A wooden Jesus, carved out of a cottonwood stump by somebody moderately handy with a chain saw, peered across the yard at him, one arm raised, as though blessing Feur's enterprise.
THE MAN with the gun-now gunless-came out on the porch. "Come in," he said.
"Thank you." Virgil nodded at him, climbed the three steps to the porch, said, "After you," and followed the man into the house.
Feur was sitting in a wooden rocker at the corner of the parlor, smoking, and drinking what looked like tea out of a china cup. A small man with black eyes, black beard, and a chiseled, sunburned nose, he was dressed all in black, and wore shiny black leather boots; in a movie, he would have played Mr. Scratch. There were two pictures on the walls, both of a black-haired, black-eyed Jesus, one on the cross.
Feur said, "Mr. Flower? Do you have some identification?"
Virgil nodded, took his ID out of his breast pocket, and held it out. Feur peered at it without touching, said, "Flowers," then nodded at a couch and said, "Have a seat. You wouldn't be related to Rusty Flowers, would you?"
"No. I don't know the name," Virgil said. He sat down, lifting his jacket enough that he didn't pin the gun under his leg.
"Not even sure it's a real name," Feur said. He was younger than Virgil had expected-probably the same age as Stryker, in his middle thirties, but his lined face made him look, at first glance, as though he were ten years older. "I was standing on a bridge at Dubuque, Iowa, one time, and I saw a towboat named Rusty Flowers. Often wondered if it was a man, or just something that somebody made up."
They shared a few seconds of silence, then Feur asked, "So what do you want?"
"You've probably heard that Bill Judd got burned up," Virgil said.
"That's what I heard," Feur said. He sighed, blew some smoke, tamped out the cigarette in an aluminum ashtray. "He was a bad man, but he was moving toward the Lord at the end. Too late, though. He hadn't accepted Jesus last time I saw him; he was unwilling to take the step. I suspect Mr. Judd's house fire was only a preliminary introduction to the flames he's feeling right now."
"I wouldn't know about that," Virgil said.
"I do know about that," Feur said, and his black eyes glittered with what might have been humor. "What does Mr. Judd's death have to do with me?"
"I was hoping for a Revelation," Virgil said.
"You think I could give you one?"
"If you wanted to," Virgil said. "People say you hand them out in the streets."
"A book of Revelation. Of course." He looked past Virgil at the man with the shotgun, and said, "Trevor, could you get a book for Mr. Flowers?" And to Virgil, "Happy to see a man of the law reading the good book."
Virgil, when the gunman was gone, asked, "Trevor?"
Feur shrugged: "What can you do? Your mother gives you a name, and you wear it."
THEY WAITED, and Virgil asked, conversationally, "What's this whole thing with the shotgun?"
"Some people don't like what we have to say. Some of them would like me dead. We are prepared to exercise our right to common, ordinary self-defense," Feur said.
"I understand you have a problem with Jim Stryker," Virgil said.
"We've had our differences. He put me in prison for robbing, and I don't say I didn't do it. But I'll tell you something: he's a man with a lot of hate, a lot of violence in him. You don't see it, but it's there. If it hadn't been for this other killing, the Gleasons, if it'd only been Judd, I would have said that Stryker would be your number-one suspect. Still might be-but I can't see him doing the Gleasons. Don't know what that would be about."
TREVOR CAME BACK and handed a red-bound volume to Feur, who looked at it and asked, "Who is worthy to open the book, and loose the seals thereof?"
He handed the book to Virgil, who asked, "How many of these have you given away?"
"Few hundred, I suppose. We also publish other books. We find that with most folks, the Bible goes down easier in small chunks," Feur said. "But you didn't come out here to get a book, Mr. Flowers. What do you want?"
"The book, actually," Virgil said, turning it in his hands. It was identical to the one he'd seen at the Gleasons'. "I came here to investigate the Gleason murders, not Judd's, but now I'm doing both. I've only found one connection to both crimes."
Feur's eyebrows went up. "You're going to tell me?"
"Yeah. It's you."
"Me?" Feur's eyes pinched together. "Are you serious?"
"You were known to have been talking to Judd. You just told me so yourself. When I went into the Gleasons' house to look around, what should I find at Mrs. Gleason's right hand, but a copy of your Revelation? So what I need to know is, how close were you to the Gleasons? And how close to Judd, and what is your connection with the two of them?"
Feur sat back in his chair, spread his hands. He had small, feminine hands, but hard and cracked. "I spoke occasionally to Mr. Judd. He shared some beliefs with us, but not all. We were hoping to bring him to the true Lord, and also, to be honest, we were hoping he might provide some financial support. He hadn't done that at the time of his death. His son, as close as I can tell, is useless as tits on a boar. So that is my connection with Mr. Judd. For the Gleasons, I don't believe I ever met them, or were in their presence. I have no idea how they got one of our Revelations. Unless the sheriff put it there. The sheriff doesn't like me. He doesn't like any of us. He is a politician to his bones, and politicians no longer wish to hear the truth."
"Yeah, well." Virgil peered at him for a second, then turned to the other man and said, "Trevor. Get us a Bible, will you?"
Trevor looked at Feur, who nodded. Trevor stepped into what must have been the dining room, and was back a second later with a leather-bound Bible. Virgil passed it to Feur, and said, "Put your hand on it and swear you didn't have anything to do with the death of Judd or the Gleasons."
Feur said, "You're very close to pissing me off, Mr. Flowers."
"Why?"
"Because you don't strike me as a believer, and this is a cynical way to twist me up," Feur said.
"You'd be wrong. I am a believer," Virgil said. "Not quite your kind, but a believer. Now, if you don't want to put your hand on the Bible…"
Feur grasped the Bible between his small hands and said, his eyes turned to the ceiling, "I swear on this book, and on my everlasting soul, that I had nothing to do with the murders of Bill Judd or Mr. and Mrs. Gleason. I swear that I play no word games here, that there are no prevarications, that I did not do these murders, killings, and I did not cause them to be done." He looked at Virgiclass="underline" "Amen."
"Amen," Virgil said. He pushed himself out of the chair. "I guess I'll be going."
"That's it?"
"Maybe. I'd still like to figure out where the Revelation came from. When I find out, I could be back."
"And you'll be judged according to your works," Feur said.
"Revelation 20:12," Virgil said.
Feur cocked his head: "Are you born-again?"
"I'm a preacher's son," Virgil said. "I talked the Bible at supper every night of my life until I went to college, Mr. Feur. You don't get that kind of an education at Stillwater."
"Maybe not," Feur said. "But I kept one book in my cell, the King James. When we were locked down, I had that one book to read; and I read it twenty hours a day. When we weren't locked down, I read it four hours a night, every night for three and a half years, there among the sodomites and catamites and child molesters. You didn't get that kind of education."