Button did an astonishingly bad imitation of a confused man. “Woody who?” He scratched his head and looked at the others. Rose rolled her eyes.
“Woody Garrett, who drives that black Camaro parked over there behind the machine shed,” Virgil said, nodding toward the shed.
The group all turned to look, and Rose said, “Oh, that Woody Garrett. Jim thought you meant some other Woody.”
Virgil was getting the impression that the group lacked cohesiveness. “Could you ask him to come out?”
“What’d he do?” the clothes hanger asked.
“Beat the heck out of his wife and daughter,” Bakker said. “Busted the daughter up real bad, using a two-by-two the size of a baseball bat. Broke her pelvis.”
“What! He beat up Anna? She’s nine years old!” Rose turned to Button. “You said he had an argument with Sandy and needed a place to sleep for a couple of days.”
Button said, “Well . . . he did. He didn’t mention the beating-up part.”
“You dumbass,” Rose said. To Virgil: “He was sleeping in the back bedroom, first floor, when you showed up. He was drunk last night, so I believe he’s still asleep.”
“Are we invited in?” Bakker asked.
“No,” said Button.
“Harboring a fugitive from the law is a felony,” Virgil said.
“Like I said, you’re welcome to come in,” Button said. “Don’t go shooting the place up.”
“Yeah, we don’t need any home improvements,” Rose said.
* * *
—
The entire group moved to the house, but Button, Good, Rose, and the others waited in the kitchen, after pointing Virgil and Bakker to a door at the back of the house. Rose whispered, “The lock’s broken.”
Virgil tiptoed across a worn carpet, with Bakker a couple of feet behind, and tried the doorknob. It creaked, and Virgil gave it a fast twist and pushed the door open. The room contained an empty, two-tier bunk bed, a dresser supported on one side by a two-by-four that was replacing a broken leg, and an open window whose curtain was blowing gently into the room.
“He’s run off,” Bakker said, and he turned to sprint to the front door. As he took his first step, Virgil hooked his arm, put a finger to his own lips, and pointed beneath the lower bunk. Bakker stooped and looked under the bed; he could see two jean-clad knees.
“What do you want to do?” Bakker asked.
“Ask him to come out of there. Be careful, though, he could have a gun.” Virgil stooped, and said, “We can see your knees, Woody. Don’t make us drag you out.”
A couple of beats later, “Fuck you.”
Rose had walked up behind them. “What a dimwit,” she said. “Woody, did you beat Anna with a board?”
“Fuck you, Rose. Did you tell them I was here?”
“No, dumbass. Your car was sticking out from behind the shed,” Rose said.
“You got a gun?” Virgil asked.
“Fuck you.”
“You go shooting at a cop, you’re gonna die right here,” Bakker said. “Keep that in mind.”
“Fuck you.”
Virgil walked to the end of the bed, noticed that it was bolted to the wall, and peeked under the lower bunk. He could see the soles of a pair of cowboy boots a couple of feet back. “I’m going to pull him out,” Virgil muttered to Bakker. “Get your gun. If the motherfucker shoots at me, kill him.”
“Happy to do it,” Bakker said.
“Fuck both of you,” Garrett said.
Virgil reached deep under the bed, grabbed one of the boots, and began pulling. Garrett kicked at him, and Bakker shouted, “Okay, there’s another felony—assault on a police officer.”
The boot came off, and Virgil fell back on his butt. The boot stank, and he threw it in a corner. “Come out of there.”
“Fuck you.”
Virgil reached back under and grabbed Garrett’s sock-covered foot and pulled. He could get Garrett stretched out, but couldn’t move him. Bakker peered under the bed, and said, “He’s holding on to the inside leg, over in the corner . . . Give me some room.”
Bakker knelt and grabbed Garrett’s leg just above where Virgil had him by the foot, and they both pulled. Garrett kicked at them with his other, booted foot, hit Bakker’s forearm, and Bakker fell back, and said, “Goddamn, that hurt.”
