Slipped the knife into the crack of the door, pushed, felt the lock slip, and pressed the door open with his toe. Stepped inside, into the light. Five minutes to go through the house. Checked a bedroom, found old photos, a made bed, and a framed Doors poster. Had to be Margaret's.
Next bedroom: an iPod on the nightstand, the bed unmade. Jesse's. Now where…?
Virgil looked around, turned on the wand, and began to hunt. He moved through the bedroom quickly, getting metallic pulses from almost everything. But nothing in a wrong spot…
And finally got a strong pulse from a pair of knee-high winter boots in the closet, which was the second place he'd looked, after the chest of drawers.
Turned the boot, and the revolver tumbled out into the lamplight.
He didn't touch it immediately, but he smiled. Pretty good. He took a pencil from his pocket, moved the gun around. Smith amp; Wesson,.357 Magnum. He slipped the pencil down the muzzle, used it to lift the gun and drop it into a Ziploc bag. He put the bag in his pocket, then sat back on his heels, working it through.
After a minute, he moved back through the house, closed the door behind him, heard the lock latch. In the dark, he could see lightning both to the southeast and to the northwest, but could hear no thunder. Those storms would miss Bluestem. Overhead, a million stars twinkled down from the Milky Way.
VIRGIL WAS PARKED on the street in front of Stryker's house when Stryker pulled into his driveway. Virgil got out of the truck, a bad taste in his mouth. Stryker had pulled into his garage, and was standing outside waiting, the garage door rolling down, as Virgil walked up the driveway. Stryker: "Something happen?"
"Maybe," Virgil said. "But I've got a little trouble talking to you about it."
Stryker cocked his head: "What's that mean?"
"I've gotten a tip-won't tell you where from-that Jesse might have been up at Judd's place the night of the fire-that she might have walked back down the hill after it started, instead of coming in from the outside."
"That's goofy," Stryker said. "She was with a bunch of people from the bar."
"Then it shouldn't be a problem," Virgil said. "Everybody knows everybody. All we have to do is track down everybody who was up there, and find who gave her a ride up there. My tip says, she wasn't driving her own truck."
"Well-let's do that. We'll get the guys on the gate, see who was there, see who saw who."
"First thing in the morning?"
"Well-some of the guys who were on duty at the time, should be on duty right now. Let's call Little Curly and George Merrill. They were on the gate. Let's go do it."
Virgil followed him back to the courthouse, and inside. He got Curly and Merrill on the radio, told them to come in, quick. They both acknowledged, and Stryker led the way to his office, sat down, and said, "If you won't tell me where the tip came from, it came from a deputy. I can see the guy's problem, but goddamnit…"
"Don't push anything with anybody," Virgil said. "This is tangled up enough, without you starting your reelection campaign. Just keep your mouth shut."
MERRILL GOT BACK FIRST. He came in, thumbs hooked on his belt, looked warily at Virgil and then Stryker: "What's up?"
Stryker: "George, we need the names of everybody you saw down by the gate on the night of the fire…"
Merrill said, "Well, you know, the usual guys…"
Little Curly came in while they were making the list; Stryker told him what they were doing. He looked at the list, added a name. Virgil asked, "You both saw Jesse Laymon. Did either of you see her truck?"
Merrill and Little Curly glanced at each other, then they both looked at Virgil and shook their heads: "Nope."
"That's what we needed," Virgil said. "Thank you much."
When they were gone, Stryker, who was looking at the list, said, "First thing tomorrow. I'll have these guys run down by ten o'clock."
AT THE MOTEL, Virgil got a beer, carried it up to his room, broke out the laptop, looked at the motley, disconnected collection of paragraphs about Homer and his investigation of the Bluestem murders.
Sat down and wrote,
With the.357 in his hand, Homer rocked back on his heels, and wondered whether somebody was trying to frame Jesse; was trying to screw the investigation; was trying to provide contrary evidence for a later trial; or if Jesse might actually have something to do with the murders.
Whichever it was, somebody had deliberately fed Merrill into the investigation-which was why Homer asked Bill Judd Jr. about the lawn-mowing service. The hole in the ground that used to be Judd's place held no gas-fired engines, as far as Homer could see. No lawn mowers or snowblowers or utility carts. So if Jesse hadn't gone up there with her truck…how'd she gotten the gas up there, the gas that was used as the accelerant? Maybe she'd run up a mile-long hill in a thunderstorm with fifty or sixty pounds of gasoline, and carried the empty cans out the same way?
Bullshit, Homer thought. Somebody was setting her up, trying to push Homer into searching her house, where the gun was planted in the second-most-obvious place. Be interesting to see if the.357 was actually the murder weapon…
He knew at least one possible suspect who had access to Jesse's bedroom, but it was so obvious that it couldn't be right; couldn't be Stryker. Couldn't be.
Virgil yawned and closed down the laptop.
Who'd fed Merrill to him?
Have to ask.
18
VIRGIL AWOKE to a tapping on the motel-room door. Light was pushing through the drapes, so it had to be morning. He crawled across the bed and looked at the clock: seven A.M. Another knock, more insistent this time.
"Hang on," he called. He got his pistol, checked it, stepped over to the door, not crossing in front of it, reached across, and rattled the chain.
No gunshots. "Who is it?"
"Joan," Her voice quiet.
Virgil popped the chain, opened the door, standing there in his shorts and gun. "What's going on?"
She was dressed in worn jeans and a T-shirt, and had a bandana wrapped around her head, covering her hair. "I was headed out to the farm, I saw Jim on the street, he says you're thinking Jesse. I'd like to hear about it."
"Come on in," Virgil said. She stepped inside and he closed the door and put the gun away, and said, "I might be onto something, but this goddamned town, I'm not telling anybody." He grinned at her, trying to soften it, make it a little jokey.
"Including me." She crossed her arms. Always a bad sign with a woman, Virgil thought. "That'll be a first," she said, "Virgil Flowers keeping his mouth shut."
Virgil said, "I'm gonna shave. You can watch." She trailed him to the bathroom, and Virgil splashed water on his face, and said, "When you come into a small town like this, on a dead case, you have to do something to get things moving again. I talk. It works."
She was skepticaclass="underline" "You mean, you're a naturally reticent, quiet, bashful, introverted sort of guy, who'd never say anything about anybody, and it's all been a technique to mess with us Bluestemmers?"
Virgil was smearing shaving gel on his face. He stopped under his nose, looked at her in the mirror: "First time I ever heard 'reticent' or 'Bluestemmer' in a spoken sentence."
"So. Are you just fuckin' with me?"
"Joanie, you are a great woman and that's the truth," Virgil said, "but we've got at least five dead people and one psycho. I came here to get him. That's what I'm going to do."
She showed a smile. "So it's not Jesse. You said 'get him.'"
He rinsed the razor under the faucet and said, "That first night we went out, I mentioned that you were smarter than I thought. You just wormed an objective personal pronoun out of me…Want to wash my back?"