Rough Country (39 page)

She said nothing for a moment, then turned her face toward him: I don't know. I was scared of you. I was going to deny everything. . . . I don't know. It was stupid.

Across the drive, in the hole, one of the deputies knelt, and started working with his hands. Virgil got up and said, Wait here.

Bullshit, Wendy said.

THE DEPUTIES HAD CLEARED off a roof, and in another few minutes, had cleaned off a foot-long patch of windshield. Sanders got a flashlight from his car and handed it down, and the deputy, on his knees, shined it through the glass, pressed his face closer, moved the light, then stood up and looked at Wendy and then at Virgil.

Got some clothing.

Some clothing, Sanders said.

Got some clothing and . . . some bones and hair.

WENDY SAT DOWN, suddenly, in the raw dirt, then flopped backward, her irises rolling out of sight.

She's fainted, or something, Virgil said, holding her head up. We better get, uh, what do . . . He'd never dealt with a woman who'd fainted.

Berni came to hold her head and shouted at Sanders, Get her to a hospital, get

Then Wendy stirred and Virgil said, Don't move. You fainted, is all, just stay like that.

But Wendy rolled to her hands and knees and looked in the hole. All these years, she said. All these years, I thought she'd come back someday. Or I thought I'd be famous, and I'd have a show in Arizona, and she'd come up and talk to me. . . . I still have that dream. All these years . . .

Chapter
26

SANDERS WALKED OVER, a radio in his hand, and said, They're there and he's gone. The Caterpillar is still there and the lowboy, but he's gone. The people at the site said he was going to lunch.

Probably back in town, Virgil said.

We'll sweep through there. . . .

An intermittent drizzle had begun, coming with the occasional ragged black cloud, going with brighter gray ones. They all stood hunched in it, watching the work.

There were four cop cars on the road outside the fence, a couple more trucks down the driveway, and three civilian cars, as well as Virgil's truck and the crime-scene van parked in front of the house. Mapes and Huntington were directing the excavation, and half the truck was now clear, sitting in the bottom of the widening hole. One of the civilians was a Bobcat operator from Grand Rapids, and he was carefully digging down the sides of the vehicle, while deputies with shovels did the close work.

Full circus mode, Virgil thought.

PHILLIPS, THE COUNTY ATTORNEY, wearing a yellow rain jacket, climbed out of the hole, scraped mud off the bottom of his shoes on the lawn, and brushed off his hands and came over and said, Goddamnedest thing. The woman's in the backseat, the guy's across the front. It looks to me like he shot them in the head. The skulls are right there, faceup, grinning out at you. . . . He shivered and said, I won't be trying to sleep tonight. Or maybe the rest of the month.

How did this happen? Sanders asked. Why didn't anybody know?

A lot of people did know. They knew it before it happened knew that Hector and Maria were going to run off, Virgil said. And then they were gone . . . and they'd gone to Arizona. Everybody knew that. Slibe apparently didn't make any secret of it. Now that I think about the way it worked, he must've started a few rumors himself. About the letter from Maria, and all that. People knew she'd written back . . . because Slibe told people.

Her family . . . her parents?

Don't know, Virgil said. I'll ask Wendy when I have a chance.

THE SHERIFF WATCHED the excavation, then sidled over and asked quietly, How in the hell did you figure this out?

Virgil said, People kept talking in the background, about Hector Avila and Maria, and I never concentrated on the Hector part. But when we were searching the Deuce's loft, I found some pictures of Slibe and Maria when they were young. They were blond. And Wendy is flat, pure blond: she's so white she's transparent. I got down to the hospital, and the Deuce was propped up on these white sheets, and he was so dark . . . and it all tripped off. Hector Avila, a Latino name. An affair; a dark kid; a father who seemed willing to frame his own son. It occurred to me, the Deuce wasn't his son. . . .

I thought about that, and then I thought about the fact that we can't find Windrow's car. Not even with a LoJack on it. Maybe somebody found and disconnected the LoJack, but there was another explanation. You said it yourself that it must be in a lake somewhere. Or something. Like, buried.

