Holy Ghost

by John Sandford

  “What is it?”

  “A surprise,” Apel said.

  * * *

  —

  Apel walked through the gate in the fence between his house and Osborne’s, went down the basement and took the .223 out from behind the workbench, carefully pulled a cartridge out of the magazine, washed it with soap and water. He dried it with a paper towel, used the towel to press it back into the magazine, and jacked it into the chamber.

  He hesitated to do this, but he’d seen something in Osborne’s face: Osborne had realized that Apel had a motive. And if Flowers was asking about Osborne’s finances, then, sooner or later, he’d find out about the Mad Hatter Brew Pub and what had happened with that.

  He’d learn that Apel held a two-hundred-thousand-dollar note from Osborne that wouldn’t get paid if Margery had been so goddamn dumb as to leave her money to the church. Barry would never make enough with his rug-cleaning business to pay it; the money had to come from Margery.

  Eventually, when Margery’s estate was settled, and then Barry’s estate was settled, he’d have to submit the note to the executor to get paid. All the legal work, with the two deaths, and two separate estates, could take a year, according to what he’d read on the internet. Even if Flowers found out about the debt, a year from now all the details of the killings, all the weapons used, all the momentum, all the witness memories, would be obscured or gone. Flowers, if he found out about the note, might suspect, but he’d never convict.

  He slung the rifle over his shoulder and pulled on a raincoat to cover it.

  Two minutes later, he’d recrossed the two yards and walked up Osborne’s back steps, called, “It’s me again.”

  Osborne said, “Come on in.”

  When Apel got inside, he found Osborne bent over a plate, his back to the door. No point in waiting; no point in talking about it.

  He pushed the door shut, lifted the rifle, pointed it at the middle of Osborne’s back, two feet away.

  BANG!

  Loud, but not deafening. Osborne jerked upright, pushed one hand on the table, then toppled over, facedown, into his lunch. The steaming hot potpie, Apel thought, would definitely leave a mark.

  He could see no blood, nothing but a dimple in the back of Osborne’s shirt.

  A minute later, he was out the door, back across the yard. Time to do nothing at all, he thought. Time to be a good citizen who knows nothing about nothing.

  If it weren’t for that damned fingerprint, he’d be all clear. He could ditch the rifle, and that would be the end of it. He wasn’t convinced that there was a fingerprint, though the fact that Flowers had printed Osborne was evidence of something.

  One thing: the rifle had to go, and soon. Everything else could be finessed, but not that.

  23

  Virgil and Jenkins spent an hour at the Blue Earth bank. The bank president came out to talk with them about Margery Osborne: “Most of her money was in Florida. I don’t know why—I guess they sweet-talk a little better than we do. Anyway, most years, we’d get two checks to cover her local expenses. She’d draw each one down to nothing before we’d get the next one. Right now”—he looked at a piece of paper he’d brought out with him—“she has $6,142.74 in her account. Or had.”

  But that year a third check had come in, for twenty-five thousand dollars, he said. All of that had gone almost immediately to St. Anne’s, handled through the Diocese of Winona-Rochester.

  “So she was already donating large chunks to the church,” Virgil said.

  “Yep. I talked to her about it, and there was more to come. I’m not Catholic myself, but I have to say I was impressed by her charity and devotion. Her whole face lit up when she talked about the church and the Virgin.”

  Other than the big check to the church, there wasn’t much interesting about her account—they looked for names going back three years, and while Osborne had made small donations to several local charities, the largest check was for a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a Coats for Kids charity.

  “She wasn’t exactly throwing it down ratholes,” Jenkins said, as they walked across the parking lot back to Virgil’s Tahoe. “I don’t see anybody hustling her. Not here anyway. Probably oughta get her Florida checks, too.”

  “The shooter’s local,” Virgil said.

  “Yeah . . . I know . . . You wanna go see Shrake?”

  “You go. I’ll drop you at your car . . . I’m going to walk around and talk to people,” Virgil said.

  “Don’t get shot in the head.”

  * * *

  —

  On the way back to Wheatfield, they took a call from Holland on the Tahoe’s speaker: “Did you arrest Osborne?”

  “No . . . we talked to him. I think he’s okay. Why?”

  “I was wondering. I got a call from Jacoby and Sons . . .”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The funeral home in Fairmont. He had an appointment to pick out a casket and didn’t show up. They can’t get in touch with him. Doesn’t answer his phone. I know Don Lee Jacoby, and he thought maybe I’d seen him. I thought maybe you had.”

  “Not since this morning,” Virgil said.

  “With everything that’s happened . . .”

  Holland rang off, and they drove along for a while, then Virgil said, “Goddamnit.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Jenkins said. “Hit the lights.”

  They drove the rest of the way to Wheatfield at thirty miles an hour over the speed limit, pulled up outside Osborne’s house, and saw the Steam Punk van in the driveway. “He parked a little crooked this morning,” Jenkins said. “Still crooked. He hasn’t been out of the house.”

  They went to the back door—the one Osborne used—and knocked, then pounded on it. Jenkins tried the knob, but the door was locked.

