Mad River

7

When Virgil arrived for dinner, there were three freshly painted chairs sitting in the mouth of his parents’ two-car garage. His father collected old furniture from the congregation, repaired it, painted it, and passed it along to anyone who needed it, except the twenty or so people who populated the local Church of Scientology, which he loathed.

“If I go to hell, which would be very disappointing, I can tell you, after all my efforts, it’ll be because I really. . despise those people,” he said. He was in the mudroom, scrubbing his hands with odorless mineral spirits. “I can’t find it in my heart to forgive them,” he said. “It’s the biggest con job in the history of the United States. It makes what’s-his-name look like a piker.”

“Good old what’s-his-name was a jerk, that’s for sure,” Virgil said.

“You know who I mean. That guy who stole all those billions of dollars. The Ponzi scheme.”

“Madoff.”

“Yeah. Him. They make him look like a piker,” his old man said.

“That’s interesting,” Virgil said. “I don’t think I’ve heard the word ‘piker’ and ‘Madoff’ in the same sentence before.”

“So now you have,” his father said.

Virgil followed him into the kitchen, and they chatted while the old man finished the scrub-up with soap and water, and his mother grilled some hamburger and sliced some large purple onions, and they all ate cheeseburgers together, with fries and beer, and they picked at him about the murder. Then Virgil said, “Yeah, I understand Becky worked over here for a while, at the McDonald’s. None of them could get. . What?”

His father had stopped chewing in mid-bite and was staring at Virgil. He said, “Don McClatchy wasn’t in church this morning. Neither was his wife. They’re almost always there.”

Virgil said, “Don McClatchy?”

“Runs the McDonald’s.”

His mother had given Virgil a couple of folded paper towels to use as a napkin, and he popped the last piece of cheeseburger in his mouth and dabbed at his face with the towels, and said, “Come on. Let’s go over there.”

“We could call them in one minute,” his father said. “I’ve got them on my computer.”

Virgil shook his head. “I want to see them. These kids probably tried to rob the O’Learys because they thought the O’Learys were rich. They probably think her boss at McDonald’s is rich.”

“They are rich. . at least for Marshall.”

The McClatchys lived off Horizon Drive, a half mile or so from the Flowers place. They were there in two minutes, driving Virgil’s truck; his father pointed it out: “Light’s on.”

“You stay here,” Virgil said. He got his gun out from under the seat, checked the magazine, made sure it was seated, and put the gun and holster under his back beltline.

“Try to avoid getting shot,” his father said.

“I will.”

“Maybe I better come with you.”

“Okay. Get your gun, so you’ll have something to do if they’re inside and start shooting,” Virgil said.

“Virgil. .”

“Stay here,” Virgil said.

Virgil took a long look at the house, then walked up the circular drive to the front door and looked through the window. He could hear music playing, but couldn’t see anyone. After a few seconds, he reached out and pushed the doorbell, then stood back and put one hand on his pistol.

He heard footsteps, and a moment later a young woman opened the front door and looked out at him. She didn’t open the storm door. He said, “I’m Virgil Flowers. I’m with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’m looking for Mr. and Mrs. McClatchy.”

She said, “They’re not here.”

She didn’t seem to be under any particular duress, so Virgil let go of the gun and took his ID out of his jacket pocket and held it so she could see it. Then he asked, “Could you step out on the porch and tell me where they are?”

She hesitated, then said, “Sure,” and stepped out on the porch. “Why do you want me out here?” and, “Are you related to Reverend Flowers, over at-”

“I’m his son,” Virgil said. “Could you tell me where Mr. and Mrs. McClatchy are? And who you are?”

“They’re in Naples.” Virgil frowned and she said, “Florida. Until the twentieth. They go down there to play golf so they can get a jump on the season. I live down the street. I take care of the dogs. What happened?”

“I just. . uh. . Do you know where they’re staying?” Virgil asked.

“Yes. I have an emergency number for them.”

She got the emergency number, and by that time Virgil knew that she wasn’t hiding any killers. He explained about the suspects in the murders. “I don’t think you have a problem, but don’t hurry to open the door. Check first. Feed the dogs and go home. Don’t hang out.”

She was wide-eyed. “I saw about the murders on TV. When are you going to catch them?”

“Soon-but don’t take any chances,” he said. “My dad’s out in the car. Wave at him.”

She stepped off the porch to look around a stunted cedar, and waved. Virgil could see the old man wave back.

“So we’re good,” he said. “But-be careful.”

In the car, the old man said, “So we’re good.”

