“She almost certainly was,” Virgil said.
“—it was somebody who showed up later.”
“That doesn’t help much,” Virgil said.
She shrugged. “That’s the way it is.”
When Virgil got up to leave, he said, “I’ll tell you, Margot, I believe you’re lying about knowing her B and D friend.” She opened her mouth to protest, but Virgil held up a hand. “I’m not going to argue about it because I’ve got no proof. If you deliberately withhold information I need to conduct this investigation, you could find yourself with deep legal problems. If the killer knows that you know about him . . . you could be in even more trouble.”
She said nothing for a moment, then asked, “Do you have a card?”
“Yes.” He fished one out of a pocket, wrote his cell number on the back of it, and said, “The sooner you call, the better. Don’t wait until it’s too late.”
TWELVE Lucy Cheever was standing in the glass cage of the manager’s office at Cheever Chevrolet when Virgil went by on his way to interview Hiners at the bank. She recognized his 4Runner because, for one thing, it was probably the only 4Runner in town.
“There goes Virgil Flowers. I wonder what he’s finding out?”
Elroy Cheever sat behind a wide metal desk, going through a stack of invoices. He was a big man, easily large enough to carry a hundred-and-fifty-pound woman down to the effluent outflow and throw her in. He also had a ferocious five o’clock shadow, even early in the morning. When put together with his large square jaw, he looked like an enforcer for the mob.
“Nothing about us,” Elroy Cheever said.
“He might think it’s suspicious that Gina Hemming looked like she was going to turn us down for a business loan and, two minutes later, she gets killed,” Lucy Cheever said. She chewed on her lip for a moment, then said, “Wonder if she told Marv Hiners? Marv all but said we were clear for it.”
“Don’t think she would have had time,” Elroy Cheever said. “He was up in the Cities at a hockey game. Technically, she hadn’t turned us down yet.”
“Marv might give it to us if he’s running things now.”
“Lot of money,” Elroy Cheever said. “Makes me nervous.”
“Shouldn’t,” Lucy Cheever said. She had the money brain in the business; Elroy was sales, and was good at it. “The question is, should we go talk to Marv now? That might make him suspicious. Especially if they’d talked. Might make Virgil Flowers suspicious of us.”
“Maybe we ought to go back to the Wells guy in Rochester.”
“It’ll cost a percentage point, maybe a point and a half,” Lucy Cheever said. “God, I don’t know. A million dollars . . .”
“Lot of money,” Elroy said again.
“If we get it, we’ve got Trippton cornered. Heck, we’ve got the whole Minnesota side from La Crescent down to the Iowa line. Dodge will be gone in a year; they’re having a hard time selling a truck anymore. If only that bitch hadn’t turned us down . . .”
“You know what? Flowers is going to suspect that one of us killed Gina. Because of all the money.”
“You’re right. We’ll have to talk about how to handle him.”
—
David Birkmann knew Virgil Flowers by sight from Virgil’s involvement in the dog-snatching, meth-cooking, school board murders cases. Virgil had been on the witness stand down at the courthouse for parts of two days, an SRO crowd, and Birkmann had been there for the whole thing.
He’d gotten the distinct impression that Flowers was not a man to be fooled with. At the same time, he’d heard that Flowers was going around town asking only the most routine questions and hadn’t a clue about what had happened to Gina Hemming.
Birkmann was on a stool at his Dunkin’ Donuts outlet when Virgil came ambling down the sidewalk on the other side of the street and went into Moore Financial. He was interviewing the reunion committee, Birkmann thought.
On the previous Sunday, with the murder three days in the past, Birkmann, nursing a vicious hangover, had driven into the Dunkin’ Donuts. His store was one of the few places in town that was open early on a Sunday morning, and he desperately needed a coffee and a sugar fix. When he pushed through the door, his counterwoman, Alice, was gawking at John Handy, who worked for the city’s buildings department. Alice pivoted toward him, her mouth still open in astonishment, and sputtered, “John . . . Tell Dave.”
