9

VIRGIL LOVED the early-morning hours in the high summer, when there was a cold cut to the morning air, but you could feel the heat coming over the horizon. The perfect time to fish. The perfect time to do anything out-of-doors.

He was up a couple of minutes after five-thirty, peeked out through the curtains across the parking lot, saw the orange upper limb of the sun coming over the horizon. Blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. Excellent.

He sat down, knocked off fifty sit-ups, did fifty push-ups, pulled on a T-shirt and shorts, gym shoes, and headed for the door. Sometimes, in Mankato, he'd plug in an iPod and run to old classic rock, like Aerosmith. The trouble to running with music was, he couldn't think while he was listening to it. Sometimes, that was okay. This morning, he needed to think.

Had things to do, places to go, plans to execute.

Get back to Sioux Falls and see Betsy Carlson at the nursing home. Take along Laura Stryker, Joan's mother, if she'd go…do a sneaky interrogation of the elder Stryker, see what she knew about Judd and his love life. See if she'd talk about her husband's suicide, and the effect it might have had on Jim and Joan.

And that made him feel a little bad, but he was a cop, so not too bad.

HE RAN UP through town, and back and forth along residential streets, until his watch told him it was 6:15, and that he'd run five miles, more or less. He turned back toward the motel, picked up the pace for the last two blocks, and got to the lobby sweating hard.

He had a further list: historical research at the paper; look up the fat woman that Michelle Garber, the drinking schoolteacher, said had been in bed with Judd. Plot some kind of excuse, as rotten and underhanded as it might be, to get Joan back to the family farm, and up in that hayloft. To that end, steal the extra blanket in the Holiday Inn closet, and hope it got all stuck up with hay.

Garber had mentioned the postmaster who'd shared a bed with Judd and the girls, and had made a point: nobody could really come in from the outside and do this. A persistent stranger would be noticed; even a car seen too often. And a man coming back after years away-or a woman coming back, for that matter-would be noticed instantly, and remembered, and commented upon. He might be missing something, but he believed that he was standing within a half mile of the killer…

The shower was perfect. Even the breakfast was good. Might have been the start of a perfect day, if his cell phone hadn't rung at 6:45, with two syrup-drenched link sausages still on the plate.

STRYKER, BREATHING HARD: "Ah, Jesus Christ, Virgil, we got another one. Two."

"Who?"

"Roman Schmidt and his wife," Stryker groaned. "You gotta get over here."

"Wait, wait, slow down. Roman Schmidt. I know the name…"

"He was the sheriff, three before me. Thirty years. Jesus, people are going to be rioting in the streets."

"What's the body look like?" Virgil asked.

"Just like the other one. Propped up on a tree branch, this time. It's just…fuckin'…nasty."

Virgil got directions to the Schmidt house, threw fifteen dollars on his plate. As he went by the pale-faced night clerk, the clerk blurted, "Have you heard?"

"Ah, man…"

OUT THE DOOR, into his truck. He opened his cell phone, scanned down through the directory, punched the call button. A minute later, Lucas Davenport, his boss, said into the phone, "This better be good. You better not be in a fuckin' fishing boat."

"Listen, we got two more down here," Virgil said.

"Oh, boy…" Davenport was in bed, in St. Paul. "Same guy?"

"Yes. There's display on the body. Worse than that. It's Roman Schmidt, a former sheriff and his wife. Stryker says that townspeople are gonna be in the street. And since this makes five, we'll start getting heavy-duty media heat."

There was a moment of silence, and then Davenport said, "And?"

"And? And what?"

"What does this have to do with me, when it's not even seven o'clock in the morning?" Davenport asked.

"I thought you'd like to know," Virgil said.

"I would have, I guess, at nine-thirty," Davenport said. "But at seven o'clock-before seven o'clock-it's your problem."

"Thanks," Virgil said. "Listen, does that Sandy chick still work for you?"

"Part-time."

"Can I call her?" Virgil asked. "Get her to carry some water for me?"

"Yeah. Call me after nine, and I'll get you her cell number," Davenport said. "She goes to school in the morning."

"What about the media? What do I do about them?"

Davenport said, "Wear a fresh shirt, tell them that you're following up a number of leads but you're not able to talk about them for security reasons, that all state and local authorities are cooperating, and, uh, you expect a quick resolution to the case."

"Thanks, boss."

"Virgil, I didn't send you out there to be stupid. Handle it, handle the press, get back to me when you've got it figured out," Davenport said. "I'll monitor your activities on Channel Three."

IF VIRGIL was having a bad morning, it was nothing in comparison to Roman Schmidt's. The killer had pushed a forked stick into the dirt of the driveway and had pushed the fork rudely beneath Schmidt's ears, one tine of the fork on either side of his neck. It was enough to hold the sightless body upright, but the down pressure of the body, pulling on the stick, had forced his tongue out. Flies were crawling around his face, into the eye sockets and his mouth.

His legs were splayed, and his penis peeked out of the fly of his boxer shorts.

"That is brutal," Virgil said, standing with his hands in his jeans pockets. "The family here yet?"

"Not much family, not that we know of-maybe some cousins. They never had children."

Virgil and Stryker were fifteen feet from the body and Virgil could see heel grooves in the dew-soft soil of the parking area, where the body had been dragged from the house. "Where was he killed?" Virgil asked.

"Right at the back door," Stryker said. "The first shot took him low in the heart, out a little higher in back. It looks like somebody knocked on the door, was standing on the step, Roman opened the door and bam! He's dead. We know he opened the door because the slug didn't go through it. Gloria was in the bedroom. Looks like they'd been asleep awhile. Then, whoever did it, came and put the last two shots through his eyes. There are holes in the kitchen floor, inside the door."

The body was found by the newspaper deliveryman. Virgil was the fifth cop there: the two guys on the night patrol had come in first, Big Curly right behind him, because he lived only a mile away, and heard the call on his scanner, and then Stryker and Virgil. Now more cops were showing up, blocking off the yard, waving traffic through on the county highway. Crime scene running a bit late, but expected in the next several minutes.

"Any sign of resistance?"

"No, but that's not a sure thing. We cleared the house and then I got everybody outside, so's not to mess the place up," Stryker said.

Big Curly came over. "I barfed," he said.

"You okay?" Virgil asked.

"I knew them my whole life," Big Curly said. "They lived three doors down when I was growing up. I said hello to Roman or Gloria every day for fifty years."

"Maybe take a seat, get some coffee," Virgil said. "Not much to do until crime scene gets here."

"Okay," Big Curly said. He took a step, then turned, and said, "You know, Jim, Rome liked his guns. That drawer was open on his bedside table. I bet there was a weapon in there. If somebody came in late, while he was asleep, I bet he took his gun to the door with him. The killer might have picked it up."

Stryker nodded and Virgil said, "Good eye."

Curly went away and Virgil said, "You've been assuming that the killer is a guy-male."