“Huh.”
“I’ll tell you, Virgil. If we don’t find something, this is gonna plague me,” Stryker said. “And everybody in the county, for that matter. We won’t know if he went up in smoke, or if he’s down on some French island someplace. We won’t know if that truck last night didn’t have Bill Judd in it, heading for the West Indies.”
“Jesus, Jimmy, the guy’s what? Eighty?” Virgil said. “They were saying down at the Holiday that he’d been pretty sick. In and out of the hospital. Why in the hell would he sit here for eighty years, and then with six months to live, take off for the West Indies?”
“Probably because he’d think it was funny, fuckin’ everybody up one last time,” Stryker said. He was unsettled, mumbled, “Sonofabitch,” then sighed, looked at two fat file folders on his desktop, and pushed them across at Virgil.
“This is it. Everything we got. There’s also a DVD in there, all the same stuff, if you’d rather use a computer. You need Adobe Reader.”
“All right,” Virgil said. “But boil it down for me. What’d you get, and what are you looking at now?”
VIRGIL WASN’T in Bluestem for Bill Judd, though.
He was there for the Gleasons.
Russell Gleason had been a town doctor for fifty years, retired for ten. He and his wife, Anna, lived in an affluent enclave of businessmen and professionals on a hillock above the Stark River reservoir, a mile east of downtown and handy to the Bluestem Country Club. Anna had been a nurse for a while, when she was younger, and then had gotten elected to the county commission, where she served six terms and then retired for good. They had three children, but the children had gone, two to the Twin Cities, one to Sioux Falls.
Both were in their eighties and in good health. Russell still played nine holes a day at the club, in good weather, and Anna had her women’s groups. They had a housekeeper, a Mexican illegal named Mayahuel Diaz who was well liked by most everyone who knew her, and who came in on weekdays.
Three weeks and four days before Virgil came to town, Russell had played a round of golf on a Friday afternoon, the round cut short by rain. He had a few drinks with his golfing pals, then hooked up with his wife. They’d gone to the Holiday Inn for dinner. On the way back home, they stopped at a SuperAmerica—a credit card said it was twelve minutes after nine when they paid for the gas.
At eleven o’clock that rainy night, a neighbor had been sent to town by his wife to get a quart of milk. As he came past the Gleason place, he saw what looked like a strange sculpture, like a dummy or a scarecrow, sitting in the Gleasons’ backyard, bathed in yard lights.
He got a quart of milk and came back up the hill, drove past the Gleasons’ house, saw the scarecrow or whatever it was, got as far as his driveway, then said, the hell with it, that scarecrow was too strange. He’d just stop and ask if everything was okay.
It wasn’t.
The scarecrow was Russell Gleason, propped up with a stick, his eyes shot out.
THE SHOOTINGS had happened inside the house. Anna had been shot to death as she sat on a couch in the living room; shot once in the heart. Russell had been shot three times, once in the lower back, and once in each eye. Then his body had been dragged outside and propped up, staring gap mouthed and blank eyed into the dark.
“It looked like he tried to run, but he couldn’t,” Stryker said. “That the sequence was, that he was standing up, and Anna was sitting down. The killer shot her in the heart and Russell turned to run, and the killer shot him in the spine, from the back, just as he got to the dining room.”
“How far was that? How far did he run?”
“About three steps. I’ll get you the key to the house, on the way out the door, we’ve got a couple in evidence,” Stryker said. “Anyway, the dining room is connected to the living room, and it looks like he was shot as he started into the dining room. He went down, and rolled on his back, and the killer stood over him and shot him twice, once in each eye. Goddamnedest thing.”
The slugs were .357 hollow points, and exited the back of Gleason’s head into the floor, and were recovered, though in fragments.
“The eye thing, propping him up in the yard, in the lights—a ritual of some kind,” Virgil said.
“Looks like something, but I don’t know what,” Stryker said, shaking his head. “The second shot was a waste of good ammunition, I can tell you that. And the shooter took a risk—the Gleasons’ house is three hundred fifty feet from the nearest neighbor, and it was raining, so the houses were closed up with air-conditioning. Still, a .357 makes a damn loud bang. If somebody had been walking by…the third shot was an extra risk.”
“Excitement? I’ve seen that,” Virgil said. “Guy starts pulling the trigger and can’t stop.”
“One in each eye? He had to take his time,” Stryker said. “I mean, he fired from two feet away, straight down, but you still have to take your time to put it right through an eye.”
“So he’s nuts. A ritual, a revenge thing…Maybe a warning?”
Stryker sighed. “What the whole situation hints at, when you boil it down, is that it’s somebody from here, that we all know. Somebody who went to that specific house, at that specific time, to do the killing. Somebody that they let into the house. No sign of struggle by the entrance. There was a glass of water by Anna’s hand, on an end table, like she’d been sitting there awhile.”
