Heat Lightning (4 page)

"Why Ray?" The microwave beeped and she took the cups out, and slid one across to Virgil. They both took a sip, the coffee strong and boiling hot, and Virgil said again, "Ray?"

Ray was an Indian, an Ojibwa, a Chippewa, from Red Lake. She'd never met him, but he was an old pal of Sanderson's--Bobby never explained how they met--and the past three weeks they'd been going to vet meetings in St. Paul.

Virgil perked up. "Vet meetings?"

"Yes. Bobby didn't tell me about those either. I mean, it's starting to sound like he didn't tell me about anything, but that's not true. He could be a talkative man. But these men in the street, these meetings . . . it's like he couldn't talk to a woman about them. This was man stuff, like maybe it went back a long time."

Virgil wrote "Ray/Indian" in his book, and "vet meetings."

"When you say vet meetings," he asked, "did you get the impression it was just a bunch of guys, a bull session, or was it more like group therapy or what?" Virgil asked.

"Group therapy. Maybe not exactly that, but more than a bull session." She squinted at him across the work island. "I don't know why Bobby would need vet's therapy, though. He worked in a motor pool for some obsolete missile battalion. He said they'd shoot off their missiles, for practice, and they couldn't hit this mountain that they used as a target."

"In Korea."

"Yes. Someplace up in the hills," she said. "Chunchon? Something like that."

"You know which vet center?" Virgil asked.

"I don't know exactly, but it's on University Avenue in St. Paul. He said something about parking off University."

The meeting in the street, she said, had involved the cop-looking guy, the Indian, Sanderson, and a man who never got out of the car.

"The weird thing about that was, he was sitting in the backseat. Like the cop guy had chauffeured him out here. Like he was some big shot. Anyway, at one point, the window rolled down, the back window, and the cop guy got Bobby's arm and tried to pull him over there, and the Indian guy pushed the cop guy away," she said.

She was becoming animated as she remembered. "I thought there was going to be a fight for a minute; but then they all quieted down and they were looking around like they were worried that they disturbed somebody. Then they finished up and the Indian man went down the street, and the cop got back in the car and Bobby came in, and I said, 'What the heck was all that?' and he said, 'Nothing. Some old bullshit. I don't want to talk about it. Tell you some other time.' That's what he said, exactly. He was harsh about it, so I didn't want to push him about it. I should of pushed."

Virgil wrote it down, exactly.

Owen had an extra photograph of Sanderson, taken standing next to his boat, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. "I don't need it back," she said.

They talked for a few more minutes, but she had only one more thing, having to do with the bowel regularity of the dog. "It was like the train coming through town," Owen said. "They were out the door every night, same time, within five minutes. Walked the same route. If you knew him, if you wanted to kill him . . ."

"I understand the dog was security-trained," Virgil said.

"Sort of. You know, one of those Wisconsin places where they say their dogs are all this great, but you think, if they're so great, why are they so cheap? I liked him, he was a good dog, but he wasn't exactly a wolf."

HE LEFT HER in the kitchen, staring at the future, went out the side door, took a look at the boat. Boats had always been big in Virgil's life, and this was a nice one, a Lund Pro-V 2025 with a two-hundred-horse Yamaha hanging on the back, Eagle trailer, Lowrance electronics, the ones with the integrated map and GPS. Sanderson had fitted it with a couple of Wave Whackers, so he did some back-trolling; walleye fisherman, probably. Nice rig, well-kept, well-used.

Seemed like Sanderson had a nice life going for himself; nice lady, nice job, nice truck, nice fishing rig.

Virgil moved back toward the front of the house, saw a big man in a Hawaiian shirt coming along the street, limping a little. "Shrake?"

The big man stopped, peered into the dark. "Virgil?"

"You're limping," Virgil said, moving into the light.

"Ah, man." Shrake was a BCA agent, one of the agency's two official thugs. He liked nothing more than running into a bad bar, jerking some dickweed off a barstool in midsentence, and dragging his ass past his pals and into the waiting cop car. "I think I pulled a muscle in my butt."

