Masilla was a tall, thin man, with a passing resemblance to the Grant Wood character in the American Gothic painting: old for his age, with a hound-dog face and thin sandy hair, cut short, and steel-rimmed eyeglasses. He was sunburned from the nose down, a weekend boater’s burn. He said, “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
Virgil could see fear in his eyes.
“We need to talk to you about your audits of the Buchanan County school system books.”
The secretary left on clacking sandals, pulling the door closed behind her.
Virgil said, “We believe that you have been falsifying your audits of the Buchanan County school system finances. We think that you don’t know the extent to which your coconspirators have gone off the rails, because you don’t go to their after-meetings, when they make their plans. We want you to tell us what they’ve done. What you’ve done.”
Masilla sat down suddenly, took off his glasses, and said, “Ah, no.”
Virgil didn’t say anything. He was still standing, but Jenkins and Shrake took side chairs and sat, and so Virgil moved to the chair directly in front of Masilla’s desk, and sat.
Masilla finally said, “I should have an attorney.”
“That’s your absolute right,” Virgil said. He turned and looked over his shoulder and said, “Shrake, you wanna recite the chapter and verse?”
Shrake recited the Miranda warning, and when he’d finished, Virgil asked, “Did you understand that?”
Masilla swallowed and said, “Yes. And I want one.”
Virgil said, “So I won’t ask any more questions, but I’m going to make a speech, that you can repeat when you call your lawyer. And you better get one quick, because I’m also going to make you an offer, but the offer is only going to be open for a short time. Like, two hours. Do you understand?”
A weak “Yes.”
Virgil told him about the three murders, and all the blood drained out of Masilla’s face. “How I . . . I don’t know anything about violence.”
“Well, your coconspirators do. If you’re convicted along with them, you’re going to go to prison . . . well, for you, forever. This kind of murder is going to be thirty years, no questions asked,” Virgil said. “What you need to do, and right quick, is come to an agreement to provide evidence in return for leniency and reduced charges.”
“But I didn’t . . . I . . . I better call my attorney.”
“You call. We’ll come back”—Virgil looked at his cell phone clock—“in an hour.”
“That’s not enough time—”
“Fine. Make it ninety minutes. But if we can’t reach an agreement, Mr. Masilla . . . you’re toast.”
Jenkins and Shrake stood up, and Virgil nodded at Masilla: “Ninety minutes.”
—
THE SECRETARY SAW THEM to the elevator, but didn’t ride down with them, and inside, Jenkins said, “That worked.”
Virgil, “You think?”
Shrake said, “I got a hundred dollars that says it did. But, come to think of it, if I were you, I’d call up our own attorneys and make sure they’ll support a deal. I mean, you’re sort of out here on your own.”
“That’s called self-reliance,” Virgil said.
“That’s called having your head up your butt,” Jenkins said.
—
OUTSIDE ON THE SIDEWALK, they were at loose ends, and Virgil said, “Let’s go look around.”
“Maybe find a gun store, or something,” Shrake suggested.
Jenkins said, “I saw a sign for a museum. . . .”
They were crossing the street toward the auto repair shop, and Virgil saw a man looking up past their heads. He turned and looked, and on the fourth story of the Masilla, Oder building, Fred Masilla had lifted his venetian blinds and opened one of his tall windows. He was standing there, looking out, almost pensively, and Virgil blurted, “Oh, boy, look at this.”
Jenkins and Shrake turned and looked up, and Masilla looked down at them. Virgil thought, Fifty feet, sixty feet? Really wouldn’t make any difference if he jumped.
Shrake was walking back toward the corner and bellowed: “Fred! Hey, Fred! Shut the window! Shut the fuckin’ window!”
Masilla looked down at them for another beat, then seemed to sigh, nodded, and shut the window. A moment later, the blinds came down.
Jenkins said, “Good going,” and the partners bumped knuckles.