“Yeah, we’re good. It was a long shot. But I’d like you to call the McClatchys.”

His father did, and one of the McClatchys answered, and they had a brief gossipy chat, and then his father hung up and said, “Now we are good. And thank the good Lord for that.”

Virgil dropped his father off and went back to the motel, watched a movie on pay-per-view, got undressed, took a shower, then lay on his bed and thought about God, and eventually, almost drifted off to sleep. Almost.

Then he was wide awake, said to the ceiling, “Ah, bullshit.” He lay there for a few more seconds, then looked at the telephone. Not that late; but then, his parents usually went to bed about nine o’clock.

He picked up the phone, pushed the “home” button, and ten seconds later his father asked, “Virgil?”

“There are two McDonald’s in town. Do the McClatchys own both of them?”

“No, the one out on 23 is Rick Box. I don’t know where they live. . in town, though. Are you going over there?”

“Maybe. Rick Box.”

“Yeah. Rick and Nina. Maybe Paul Berry would know, I think they belong there. You want me to come with you?”

Berry was a Catholic priest, and an old golfing pal of Virgil’s father. “Thanks, but I’ll be okay. I’ll get back to you. Like, tomorrow.”

“If anything happens, call me tonight.”

Virgil didn’t call the priest. Instead, he brought his laptop up and signed onto the DMV computers. Rick and Nina Box were both licensed drivers. Rick was thirty-six and overweight, and Nina was thirty-four, and they lived on Parkside, not far from the McClatchys.

Virgil got dressed, went out to his truck, and drove over; not really that late, still well before midnight, but the streets were empty. The Boxes lived in a brick-and-clapboard ranch house that was elbow-to-elbow with other ranch houses, and right next door to the parents of a guy, Randy Carew, with whom Virgil had played high school basketball seventeen or eighteen years earlier. Old man Carew always had a couple cases of beer in the garage, and Virgil had stolen more than a few bottles from him.

Virgil went on past the Boxes’ place, past the Carews’, to the next house, stopped, got out, and walked up the Carews’ driveway. There was no sign of a light, but there was no sign of a light in most of the houses on the street. He leaned on the doorbell. Nothing happened for a moment, and then he heard an impact, feet hitting a floor. A minute later, an older man came to the door, looked out through the glass panel, turned on the porch light, opened the door, and said, “Virgil?”

Virgil thought, God bless you, and said, quietly, because he couldn’t remember Carew’s first name, “Mr. Carew, I’m with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension now. I’m a cop.”

“I knew that.” Carew was wearing a pajama top and jeans, and was barefoot.

“I need to come inside and talk to you for a minute,” Virgil said.

“You’re not here for the rest of my Budweiser, are you?”

Made Virgil laugh, and he said, “Not at the moment, but maybe later. I need to take a second of your time.”

“Sure, come on in,” Carew said, holding open the door.

Virgil stepped across the threshold and Carew called, “Viv? It’s Virgil Flowers.”

“Virgil? What’s he want? The rest of your beer?” She came out a minute later, a robust woman in a pink terrycloth bathrobe, and Virgil remembered that her name was Vivian. She said, “C’mere, you,” and grabbed Virgil by the cheeks and bent him over so she could kiss him on the forehead.

Carew asked, “What’s going on?”

“Probably nothing,” Virgil said. “I’m trying to chase down some kids who’ve gotten themselves in a lot of trouble. . Killed some people over in Bigham and Shinder.”

“We saw it on TV,” Carew said. There was wonder in his voice. This didn’t happen. Not here.

“The thing is, one of them worked at a McDonald’s over here, and they’re kinda dumb, and it’s remotely possible. . remotely possible. . that they’re targeting people that they think can give them money or a new ride. The McClatchys are fine, and I just want to make sure the Boxes are okay.”

“Haven’t seen them today,” Vivian Carew said, her fingertips going to her mouth. “But it was kind of chilly. They might not have been out when we were.”

“You haven’t seen a silver pickup around. .”

The Carews looked at each other, and then Carew said, “Virgil, there was a silver pickup in their driveway this morning. An old Chevy. . kinda crappy-looking. Broke-down. It was there when I got up this morning. It was gone by lunchtime.”

Virgil said, “Ah, man.”

“What does that mean?” Vivian asked.

“It means I need more cops. A whole lot of cops,” Virgil said.

Marshall didn’t have a whole lot of cops, but more than enough-maybe eighteen or twenty city officers, and ten or twelve sheriff’s deputies. Virgil walked back to his car, after warning the Carews to stay inside, called the law enforcement center, got the duty officer, and filled him in as he drove over.

