Rough country

25

VIRGIL CALLED SIGNY and told her that he had to go away for one more night, and though there might have been a thread of skepticism in her voice, she said, "You've got to get this done, Virgil."

He said, "Sig, honest to God, there's no place I'd rather be than up here."

"I believe that…"

A CRAPPY, mindless drive down I-35 to the Cities; not much to look at in the afternoon, without even the romance of the nighttime stars.

He caught Jimmie Dale Gilmore, with "Dallas," one of his favor ites, and Lucinda Williams's cover of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)," and the music smoothed the flow, but when he drove into the parking lot at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, he hadn't thought of a single thing that could help.

BUT HE THOUGHT OF SOMETHING when he stepped into the room and saw the Deuce. The boy's slack face was a dark island in the middle of a lot of white sheets and white pillows and white bedcovers and electronic equipment that showed red and green numbers, and bags of clear stuff that flowed into his arms through plastic tubes, and flowed out of him through more plastic tubes. His eyes were closed, his breathing light and thready.

Virgil asked the nurse, "Has he been awake?"

"Yes. He was awake an hour ago, but he's in bad shape," she said. "He hasn't said anything coherent. He doesn't know where he is. He's got painkillers running, I don't think he'll be back tonight."

"Is he going to make it?"

"Eighty-twenty," she said. "They had to repair his rectum, there were some bone fragments that went through. His legs and pelvis are gonna be held together with metal plates. His spine didn't get involved, but he's got a lot of damage in his legs. One of the surgeons said they might have to go back in a half-dozen times to get it all fixed. As well as it's gonna get fixed. And then there's infection. If that turns bad, it's all up for grabs."

Virgil said, "Thanks," and went down to the cafeteria and got a Coke and sat down to think about what he'd just seen. After a while, he looked at his watch and called Sandy, the researcher. She was getting ready to go home. "I need a bunch of information. I need to get it in the next few hours. I can get you the overtime. You up for it?"

"Nice of you to ask, instead of ordering me around like your personal slave," she said.

"Sandy-"

"Shut up, Virgil. What do you want?"

"Okay, in order. There's a woman named Janelle Washington in a hospital in Duluth. I need to know which one. Her husband's name is James, they live in Grand Rapids… I need to get a car registration…" He gave her the rest of the list, which she said shouldn't be too much of a problem.

"Where are you going to be?"

"I'm heading up to Duluth. Goddamnit, I was up there two hours ago, down here for fifteen minutes, now I gotta go back."

"A little rain has gotta fall in every life," she said.

"You've got such a soft heart," he said.

"Lucas is just leaving. Do you want to talk to him?"

"Naw. He'd probably piss me off. Call me as soon as you get the information on Washington."

When he got off the phone, he went out to the truck, dug out his Nikon D3, carried it back up to the Deuce's room. The nurse wasn't happy about it, but Virgil got harsh, and she backed off. He stood on a chair and took several pictures of the Deuce, checking them on the LCD screen for sharpness, was satisfied and stepped down.

The nurse showed up with the nursing supervisor, and Virgil told them, "All done-and some things gotta be done. Screw the rules, and you can quote me."

HALFWAY TO DULUTH, as it was getting dark, he pulled into a roadside diner, parked in the side lot, and went to sleep for half an hour. Sandy woke him with the phone call, and told him where Washington was, and that she was awake and waiting, and then said, "You're right about the car. It was never registered, anywhere."

"Thanks, Sandy. See you in a couple of days."

He went into the diner and got a sticky bun, and headed north again.

JAN WASHINGTON WAS SITTING up in the hospital bed. He hadn't known her before she'd gotten shot, but she had the look of a woman who'd lost a lot of weight in the past few days.

"James is here someplace," she said.

"How are you?" Virgil asked.

"I hurt-all the time. They give me painkillers, but they're not working very well. Either that, or they knock me out. They can't seem to find a middle ground."

"I need to show you a photograph," he said. He took his laptop out of his bag, turned it on, loaded the Adobe Lightroom program, and brought up the best of the Deuce photos, the one that focused on the boy's face, and cut out the hospital gear. It looked almost like a driver's license photograph.

"Do you know this man?"

She looked at the photo for several seconds, then her forehead wrinkled and she said, "Oh-from a long time ago. That's Hector. What's his last name? He only worked there for a couple of years before they went off… Hector Avila. That's it. He went off to Arizona with Maria Ashbach. They ran away together."

