CLAYTON HOLLEY WAS eighty-nine years old and lived in the perfect house—perfect for a minimum-wage farm woman who’d fled her husband. The house was old and very small, white clapboard, two bedrooms, a narrow living room, a kitchen a little larger than the house deserved, a damp basement that smelled of mildew, rusting tools, sour drains, and clothes-dryer exhaust, along with the slightly musty alcoholic odor from five or six barrels of Concord grape and rhubarb wine that Holley usually had cooking in the basement.
Holley came to the front door when Virgil knocked, adjusted his glasses as he looked through the storm door window, then smiled and said in a frog’s croaking voice, “That effin’ Flowers, as I live and die.” He pushed the storm door open. “Come on in. What the hell are you doing here?”
Virgil kicked the snow off his boots and tracked into the living room, and Holley clicked off what looked like a new television and pointed Virgil at one of two purple corduroy La-Z-Boys.
Virgil sat, and said, “You gettin’ any?”
Holley scratched his crotch and said, “Matter of fact—”
“Okay, I don’t want to hear about it,” Virgil said. “How old is she?”
“A nice, crisp sixty-four,” Holley said. “She has an orgasm, the neighbors run for the tornado cellars.”
“Jesus, Clay, she’s a child. You’ve got kids older than she is,” Virgil said.
“Yup. Two of them, anyway,” Holley said. “Why are we talking about my sex life? It’s not all that interesting.”
“I was hoping you were shacked up with somebody so you could go away for a couple days,” Virgil said. “I want to borrow your house. And maybe a few of your friends.”
Holley studied him for a moment, then chuckled. “This is gonna be good, isn’t it?”
HOLLEY LISTENED to the story and said, “Marie lives two houses down, so I could stay there—I stay over every once in a while anyway, when I’m too fucked-out to walk back to the house. I’ll tell you what, that Viagra stuff can be the curse of old age.”
“Man, I really don’t want to hear about it,” Virgil said.
“Anyway, we definitely could set up a surveillance system. We’ve got the Johnsons down on the one corner, and the Johnsons down on the other corner—they’re not related—and the Pells, and the Schooners . . . they’re all retired, they’ve all got cell phones. I can call them up right now, we can meet over at Marie’s. She’s got the biggest house. These folks’ll all go for it.”
“So you’re ready to say ‘yes’?”
“Hell, yes. Goddamn interesting thing you got going here, Virgil,” Holley said. “I’ll call up the TV and give ’em an interview when you bust everybody. Be a hero.”
“You’re welcome to do that—I can even give you a name or two,” Virgil said. “All right. Call your friends. Let’s see if we can do it tomorrow.”
IT ALL WENT BETTER than Virgil had any right to hope, he told Coakley later that evening, when he got back to Homestead.
“His girlfriend slapped together a batch of oatmeal cookies, and we got all of these old folks there, having a party, and told them what we wanted to do, and they were all for it,” Virgil said. They were back in bed, covers up to their chins. “I called Gordon, and she’s up for it. I’ll go up there tomorrow, pick her up, truck her ass over to Hayfield. Davenport got me Shrake and Jenkins, a couple of thugs, perfect for this, and they’re coming down tomorrow. We’ll make the call tomorrow, noon or early afternoon. That’ll give Roland time to talk to other people, get organized, and get up there.”
“I think we’re putting a lot of weight on the idea that they’ll be able to trace the call,” Coakley said.
“Got to,” Virgil said. “They wouldn’t take any other kind of hook. They’ve got to work for it. They’ve all got computers, and it won’t take a genius to work the reverse directory. Clay’s in there, C. Holley. They’ll find it.”
“What if they don’t come?” Coakley asked.
“Well, I’m gonna put a bug in their ear,” Virgil said. “I’m gonna go talk to Alma Flood tomorrow, sometime when this weird guy isn’t there—the chicken plucker.”
“Wally Rooney.”