  They could hear a lawn mower going in the yard and they went that way, around the house; but it wasn’t Osborne, it was the man in the house behind Osborne’s. He didn’t see them coming. He was wearing headphones and riding away from them, and Virgil had to shout “Hey!” four times before he paused and looked around and saw them at the hedge separating the yards.

  Virgil waved to him over, and he killed the noisy engine and walked over, pulling off the headphones. “What can I do for you?”

  “Have you seen Barry in the last couple of hours?”

  “No. I was working this morning. I got home a half hour ago and started mowing, but I haven’t seen him since I got here. Something wrong?”

  “He’s missed an appointment,” Virgil said.

  The man shrugged. “He’s been distracted ever since his mother got killed. Not his normal self at all.”

  Jenkins: “You don’t think he’d hurt himself?”

  “Jeez . . . I don’t know. But, I know Lou Simpson has a key to his house. She lives there . . .” He pointed at the house to the left of Osborne’s. “She checks the place when he’s out of town . . . You know, makes sure the heat’s still on and so on. She could probably let you in.”

  Virgil said, “Thanks, Mr. . . .”

  “Apel.” He reached out, and they shook hands. “Davy Apel. We almost met—I was the one who yelled at you when you were chasing that guy through the backyards. I was the guy on the porch in the white undershorts.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks for the help.”

  “Too bad you didn’t catch him. Looked like a big guy to me, and he was really moving.”

  * * *

  —

  They walked over to the Simpson house. Simpson was another old lady, heavily stocked. with red tabby cats that curled around her ankles and meowed at Virgil. “I haven’t seen him today. I was more friendly with his mother than with Barry, but we’re still friends.”

  “We’re worried,” Virgil said. He explained about the casket, and the old woman frowned. “Well, that’s not Barry. He
’s been very sad, but he wouldn’t miss that appointment unless . . . I hope he hasn’t hurt himself. Let me get the key.”

  She let them in Osborne’s. Virgil took a step inside, opened a door to the kitchen, turned to her, and said, “You’ll have to go back out.”

  Jenkins knew what he was talking about, took the old lady’s arm, and backed her down the stoop. “You can help. Could you go back to your house and call the sheriff and tell him we need some deputies here immediately?”

  “I can.” She knew what was happening and hustled back to her house to make the call. Virgil was already on his cell phone to Zimmer: “Barry Osborne’s been killed. At his house. A woman named Lou Simpson’s going to call nine-one-one in a minute and ask you to send some deputies. She let us in Osborne’s house, and we’re getting her out of the way, but we do need some deputies over here.”

  “I’ll get them moving,” Zimmer said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Virgil hung up and looked down at the body slumped in the chair. He could see a hole in Osborne’s back surrounded by a spot of blood the size of a large strawberry.

  Jenkins had moved around Virgil to look at Osborne from the side, and said, “You’re not going to believe this. He’s facedown in a potpie.”

  “Ah, for Christ’s sakes.” Virgil moved to Osborne’s side to look. He hadn’t slipped off the chair, because his chest and head were resting on the tabletop. “He knew the guy who killed him. The guy came through two doors, and Barry must have heard him, but he didn’t even turn around to see who it was. They must’ve been talking.”

  “Maybe I should go back and talk to the lawn mower guy,” Jenkins suggested.

  “Do that. I’m going to stand here and look at things for a while.

  Jenkins went out the door, and Virgil looked around the kitchen, staying away from the body and the puddle of blood beneath the chair. The puddle wasn’t large: most of the blood would be on Osborne’s lap and legs.

  A chicken potpie carton sat on the countertop. Virgil checked the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and saw a second, identical potpie carton. Virgil had seen Osborne put the cartons in the freezer when they interviewed him that morning. Osborne had said he didn’t have a lot of time to talk because he had an appointment to buy a coffin for his mother. He’d changed clothes; he was no longer wearing the Steam Punk coveralls he’d been wearing when they interviewed him.

  That meant that after Virgil and Jenkins left him, he must’ve changed clothes—maybe he’d taken a shower—and then come down and heated up the potpie. That took six minutes in the microwave, and he’d eaten only a few bites of it, from what Virgil could see.

  He’d probably been killed, Virgil thought, within twenty minutes of when he and Jenkins had left the house.

  Had somebody seen them there?

  * * *

  —

  He backed out of the scene, closed both doors, and walked back into the side yard between Osborne’s and Simpson’s houses. A sheriff’s car pulled up in the street, and a deputy got out, someone that Virgil hadn’t yet met. Virgil walked out to the street, and said, “Barry Osborne’s been murdered. We need to keep the site as tight as we can. Don’t let anybody near the doors. Not even other deputies.”

  “The sheriff’s on his way,” the deputy said. He was wearing a name tag that said “Logan.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right in the neighborhood. When he gets here, tell him to find me. He shouldn’t go inside.”

  * * *

  —

  Virgil saw Simpson peering out a window. Her back door was on the other side of the house, and Virgil gestured to her, then walked around back. Jenkins was talking to the lawn guy, who’d quit mowing but was still sitting on the machine.

  Virgil knocked on Simpson’s door.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked, as he stepped inside. The layout of her house was identical to that of Osborne’s: a mudroom inside the back door, with another door leading into the kitchen.