And you thought about those goldarned Bobcats. . . .

Virgil nodded. And that Slibe started a big garden the day his wife disappeared forever.

THEY WERE TALKING when Virgil saw Slibe's truck coming, burning up the road, and he said, Oh, shit. Slibe.

The cops turned and looked, and a couple of them ran for their cars. Slibe's truck slowed, stopped, and Virgil could see a figure in the driver's seat, taking them all in taking in the hole in the garden. The truck started to back up, to turn around, and a cop yelled, He's running, but then it straightened again, came on, accelerating, moving too fast to make a good turn at the driveway, took out the mailbox and then came on, straight at the deputies in the drive, who scattered, the truck accelerating, throwing wet gravel, coming straight at Virgil and Sanders and Phillips.

Virgil yelled, Get out of the way, and Phillips ran for the garden hole and Virgil and Sanders ran for the concrete steps, got on the steps as the truck brushed by, Slibe's face framed in the side window of the truck, and then he was past them, continuing past the house and the crime-scene van, past the kennel. The truck crashed through a board fence and into the back pasture.

Wendy'd heard the commotion and came to the door, and saw the truck disappear. The cops were pulling vests from their cars, and Sanders was pointing the deputies after the truck, and Virgil asked Wendy, What's back there?

Nothing. He can't get out of the pasture. . . . There's a shortcut down to Hourglass Lake. A trail . . .

There's a boat?

No, there's a place you can fish, but it's not our property. There's swamp on both sides of it, there's a creek that goes in there. . . . I don't know. He can't swim that good, so . . . There's a cabin that way. She pointed. Left when you get to the lake. If he got to that road I guess he could get out. It'd be a long walk.

Phillips had heard the last part of it, and he said, It's wet country back there. I don't see where he's going. There's hardly any way out.

Cop cars were going in on Slibe's trail, and Sanders hurried up: I called for the state patrol chopper. It's gonna be a while. A cop car headed out of the driveway, and he added, I got guys going over to Hourglass; they can seal off the landing, and the roads.

Virgil said, Why didn't he run? He seemed to know what he was doing.

Berni, who'd come up behind Wendy, said, We'd go swimming down on Hourglass sometimes. Slibe's got an old plastic toolbox, you know, like a truck toolbox, hidden back in the woods. It's got fire-starter and a minnie net and some fishing poles.

But how's he . . . Sanders began.

Berni said, It's big enough for a gun. I never thought of it when you were here looking for the gun, but it's big enough for one, easy.

VIRGIL TO SANDERS: Get your guys. If he's out there with a .223 with a scope, they gotta back off. Those vests won't work. Gonna get some guys shot up if they push him.

Sanders was already jogging toward his car.

You know what we need? Berni asked.

Virgil: What?

We need the Deuce to track him down.

THE COPS WERE ALL gunning up, and Wendy asked, They'll kill him, won't they? and Virgil thought that was probably the case, but didn't say so.

Where's the lake? he asked. Exactly?

Wendy pointed to a low spot in the skyline. Right down there. But it's more than half a mile.

Virgil said, I gotta go out, and, I'll try not to hurt him, if I see him.

He went to his truck and got his vest and his shotgun, slapped the Velcro tabs in place, walked over to Sanders, who was directing traffic. I'm going up on that high spot. He pointed to a place thirty degrees to the right of the tree line dip that marked the lake.

You think that shotgun's gonna work? I can get you an AR-15 if you'd rather, Sanders offered.

I'm okay but tell your guys where I'm at. I don't want to get shot up by a friendly.

Take a radio. He yelled at one of the cops: Bill give me your radio.

VIRGIL TOOK THE HANDSET, hung it on his belt, climbed into the truck and followed the rest of the crowd through the broken fence, and bounced over the pasture. At the far end of the field, he could see where Slibe's truck had crashed through another fence, this one barbed wire, and had gone into the trees. The cop cars were stopped short of that, and most of the cops were standing behind their cars, while two more did an end run to the left, into the woods.