“Yeah. I’m going to let it slip that we’ve got information coming, and see if I can squeeze anything out of her. Talk the Bible to her for a while. There’s something going on with her; I don’t know what. But—I’m gonna let her know that we’ve got a source, and that we’re closing in on them. That’ll give them a push.”
“Can’t talk about child sex to her,” Coakley said. “Not yet.”
“Not yet. But I can talk about Kelly Baker, and how she was abused. I can wonder if more church members might have been involved. Leave the impression that I’m ignorant, but learning, and that we have this source—”
“What do I do?”
“If we snap the trap on these guys tomorrow evening or the next day, you gotta be ready to get a warrant and hit Rouse,” Virgil said. “Rouse is the key. There’re a lot of photos—that’ll bring down the whole thing. So we snap the trap, if we get one inch of info, from anybody we get, about Rouse, I call you, and you go with all the guys you can get.”
“Say I believe you when you say they’ll track her down. But what if the people who show up aren’t the people you know? But she should know? And she goes to the door, and she doesn’t know who Roland is—”
“She knows Roland,” Virgil said. “She saw him a lot, when Lucy was first married. And she can refuse to let him in . . . unless he’s the only one who shows. But I see what you mean.”
“Best shot would be to take Dennis and Gene with you. They might be able to pick out who they are.”
“Let’s talk to them,” Virgil said. “Too late tonight, but first thing in the morning. Damn, this is going to be interesting.”
Her hand slipped down his thigh, and groped, and found him, and she sighed and said, “I’m gonna miss you, Virgil.”
“Yeah? How much?”
THE NEXT DAY was a rush. Instead of picking up Gordon, which would have been a two-hour detour, he called her and she agreed to drive to Hayfield on her own. She was excited.
“This is a lot better than sorting nuts. I bought a new pair of shoes, I just, uh . . . I don’t know why I did that.”
Virgil said, “Take it easy; drive carefully. We don’t need you winding up in a ditch.”
Dennis Brown, the police chief, and Schickel agreed to go, and would drive over together. Virgil told them to take binoculars and be prepared to stay late, and maybe overnight. “We’ll pick up a motel tab, if you have to stay over. If they don’t come by the second day, they won’t be coming.”
Virgil was out of the motel at eight o’clock, heading west on I-90, to the Flood place. When he pulled in, one of the girls, dressed in work clothes, came out of the barn and took a look at him; went back in the barn and, a few seconds later, came back out with her sister, who was carrying a basket containing a half-dozen eggs.
“Whatcha want?” Edna asked.
“I need to talk to your mother again,” Virgil said. “Is Mr. Rooney around?”
“He’s run into town. He’ll be back in an hour,” Helen said. “Whatcha want him for?”
“I don’t,” Virgil said. “Just wondering if he was around.”
The two of them, standing side by side in the snow-covered yard, looked like a black-and-white photo from the 1930s, a couple of orphan girls in a coal town in West Virginia, or out on the prairie in a sod house, or something, drab, colorless clothes, too-fair skin, and pale eyes. And they carried with them the general sense of solemnity he often saw in old photos. Edna said, “Well, Mother’s inside. She’s been a little off-center, ever since the last time you were here. Maybe got a bug. But we’ll go tell her you’re here.”
AND ALMA FLOOD looked like one of the old photos, too, Virgil thought, when the girls took him up to the front room. She was sitting in the same chair, dressed in a long black skirt and a gray shirt with a darker gray cardigan sweater, bu
ttoned almost to the top. The pocket of the sweater showed some wads of toilet tissue; a reading light shone over her shoulder, and she had one finger inserted in her Bible, toward the very end.
“What is it this time?” she asked.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Virgil said, taking a chair without asking. “I’ve been trying to settle the whole Kelly Baker murder in my mind. I’m pretty sure I know what happened. I believe your husband and Jim Crocker were involved in a sexual relationship with her, and were present when she died, and that the Tripp boy found out about it. That set him off, and his arrest set off Crocker, and Crocker was killed to keep him quiet.”
“Impossible to prove all that,” she said. “Everybody’s dead.”