THEY SAT AND TALKED about it.

Hector Avila worked for the county as a civil engineer in the public works department, while Washington worked there as a clerk, before she quit to have kids. They were friendly, and she'd been around when Avila met Ashbach.

"Hector used to do the inspections on the septic installations out in the county. Maria handled the paperwork for Slibe's business. She was the office manager while Slibe did the excavation. I knew something was going on. I warned Hector about it…"

"You warned him?"

"Well, you know… Slibe is a country guy, and this was his wife. You go messing around… there are a lot of dark country roads out there. You could get… shot. Like me."

"How long was the affair going on?" Virgil asked.

"Quite a while. A couple of years, at least," Washington said. "They were sneaky about it-after it got going good, they'd never talk to each other. I knew, because I knew Hector… He'd get a motel room somewhere, usually up at Hibbing, and she'd sneak up there. I don't know… it started out as pure sex, and then I think they fell in love. I hope they're happy, wherever they are."

VIRGIL CALLED RON MAPES, the crime-scene chief, at home, and told him what he needed. Called Sanders: "That search warrant out at Ashbach's was good for what, three days?"

"Yup. After that, we've got to go back. But we weren't required to finish the search the first day. What's going on?"

"If I tell you, you're gonna make fun of me when I fall on my ass," Virgil said.

"No, I won't-"

"See you tomorrow," Virgil said.

"Wait, wait-what about the Deuce?" Sanders asked.

"He was asleep. I never talked to him."

"John Phillips is going to be pissed. He needed that statement."

"Ah, the Deuce didn't do it," Virgil said. "You can tell John that for me."

"Virgil-"

"I'm going to need a couple more of your deputies. About nine o'clock," Virgil said.

VIRGIL GOT BACK to the motel at two in the morning and dropped facedown on the bed, and was gone.

Mapes called at eight o'clock and said, "We're down in the lobby."

"Go get a cup of coffee somewhere," Virgil moaned. "I'll get up in a minute."

"You don't sound like you'll be up in a minute," Mapes said.

"Ah… all right. I'm getting up."

THE MORNING was cool and quiet, with a sniff of rain in the air, and when Virgil got out to the parking lot, he found it wet: it had rained overnight, but not much-there were dry rain shadows under the cars. He walked across to the lobby, past the crime-scene van, and found Mapes and an assistant, Herb Huntington, looking at travel brochures.

"Lot to do around here," Mapes said. "I didn't realize."

"Your wife'll be happy to hear that," Huntington told his boss. " ' Honey, we're getting out of Bemidji this year. Yes sir, we're going to Grand Rapids. Fishing, hunting, golf, whatever you want.' "

"You guys got your stuff?" Virgil asked.

"Virgil, I'm not saying you're crazy," Mapes said. "But I'm gonna hide in the back of the truck while Herb does the work." Virgil shook his head, a sad smile crossing his face, and Mapes asked, "What?"

"I'm not really guessing," Virgil said. "Let's go get some breakfast-we might be out there for a while."

"What do you got that I don't know about?" Mapes asked.

"We can't find Jud Windrow," Virgil said. "Not even with a LoJack on his car."

Mapes hitched up his pants. "Huh. Well, there is that. So-Log Cabin? Pancakes?"

THEY ATE AND PICKED up the two deputies, made a three-truck caravan out to the Ashbach place. They parked in front of it, which, for a moment, seemed abandoned, a cloud hanging over it. Virgil banged on Slibe's door, got no answer, and one of the deputies walked around to the garage, looked inside, and called back, "His truck's gone."

"Check the loft." To Mapes: "Might as well get going."

Virgil started toward Wendy's double-wide, and halfway there, the door opened and Wendy, barefoot, in jeans, came out on the concrete steps. "What're you doing?"

"Where's your father?" Virgil asked.

"He's… our attorney said we weren't supposed to talk to you, no matter what you said," Wendy said. Berni came up behind her, put her hand on Wendy's shoulder.

"You gotta do what your attorney says," Virgil said. "But I'll tell you, Wendy, if your father is here, and he pops up and he shoots somebody, I'll send you to prison for murder."

"Let me… what are you doing out there?"

Across the yard, Mapes and Huntington were pacing across the garden. "Continuing the search," Virgil said. He looked at Berni: "Berni, the attorney hasn't told you anything because you don't have an attorney. So I'm asking you, do you know where Slibe is?"

"That's not fair," Wendy protested.

