He leaned over, kissed her on the cheek, and said, "It's all bullshit. We got nothing."
She was flabbergasted. "Virgil."
"That's the way it is."
"Virgil…"
"We got ten days."
He backed out of the driveway, and she didn't say another word until they were out of town. Then, "Did you bring the food?"
"Exactly what you ordered," Virgil said.
"You got nothing?"
"Well. Maybe something."
"Virgil!"
He then fumbled behind the seat, in his briefcase, and hooked out one of the color Xeroxes and passed it to her. She recoiled: "Yuck."
"Any idea who it is? Probably before your time, though…"
"No. Where'd you find this?" she asked.
"In Roman Schmidt's safe-deposit box. Nothing but the photograph. No other paper that might suggest what it is. I have a feeling that it's before the middle of 1970."
"Did you look in the paper?"
"The paper's on microfilm, in the library," he said. "Somebody stole a roll from the middle of 1969, but there's no way to know if that's the one we're looking for."
"Really. Virgil, you may…" She hesitated, then: "Does Jim know about this?"
"Not yet. I'm going to tell him when I see him, but I think he might be out of town at the moment," Virgil said.
"Out of town? He can't be," she said. "What else happened?"
He grinned. "I swore I wouldn't tell anyone."
"I don't care-tell me anyway."
Virgil laughed and said, "I think he's taking Jesse Laymon out to dinner. Someplace far away, where nobody'll see him. Because he's supposed to be working the Roman Schmidt case night and day, even if there's nothing to do."
"Oh, my God." She pulled her bottom lip: "Well, I hope he gets laid. And if he does, I hope it's worth it. Because he really is in trouble, here, Virgil. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the Curlys declares that he's running for sheriff, one of these days."
"You think?"
"Big Curly thought he was the natural successor to Roman Schmidt. He might be past it now, but Little Curly would take the job in a minute."
"Neither one of them struck me as a wizard," Virgil said.
"No, but their families have been here forever, they know everyone, they've slapped every back in the county, and, they're fairly good-natured. If Jim really slips, one of them will run."
"Ah, we'll get the guy. Next week or so," Virgil said.
"You think?"
"Yup."
"Will anybody else be killed?" she asked.
He had to think for a minute, then said, "Maybe."
JOAN MADE HIM park the truck in the barn, a gesture toward discretion, and then they walked through the low weeds to the creek, and up the path into the Stryker's Dell. The running shoes made the going easier; cowboy boots weren't made for climbing rocks. At the top, on the left side of the pond, Joan opened the duffel and took out a quilt. "Straight from Wal-Mart; makes the rocks softer," she said.
Virgil unloaded the food and beer, and when he looked up, she was unbuttoning her blouse. He squatted on the rock, watching, as she took it off, slipped out of her shoes, socks and jeans, popped the brassiere, tossed it with the other clothes, and slipped out of her underpants. "See anything you like?"
"Well, yeah," he said.
"Last one in," she said, and she was over the side of the rock, six feet into the water, and Virgil was shedding shoes, shirt and pants as quickly as he could get them off. Fifteen seconds after she went over the side, he followed, the water a bracing slap. When he came up, she was there to push his head back under.
They played around the pool for a few minutes, laughing and sputtering, the water cool but not cold, refreshing in the summer heat; and the stones in the direct light of the setting sun were warm as toast.
The pool's back wall, to the east, where the spring came down, had eroded into a steep ramp. At the top of the ramp was a finger of dirt and grass, and beyond it, a rocky hillside running up to the crest. The pool walls on the north and south sides went straight up forty feet or so, solid red rock. A local kid had once jumped off the top on a dare, Joan said, had landed in not quite the deepest part, and had broken a couple of foot bones when he hit bottom. "That was the end of that," she said. "We had to carry him out."
The west side was the canyon, with the sun setting right in the center of the slot. It did that in May and August, she said, then swung farther north and south, depending on the season.
They were facing each other, blowing water, Virgil working on a new game; he had a handful of her pubic hair, and her two hands were on his chest, and he was about to suggest a different move when he caught the reflection up the hillside, beyond the head of the pool.
He thought it might be water on an eyelash, a refraction off a splash, something else, but then he caught it again and he pushed her head underwater and ducked under himself, caught her arm, and dragged her deeper toward the head of the pool. She struggled against him, but he pulled hard, until he felt the east wall, and then they rose two feet to the surface and she shouted, "Virgil, Virgil, what are you doing…?"
A frightened tone threaded in her voice as she shook water away from her face.
Virgil shoved her against the wall and said, urgently, "There's somebody on the hillside above us. I saw a reflection off glass, off a lens…"
She turned to look, but they were out of the line, against the face, "What?"
"Somebody up the hill…"
"A camera?"
"Could be a camera," Virgil said.
"What else…?"
"Could be a scope," he said. "When somebody's looking at you with glasses, you can usually see their arms."
She looked at him, shocked, then looked at their clothes. "Oh…God."
"Yeah."
"You're sure?" she asked, craning her neck to look overhead.
"I saw it twice." He looked back at their clothes, and then said, "I want you to stay right here. I'm going underwater to that corner right there, I'm going to come out fast. I don't think…he's at least a couple of hundred yards away, maybe three hundred. I don't think he can get me if I'm moving fast. Once I'm behind that lip, I can get out to the clothes, get my gun."
"I thought…"
"I started carrying it today…tell you later. Now. Stay here. I'm going."
He took two deep breaths, then pushed himself straight down the wall. Had to go deep, because the water was clear. When he hit bottom, he oriented himself, pushed off the wall, kept thinking, stay deep, stay deep, felt the bottom shelving, came up slightly off-line, surged forward with a butterfly stroke, lurching toward a groove in the rock and was almost there, almost in, when there was a slap on the wall to the right. One hand slipped and he went down, lurched again, slipping, and then he was into the groove, hurting, registering the crack of a rifle shot, pushed himself up the groove, skinning his knees, crawled up behind the wall, six feet from his weapon.
Joan shouted, "Virgil, he's shooting, Virgil!"
Not hit, he thought. Everything still working. He looked back at the wall and could see the pockmark where the slug had hit: two feet above where his head had been. Not that close, but close enough to scare him.
He shouted back to Joan, "I'm okay. You stay there." He started counting. One minute, one minute thirty seconds. Joan made a questioning gesture, and he put up a finger: wait. Two minutes…
WHEN HE'D HUNT deer up north, and he'd see a buck threading through the trees, he could focus on any given shot for a minute or two. After that, he'd lose precise focus. He'd trained himself to wait until the deer was right down a shooting lane before he even started to focus, because two minutes were a long time to concentrate on a shot. Two minutes, twenty seconds, and he coiled himself against the wall, spotted his pistol, said to himself, go, go, go: and he went.