"Christ, you smell like somebody poured a bottle of Jim Beam on your head," Virgil said.

"That fuckin' Jenkins ..."

Virgil started to laugh.

"That fuckin' Jenkins set me up with a hot date," Shrake said, hitching up his pants. "She was already out of control when I picked her up. Smelled like she'd been brushing her teeth with bourbon. She drank while she danced . . . then she fell down and I stupidly tried to catch her. . . . Anyway--what should I do?"

"I don't know," Virgil said. And, "Why are you out here?"

"Davenport called me up, said you might need some backup." Shrake cocked his head. "He said you were banging Janey Carter when he called."

"Actually, it's Janey Small . . . ah, never mind. Listen, there's not much to do. The locals are knocking the doors, we're waiting for the ME--"

"The ME's here," Shrake said.

"Okay. But to tell you the truth, and I hate to say it, it looks professional," Virgil said. "There ain't gonna be much."

"Yeah?" Shrake was interested. "Same guy as that New Ulm killing, you think?"

"Same guy," Virgil said. "From looking at it, I'd say our best hope is that he only had two targets. I've got some stuff to check out in the morning, but this is gonna be tough."

"Well, you know what they say," Shrake said. "When the going gets tough, try to unload it on that fuckin' Flowers."

The problem with a pro was that there'd be none of the usual skein of connections that tied a killer to a victim. The crime scene would be useless, because a pro wouldn't leave anything behind. If a bunch of bodies added up to a motive for some particular person--the person who hired the pro--that person would have an alibi for the time of the killings, and could stand silent when questioned. The pro, in the meantime, might have come from anywhere, and might have gone anywhere after the killings. With hundreds of thousands of people moving through the metro area on any given day, how did you pick the murderous needle out of the innocent haystack?

VIRGIL AND SHRAKE walked together back to the veterans' memorial. The TV trucks had all come in, and Mattson was standing in a pool of light, talking to three reporters. Brandt came over and asked, "You done with Miz Owen?"

"For tonight. If you could find a friend . . ."

"Got her sister coming over. She lives in Eagan, it'll take a while, but she's coming," Brandt said.

"Good," Virgil said. He nodded toward the monument. "The ME's guys say anything?"

"Yeah. He was shot twice. In the head."

"Well, shit, what more do you want?" Shrake asked. Brandt's nosed twitched, picking up Shrake's bourbon bouquet, and Shrake sidled away.

Brandt said to Virgil, "The mayor would like to talk to you."

"Sure," Virgil said. "Where is he?"

BRANDT TOOK THEM OVER, Shrake staying downwind. The mayor was a short, pudgy man, a professional smiler and a meet-your-eyes-with-compassion sort of guy, whose facial muscles were now misbehaving. He said to Virgil, "What-a, what-a, what-a . . ."

Virgil knew what he was trying to ask, and said, "This doesn't have anything to do with your town--I think Mr. Sanderson was a specific target. The same man killed another victim down in New Ulm. That's what I think. You don't have much to worry about."

"Thank you for that," the mayor said. He rubbed his hands nervously, peering about at the crime scene. "I feel so bad for Sally. Gosh, I hope she gets through this okay." He seemed to mean it, and Virgil nodded and said to Shrake, "We oughta head back. We need to get at some computers."

Shrake nodded. Virgil said a few more words to the mayor, gave his card, with a couple of spares, to Brandt, and told him to call if anything turned up. "The guy had to get here somehow. If anybody even thinks they might have seen a car, or a guy . . ."

"We're doing it all, man," Brandt said.

The mayor said to Brandt, "And good for you. Good for you, by golly."

On the way back to his car, Virgil asked Shrake if he knew anything about a veterans' center on University Avenue.

"Sure. Something going on there?"

Virgil told Shrake about Sanderson and the therapy group, and Shrake said, "Sounds right. That's what they do there."