Rose, in the doorway, said, “This is better than clowns at the circus.”
Virgil said to Bakker, “Keep him stretched out. I’ll be right back.”
Virgil got up and jogged into the kitchen, where he’d seen an aging gas stove. Sitting on a shelf above the stove was the usual box of wooden kitchen matches. He carried the box back to the bedroom, broke one of the matches in half, said to Bakker, “Hold him tight,” and then jammed the match through the sock between Garrett’s big and second toes.
“What the fuck you doing?” Garrett demanded.
“I stuck a match between two of your toes,” Virgil said. “I figure that when I fire that mother up, you’ll let go of that bed.”
“That’s gonna hurt,” Bakker contributed. “Only got a hotfoot one time, in high school. If I had a choice between getting my nose broken again or a hotfoot, I’d take the nose every time.”
“Hold him tight, here we go,” Virgil said. He scratched a match on the ignition strip on the side of the box and it fired up with a puff of smoke. Virgil blew a little of the smoke under the bed.
“Wait, wait, wait—I’m coming out,” Garrett said. He let go of the bed’s leg, and Virgil and Bakker dragged him out from under the bunk. Then Virgil tossed Garrett his boot.
“I’ll put him in my car,” Bakker said. To Button he said, “I’ll be sending somebody to tow that Camaro. Don’t go putting it on Craigslist.”
Garrett to Button: “Better not fuck with my machine . . .”
* * *
—
The group followed behind Bakker and Garrett, who now had his hands cuffed at his back, out to the driveway. Virgil said to Rose, “Your friend’s got swastikas tattooed on her earlobes.”
“Yeah, well, she thought it was the thing to do at the time,” she said. “We were up in the jug at Shakopee, and this chick offered to do it for free . . . I said no. Shirley decided to go with it.”
“Bad life choice.”
“No kiddin’. She went to one of those tattoo doctors to get it erased, but they can’t do it. The doctor suggested she get her lobes cut off. He said trying to laser them would hurt worse than getting her tit caught in a wringer.”
“Ouch. A doctor said that?”
“Yeah. Not that much of a doctor, though. We’re still not sure what he was a doctor of.”
“How come you guys were in Shakopee?”
“We borrowed some cars,” she said.
“A lot of them? They don’t usually send you to Shakopee for car theft.”
“Two or three, and the people got them back. Not a scratch on them. But, the last one we borrowed belonged to a judge. We didn’t know that. A new Corvette. Red. We drove it over to Sioux Falls and back. The judge wasn’t the one who sent us to Shakopee, but judges hang together, you know?”
Virgil nodded. “I do.”
“Sad story, huh?”
“Shouldn’t borrow cars, Rose. At least, not from judges. By the way, do you know a guy named Clay Ford? Over in Wheatfield?”
“I know who he is.”
“He kinda likes your looks,” Virgil said.
Rose stopped and turned toward him. “Where’d you hear that?”
“From Clay. He’s consulting with me—guns, these shootings. Kind of a shy guy, though. I don’t think he’d come right out and hit on you.”
“He’s a great shot . . .” She thought it over. “Not a bad-looking guy, either, I gotta say. You’re sure he was talking about me?”
“That’s me, all right,” Rose said. “Huh. I’m gonna look into this. These fuckers . . .” She waved toward Button and Good. “They were lame to start with, and they’re getting lamer by the minute, but I needed a free place to stay after I got out of Shakopee.”
* * *
—
Bakker put Garrett in the back of the patrol car, and he came over to Virgil, and said, “Good bust. That’ll keep old Zimmer off my back for a couple of weeks. He’s always talking about ‘quality arrests.’ . . . Can you find your way out?”
“Right, left, right.”
“That’s correct. Take it easy, Virgil,” Bakker said, and he got in his car and rolled away.