When he got there, a city patrol car was pulling into the parking lot, just behind a sheriff’s deputy’s car. Virgil got out, said hello to the two cops, realized that he vaguely knew one of them, who said, “I’ve read about you in the newspapers, Virg. Goddamn, can I get a job like yours?”

“You’d have to fuck up first,” Virgil said, and they all went inside, where they were joined by the duty officer, who said, “I called everybody. We’ll have ten people here in a couple of minutes.”

The ten minutes seemed to take forever, but in something like six or seven minutes, the sheriff walked in, and Virgil decided to start: they all gathered around a computer and Virgil pulled up Google Maps and got an aerial view of the Box house; all of the city cops and all but two of the sheriff’s deputies knew the street pretty well. Virgil said, “We need to block it off.”

As he detailed the blocking action on the computer monitor, two more officers showed up; they were members of the drug task force, trained in SWAT-type entries, and the sheriff designated them to enter the house, with Virgil. Virgil didn’t have full SWAT equipment, so he’d go in last.

Virgil finished and said, “We need more planning, but we just don’t have the time. If they’re in there, and they don’t know we’re around, they could kill the Boxes anytime.”

“If they haven’t already done it,” the sheriff said.

“That’s right,” Virgil said. “We’ll block the place, then we’ll call. If they answer, I’ll take it from there. If there’s no answer, then we’ll approach the front door, and if we still get nothing, we’ll enter.”

“Better not have messed with my cheeseburger man,” one of the drug guys said, as he slapped the Velcros on his vest.

“You know him?” Virgil asked.

The drug guy said, “Sort of. By sight.”

“Anybody know him well?” Virgil asked. “Anybody know any of their relatives?”

“I don’t think they went to school here,” somebody said. “When they opened the other McDonald’s, I think I heard they came up from Worthington.”

“All right. . so we’ll have to do it cold,” Virgil said. He told the duty officer to hold any late arrivals at the law enforcement center. “We don’t know how it’s going to break. We might possibly need people with cars. So keep them loose.”

Half the cars went to an elementary school south of the Box house, and the rest went to Horizon, north of Parkside. They coordinated with handsets and cell phones, crossing backyards in the dark, until they had the target house surrounded.

Virgil called from his cell phone. The Box phone rang four times, then kicked over to an answering machine-but they’d gotten lucky: an answering machine, and not the phone company answering service. He said, “Mr. Box, this is the Marshall Fire Department. We’ve got a major problem at the McDonald’s. If you’re there, could you pick up, please? We need to talk with you immediately. Please pick up.”

No answer, no lights, no movement.

Virgil called on his handset, “Everybody stay in place, we’re going to make an approach.”

They came in from the garage corner, a blank windowless wall where they couldn’t be seen. Virgil and the two drug cops stopped there, and Virgil whispered, “Give me a flashlight.” One of the men handed him a Maglite, and he stepped around to the back of the garage, eased up to a back window. The inside of the garage was dark. He risked a peek, and could see almost nothing; he looked longer, couldn’t see anything that looked like movement. He risked the flashlight, and found himself looking into an empty garage.

Had the Boxes gone somewhere as well? But the silver truck had been there in the morning. .

He crept back to the two drug cops. “Nothing in the garage. Maybe they’re gone.”

“So now what?” one of them whispered.

“I want to look at the front door.” They moved to the front corner of the garage, then Virgil got on his hands and knees and crawled alone along the sidewalk, under a picture window and past a thawing flower bed, to the front door. He checked the door with the flash. No damage.

All right. One of the drug cops crawled up with what looked like a stethoscope, and put the sensor against the door. They sat for one minute, two minutes, then the cop said, “Nothing at all.”

Virgil said, “So let’s go in.”

The first cop continued to listen while Virgil crawled back to the second cop, alerted everyone to the entry, and brought the second cop back to the porch. The first cop, still listening, shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anybody in there. Not alive, anyway.”

Virgil eased the storm door open, tried the knob. Locked. Backed off. The second cop whispered, “Looks like a pretty good door. Metal.” He meant, hard to take down.

Virgil nodded. “Let’s take a look at the garage.”

They crawled back down the sidewalk, updated everybody on what was happening, tried the garage overhead door, which was locked down, and the side door, which was also locked, but had a six-pane window. Virgil used the stock of his pistol to silently pressure-crack the glass in the lowest pane, then picked out the pieces and tossed them in the flower bed. When he could reach through without cutting himself, he did, and turned the doorknob and the three of them eased into the garage. The connecting door to the house was locked, but was a hollow-core door, much flimsier than the front door.