Handy, with the intensity of a man delivering news that was bad, but more interesting than personally bad, said, “Somebody killed Gina Hemming. Threw her body in the river. Ben Potter spotted her down by the sewage plant, snagged her with a Rapala, and pulled her up on the bank.”
Birkmann was astonished. “What?”
Handy had the details: half a dozen city employees had been involved in the recovery and transportation of the body, and sheriff’s deputies had spent half of Saturday evening checking out her house. There was now word that Virgil Flowers of the BCA was coming back to town to take charge of the investigation.
Birkmann barely registered the part about Virgil: She had been pulled out of the river? What the fuck?
At the moment, he’d staggered backward onto an empty stool and blurted, “But I saw her Thursday night.”
Handy said, “Oh, yeah—you were in the Class of ’92?”
Birkmann nodded dumbly. Pulled out of the river?
“Well, Flowers gonna be on you like white on rice,” Handy said. “Word is, she was probably killed that very night you all were meeting.”
Birkmann stood up and muttered, “I gotta go . . . walk around.”
Alice asked, “You all right, Dave?”
Birkmann ran his hands through his hair and said, “This is awful. I knew her since we were in grade school. Since kindergarten.”
Handy and Alice nodded sympathetically, and Birkmann wandered semi-blindly out the door. What the fuck? In the river?
—
On that Sunday, reeling from the shock of the discovery of Hemming’s body, Birkmann went back home and sat in front of the TV for most of the day, tried drinking some more, and fell into bed in a full-out stupor.
The next day, Monday, he steamed himself out in the shower, dressed neatly for work, chose a yellow hat from his box of GetOut! complimentary hats, and headed downtown.
His Dunkin’ Donuts store was Trippton’s epicenter of the latest news, rumor, and blind conjecture. There was a load of all of it, on Monday morning. Most of the medical examiner’s report was on the street by Monday, and Hemming reportedly had been beaten to death before she was thrown in the effluent stream.
He spent the rest of Monday on the routine chores of a small business operator—writing checks, approving invoices, worrying.
The news stream was even richer on the next day, Tuesday. Flowers had been badly beaten on Monday afternoon and had been taken to the clinic and held overnight and might be out of it for good with permanent brain damage. There were rumors that the BCA was planning to flood the town with agents; that Flowers had been attacked by people who were making the Barbie-O dolls; that the attackers were all women; that Gina Hemming had planned to foreclose on the boot factory and that she’d been killed to stall the foreclosure; that Flowers’s friend Johnson Johnson had sworn to kill Flowers’s attackers; that one of the murderous school board members who’d gone missing had returned to town and had organized the attack on Flowers as revenge for her friends’ imprisonment; that Gina Hemming’s heart had been cut out of her body and placed on a satanic altar found near the sewage plant but that the sheriff was covering it up until the cult leader could be arrested, that the sheriff denied that, but was obviously lying, and might be involved in the cult himself.
“Jeff Purdy in a satanic cult? I don’t think so,” Birkmann said.
Alice said, “But wouldn’t it be the person you’d least suspect?”
Another donut eater ju
mped in to answer that: “Maybe, but Jeff is too damn dumb to be in a satanic cult. He has trouble starting his car.”
“You got me there,” Alice said.
—
Now, on Wednesday morning, here was Flowers leaving Moore Financial and heading straight across the street to the donut shop. Birkmann wasn’t ready for that and retreated to the kitchen, where he could hear what was being said but couldn’t be seen from the counter.
And what was said was . . .
Alice: “What is that on your poor face?”
“Nose brace,” Flowers said. “I got beat up.”
“You must be Virgil. I heard about that,” Alice said. “Told it was a bunch of women.”
“Yeah, it was. They’re gonna enjoy their visit to Shakopee. Lots of time to discuss their problems and become emotionally engaged. You know, do all that women stuff.”
Alice: “Why would they be going to Shakopee?”