Virgil didn't like it: there'd be some dead people for sure, if they pushed Slibe. He drove as far as he could, but well to the right of the others, got out of the truck and on the radio.

Your people are crashing into the woods. If he decides to fight, he'll kill some of them, Virgil said. They gotta let him move before they do. They gotta calm down, or he's going to hunker down somewhere and ambush them.

Gotcha. I think they've got a good idea where he went, they're just keeping him moving.

They're moving too fast, way too fast, Virgil said. If he's got that rifle

Gotcha.

VIRGIL THOUGHT, Dumbass.

The sheriff hadn't struck him as a dumbass, but the chase was hot and he was caught up in it. Cops watch movies like everybody else, and sometimes, it gets them killed.

Virgil pumped three shells into the shotgun, put the rest in his pocket, and jogged over to the fence, did a leg lift over it, careful not to get snagged, and headed through the woods. He didn't know exactly where he was going, but he'd know it when he saw it.

There was no high land nearby, but there was higher land, and a man running from guns instinctively took one of two paths he ran through gullies or along creeks that concealed him from view, or he ran along the high ground, so he could see what was happening, could see the pursuit.

Or, if he was smart, he ran just below the crest of a ridge, so he could move up, make a quick check around, and still be out of sight with a step or two.

But higher ground was involved in all of it either as concealment or for the view. Virgil was headed for the only nearby higher land. That ridge would also bring Slibe back past his acreage, while still in the deep woods probably the land he knew best.

Virgil could set up on high ground, he hoped, and catch Slibe as he went by.

Because the cops weren't going to get close, not unless Slibe was on a suicide run. If he was, the cops wouldn't need Virgil to help handle that. . . .

VIRGIL MOVED up the hill; the brush was thick, mostly small aspen, cut maybe ten years earlier, and he couldn't see fifty yards. At the top, the land sloped away, and though he couldn't see it, he sensed wet ground that way there was more light coming through the trees than there should be, if it was all solid forest, which meant the trees ended somewhere downslope. The lake, probably, or a marsh.

He backed up the hill, trying to find a spot with good sight lines. None of it was really open; he finally found a root hole where an old aspen had been blown over, and eased down into it, and sat on a chunk of rotting log. He was wearing his gray rain jacket, which wasn't bad; he shouldn't be too visible.

Then settled down and listened, heard nothing, except some distant shouting. Not even squirrels thought he'd probably spooked the squirrels himself, and they wouldn't start bashing around again for another ten minutes or so.

He'd turned the radio down when he got out of the truck, and now put it to his ear, picking up the electronic whisper of shouts and calls: this guy was moving left, that guy was moving left, the other guy didn't see anything, nothing was moving out there, this guy was going to make a move farther around, that guy had come down to a swampy area and couldn't go any farther.

Virgil couldn't quite picture it in his mind, because he didn't know the ground well enough, but he got the impression that the deputies had pushed well out to Slibe's left, and they now had a line that extended from the pasture down to the lake. So Slibe couldn't go that way without shooting somebody. The deputies thought they had him pinned against the lake.

Maybe they did; and maybe they didn't. Slibe had known where he was going, and was moving fast.

Virgil put the radio down and listened . . . listened . . .

Listened for gunshots. Or footsteps.

SLIBE CAME SNEAKING along the right side of the high ground. Virgil thought first that it might be a squirrel, because there wasn't much sound. But it had been raining, a little, enough to wet the leaves, and mute the usual crinkle and thrash. When he heard a stick break, he thought it must be Slibe; squirrels don't break sticks.

Slibe could have been quieter, if he'd moved more slowly, and he probably knew that; but he couldn't afford to. Virgil listened to him coming in, and wondered what was going through his mind. Where did he think he could run to? Was he going to kill somebody else, somebody back in the woods, somewhere at a cabin, steal the car and an ID, maybe some money? He could be in Canada in a few hours, and that would slow down the search. . . .