Shrake asked Virgil, “You gonna put me in for a citation? I saved that guy’s life.”
“Quiet,” Virgil said. “I’m listening.”
“For what?”
“The gunshot.”
They all looked up at the window, but Masilla never came back.
20
THE THREE OF THEM spent some time in a café, eating pecan pie with ice cream, and Virgil called his friend at the attorney general’s office and told him that he was about to offer “consideration” to Masilla for any help he could give them.
“He’s a fool if he takes it, because we’ll repudiate it instantly,” the attorney said.
“I will testify in his behalf, if he gives these people up,” Virgil said. “I don’t have any reason to think he was in on the killings.”
“Do what you want, but you could get your ass kicked in court, in any number of directions,” the attorney said.
“So you’re saying I should do what I want, and it’s okay with you?”
After a moment of silence, the attorney said, “No, that’s exactly not what I said. I’m advising you not to do this, and if you do, you’re on your own. I’ll tell everybody I know that I never heard of you.”
“Thanks, that’s what I needed,” Virgil said. “It’s okay with you.”
He clicked off, and when the attorney called back seven seconds later, he didn’t answer. “I think we’re good,” he said to Jenkins and Shrake.
They spent some time at the public library, which looked like either a courthouse or a post office, but not a library, trying to read magazines, but that was boring, so Virgil went outside and sat on a bus bench and called Frankie and they talked about nothing, and eventually it was time to go back to Masilla, Oder.
—
MASILLA WAS SITTING in his office chair, in shirtsleeves, and a large, pink-faced, sweaty man in a blue suit sat in a corner chair. When Virgil, Jenkins, and Shrake arrived, there weren’t enough chairs, but a secretary quickly wheeled in another one, and they all sat down, and the man in the blue suit said, “I’m Benjamin Rogers, Mr. Masilla’s attorney, and Mr. Masilla isn’t going to say anything at all until I hear your story, and then we’ll decide how to proceed.”
Virgil said, “Well, the Buchanan County school board has been stealing a lot of money, could be as much as a million dollars a year, and this has been going on for some time, and Mr. Masilla is in on it.”
Masilla blurted, “I am not.”
The attorney said, “Shut up, Fred. Just keep your mouth shut.” He turned back to Virgil and said, “Mr. Masilla rejects your claim, of course. I would like to hear what you have to support it, just as a matter of curiosity.”
“Sure,” Virgil said, keeping his tone amiable. “A reporter working for the newspaper down in Trippton was shot to death last week. Upon investigation, we found his notes, along with copies of the school district’s financial records. Even if we didn’t have the records, we have so many entries into this embezzlement that the whole scheme is coming down. More important than the theft, however, is that three murders have been committed to cover up the thefts. They are part of the whole process of the crime, of course, so everybody involved is going to Stillwater prison for thirty years . . . unless they get some consideration for their testimony.”
Masilla cried, “Murders—”
“Shut up, Fred,” Rogers said. He turned to Virgil and said, “I can tell you, son—can I call y
ou son?”
Virgil said, “No.”
Rogers said, “I’ll tell you, son, if, hypothetically, Fred could tell you anything at all about this case, he’d need absolute and total immunity from prosecution, and I’d have to insist on a written arrangement with whatever county attorney you’ve got covering this case.”
“I’m actually working this out of the AG’s office.” He looked at Masilla, and enlarged: “The state attorney general’s office. I’ve got a name you could call, but I’ve got to tell you that we have no time. A man was beaten to death last night, and the man we believe is the killer can’t be found. We’re talking to three different people, and the first person who puts a finger on him gets the consideration. Everybody else hangs.”
Masilla groaned, and Rogers glared him into silence, then said to Virgil, “Give me the name of your guy in the AG’s office.”
Virgil gave him the name, and asked, “You want to call him from here? We could step outside if you want privacy.”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Rogers said.