Virgil turned back to the group, and said, “Okay. I’m willing to believe that none of you are involved in these shootings if you send me those names of people who can confirm your alibis. If any of you do know something, you better get in touch with me. If I bust you for being an accessory . . . You know, being a Nazi in front of a Minnesota jury isn’t exactly a place you want to be . . . Email me those alibis. Names and dates.”
They all nodded, and Rose followed him down to his truck, and, when they got there, Virgil said, “Get a cup of coffee with Clay. He’s a little goofy about guns, but he’s got a decent job and seems . . . calm.”
She gave him a thumbs-up, and he backed out of the driveway.
10
As Virgil was driving to Wheatfield, Bea Sawyer called to say that she and Baldwin were on their way back to St. Paul with all the evidence collected at Andorra’s farmhouse.
“We have a curiosity,” she said. “Andorra’s prints are on file with the feds. I know that because when we were looking at the .45, I could see a partial on the trigger, and I called and got a pdf of his prints. I can’t be sure, because I was eyeballing it, but I’m fairly sure that the print is his. I can see an odd, interrupted whorl.”
“Don’t tell me you’re now thinking suicide,” Virgil said.
“No, not yet. I talked with the ME, told him what we’d found. He’s going to have a real close look at the wound, checking all the angles and powder printing and all. But . . . if the shooter pulled on a pair of gloves before he pulled the trigger, then Andorra’s prints could still be on the trigger. That would mean there was nothing spontaneous about the killing. It was planned and prepared for.”
* * *
—
Bud Dexter—the BD of the target Virgil found in the trash can—was a semiretired farmer who lived in town while his son ran the farm. He was waiting for Virgil at the Skinner & Holland store, chatting with Holland and a woman working behind the counter. Skinner, Holland said, was probably at school, although not necessarily.
“He only goes about half-time, which is okay with the teachers,” Holland said. “He can be a wiseass in class, but he aces all the tests.” Holland nodded to Dexter. “Virgil, meet Bud Dexter . . . Bud, this is Virgil Flowers.”
“Let’s go in the back,” Virgil said.
Holland: “Am I invited?”
“Of course,” Virgil said.
They settled around the card table in the back room, and Holland poured some corn chips into a wooden bowl. Dexter took some chips, and said, “I’ll tell you right from the start, I can’t help much. The last time I was out there shooting, Glen was there, and we talked for a few minutes, but we were shooting pistols in separate bays. I had my nine, and Glen had his .45. Wardell says the guy shooting people here in town is using a rifle. There were some guys over at the rifle range when I was there with Glen, but I can’t remember who they were—if I ever knew. You can’t see the rifle range from the pistol range.”
Virgil didn’t mention it, but he was more interested in Dexter than the rifle shooters because Andorra had been shot with a pistol, and the rifle was probably stolen later. “Did Glen seem depressed or confused? Any reason to think he might have killed himself?”
“Nah. He was cheerful enough. He said he was going to run over to Blue Earth when he was done shooting and pick up a showerhead. He said he had a leaky head that was really annoying.”
“You think he went?” Virgil asked.
“I dunno,” Dexter said. “He left before I did. The thing is, he was almost done shooting when I showed up. He probably left ten or fifteen minutes later; I was there for another hour. You know what I’d do?”
“What?”
“I’d check to see if there’s a new showerhead. If there isn’t . . . then . . .”
“Got it,” Virgil said.
Virgil opened his mouth to ask another question, but there was a commotion out in the store, and then the young woman who’d been behind the cash register burst in and shouted, “They shot somebody! They shot—”
* * *
—
Virgil nearly knocked her down as he ran out the door. He saw people looking down toward the church, and a body in the street, and a woman shrieking, then people running away. He twisted around wildly, as though he were winding himself up, looking for somebody also running, but alone, or a car or van speeding away. There were at least a couple of dozen people on the street, but they were in clusters, nobody who looked like a possible shooter.