  “He was murdered,” Virgil said. “Did you hear a gunshot between about eleven-thirty and noon?”

  “No, nothing like that; but I had the TV on, and my hearing’s not so good, so it’s always turned up.”

  “You saw nobody in his yard, walking up to the house?”

  “No, his house is on the wrong side for me to see much. I’m mostly in the kitchen, or the TV room, and they’re both on this side. You could talk to Marvel Jackson across the street. She’s got a better view.”

  He asked about the man on the lawn mower.

  “Davy Apel? I don’t know, he’s . . .” She put her fingers to her lips.

  “You started to say something else,” Virgil said.

  “Oh, Davy and I don’t get along,” she said. “I have that big maple tree out back, and the leaves used to fall on his yard. There was nothing I could do about it—leaves fall off trees, that’s what they do. Anyway, he got all angry about it—every year—and used to call me up and want to know what I was going to do about it. Well, what could I do? So, back in the fall of 2007, I was gone one day, and he came into my yard and cut some limbs off the tree. That’s why it’s all lopsided like that . . . I called the sheriff on him, but nothing happened. Anyway, Davy and Barry were friends.”

  “Did Davy ever say anything that made you think he might get violent with you?”

  “Oh, no, no, nothing like that. No.”

  * * *

  —

  Virgil walked across the street to Marvel Jackson’s house and found it unoccupied. So was the house to its left, but a woman named Casey Young lived in the house to the right. She hadn’t seen anyone around Osborne’s house. “Why are the deputies there? Did something happen to Barry?”

  Virgil said, “Yes. Somebody shot and killed him. If you could talk to your neighbors, ask them if anyone saw any activity around Osborne’s house.”

  “You don’t think . . . Maybe I should go someplace else for a while. If that killer thought I might have seen him . . .”

  * * *

  —

  Jenkins was standing in the side yard, talking to two sheriff’s deputies, when Virgil got back to Osborne’s. He met Virgil in the front yard, and said, “The lawn mower guy . . .”

  “Davy something or other . . .”

  “Apel. He’s kinda hinky. He says he didn’t see anybody over there at the house, but I had the feeling that he knew something that he wasn’t telling me. Also, he shoots a bow, but he says not very well. Doesn’t own a gun, he says. I asked if you’d fingerprinted him yet, and he said not yet, but he was happy to do it, so . . . there’s that. I believe it’d be worthwhile asking around about him.”

  Virgil nodded. “We can do that. Maybe Holland or Clay Ford would know something. I couldn’t find anyone who saw any activity around Osborne’s house . . . I can’t think . . . Did the killer walk in? There’s enough shrubbery around that he could almost make it in from the side street, but if anyone had seen him, he’d have been toast. He’s gotta be local; they would have recognized him, would have known that he didn’t exactly belong in those yards.”

  “Apel says the two houses on the end are occupied by Mexicans who work at the packing plant. There’s nobody home during the day. If he’s local, he might’ve known that. He could have come in from that side, but that would have taken some serious balls.”

  “We know he’s got balls . . .” Virgil pushed a hand up his forehead. “I gotta tell you, I’m kinda feeling disoriented here. How could this happen? Did we set it off when we came to talk to Osborne? I wonder . . . We gotta check his cell phone, see who he talked to, see if he talked to anyone after we left. We need to know where he was this morning, too. Did he tell somebody something that triggered the killer? We gotta get on this . . .”

  “Whoa! Whoa! Slow down, man. You’re freakin’ out,” Jenkins said. “This ain’t our fault,
it’s the killer’s fault. We’ll have the guy in the next day or two . . . He’s gotta be plugged in tight to what’s going on in town, him always being one step ahead of us.”

  “One step ahead of me, you mean,” Virgil said.

  * * *

  —

  Virgil got on his phone. Calling the crime scene crew back to town was a waste of time, but it was a part of the routine—and, after all, they had spotted the .223 shell at the Van Den Berg crime scene. That hadn’t amounted to anything, except fingerprint bait, but it might have.

  The sheriff showed up, took a peek at the body, shook his head, and said, “Where are you?”

  “Same place we’ve always been. There’s something going on that we don’t see, Karl. The guy is taking risks, but there’s a reason for it. It’s not just some crazy guy. I would bet that he’s finished killing because he’s achieved what he set out to do, whatever that is. He’ll get rid of that gun now, and that’ll make it a lot harder to get him into court.”

  “No suspects at all?”

  “Well . . . there’s the guy who lived behind him: Davy . . . Apel? He’s close enough to have snuck over, and he admits that he’s got a bow. Says he doesn’t have a gun, though . . . We have no motive.”

  “Maybe some kind of feud?”

  “Apel does have feuds . . . but Osborne let the killer in his house, and turned his back on him at the dinner table. That doesn’t sound like an enemy. That sounds like a friend.”

  * * *

  —

  They talked for a few more minutes, then Zimmer left. Virgil went back into the house with Jenkins, eased past the body, and the two of them spent a half hour looking for anything that might give them a hint of who the killer might be—or even a hint that Osborne was worried.