“We can get a hammer in here,” one of the cops whispered.

“Let’s do it,” Virgil said.

The cop made a call, and two minutes later another cop snuck around the corner of the garage carrying a twelve-pound maul.

Virgil said to the maul-carrier, “I’ll turn on the flash, you hit it.” And to the two drug cops, “You get in line and go on in. There should be lights right next to the door. Go all the way to the back before you stop.”

When everybody was on the same page, Virgil lifted the flash and said, “On three,” and counted. On two, he switched the light on, and on three, the hammer smashed the door open. The first cop hit the lights with his hand, and stopped dead in the doorway.

Virgil said, “Go,” and the cop said, “Can’t.”

Virgil looked around him at two bodies in the living room, both facedown on the carpet.

The lead cop said, “Boyoboyoboy. .” and it flashed through Virgil’s mind that the bodies looked like cows lying in a pasture. He said, urgently, “Go on to the back. Step around them, go on to the back, make sure there’s nobody can get out in the hallway.”

The cop did that, following the muzzle of his shotgun down a hallway toward what looked like a bedroom wing until Virgil said, “Okay, hold it there. Watch the doors.”

He motioned the second drug cop to the kitchen, and the second cop cleared it and said, “There’s a couch here. They’ve barricaded a door.”

Virgil went that way and found a couch jammed end-wise between a hallway wall and a door that apparently led to the basement. “Why?”

Then a boy’s voice called, “Mom? Mom? Dad?”

Virgil got four more cops in the house. He said, “Those are kids down there. I don’t want them to see their parents. You guys make a barrier, and we’ll take them straight to the front door so they never see them. Okay? Everybody.”

Everybody nodded, then they lifted the couch away from the door. Virgil looked down the stairs at two children, a boy perhaps six, who was holding the hand of a girl who was maybe four. The sheriff was at his shoulder and he said, “Oh, no, no, no.” He went down the stairs and said, “Kids, come on up here. Come on with me. Come on with me, honey.”

He picked up the girl, and the boy took his hand, and Virgil said, “Out the front.” The sheriff took the kids outside, carrying the girl, towing the boy with his hand; the boy looked back at Virgil, and Virgil saw the truth in his eyes: the kid knew, at some level.

One of the cops, a heavyset balding man in his fifties, watched the kids go and then started to snuffle, and Virgil said, “Okay, okay, everybody. . We got a lot of work to do. Let’s hold it all together.”

One of the drug cops said, “What if they’re coming back? Maybe we oughta get the kids out of here and set up an ambush.”

“We can do that out a few blocks,” Virgil said. “If that’s the Boxes in there, we’ll have to assume that they’ve got the Boxes’ cars and they’ve still got the truck. We need tags for the Boxes’ cars-there could be two of them. . Set up a watch. .”

One of the cops, a sergeant, said, “I’ll get that going,” and he jogged away, and another cop came from the back and said, “Cars isn’t all they got.”

Virgil: “What?”

The cop said, “There’s a gun safe back here. It’s open, but there aren’t any guns in it.”

Virgil went to look. The gun safe was five feet tall, of a forest-green metal, had foam barrel slots for eight long guns, and five of the slots appeared to have been used. At the top of the safe were four foam-lined slots for handguns, and all four appeared used.

On the floor of the safe, a couple of ordinary plastic bags showed a flash of brass, and Virgil picked them up. Inside the first was a variety of empty shells: 9mm, which would be a handgun; a couple of dozen.44 Magnum, which could be either a handgun or a carbine, but most likely a handgun; a dozen or so.308 rifle shells, and as many in.223, and a bunch of little.22s. The other bag was full of empty 12- and 20-gauge shotgun shells.

“They got themselves an army,” one of the cops said.

The Chief of police, who’d been out with his wife at her sister’s house, showed up, and he and Virgil and the sheriff got together in the driveway. Up and down the street, lights were going on, and Virgil sent a cop to tell people to turn them off. The chief, a burly man with heavy glasses, said, “We’ve got a perimeter set up. If they try to come back in, we’ll nail ’em.”

The cars’ descriptions were going out to all agencies: a year-old Chevy Tahoe, a four-year-old Lexus RX 400h.

Virgil asked, “What about the kids?”

“Social Services lady has them-they heard the shots that killed their folks. They couldn’t get out of the basement, no windows. They’ve got relatives down in Windom. We’re looking for them.”

The chief said, “Now what?”

Everybody looked at Virgil.