“’Cause that’s where the women’s prison is,” Virgil said. “They should have read section 609.2231 of the Minnesota Statutes before they jumped me. Assaulting an officer of the law and doing a demonstrable injury is a felony. Does this blue thing”—he pointed at his face—“look like a demonstrable injury?”
“Looks like a blue squid,” said one of the donut eaters. “A small blue squid. Like one of them things they’ve got down at Ma and Pa Kettle’s on Friday nights.”
Alice: “Calimari?”
“Before they’re fried.”
“Calimari aren’t blue,” Virgil said.
“You apparently ain’t been down to Ma and Pa’s and looked at the squid,” the donut eater said. “I stay away from them, myself.”
Alice turned back to Virgil. “What can I do for you?”
“Give me two peanut . . . no, one peanut and one Boston crème . . . and a Diet Coke.”
“Sure. Gotta charge you for the Coke, but the donuts are on the house for all our first responders.”
Donut eater: “We’ve been told on good authority that Gina’s heart was cut out with a surgical tool and placed on a satanic altar by the sewage plant. Is that true?”
Virgil: “What do you think?”
“I think it’s horseshit.”
Virgil: “You’re a lot smarter than you look.”
“Thank . . . Hey!”
Alice: “I put an extra donut in the sack for you, honey. That’ll be a dollar eighty-seven for the Coke.”
—
When Flowers had gone, Birkmann stepped out of the kitchen and watched as he walked up the street, munching on a donut, back the way he’d come. When he was a full block away, Birkmann pulled on his coat, told Alice, “Good move with the extra donut,” and headed across the street to Moore Financial.
Margot Moore kept him waiting for five minutes. When she finally called him in, she looked as though she’d been crying. Birkmann dropped into a client’s chair and said, “You look like I feel.”
“Virgil Flowers just left,” she said.
“I was over in the donut shop and saw him coming out. I figure he must be interviewing all of us on the reunion committee.”
“That’s what he’s doing, but he . . . I don’t know, Dave. He’s asking about some things . . .”
“What things?” Birkmann asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s rather private,” Moore said.
“He’s gonna ask me anyway, isn’t he? We’re both in the same place.”
Moore opened a desk drawer and took out a pink tissue, blew her nose with an unfeminine HONK! and said, “Well, he says they have evidence that Gina was involved in B and D.”
The letters meant nothing to Birkmann. Sounded like a railroad: riding the rails to Frisco on the old B & D. He asked, “What? What’s that?”
“You know, whips. Getting tied up.”
Birkmann still looked blank, and Moore said, “For sexual purposes, for Christ’s sakes, Dave. Bondage and discipline. B and D.”
“Whips?”
“Not real whips, play whips. Flowers said he found one in her bedroom.”
“Play whips? You’ve seen them?”
Moore backtracked. “I assume they’re play whips. I talked to Gina every day, and we worked out together at the Y, and I never saw any whip marks on her. Must be play whips.”
Birkmann didn’t entirely buy that, the backtracking, but had no place to go with it. Instead, he asked, “Who was tying her up? Somebody from Trippton?”
“I suppose . . .”
“From Trippton?”
“Dave, Dave . . . try to pay attention, okay? I mean, you can buy vibrators at Target. People in Trippton do more than the missionary position.”
“I didn’t know that,” Birkmann admitted.
“Maybe that’s why your wife ran off with a donut shop guy,” Moore said.
“You don’t have to be offensive,” Birkmann snapped.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m really upset. Maybe we ought to talk about this some other time.”
“Tell me what Flowers asked you,” Birkmann said. “If I have some time to think about it, maybe I’ll figure something out.”
“Well, he wondered if anyone on the committee might have killed her,” Moore said.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s what I told him . . .”
She outlined her conversation with Virgil, and five minutes later Birkmann was back in the donut shop. “Give me two chocolate-frosteds and don’t tell me about my heart,” he told Alice. “Give me the fuckin’ donuts.”
—
Across the street, Moore was back on the phone with a man who had a deep voice. “Dave doesn’t have any idea of what happened,” she said. “If somebody blew his brains out, it’d take him two weeks to notice.”