"Fuck fair," Virgil said. "Berni, if you know, you better say, or you're gonna be in as deep as Wendy."

Wendy said, "I'll tell you-don't pick on her. He's working a job south of town, on the Wendigo farm."

"When did he leave?"

"Usual time, I guess-six-thirty or so. I heard him go," Wendy said.

"Didn't you think it was a little odd, him not going to see the Deuce?"

"I think he was too freaked out, and then they took the Deuce away," Wendy said. "Berni and I are going down to St. Paul today, maybe he'll come. What're you doing out there, Virgil?"

HUNTINGTON WAS AT THE BOTTOM of the garden with a metal box slung around his shoulders, holding what looked like a basketball hoop at the end of an eight-foot pole. As they watched, he pushed the hoop out in front of him, so it hovered over the top of the potatoes, and started walking up the length of the garden, Mapes pacing along with him.

"Wendy, you oughta go see your brother," Virgil said. "I was down there last night. He could use some support."

She turned back to him: "Is he bad?"

"Bad enough. They can fix him, but it's going to take time. The biggest threat is infection." He told her about the visit, turned back, and saw Mapes walking toward them. Huntington was wandering in a circle, stepping on tomato plants and cucumber vines, heedless of the damage, killing them.

Mapes said, "We got a mass, Virgil. And it's big."

"No question?"

"Well, we got a mass. You think you know what it is; and it's consistent. That's all I can tell you at this point."

Wendy asked, "What?"

Virgil sighed and stepped up on the top step and put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her tight. "Ah, God I hate this."

"What?"

"Wendy… I believe your mom is down there, under the garden."

SHE FROZE, as if all the muscles in her body contracted at once. Then she pushed him off, and Berni, agape, stepped away and said, "You're crazy."

Wendy, horrified, looking from the garden to Virgil, repeated it: "You're crazy."

Virgil said, "These guys are using a top-end metal detector. They say there's a big buried metal mass out there, under the garden.

"You told me that when your mother left, she left her car here, and took off with her boyfriend, Hector Avila. I had a BCA researcher look up Avila's car, which was a 1990 S10 Blazer. It was never rereg istered anywhere in the United States. There was no sign of it in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, California, Nevada, Colorado… no place in the Southwest.

"You told me that when you came back from school, that your father told you that your mother had gone away, and that day he started a garden…"

She shook her head. "No… no, no, no, not right. Mom's out in Arizona."

"Can't find her," Virgil said. Can't find a Hector Avila, either. Can't find a Maria Ashbach getting a divorce anywhere in Minnesota or Arizona or anywhere else."

"Dad told me when they got divorced…"

"And he told you that he got a letter that said your mom didn't want to see you anymore. Did that sound like your mom?"

She looked at the garden, a sense of dry-lipped desperation about her. "But that… but that…"

"Your brother. I took his picture and showed it to Jan Washington, in the hospital in Duluth. She thought it was a picture of Avila. The Deuce is Avila's son, and your father knows it. That's why he's framing him."

"It can't…"

"There's only one way to find out," Virgil said. "We know we've got a big metal mass down there. We know your father had excavation equipment that he could have used to bury it. You're out here at the end of the road, with nobody going by. He could have pulled it off. We gotta look."

WENDY STARTED TO CRY, and Berni wrapped her up and led her back into the trailer, Berni looking at Virgil with fear on her face, and Virgil said, quietly to the deputies, "Hang around, keep an eye on them."

He called Sanders: "You better get out here."

Mapes showed him the space in the garden where they were getting the best responses. "You can't tell exactly how big it is, but it's probably car-length, and probably car-wide, and not too deep."

WENDY CAME OUT of the house, tears streaming down her face: "How're you going to dig it up?"

"Get some guys out here."

"I can run the Bobcat better than anyone in the county."

"Wendy, that's a really bad idea."

She shrieked at him: "I can't stand this. I can't stand it. I can't wait. You understand that? Mom's in Arizona. Mom's in Arizona, and she might come back. She can't be in the garden…"

Virgil said to Berni, "You better take her-"

Wendy pushed Berni away. "Bullshit. I'm going for the Bobcat." She stalked away, and one of the deputies moved to cut her off, but Virgil gave him a shake of the head, and the deputy stepped back. Virgil followed her, and Berni followed Virgil, and the deputy came after them, leaving the second deputy, Mapes, and Huntington standing in the garden.

