a major case of the red ass, you betcha."

Virgil: "Who's George Feur?"

"Nutcase preacher, found Jesus in prison," Stryker said. "He's got a so-called religious compound over by the Dakota line. He was trying his best to save Bill Judd's soul, according to the local gossip."

"He's nuts?"

Williamson said, "He believes in the purity of the white race and that Jesus was a Roman, and thinks blacks were stuck in Africa because of the curse of Cain, and they should all be shipped back there so they can properly suffer the righteous wrath of God, instead of polluting white women and gettin' all the good jobs at Target. Once a month or so, he and a bunch of people get some signs and go march somewhere, and say all of that. Here, Worthington, Sioux Falls."

Little Curly: "He says Indians are the Lost Tribes of Israel, and they're Jews, and they should all go back to Israel so we can get the Second Coming. Had a few fights with Indians."

Virgil: "And he was converting Judd?" He was thinking of the book of Revelation on the Gleasons' end table.

"He needs rich recruits," Williamson said. "How else is he gonna get the money to buy guns to overthrow the godless Democrats and ship the blacks back to Africa?"

"Ah."

"And the Mexicans back to Mexico, and the Chinese back to China, and the Indians to Israel, and so on and so forth," Williamson said. "I wrote a long feature on him, got picked up by the Associated Press."

"HERE COMES TROUBLE," Big Curly muttered.

Virgil looked and Bill Judd Jr. was headed toward them. Judd was a heavy man, with a turkey-wattle neck under a fat face, thinning hair, and small black eyes. He must have been close to sixty, Virgil thought.

Judd nodded at Williamson, glanced at Virgil, and asked Stryker, "What're you going to do about this, Jim? If that's Dad down there, and if that boy from the state fire marshal was right, then it's murder. What're you going to do?"

"Investigate it," Stryker said.

"Like you're investigating the Gleasons?" Judd shook his head, his wattles swinging under his chin. "Give me a break, Jim. You bring in the BCA or…Goddamnit, you bring in the BCA."

Stryker tipped his head toward Virgil. "Meet Virgil Flowers, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension."

Judd's face snapped toward Virgil. He examined him for a moment, checked the T-shirt, then said, "You don't look like much."

Virgil smiled. "I'm not easily insulted by suspects," he said. "There been too many of them over the years."

"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" Judd asked.

"Well, you're pretty much the only suspect we've got at the moment," Virgil said. "In a situation like this, you always ask, 'Who inherits?' The answer, as I understand it, is you."

Judd looked at Virgil for a long three seconds, then turned to Williamson. "You keep that out of the newspaper."

Williamson shook his head. "I don't work for you, Bill. I worked for your father, and now I work for your father's estate. When the estate passes to you, I'll be out of here like a hot desert breeze. Until then, I'm working for the estate."

"You better find a job by the end of next week, then," Judd said.

VIRGIL SAID TO JUDD: "We need to look at your father's will. We assume it's in a safe-deposit box. We're gonna get a writ to open it, since it could be material for this investigation. Also because we'd like to see what else is in the safe."

Judd nodded: "That's fine with me. Let's get Bob Turner and go talk to the judge and crack the box. Get things moving."

"Can I come?" Williamson asked.

Stryker said, "No."

Williamson grinned: "No harm in asking. Goddamn, it's hot out here."

ON THE WAY back to their vehicles, they stopped at the burn pit and Stryker called down, "Anything new?"

A chubby woman in a yellow protective suit and face mask stood up, used a paper towel to wipe sweat off her face, put the towel in a trash bag, and said, "I'm dying of heat prostitution."

They all grinned down at her and she added, "Nothing else, really. But we've got the carpals and they're intact; they were under a piece of sheet steel and that must've given them some protection, so I think we're good for DNA. And with Bill Jr. to provide us a sample, we can be sure on the ID."

"Get it done," Stryker said.

On the way down the hill, Big Curly said, "I'd like to cut me off a piece of that," meaning the woman in the yellow suit.

Stryker nodded. "I'll mention it to Mrs. Curly."

ONE OF the best things and one of the worst things about a small town was that everybody knew everything that was going on. The judge knew about as much of the Judd case as Virgil did, and pounded out a writ on his secretary's computer, and printed it.

"Good to go," he said, and handed the paper to Stryker.

Stryker called the Wells Fargo branch and talked to the manager, who said he'd be waiting. Judd's attorney said he'd walk over.