“You can see where this is going. I mean, it’s freakin’ me out,” the deep voice said. “I’ve had problems with the law, and if Flowers gets to me, he’s gonna hang me up like a piece of Sheetrock. I’m like a cop’s dream. I got a beard, a tattoo on my neck, I got a Harley, I done time for assault. You put that together with whips and chains, the fuckin’ jury gonna airmail me to Stillwater prison. I gotta do something.”
“Don’t panic. I put him off. Who else could give you up?” The silence on the other end of the line lasted a couple of beats too long, and Moore’s voice went cold as she half repeated what she’d said: “Who else could give you up?”
“You . . . weren’t my only clients.”
“Clients? Clients? What are you talking about? We didn’t pay you.” More silence. “Did we pay you?”
“Gina . . . helped me out from time to time.”
“Oh my God, you’re a hooker,” Moore screamed. “Have I got AIDS?”
“No, you don’t fuckin’ have AIDS. I’m not a hooker. I’m a sexual therapist, registered by the State of Minnesota. Listen, I gotta think about this. This is a murder case, and running won’t do me no good . . . not if my name comes up.”
“Maybe . . . Maybe you should go talk to Flowers. He’s supposed to be a good guy. You could say it was you and Gina, and you never hurt her, and you wouldn’t have to say anybody else was involved.”
“Are you deaf? Beard, tattoo, a Harley Softail, assault convictions, whips and chains? Are you shittin’ me? He gets my name in connection with Gina, I’m SOL.”
“Listen! Think of something else, if you can. Think about the possibility of going to Flowers. I saw him in action a couple of years ago and he’s a smart guy. If you’re straight with him, he could believe you. Tell him it was playacting. Tell him where you were Thursday night . . .”
“Thursday night? Thursday night? I got an alibi for every night except Thursday night. Ain’t that the way it is? Every fuckin’ night but Thursday.”
He hung up.
Moore spent the afternoon obsessing about the conversation. He was going to get caught, she thought. The therapy sessions—that’s what she and Hemming had called them—had been arranged by email, and Flowers would have access to Hemming’s computer. Sooner or later, he’d track the guy down.
If he confessed that Moore was involved in the whole B and D thing, it’d get all over town. How would she handle that? Every single thing she had on earth came out of her business . . .
THIRTEEN Virgil talked to Lucy Cheever, the Homecoming Queen, and Barry Long, the Homecoming King, got one good alibi and one reasonable one for Thursday night after the meeting.
Cheever had gone home after the meeting and put the kids to bed after checking their homework to make sure it all got done.
Cheever said that she’d left the meeting at nine o’clock, one of the last three people to see Hemming—the other two being Rhodes and Moore.
“We all left at once,” she said. “Of course we’ve all thought about who might have done it, and we’ve talked about it, too, along with everybody else in town. That’s about all we talk about anymore. Who would hurt her? We mostly liked her. Maybe a couple of people didn’t see eye to eye with her, especially her politics, but they wouldn’t kill her, for God’s sakes. They didn’t even argue with her.”
Cheever’s alibi seemed solid to Virgil for a couple of reasons: she was a small woman and would have had a hard time moving Hemming’s body; and, according to Johnson Johnson, she and her husband were “richer than Jesus Christ and all the apostles,” which took the money issue out of it.
Clarice said that Cheever and her husband, Elroy, had been partners and lovers since high school, and that she felt it was highly unlikely that Cheever’s husband would have had a relationship with Hemming, creating a revenge motive.
Virgil hinted at the possibility, and Cheever picked it up immediately and laughed. “Elroy’s never wanted anybody but me and I’ve never wanted anybody but him. Even if he did want somebody else, he couldn’t hide it from me. I’ve known him since he was two years old. We got caught playing doctor when we were seven. I mean, no . . . he didn’t have an affair with Gina, and I’ve never had an affair, either. Elroy and I are going the whole route.”
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