Virgil led the way out, and the instant he was in the hallway, pressed the redial number for his friend in the attorney general’s office, who answered: “What? I’ve been trying to call you—”
“Our guy here is ready to pop, but you’re going to have to deal with him. You know what we’ve got, and we don’t think this guy knew about the murders. You can shape the deal so that if he lies about that, and we find out otherwise, you can hang him. I gotta tell you, if these folks down in Trippton walk, it’s gonna look bad when your guy runs for governor, and you let them get away.”
“You motherfucker, Flowers, this is blackmail—”
“Careful, you’re impugning my integrity. Tell you what—talk to this guy’s attorney, his name is Rogers, he’s probably on your other line right now, pretend you know all about it. But, Dave—we got no time. We’ve got three dead, and a guy running, and we got no time.”
“Flowers—”
“I’ll buy you a handcrafted boutique beer the next time you see me.”
“Fuck you, and your girlfriend, and all her children. . . . Shit, here’s Rogers, fuck you again.”
He slammed the phone down and Virgil said to Jenkins and Shrake, “Everything’s running smooth.”
“I got that impression,” Shrake said. To Jenkins: “How fast can we get to the Iowa border?”
Virgil sat in Masilla’s outer office for nearly an hour, while Jenkins and Shrake went down to the lobby to talk to the two attractive receptionists. After an hour, he took a call from his friend in the AG’s office, who was calmer, and perhaps even collegial: “Mr. Masilla will cooperate in every way he can, and we have faxed him a letter saying that we will give strong consideration to leniency should it prove that he inadvertently violated any Minnesota statutes.”
“What if he violated them on purpose?”
“Rogers insisted on a wording that makes the intent of the letter . . . mmm . . . questionable, so that if it goes to court, a court might reasonably find that we have offered him immunity. Or, a court could find the other way, and decide we didn’t, but there would be a strong presumption of a leniency.”
“Jesus, sometimes I feel like my hands are dirty.”
“You owe me a beer, my friend, and, Virgil, if you ever do this again, I’ll put you in jail for contempt of attorney, I swear to God.”
Virgil called Shrake and Jenkins, who came up a minute later and looked happy as they got off the elevator, and Virgil asked, “You got dates?”
“We do,” Jenkins said. “They’re golfers, can you believe that? We’re playing golf tomorrow afternoon, unless we have to shoot somebody. What happened with Masilla?”
“We’re about to find out.”
—
ROGERS SAID, “My client is eager to help. We’ve spoken with the AG’s office, and so we’re ready to go ahead. If you don’t mind, we’d like to record this session, just so there’s no question afterwards about what was said.”
“It’s okay with me,” Virgil said. “We’ll all have to make some speeches before we start asking questions.”
Rogers had a recorder, a small but high-fidelity pocket recorder of the kind used by musicians and lawyers. He made his speech, beginning with, “As you know, we’ve spoken to the attorney general’s office, and as we understand it, we have been given blanket immunity from prosecution as long as Mr. Masilla gives you his frank cooperation.”
Virgil identified himself on the tape and replied with, “We have no idea of the details of the agreement you worked out with the attorney general’s office, what degree of immunity your client may or may not have been given, so you’ll have to decide on a case-by-case basis which questions you will answer or refuse to answer, depending on your understanding.”
They argued about that, politely, for a few minutes, and then Virgil turned to Masilla and asked, “Mr. Masilla, have you, in your position as auditor of the Buchanan County school system, noticed any fiscal irregularities—”
Masilla replied with, “I was given only limited access to the school records, but in my examination I noticed what seemed to be some inconsistent reporting of costs. . . .”
That went on for more than an hour. Virgil was able to build a picture that implicated the school superintendent, the finance officer, and all the members of the school board in fiscal irregularities “which I pointed out from time to time, and recommended strong action upon.”
Masilla noted the presence of Viking Laughton and Randolph Kerns during some of the meetings with school officials. The discussion was moderated by Rogers, who tried to keep responsibility as fuzzy as possible, while delivering the goods, which was required by the deal.