"So let's go," Stryker said.

"GO" MEANT WALKING-the bank was three blocks away, two blocks through an older residential area, cutting the business district about halfway down Main Street. They walked past the drugstore, which gave out a whiff of popcorn, and Judd trotted back and went inside and then caught up, carrying a paper sleeve of it, munching at it like a starving man; and past the newspaper, which shared a building with an office that said JUDD ENTERPRISES, and one that said WILLIAM JUDD JR., INVESTMENTS, then on down the street past a combination barbershop and beauty salon.

The bank's time-and-temperature sign said eighty-seven degrees when they walked under it, and into the lobby. The banker was a white-haired man with a neat mustache, and the lawyer was a white-haired man with a neat mustache; a Mexican-looking guy in jeans and a T-shirt, and a black mustache, stood off to one side with a toolbox. Stryker was becoming a white-haired man with a neat mustache. Should Virgil grow a mustache, he'd look like everybody else, Virgil thought: a monoculture of German-Scandinavian white people, now getting a little salsa poured on it, to the great relief of everyone.

The banker took the writ, and led the way into the vault, explained that since Judd had the necessary keys, which hadn't been found in the burnt-out house, they'd have to drill the box, and would charge the estate for it later. Drilling the box took three minutes, the banker gave the Mexican guy a twenty, and the guy took his tools and left.

The box was one of the bigger sizes; big enough, say, to hold three roasted chickens. The banker carried it to a privacy carrel, but since they weren't being private, they all crowded around when they popped the lid.

Judd said, with some reverence, "Holy shit."

The box was filled with paper. The top two layers were paper money. "Not as much as you might think," the banker said, earnestly, but his eyes had a light in them. "Hundred-dollar bills, ten-thousand-dollar bundles…fifteen, eighteen, twenty. Two hundred thousand in cash."

"Why would he have two hundred thousand in cash?" Virgil asked Judd.

Judd said, "Don't want to get caught short."

They stacked it to one side and Judd pulled up a plastic chair and sat down, staring at the money, while the banker and lawyer dug into the rest of the paper, insurance policies, deeds, photographs, a couple boxes of jewelry.

THAT WAS in the afternoon, in which some other things happened, but none that turned out to be important.

IN THE EVENING, Joan Carson sat in the candlelight at Tijuana Jack's and looked terrific. She wore a cotton summer-knit dress the color of raw linen, with a necklace of marble-sized jade beads that perfectly matched her eyes. She had a scattering of faint freckles across her short nose, and Virgil noticed for the first time that she had a chipped tooth, which gave her a tomboyish vibration.

She leaned toward him, her dress opening just enough to reveal the tops of her breasts, though Virgil looked resolutely into her eyes, and she whispered, "Motherfucker?"

Virgil whispered, "That's what the man said." He laughed, a low, chuckling laugh, and said, "Junior Judd's sitting down, staring at the money, two hundred thousand dollars on the table, three inches from his nose. He's absolutely drooling on it. Then the lawyer says-Turner says-like it's a big mystery, 'I don't see the will here.' And Judd jumps up and screams, 'Motherfucker!'"

She giggled, and rubbed her nose, her eyes bright with amusement.

Virgil continued: "I thought we were gonna have to club him down to his knees, to keep him off Turner's throat. Turner keeps saying, 'It wasn't me, it wasn't me,' and Judd's walking around saying, 'Motherfucker! Motherfucker!' and the bank guy pulls all the receipts and it turns out old man Judd went into the box a week ago. We talked to the vault lady, and she says when Judd went into it, he told her he didn't want one of those privacy booths, he just wanted to get out a document. She saw it, and it was in a beige legal envelope, and we all think it was the one-and-only will."

"Motherfucker!" she said. "I would have given a hundred dollars to see that. What else was in the box?"

"Legal papers, deeds, insurance. The house was insured for eight hundred thousand with another two hundred thousand on the contents, so Junior'll get all of that. That's a million, all by itself, including the cash in the box."

"The old man owned a block of the downtown."

"Where the newspaper is."

"Yes, and he's got several parcels of good land down south of here, that'll be a nice chunk of cash," she said.

"What's Junior own? On his own?"

"He's been in and out of a few businesses, hasn't done so well. Right now he's got three or four Subways in the small towns around, and he's got a little land along the river that he's been talking about developing…but to tell you the truth, there hasn't been a big call for housing development around here. Why?"