He ran to the body—an older woman, arms sprawled out on the street—stooped over her, and knew immediately that she was dead. He could see both the entrance and exit wounds; she’d been shot though the rib cage, behind her arm on one side, with the bullet exiting in front of her biceps on the other, probably passing directly through her heart.
Holland had run up behind him, a horrified look on his face, and Virgil shouted, “Keep everybody back—way back—and call the sheriff,” and then he sprinted down toward the business district, as best he could in cowboy boots, looking for anything that seemed wrong.
There were people on the street, coming out of Mom’s Cafe and the few open businesses, some now looking down toward the church and pointing, cluttering up his line of sight, and a few shouting or running back into the stores. The shot hadn’t come from there, he thought, or the people would all be running, or milling around, looking for the shooter . . . so it must have come from behind the business buildings. But from which side?
He could go left or right; he glanced back and realized that one side was as good a possibility as the other. He went right because the yards and houses on that side were more of a jumble, with more foliage for concealment, than on the left side, and because the Smits’ house was on that side. He was breathing hard now. He still had his pistol with him, since he’d been carrying it when he visited the Nazis, and he slipped it out of its holster and ran behind the first of the businesses.
Nothing was moving back there. He kept running, looking for movement, three hundred yards out, crossed a street and saw only two people, to his left, standing on Main Street, and they were looking down toward the shooting. It wouldn’t be two people, he thought, and not in the middle of the street. The shooter had to be a singleton.
Five hundred yards and another street, nobody to his left on Main, but, a block down to the right, a woman getting in a car. He ran that way, shouting at her, and when he got close, she saw the gun and put up her hands, and he shouted, “Police,” and, “Did you hear a shot? Did you see anyone running?”
She was twenty feet away, and she said, “No, no, I came out of my house . . . I just came out, I didn’t hear anything . . . Has there been another one?”
Virgil turned away and ran back to the street behind the businesses, and ran even farther out . . . He thought he must be six or seven hundred yards from the scene, and there was nothing moving.
He ran toward the scene of the shooting, swerved when he came to the house where the old man with the shotgun lived, kicked open the gate, and banged on the back door.
Lau
ra Smit looked at him from well back in the house, then hurried to the door and pulled it open.
“Did you hear a shot? Is Bram here? Did either of you—”
“I didn’t hear a thing; I was using the vacuum,” she said. “Bram isn’t here, he went to the SuperValu over in Blue Earth.”
“Goddamnit,” Virgil said, and he spun around and ran out to Main Street, where people were still looking down toward the church. Virgil hurried over to the largest group, and said, “I’m an agent with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Did anyone hear a shot a few minutes ago?”
Nobody heard anything, everybody had questions, which Virgil ignored, and he ran farther up Main, away from the shooting, asking everyone in the street. He couldn’t find anyone who’d heard the shot.
Next, he crossed to the other side of Main, behind the storefronts. Nothing at the Eagles Club; the door was locked. He ran in widening circles and still found nothing. For the next fifteen minutes, he visited one store after another—there were only seven still open—asking if anyone had seen a man hurrying away in a long coat that a rifle could have been hidden beneath or with anything a rifle could have been concealed in. No luck.
He finally jogged back to the scene, where a single sheriff’s car was now parked. The deputy had pushed the now thin crowd well back, and Holland was standing at the edge of the circle of onlookers.
In the middle of the circle, George Brice was kneeling over the body, apparently administering the last rites, although Virgil had understood that could only be done with the living—but, then, he didn’t really know.
Holland grabbed Virgil by the arm, and said, “Not an out-of-towner this time. That’s Marge Osborne. She lives here in town. Nice lady. I don’t know who in the hell would want to do this to her . . .” A couple of tears trickled down his cheeks, and he wiped them away with the back of his hand. “Find anything?”
“Nothing, and nobody heard anything,” Virgil said. He was breathing hard, his heart thumping, the blood pounding in his ears. He looked at the deputy. “You got anything in the car that we can use to cover the body? When the priest is done?”
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