“But proving it, if we could do it, would still be interesting, because there might have been a third man involved, or even more,” Virgil said. “Which brings up the whole question of the World of Spirit. All of these people were members, including Kelly and her parents. So the question comes up, was this a church thing? I mean, a regular church thing, allowed and supervised by the church? How many people were involved?”
“It’s not the church,” she said. “It can’t be the church.” But she was stressed, and, Virgil thought, maybe lying.
“It would be hard to believe,” Virgil said. He nodded at her Bible. “Anyone who takes the Bible seriously, who believes that we’ll go on to another world, couldn’t be involved in this kind of thing. Child abuse, murder. But we know about the problems that the Catholic Church has had. . . . There will be, Mrs. Flood, hell to pay. Literally. You read in your Good Book where John the Revelator says, when he talks about the City that has no need of the Sun, because it has the Light of the Lord. He says, ‘There shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life.’ Will the people in the church enter that City?”
She sat as if stricken, didn’t say a word, but fixed him with an eye like a dead bird’s, not even blinking.
One of the girls said, “Mom? Are you okay?”
“‘They repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts,’” Virgil said, leaning forward, pounding it in. “And then there’s the part that says, ‘And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death, and Hades followed with him.’”
No response. One of the girls said, “I think you should go now.”
Virgil stood and said to Alma Flood, “I’ve got a source who knows about the church. I spoke to her yesterday, and it’s possible that the sins of the church will come back to haunt all of you. Save yourself and your daughters, Mrs. Flood. Help me out, if you can.”
Finally, she moved, to shake her head. “You go on now,” she said. “Go on out of here.”
Virgil turned away, and she said, “Maybe.”
“What?”
“Maybe something will happen. Maybe the pale horse is already here.” She held up her hand and looked at it in the light of her reading lamp, and said, “You go on. But I will talk to you one more time. Not now.”
THE TWO GIRLS came as far as the side door.
Edna said, “Rooney wouldn’t like to see you here. He says you have a bad effect on our minds.”
Virgil said, “I’d like to hear you speak your minds, what you two really think. What you talk about at night, between the two of you. You’re old enough to have your own thoughts. Then we could decide whether I’m bad for you, or Rooney is.”
Neither one said anything, and Virgil walked away, turning once to see them standing on the porch, watching him. Helen’s lips were moving; she was speaking to Edna without looking at her, tracking Virgil instead; or maybe it was a prayer. Virgil was thoroughly creeped out, not only by Alma Flood and the two girls, but by himself.
There was, he thought, something fundamentally crooked about using the Bible to crack a Bible-believer, and that feeling of being stained by his own actions, if that’s what he felt, reached so far back into his childhood that he’d never escape it.
He looked back at the house, snarled, “Fuck it,” over his shoulder, and headed down the drive.
SOMETHING LIKE two hours over to Hayfield, but he made it in a bit more than an hour and a half, by driving way too fast. As Virgil pulled in to the curb in front of Holley’s place, a brown Cadillac sedan came around the corner and pulled up behind him. Jenkins and Shrake, the BCA’s muscle, got out of Shrake’s Cadillac, and Shrake said, “Yet another case he can’t handle on his own.”
Virgil asked, “You guys bring your guns?”
Jenkins said, “Oh, shit, I knew we forgot something.” He was carrying a canvas bag and he lifted it and said, “Radios.”
Shrake was looking at the house and said, “Are we all going to fit in there?”
“Probably not. Probably only me, I’ll be in a bedroom closet, and one more guy, down the basement,” Virgil said. “The other guy will be next door, and when the talk stops, you’ll come out to the side door. If we need you, you’re five steps away.”
“Couldn’t hear—”
“I’ll be able to,” Virgil said, “and I’ll yell.”
LOUISE GORDON, Dennis Brown, and Schickel were sitting in Holley’s living room, watching television, with a couple of sacks of Doritos and brown bottles of root beer. Gordon got up when Virgil knocked and came in, and said, “Are we going to do it?”
