"Huh."
"That's exactly what I thought. Huh." She glanced down the hall. "I gotta go…"
"Listen, Kara… don't tell anybody about this. There's a crazy woman around here and you don't want to attract her attention."
"No shit, Sherlock," she said. "My last name's Larsen. I'm in the Grand Rapids phone book. If you need to ask me any more questions, call me. Don't talk to me here."
VIRGIL FOUND MARGERY STANHOPE in the main office, alone, staring out the window at the darkening lake. She turned in the chair when Virgil stepped in and asked, "Figured it out?"
"Not yet. Margery: if you knew anything at all that might put some light on this thing-or even if something unusual happened with Miss McDill in the last day or two, behavior-wise, you'd be sure and tell me, right?"
She said, "Something happened. What happened? Why did you ask that?"
"I'm wondering who spent the night in McDill's cabin, night before last, and why nobody's telling me about it," Virgil said.
Stanhope sat up straight: "Night before last? I know nothing about that. I don't spy on people-but I should have heard. I would have heard, if it were true."
"You don't think it's true? I've got it on pretty good authority."
She said, "Let me go talk to people. I'll find out."
"Do that," Virgil said. "Let me give you my cell phone number. Call me anytime."
5
NINE O'CLOCK, and Virgil rolled out of the resort into the dark, called Zoe Tull. She answered, and he picked up a soft Norah Jones-style sound behind her. "You going to the Wild Goose tonight?" he asked.
"I could, but… I usually stay away on nights when Wendy is singing. She likes to come over and pull on my tits. If you know the expression."
"I don't, actually. I mean, I've pulled on a few tits, both human and bovine, but I've-"
"She comes over and chats, like she thinks there's no problem and we're still good friends, and she pushes Berni in my face," Zoe said.
"Berni's the drummer? The one with the cowboy boots and the nice whachacallums."
"Yeah. She calls herself Raven. Like the Edge, or Slash."
"Well, if they come over, you could come slide in the booth next to me and put your hand on my thigh," Virgil said.
"I don't think that'd mean anything to her," Zoe said.
"Mean a lot to me, though," Virgil said. "I miss the woman's touch."
After a moment of silence, she laughed long, and said, "I really like that crude shitkicker side of you. All right. I'll take you to the Goose."
"Good. I've got a question I need to ask you," Virgil said.
"Can't ask on the telephone?"
"Cell phones are radios," Virgil said. "You never know who's listening."
"That's paranoid," she said. "But… I wouldn't mind going. Pick me up at the house, or meet me there?"
"Since there's no chance I can get you drunk and take advantage of you, I'll meet you there," Virgil said. "Be quicker, and I'm going south tonight."
"The Cities?"
Virgil nodded at his reflection in the windshield. "Yeah."
"I thought you'd be up here for the duration," Zoe said.
"I need to get some stuff-I'll be back tomorrow."
"Fifteen minutes," she said. "Wait for me in the parking lot if you get there first. We can go in together."
He stuck the phone back in his pocket, caught the yellow-white-diamond eyeblink in the ditch at the last possible moment, and stood on the brakes. A doe wandered into the headlights, stopped directly in front of the truck, fifteen feet away, and looked at him, then hopped off toward the other side of the road.
He waited, and another doe, and then a third, crossed in front of him, like ladies going first through the supermarket door. When he thought the last of them had crossed, he eased forward again, keeping watch: saw a half-dozen more deer in the ditches, but had no more close calls.
HE WAITED FIVE MINUTES for Zoe. She pulled in, hopped out of her Pilot, came across the parking lot wearing a frilly white low-cut blouse that showed her figure, tight jeans that showed the rest of her figure, and fancy dress cowboy boots made out of the skins of chicken testicles, or some such, with embossed red roses.
"Nice boots," Virgil said into her cleavage.
"My eyes are up here," she said.
"Yeah, yeah," he said, as they crossed the parking lot to the door. "I've only heard that line in about eight movies."
"What's your favorite movie?"
He paused at the door, thought, and then said, "That's too important a question to settle on the front porch of a bar."
"You don't have to defend your choice-just name it," Zoe said.
"The Big Lebowski," Virgil said. "The dude abides."
"I was afraid of something like that," she said.
"I could've said Slap Shot," Virgil said.
"Ah, Jesus. Let's go drink." Inside the door, she said, "If you'd said, Hannah and Her Sisters, you might've got laid tonight."
"I was gonna say that," Virgil said. "Honest to God."
"I was lying," she said. "I lie a lot. Like you."
THE BAND WAS ON, singing a Dixie Chicks song which, like all the other Dixie Chicks songs, Virgil didn't like. Not so much that he didn't like them, it was just that they affected him like the Vulcan nerve pinch, and caused him to crumple to the ground and drool. They got the last booth and Virgil checked the crowd-probably fifty women and eight or ten men-and then the singer.
Wendy was a fleshy blond beauty in the Janis Joplin mold-not crystal-pretty, like the blondes big in Nashville, but stronger, with breasts that moved in their own directions when she turned, over a narrow waist and long legs. She was wearing a deliberately fruity cowgirl suit, a white leather blouse and skirt with leather fringes, and cowboy boots like Zoe's. And lipstick: she had a large mouth, with wide lips, coated with deep red lipstick that glistened in the bandstand lights. Here was the source of the kiss-card that he'd found in McDill's cabin, Virgil thought.
She could sing. Again, not the currently popular Nashville crystal-soprano, but a throwback to the whiskey-voiced singers of an older generation. Virgil actually listened to the song, although the words themselves threatened to lower his IQ. When she finished, Wendy said, in the whiskey voice, "One more song this set, for those of you who like to dance, a little old northern Minnesota slow-waltz, 'The Artists' Waltz.' I wrote it myself and I hope you like it."
Virgil did: like it.
A dozen couples, all women, danced to the music, as Chuck turned the rheostat and the lights dimmed, a real slow-waltz and terrifically romantic. Virgil listened all the way through, alternately watching Wendy, and then watching Zoe, whose face was fixed on Wendy's, and whose hands were clenched on the table, the knuckles white. She had lied to him, Virgil thought. Even if he'd said, Hannah and Her Sisters, he wouldn't have gotten laid, because the girl was already in love.
Wendy finished and said, "We're gonna take fifteen minutes, back to you then with another hour of the finest Wild Goose music. Thank you…"
THE SOUND LEVEL DROPPED, and Zoe, halfway through her beer, leaned forward and asked, "What's the question you couldn't put on the cell phone?"
Virgil shook his head. He almost didn't want to ask it, now that he'd seen her reaction to Wendy. On the other hand, unasked questions didn't often solve murders.
"Look," he said, "I was watching you watching Wendy, and I didn't realize how attached you were. Are. Whatever."
"I'm not attached. We're all done," Zoe said.
"If she'd take you back, would you go?" Virgil asked.
She said, "No," but her hands were doing their twist again. Virgil shook his head, and she said, "All right-yes."
"That's better," Virgil said. "You're really a horseshit liar."
"What does that have to do with the question?"
Looking right in her eyes, Virgil asked, "Did you know Wendy spent the night before last with Erica McDill, at her cabin at the Eagle's Lair?"