They were still hard at it when Virgil’s phone rang. He glanced at it, intending to let the call go, but saw it was from Buchanan County’s Sheriff Purdy. He said, “Gotta take this. Let’s recess for one minute.”
He answered while he was headed for the hall. Purdy said, “We found Randy Kerns.”
“Where is he?”
“Sitting in his truck, off Thunderbolt Road.”
“When you say sitting . . .” That sounded bad.
“Looks like he shot himself,” Purdy said. “Bullet went through his head and the driver’s-side window.”
“Ah . . . God.”
“You coming down?”
“I’m up in Winona. I’ll be down as fast as I can get there. Don’t touch anything.”
“We knew you’d say that, so we haven’t,” Purdy said. “I see a couple of gun suicides every year, somewhere in the county. This one is somewhat unusual.”
“Why is that?”
“Never seen a guy shoot himself in the eye.”
—
VIRGIL EXCUSED HIMSELF, Jenkins, and Shrake from the meeting: “We will resume soon.”
Rogers asked, “When?”
“Don’t know. We have another murder related to the first three. That’s four murders,” Virgil said. “There’s not going to be much judicial mercy here. If I were you, I’d try to tighten up that deal with the AG.”
—
WHEN THEY GOT BACK to Trippton, they went down Thunderbolt Road past the town prostitute’s house—she was standing on her porch, looking down the road, and when she saw Virgil’s truck coming, pointed him farther on down. There was a turnout where the road bent closest to the Mississippi, a lovers’ lane, perhaps, and three sheriff’s cars were parked in the dirt circle, along with a couple of unmarked trucks. Purdy was there, talking with Alewort, his crime-scene guy, and they were all facing a narrow overgrown track that apparently led down to the river. Virgil could see the grille of a truck down through the brush, and Beatrice Sawyer, his own crime-scene investigator, looking in the passenger-side window.
Alewort said, “We didn’t touch, just called Beatrice in, except that I
was worried about blood and bone and brain tissue soaking further into the dirt outside the truck, where it’d be harder to recover, so I thought I’d go ahead and start that process.”
“That’s fine,” Virgil said.
“Yeah, well, it was pretty interesting, is what it was, just like that shot-in-the-eye thing,” Alewort said. “There was no blood or bone or brain matter. Not that I could find. Or Beatrice, either. And there should have been, there’s plenty of it on the window, around the gunshot hole.”
“So what you’re saying is,” Jenkins offered, “this guy Kerns shot himself through the eye, blowing his brains out, and then drove over here from somewhere else.”
“That would be one interpretation,” Alewort said.
Virgil, Jenkins, and Shrake walked down the track. Virgil said, “Hey, Bea.”
Sawyer said, “What with that Black Hole case, and now your two here, I’m getting pretty goddamned tired of looking at dead bodies.”
“So go apply at Target, I hear they’re hiring,” Virgil said. He wasn’t much interested in any complaints, given what had happened to the subjects of her research: he thought of Will Bacon stuffed under the stage.
“You’ve gotten a little testy since this morning,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah, well . . .” He gestured at the truck.
Kerns was sprawled faceup across the passenger-side seat, his legs bent awkwardly backward into the foot well. One eye was a mass of dried blood, and the blood had poured out of the hole and down his face. He looked worse than Bacon had. Something about missing eyes, Virgil thought with a shudder. A small-frame .38 caliber hammerless revolver lay on the seat next to his leg.
While Kerns was on the passenger seat, a bullet hole went out the driver’s-side window, and the window was spattered with blood and shards of bone. All of the body tissue had dried: Kerns had been dead for a while.
“When do you think he was shot?”
She shook her head: “Last night? Seems like a good bet.”
Virgil turned back to Purdy and said, “We’re both thinking the same thing. Somebody shot him. That’s no suicide.”
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