THERE WERE TWO BOBCATS in the machine shed, one with a front-end loader, the other with a shovel. The larger Caterpillar shovel was gone. Wendy climbed into the Bobcat with the shovel and fired it up. She said to Virgil, "Out of the way."

"Not a good idea, Wendy," Virgil said.

"I don't care…" She idled the machine for a moment, said, "When Mom left, something must have busted in his brain. He told me once that he'd taken her into town, and they bought gravesites together. I mean, they were thirty."

"I think that's why he was holding you so close," Virgil said.

She ran the power up a bit and said, "Out of the way."

VIRGIL FOLLOWED THE BOBCAT across the yard, and Mapes came up and said, "You think this is a good idea?"

Virgil said, "We're going with the flow. Give her an outline to work with."

MAPES MARKED OUT a perimeter, and Wendy went to work. She was good with the shovel, cutting down a foot at a time, over the whole perimeter, dumped the dirt to the side, out of the garden, the black-and-tan soil piling up as she went deeper and deeper. At two feet, Virgil could see her crying, and stepped up next to the Bobcat and called, over the engine beat, "You okay?"

"Somebody's been digging here, deep. The soil's all cut up. Get back…"

Sanders showed up with another deputy, and Virgil walked over. The sheriff got out of the car, gawked at Wendy in the Bobcat, and asked, "What the hell's going on?"

"I think Hector Avila and Maria Ashbach are down there."

"What?"

VIRGIL EXPLAINED and Sanders said, "You can't be having her dig them up. Get her out of there. What the hell…"

But they were down three feet, and as Sanders was speaking, there was a shriek of metal. Wendy lifted the shovel and backed off, and one of the deputies jumped down into the hole, dug around with a spade, then stood up and looked at Virgil and asked, "What color was the Blazer?"

"Blue," Virgil said.

"We got blue," the deputy said.

WENDY WAS IN CONTROL now, her face tight, cold. After a short argument with Sanders, she moved back up to the hole and removed two inches of dirt, and then another inch, and then began to hit metal along the whole length of the hole.

She backed off, and the deputies climbed down into the hole with a long-handled shovel and a spade.

Wendy wandered away, through the picket fence around her father's house, and sat on the porch, her feet on the porch step. Virgil and Berni sat on either side of her.

"Dad used to whip her ass. I remember it. I remember her fighting him and crying. He used to cry after he did it-but he said he had to, because she'd screwed something up. I thought that was… the way men acted. Most of the time, everything seemed all right…"

"We got a letter from Mom. Dad showed it to me, he read it to me. All about she was going to have a new life, and it was better if we didn't get involved. She said good-bye. I remember Dad telling the Deuce that she wasn't coming back, and the Deuce starting to cry because he didn't understand where Mom went. It was like she was dead or something… And then Dad told me a couple of years later that they were getting a divorce, and then they had gotten one, and I told all my friends…"

"And I told my mom," Berni said. "And the way things are here… everybody knew they'd gotten a divorce, and what happened."

"He was building a story," Virgil said.

They sat and watched the deputies dig, and then Virgil asked Wendy, "Why'd you lie to me about that lipstick card? The kiss mark you made for McDill?"

She said nothing for a moment, then turned her face toward him: "I don't know. I was scared of you. I was going to deny everything… I don't know. It was stupid."

Across the drive, in the hole, one of the deputies knelt, and started working with his hands. Virgil got up and said, "Wait here."

"Bullshit," Wendy said.

THE DEPUTIES HAD CLEARED off a roof, and in another few minutes, had cleaned off a foot-long patch of windshield. Sanders got a flashlight from his car and handed it down, and the deputy, on his knees, shined it through the glass, pressed his face closer, moved the light, then stood up and looked at Wendy and then at Virgil.

"Got some clothing."

"Some clothing," Sanders said.

"Got some clothing and… some bones and hair."

WENDY SAT DOWN, suddenly, in the raw dirt, then flopped backward, her irises rolling out of sight.

"She's fainted, or something," Virgil said, holding her head up. "We better get, uh, what do…" He'd never dealt with a woman who'd fainted.

Berni came to hold her head and shouted at Sanders, "Get her to a hospital, get-"

Then Wendy stirred and Virgil said, "Don't move. You fainted, is all, just stay like that."

But Wendy rolled to her hands and knees and looked in the hole. "All these years," she said. "All these years, I thought she'd come back someday. Or I thought I'd be famous, and I'd have a show in Arizona, and she'd come up and talk to me… I still have that dream. All these years…"