“Was it dark?”
“Probably. We can’t nail it down exactly, but they were wearing the clothes that they wore Friday. Russell was still in his golf slacks with a fresh grass stain on the cuff. So, sometime after they got gas at nine-twelve—take them five minutes to get out to the house after paying—and before they’d changed clothes to go to bed.”
“Nobody saw any cars?”
“No. I think the killer—I feel like it’s one guy—came up the Stark River on foot, and then around to the front of the house. If he stayed down in the river cut, in the rain, hell, nobody would see him. A guy who knows his way around could walk downtown, almost, without being seen, on a dark night.”
“So tell me what you think,” Virgil said. “Who did it? Who might’ve done it?”
Stryker was shaking his head. “I don’t know. This is too cold, for around here. There might be guys here who could do it, but it’d be hot. Lots of anger. Then they’d probably turn themselves in, or shoot themselves, or run for it. Or something. So, I don’t know. You’ll hear that all over town—that I don’t know. But nobody else does, either.”
“All right,” Virgil said. “Give me the rest of the day to look at the paper, and I’ll talk to you tonight. I’ll be down at the Holiday, you got my cell number if you need me.”
“Get you that key on the way out,” Stryker said. “When you’re done with the house, I’ll probably let the Gleason kids have it. They want to get it cleaned out and set up for a sale.”
“Nobody’s touched it?”
“We’ve been through it, but we haven’t taken anything out. Everything’s like it was, but maybe a little ruffled.”
THE EVIDENCE ROOM was a closet with a fire door and steel sides. Stryker unlocked it, pulled out a basket, sorted through a dozen Ziploc bags, got the key, and handed it to Virgil. They walked along together to the courthouse door, past a guy painting woodwork.
When they were out of earshot, Stryker said, “Listen, you know how it is in a sheriff’s office. Half the guys working for me would like a shot at my job. If they smell a weakness…I’ll be in trouble. So. You do what it takes. You need anything from me—anything—you let me know. Any of my people drag their feet, anybody in the courthouse gives you trouble, I want to hear about it.”
“I’ll talk to you,” Virgil said.
THEY STEPPED OUTSIDE, into the sunshine. A woman was going by on the sidewalk, fifty feet away, slender, pretty, small features, white-blond hair on her shoulders. Maybe early thirties? He was too far away to be sure, but Virgil thought her eyes might be green. She lifted a hand to Stryker and he lifted one b
ack, and her eyes caught Virgil’s for a beat—an extra beat—and then she went along toward the corner.
“Another thing,” Stryker said. “We’ve got this newspaper here and the editor thinks he’s the New York Times. His name is Williamson. He’s investigating my investigation, and he says I’m screwing it up. Just a heads-up in case he calls you—and he will.”
Virgil nodded, then said, quietly, “Not to step on your train of thought, there, Jimmy, but look at the ass on that woman. My God, where do the genes come from? I mean, that’s an artwork. That’s the Venus de Milo, and you’re a bunch of goddamned Germans.”
“Yeah,” Stryker said, a noncommittal note in his voice.
Virgil looked at him: “What? She’s married to the mayor? You don’t even look at her ass?”
“No, I don’t, really,” Stryker said. “And she’s not married. She’s been divorced since February. Folks figure she’s about ripe for the pluckin’.”
“Have you asked her out?”
“Nope,” Stryker said.
They both looked after her as she crossed the street and went on down the sidewalk toward Main. Virgil said, “You’re divorced, Jimmy. I know you’re not hung up on your ex, because she’s in Chicago and you hate her. I mean, I hate her, and I only met her once. So here’s the woman with the fourth-best ass in the state of Minnesota, right in your hometown, and not a bad set of cupcakes, either, from what I could see…I mean, pardon me for asking, and not that it matters at all, but you’re not queer, or something?”
Stryker grinned. “Nope.”
The woman tossed her white-blond hair as she stepped up on the far curb, and might have glanced back at them—as all women would, she knew they were talking about her—and then Virgil turned to Stryker, about to continue his analysis of her better points, and noticed that Stryker had precisely the same white-blond hair as the woman; and Stryker had those jade-green eyes.
A thought crossed Virgil’s mind.
He said, “That’s your sister, isn’t it?”
“Yup.”
They both looked down the street, but the woman had disappeared behind a hedge, at a crooked place in the sidewalk. Virgil said, “Listen, Jimmy, that whole thing about her ass and all…”
“Never mind about that,” Stryker said. “Joanie can take care of herself. You just take care of this cocksucker who’s killing my people.”
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 some
body 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.
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