"E-mail me an address or something," Virgil said. "I gotta get some sleep before I go back out."

"Me, too," Shrake said, and yawned.

Virgil felt somebody step close behind him and then a small hand slipped into his back pocket, tight inside the jeans. He twisted and looked back over his shoulder: Daisy Jones, blond, slender, a little tattered around the eyes, glitter lipstick with tooth holes in it.

"Virgil Flowers, as I live and breathe," she said, moving close, letting the pheromones work on him. "I was laying in bed tonight . . ."

"Laying? Really? Not lying?" Virgil said. She did smell good. She only used the choicest French perfumes, which reached out like the softest of fingers.

She ignored him, continued: ". . . when I felt a kind of feminine orgasmic wave cross over the metro area. I said to myself, 'Daisy, girl, that fuckin' Flowers must have come back to town.'"

"That was me," Virgil admitted.

"I got my sap," Shrake said to Virgil. "We could whack her, throw her body in the lilacs."

"Shrake, you gorgeous hunk, I get so aroused when you talk about my body," Jones said. She pressed her hand against Shrake's chest, lightly scratching with long nails, and made him smile. "Is it true that this murdered man had a lemon in his mouth, and was shot twice, an identical killing to the one in New Ulm?"

"Goddamnit, Daisy, we don't need that lemon stuff out there," Virgil said.

"Oh, horseshit," she said. "The killer knows he does it. You know he does it. I know he does it. The only people who don't know he does it are the stupes. So I'm going to put it on the air, unless you give me something better."

"Okay, here's something better," Virgil said. "Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"The killings are virtually identical," he said. "The same guy did them both."

"Can I quote you?" she asked.

"You can say that you spoke to me briefly, and that I acknowledged that there were striking similarities between the two," Virgil said.

She stuck out a lower lip: "I'm not sure that's enough to kill the lemon angle. The lemon has a certain . . . interest about it."

"A lemon twist," Shrake offered.

"Oh, shit! That's my lead," Daisy said. "Thank you, Shrake."

"Okay. You're gonna use it," Virgil said. He stepped toward the TV lights. "I'll go over and go on camera with these other guys, and give them my opinion about the killings. . . ."

"Virgil--don't do that," she said, hooking his arm.

"Daisy ..."

"All right. But if anybody else squeals lemon, I'll be five seconds behind them."

"If you use my name on the air," Virgil said, "mention that thing about the orgasmic wave, huh?"

AS THEY WALKED away from her, Shrake said, "I think she's getting better as she gets older."

"Yeah."

"Did you ever . . . ?"

"No, I did not, for Christ's sakes. I don't . . . Never mind."

"You mean, fuck everybody?" Shrake was enjoying himself.

"Shrake ..."

"Davenport tried to do that, you know, before he got married. You guys are somewhat alike."

"Bullshit. I'm a lot better-looking."

Chapter
4

VIRGIL WAS staying at the Emerald Inn, made it back about a hundred feet in front of the first rush-hour car, went to his room, got undressed, set the alarm, and fell facedown on the bed.

Too much.

Four Leinie's at the club, bedtime with Janey, then the murder. He'd started the day at five o'clock in the morning in Mankato, eighty miles south of the Twin Cities, and now was twenty-five hours down the line, with a hard day coming up.

He would have been asleep in forty seconds, except thirty seconds after he landed facedown, the nightstand beeped at him. Beeped again thirty seconds later; again thirty seconds after that. No point in resisting: it wasn't going to quit.

He pushed up on his elbows, looked at the nightstand. Nothing there but a pile of dollar bills, the clock, and the lamp. Another beep. Had to be the clock, which had gone nuts for some reason. There was nothing to turn off except the alarm, and he needed the alarm, so he put the clock on the floor, pushed it under the bed, and dropped back on the pillow.

Another beep, right next to his ear.

Groggy, he looked at the nightstand. Nothing now but a pile of dollar bills and the lamp. He pulled open the only drawer, found a Gideon's Bible, which he opened. The Gideon was not beeping him.