"In the back, the bullet exited outa her-"

"No, no, where in Minnesota?"

"Oh-right outside town. Outside Grand Rapids. The thing is, since we were still working here, the sheriff asked us to go out and take a look. We came up with one, single.223 shell, fired from a sniper's nest. And I'll tell you what, Virgil-it's going to take the lab to tell us for sure, but I will kiss your ass in Macy's front window if it didn't come out of the same gun as killed McDill."

Virgil didn't react immediately; let it percolate down through the lobes of his prefrontal cortex. Then he said, "Shit."

"Yeah."

"Is the woman dead?" Virgil asked.

"No, she isn't. She's hanging on," Mapes said. "Not talking, but hanging on, and they say that she's got a good possibility of making it, though she's lost most of one kidney and her spleen."

"I gotta get up there."

"See ya," Mapes said.

HE TOLD BAUER ABOUT IT, and she asked, "What does this mean?"

"I don't know," Virgil said. "I'll call you and tell you, when I find out."

HE GOT TO THE AIRPORT before Wayne, and called Sanders, the sheriff, who was driving back toward Grand Rapids from Bigfork, where he'd been looking for Little Linda, and asked, "How is Washington connected to the Eagle Nest?"

"As far as I can tell, she's not," Sanders said. "Her husband said neither one of them has ever been there."

"Her husband-so she's not gay?" Virgil asked.

"Not gay or bi, either one," Sanders said. "At least, that's what I believe, from knowing each other all our lives."

"Does she know Wendy?"

"Probably. Most people do. I asked James-he's the husband-and he said they don't know her well. Know her to see her on the street. They don't go to the Goose."

"Gotta be something there," Virgil said. "This shooting is different enough that if we can see the connection, we'll know who did it."

"We'll ask her when she wakes up," Sanders said. "The thing I thought was, if she was shot because she knows something about all this, and she lived, maybe the guy'll try again. So I got three people around her. They'll stay long as it takes."

"Good idea, man. Listen, I'm heading that way. Talk to you in the morning," Virgil said.

HE GOT UP IN THE AIR with Wayne, called Davenport, filled him in, and took a call from Zoe: "Have you heard?" she asked.

"Yeah, I heard. How did you hear?"

"Everybody in town knows," Zoe said. "There were only about ten deputies out there, and they're blabbing all over the place. They say your crime-scene crew said it's the same guy who shot Erica."

"Could be. Damnit. You know anything about this woman?"

"Works in a candy store. She's more Sig's age than mine, but she seemed nice enough. Her husband works at the golf course, and they organized a deal to put some cross-country ski tracks around the course in the winter, and Jan raised the money for a tracking machine. She just seems… nice."

"Is she part of the gay community up there?"

"Oh, God, no. And I'd know. Nope. She was not-is not," Zoe said.

"Maybe I'll stop by Sig's when I get up there. Think she'd know any more?" Virgil asked.

"No, but I wouldn't doubt that she'd like to tell you what she knows."

She said it with a little snap, and Virgil thought, Uh-oh. And didn't pursue it. "Okay. Well, see you up there. Probably coming in late."

THEY WERE BACK in St. Paul before dark, landing into the setting sun, the prop beating through the pulsing orange starfire as they touched down. Virgil thanked Wayne, threw his bag in his truck, and drove over to the BCA headquarters on Maryland Avenue, climbed the stairs and walked back to Davenport's office, checked his secretary's desk. A file folder sat squarely in the middle of the work space, and Virgil was scrawled across the folder with a Sharpie.

He opened it and found a single piece of paper, with a name, Barbara Carson, and an address in Grand Rapids, attached to the number that had been called once. The other number, which Constance had called three times, was for the Eagle Nest.

On the way out the door, he ran into the BCA's resident thugs, Jenkins and Shrake, coming through the door. They were both big guys, in sharp suits and thick-soled shoes, whose faces had been broken a few times. Jenkins said, "It's that fuckin' Flowers."

Shrake asked, "Has he got on one of those fruity musical shirts?"

Jenkins looked at it and said, "Hard to tell. It says, 'Breeders.' "

Shrake: "Christ, if he's breeding, now, we gotta find a way to stop it."

Jenkins: "I read your stories in The New York Times, and I was wondering, could I have your autograph?"

"Envy is a sad thing to see," Virgil said. "But I suppose my proximity might bring a little joy into your humble lives."

"Weren't you dating a little Joy a couple of years ago? Played sandlot beach-ball bingo or some shit?" Jenkins asked.

"She was a professional beach volleyball player and was highly skilled," Virgil said. "And her name was June, not Joy."

"I believe the skilled part," Jenkins said. "She looked like she had all sorts of skills."

"A maestro on the skin flute," Shrake said.

"The old pink piccolo," Jenkins added.

Shrake asked, "So what's happening up north? You figure it out?"

"It's a little nuts," Virgil said. He gave them a quick outline of the situation, and they all drifted over to a snack machine behind the atrium and rattled some coins through it, dropping out bags of corn chips. Virgil realized he hadn't eaten since lunch, and was close to starvation.

When he finished telling them about the two shootings, Shrake said, "You know, you're right. It is nuts. You've got a nut. One of your problems is, none of this other stuff-the lesbians, the resort, the band, Wendy-might have anything to do with it. Even the murder down in Iowa. It might just be some weird high school kid with a rifle, getting his rocks off."

Jenkins said, "The first woman who got shot, in the canoe-shooting her like that was pretty unprofessional, you know? If he's four inches off at eighty or ninety or a hundred yards, on a moving target, he misses clean, and she's over the side and under water. He could have shot her in the chest, which is twice as big a target. So the thing is, he was either showing off, or… well, there isn't an or. He's proud of himself. Proud of his ability to do that."

"So why'd he shoot the other woman in the back?" Virgil asked. Something was tickling at the back of his brain, a thought, but he couldn't catch it.

"We don't know, but I bet there's a reason. Bet the shot was longer. You said she was riding a bike. If she was moving fast, and it was a long shot-that might have been one hell of a shot," Jenkins said. "Not moving, between the eyes, eighty yards, is an easier shot than hitting something that's moving fast, bouncing maybe, at two hundred yards. We need to know how far away he was…"

"So you think he's a shooter. A marksman."

"He thinks he is," Jenkins said. "Or he's like Lee Harvey Oswald-he's trying to prove something."

VIRGIL HAD BEEN LEANING against a wall, and now he straightened and said, "I've got to get my ass back up there."

"She out in the car?" Shrake asked.

"Who?"

"Your ass," Shrake said, and he and Jenkins faked laughs and bumped knuckles.

"Listen, boys, if I get to the point where I need to beat the answers out of somebody, I'll give you a call," Virgil said.

"Always happy to protect and serve," Jenkins said.

Virgil left, still trying to catch the thought that the two thugs had stirred up; still didn't catch it, but it was back there, and felt like it did when he went to the supermarket and forgot to buy the radicchio.

A thought that itched.

VIRGIL HEADED NORTH, up I-35, stopped more or less halfway at a diner called Tobie's. Hungry as he was, he didn't feel like diner meat, so he got a piece of blueberry pie and a cup of coffee, pushed on, north and then west, and pulled into his motel in Grand Rapids at ten minutes after ten. He carried his bag up to his room, and found the phone blinking. A message from Signy: "I talked to Zoe a minute ago and she thought you might have a question for me, about Jan Washington. I'm always up until midnight, so come on over if you want."