“Sure, we’re good,” Virgil said, smiling at her. He introduced Shrake and Jenkins to the others, and asked Gordon, “You study your lines?”
“Yes, I did. But Clayton said they sounded stilted—he used to be in a little theater.”
“I was pretty good, too,” Holley said. “I once played the Nazi in The Sound of Music. That was sort of the high point of my career.”
“We don’t want a play,” Virgil began, but Schickel interrupted.
“You want an improv,” Schickel said. “So we’ve been practicing, like we’re talking on the telephone with her. We got it going.”
“All right,” Virgil said. “I’ll bite. Let’s say I’m Roland. . . .”
They went through the phone call, and Virgil stopped it a few times and went off in different directions, and she always brought him back, sounding appropriately flustered and, at times, frightened.
“Okay, I’m impressed,” Virgil said. She was a natural bullshitter. “Let’s make the call.”
“What if he’s not home?” Gordon asked.
“Then we make the call later,” Virgil said. “Keep making it until he answers. We know he’s around the farm, because Sheriff Coakley has seen him.”
They made the call and he wasn’t home.
THEY SPENT the next half hour going around to the neighbors, and talking about where to leave the cars, and deciding who would be doing what; fifteen minutes into the half hour, Gordon called again, and got no answer. At the end of the half hour, as they were all getting back to Holley’s, she made a third call and suddenly lit up, and asked, in a hushed voice, “Roland? . . . This is Lucy. Lucy.”
They couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but they could hear the pitch.
Gordon: “I’m a little scared here. I don’t know how they tracked me down, but this state agent said if I protect you, then I’m an accomplice. I haven’t even been there in forever, and he says that makes no difference. He wants me to testify against you, against the Spirit and Emmett and all them. . . . No, I’m not going to tell you where I’m at. What I’m going to do is, I’m going to get a suitcase and tomorrow morning I’m going to Florida or California or Hawaii or someplace and let you clean up your own messes. . . . I don’t want to hear about any money, you sonofabitch; you passed me around like I was a side of beef, you owed me that money and more. . . . But you . . . I don’t care, I’m just telling you. They’re coming and you better hide out, because this Flowers guy is going to put you all in prison. . . . I didn’t tell him anything, I told him I
didn’t have anything to tell, but he knows I was lying. Now I’m going, I’m on my way, and I’ve said what I was going to say, and I only got one more thing to say to you, which is, go fuck yourself.”
And she slammed the old-fashioned phone back on the receiver and looked around, a thin veil of sweat on her forehead and upper lip. “How’d I do?”
Shrake launched himself out of his chair and said, “Goddamn! That was so amazing, you oughta be in the theater.”
“Awful good,” Virgil said. He was beaming, and he beamed on. “Awful good. Okay, folks, the fire is lit. They couldn’t get here in less than a couple hours and probably not less than four or five. I say we order up some pizza and beer, see if we can get a decent movie. . . . Clay’s got a Blu-ray.”
“Party on,” Jenkins said. “Goddamn, I like this kind of detectin’. You detect good, Flowers.”
THEY GOT the pizza and beer and soda and a Bruce Willis Die Hard movie about a computer genius; and Holley got a couple of the cooperating neighbors over, and it was a little like an old-fashioned Christmas.
While that was going on, Virgil took Shrake and Jenkins in the back bedroom and they sat on a bed with a bowl of chips and Virgil said, “If they come, and if they say or do something that we can pop them for, we’re going to go straight at them. Read them their rights, but roll right through that, threats, whatever it takes. If they ask for an attorney, we’ll tell them that we’re taking them up to Ramsey County, and they’ll get an attorney there. We ask no more questions, but we talk among ourselves, you know . . .”
“We know . . .”
“Right at the beginning, even before reading the rights, we break them apart. We’ve got two bedrooms, the kitchen and living room, the car, however many there are, we isolate them. I’ll come and talk to each of them, in turn. I’m looking for one good solid piece of information—”
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