"He seemed pretty damn excited about that cash," Virgil said. "And pretty upset when it turned out he wasn't going to get it in the next two weeks. I mean, he'll have it in a month or two, but they'll have to run it through probate. So what's the difference, two weeks or two months? But he was pretty upset."

"Huh. He's a jerk, but he wouldn't kill his dad, if that's what you're thinking," Joan said. "I've seen them have some pretty friendly conversations."

"Okay. Just trying to nail down stuff I can look into," Virgil said.

"But I think I can tell you about why he reacted the way he did…"

"Yeah?"

"The Judds worship money. They made it a stand-in for all the other qualities of life. If you can be nice, or have money, take the money. If you can be brave, or have money, take the money. If you can have friends or have money, take the money. They're like that. They don't even hide it. Take the money. Pulling two hundred thousand dollars in cash, out of a safe-deposit box, in front of Bill Judd Jr., would be like pulling Jesus Christ out of a box, in front of the Pope."

"Not a nice thing to say about someone," Virgil said. "Especially the Pope."

"It's the truth, though," she said. Her eyes narrowed: "Can I tell all my friends about all this?"

"Well, let me think," Virgil said. "The only witnesses were me, your brother, the lawyer, the banker, Judd, and the vault lady. What are the chances that they all kept their mouths shut?"

"Zero."

"Right. Just don't quote me, okay?" Virgil said. "You could get me or your brother in trouble. Maybe you could hear it from one of the wives first?"

"I know both of them, banker and lawyer," she said. "One of them'll spill the beans, and then I can add everything you gave me."

"Sounds good," Virgil said. "Did I mention I like your dress?"

"Really? I sewed it myself. Ordered the material out of Des Moines."

"Seriously?"

"Try not to be stupid, Virgil," she said. "I bought it at Neiman Marcus, in the Cities."

VIRGIL HAD GROWN UP in Marshall, Minnesota, sixty miles north of Bluestem, as the crow flies, or eighty miles, if the crow were driving a pickup. His father had the biggest Presbyterian church in town, until he retired, and his mother taught engineering and survey at Southwest Minnesota State University, until she retired. They were both still alive and played golf all summer, and had a condo in Fort Myers so they could play golf all winter.

Joan's father had been a farmer. He'd been involved with Bill Judd's drive to make a commodity out of the Jerusalem artichoke.

"I don't remember all this, because I was too young at the time, but Dad thought that nothing good was going to happen with corn and bean prices. There was too much low-priced competition around the world. He thought if we could come up with a new crop, that could replace oil…well, I guess back in the seventies and eighties there were all these predictions that oil might run out any minute, and then we'd all be screwed."

"Like now."

"Like now, with ethanol and four-dollar corn. Anyway, if you could grow oil…I guess he figured they couldn't lose. But it was all bullshit. It was a scam right from the start, cooked up by a bunch of commodities people in Chicago and some outlanders like Bill Judd. When it all went bust, Bill Judd didn't care. He was a sociopath if you've ever seen one. But people who were tied into him, like my dad, did care…"

She sighed and shook her head. "Lot of people thought my dad was right there in with Judd. But Dad lost half his land. He was farming more than two thousand acres back then. He sold off the land at way-depressed prices, right into a big farm depression in the middle eighties, paid off all his debts, and then he got this.45 that he had, and killed himself. Out in the backyard, one Saturday afternoon. I can still remember people screaming, and I can remember Mom sitting in the front room looking like she'd died. That's what I remember most: not Dad, but Mom's eyes."

"Jimmy was pretty hurt, I guess? Boys and fathers?"

"He was." Her eyes came up to meet his. "You don't think Jim had anything to do with Judd's murder?"

He shook his head: "Of course not…Were the Gleasons tied in with Judd?"

"They were friendly," Joan said. "There was a tight little group of richer folks, like in most small towns. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, real estate dealers. People say that Judd helped some of them with investments…but the Gleasons didn't have anything to do with the Jerusalem artichoke scam. Everyone would have known-it all came out in the lawsuits…"

He leaned toward her again, pitching his voice down: "I'll tell you what, Joanie. Jim and I and Larry Jensen, we all think that the Gleason murders and the Judd murder are tied together. Three murders in three weeks, all by somebody who knew what he was doing; where to go and when to go. Even did it under the same conditions, in the rain, in the dark. And that's after you haven't had any murders in twenty-two years."

"What about George Feur? The preacher?"

"I heard of him…"

"He's somebody to look at-I even asked Jim about him," she said. "Jim says he's got an alibi. There was a prayer meeting that Friday night, and a lot of people stayed the weekend. There's somebody who'll say that Feur was there every minute of that time. Jim and Larry decided that it would have been hard for him to sneak away…"

"How long would he have to be gone?"

"Well, if he…" She looked up at the ceiling, her lips moving as she figured. "Well, if he drove in and out, half an hour? Probably longer than that, if he walked part of it, or if they talked. But that's not very long, really."

"It's not long if there are lots of people around, and everybody thinks you're talking with somebody else, and you're seen here and there…you might get away for half an hour."

"And maybe one of his goofy converts would have been willing to do him a favor. But: if you think the same person killed the Gleasons and Bill Judd…I understand that Feur was trying to save Judd's soul, and that they got along. So that doesn't seem to fit."

"It's a connection, though."

"It is…" she said. "Feur's a violent man. He was violent when he was a boy-his old man abused him-and he'd go around robbing stores and maybe even banks, when he was in his twenties. Jim tracked him down after a robbery up in Little America. Arrested him out at his aunt's place. He went to prison, got Jesus and all the other crap, too-the white supremacy, and that. Went out west, someplace, studied for the ministry, got a license in Idaho. When his aunt died, he came back here and took over the farm. We'd thought we'd seen the last of him."

"He ever shoot anybody? Ever suspected of it?" Virgil asked.

"Not as far as I know. I do know he used a gun in the robberies."

ON THE WAY BACK to Bluestem, out on I-90, Joan said, "You are very talkative for a cop. I've known every cop in Bluestem and a few from Worthington; some of them were pretty old friends, and none of them have been as talkative as you-telling me all about the case, and so on."

"A PERSONALITY FAULT," Virgil offered.

"Really? I started to wonder, 'Did this man take me out to a fancy Tex-Mex restaurant, and tell me all of this, because he figures I'll blab it all over the place, and that'll stir everything up?'"

"I'm shocked that you'd even think that," Virgil said.

"You don't sound shocked," she said.

"Well, you know," he said. He glanced at her in the dark, and said, "One thing-you're a little smarter than I was prepared for."

She laughed and they went on down the highway.

LATE THAT NIGHT, Virgil turned on his laptop, flexed his fingers, and began writing his story, a little fact, and a lot of fiction. Fiction was different than outdoor writing. Different because you had to think about it, make it up, rather than simply report an experience. He stared at the computer screen for a moment, and began:

The killer climbed out of the river valley, stumbling in the dark, slipping on the wet grass; paused at the edge of the yard, then crossed quickly to the sliding glass door at the back of the house. He'd seen the Gleasons arrive, their headlights carving up the hillside through the night; you could see them from a half mile away.

Now, through the wet glass, he saw Russell Gleason standing in the living room, hands in his pockets, looking at the television. His wife, Anna, came out of the kitchen, carrying a glass of water, sat on the couch. They were talking, but with the rain beating off the hood of his jacket, the killer couldn't hear what was being said.

The killer touched the gun in his pocket:.357, always ready. No safety, no spring to get soft, every chamber loaded. Inside, Gleason laughed at something: a last time for everything, the killer thought.

The killer stepped back in the dark, walked around the house to the front door. Gleason had been involved in it, right up to his chin: he and Judd would have to pay. He rang the bell…

Virgil touched his chin, reading down the electronic document. He was already cheating: he kept writing "the killer," repetitively, which clanked in his writer's ear. He needed a workable synonym. He couldn't use the pronouns "he" or "she," because he wasn't sure which was correct. And Gleason had been involved in whatever it was, with Judd, right up to his chin-but what was it?

He had no idea.

But there would be, he thought, a link.

Before he finished the story, though, he'd need a lot of other answers. Where did the killer come from? Where did the gun come from? Where did he/she learn to use the gun? Why was the body dragged to the yard, why were the lights turned on? Had the killer known about the lights on the exterior, and where the switch was, suggesting a familiarity with the house, or had the act been spontaneous? Why the shots in the eyes?

Why then, at that exact moment, had the killer come to the Gleasons?

Why hadn't Stryker mentioned that his father had killed himself because of the Jerusalem artichoke scandal, and his relationship with Judd? How had he, Virgil, managed to get picked up by Stryker's sister on his first day in town? Why had she steered him toward Todd Williamson and George Feur?

Things you had to know, for a decent piece of fiction.