"Where is he?"

He led her along to the emergency room, where Sanders was waiting with two more deputies, and Sanders saw her and came striding over and took her hand and said, "They're working on him. I can't tell you how he is, yet, but as soon as I know, I'll let you know."

She began getting angry, wanted to know what had happened, and Sanders put an arm around her shoulder and walked her down the hall. Virgil thought that he wasn't bad at that-at taking care of a relative.

THEY WAITED ANOTHER HOUR. Virgil took a call from Ignace, and asked, "When did you start carrying a camera?"

"Pretty neat, huh? It's about the size of your dick, so it's easily concealed. Fully automatic, point-and-shoot. How'd you like the picture?"

"Okay, I guess."

"I'll make you a print," Ignace said. "So, anything happen this morning?"

TWO HOURS AFTER the Deuce went in the operating room, a stocky dark-bearded surgeon came out and said, "We've stabilized things, but he's pretty messed up. We've stopped the worst of the bleeding, but he has multiple shattered bones in his leg and pelvis. He's taken four units of blood. We've got a helicopter coming from Regions Hospital in St. Paul, we're going to lift him out."

"Will he be okay?" Wendy asked.

"He'll need a lot of rehab," the surgeon said. "And, uh, he's not totally out of the woods, yet. He's still in trouble, but we can move him."

THEY GOT MORE DETAILS, and Zoe came through the door, wrapped up Wendy. Half an hour later, the Deuce was rolled out to a waiting helicopter, saline and painkillers flowing into one arm, was loaded aboard, and was gone.

24

VIRGIL, SANDERS, AND JOHN PHILLIPS, the county attorney, met for a few minutes at Phillips's office. "If the blood works out, and with the credit card, and if his old man goes along, we're probably good," Phillips told Virgil. "But we could use a statement from Ashbach, when he recovers enough to give one. You should be right there. Get in there and read him his rights, and then see what he has to say. No big rush to get a public defender with him… wait until he asks."

"I wish I could find that damn.223," Virgil said. "He must have it hidden somewhere around the farm. I'm going to push Wendy and Slibe about it, see if he has a special place out there, in the woods."

"The gun would be the icing on the cake, if we could take a couple of prints off it," Phillips agreed.

VIRGIL CALLED DAVENPORT AGAIN, to fill him in on the meeting, and to impress on him the thinness of the case against the Deuce. "Gotta push that DNA, man. I know we're stacked up, but we need it."

Zoe called and said, "I'm at my house, with Wendy. You better come over here."

WENDY AND ZOE WERE sitting in Zoe's living room, both looking a little apprehensive, when Virgil arrived. The odor of marijuana floated softly through the room, and Virgil said, "Mellowing out, huh?" and Zoe said, "Not exactly," and Wendy said, "You're an asshole."

"I didn't like seeing your brother get shot," Virgil said. The two women were on the couch, side by side, and he sat down opposite, in an armchair. "I don't like seeing anybody get shot. The deputies were worried that if he got back in the trees with his rifle, he could pick them off one at a time."

"They could have just stayed back and waited-they didn't have to shoot him," Wendy said. "He was probably scared to death, with a helicopter coming down on him, and all those boats."

"You were out there?" Virgil asked.

Wendy shook her head and Zoe said, "No, but it's all over the radio. Everybody's talking about it."

Virgil said, "Wendy-I'm sorry."

Zoe: "Wendy: tell him."

Wendy started to cry. "Ah, God," she said, "this is so awful."

Virgil: "Tell me what?"

Wendy looked at Zoe, who nodded, and turned back to Virgil and said, "I don't think the Deuce did it. I think my dad did."

After a moment, Virgil asked, "Why do you think that?"

She said, "The day Erica got killed… I left out of there early in the morning, but I was feeling really up about everything. Excited about what we might do. We were recording at the Schoolhouse that afternoon, and the night before she seemed really into it. How we did that. How it all worked. So I thought, maybe I'd run by and invite her to come down and sit in. We took a dinner break and I ran out to the Eagle Nest."

"What time was this?" Virgil asked.

"Six-thirty, or so."

"You didn't see her?"

"No. She wasn't there. Her car was, but she was out somewhere, I didn't know where. Probably, I guess, she was already paddling down to see the eagles."

"Okay."

"Anyway, we had the session going, so I had to get back. When I came out of the lodge driveway, I thought I saw Dad's pickup going by. On the road. I went out after him, but the truck was really going fast, and I never did catch it. But it looked like his."

Virgil looked at her for a minute: "That's it?"

She turned to Zoe again, who said, "Better tell him the rest."

"What?"

Wendy was reluctant, but she said, "The next morning, I heard from Cat, who heard from a deputy, that Erica had been killed down in that pond, and that people were waiting for the state cops to come. I freaked out. I mean, I really freaked. I got in my car and I drove out there, and parked up in one of those driveways. I could see where somebody had walked back through those weeds so I went through and looked out on the lake and saw the boats… about a billion mosquitoes… so I watched them for a minute and then I snuck back to my car and took off. I was really scared."

Virgil rubbed his face with his hands. "Ah, man. What kind of shoes were you wearing?"

"Mephistos. Zoe told me that night that you were looking for Mephistos. I didn't want to throw them away, because they cost more than any shoes I ever had, so I hid them at the Schoolhouse in my equipment box."

"You told me I could talk about it," Zoe said to Virgil.

"Yes, I did," Virgil said.

"One more thing," Zoe said. She glanced at Wendy, then said, "The band was working on a song on Tuesday afternoon… Slibe came looking for Wendy. McDill was there. Wendy got Slibe to order some pizzas, and they all sat around and ate them."

"Yeah."

"And Erica talked about the eagles, and about going down to the pond," Wendy said, finishing for Zoe.

"Oh, boy." They all sat around and Virgil thought he might've taken a toke or two himself, if it'd been offered. He said, finally, "You thought it was his truck. But you're not sure."

"I… you know how you see a truck, and they're all the same, but you know your friend's truck, the way he drives it, something about it? I thought it was Dad's. I was driving up to the road, and I thought, What's he doing here?"

ANOTHER SPACE, and Virgil said, "All right, Wendy. Constance Lifry was killed, Erica was killed, Jud Windrow's disappeared, and I think he's probably dead. All those seem to be connected to the band. But what about Washington?"

"I have no idea," Wendy said.

"Did the Deuce know Washington?"

"Not as far as I know. He doesn't really eat candy."

"How about your father?" Virgil asked.

"Same thing, I guess. I mean, she isn't friends with any of us."

"So why… I mean, if the Deuce is nuts, maybe he'd shoot Washington because he liked doing it. Because it was like hunting. He got a taste for it. But I don't see your old man like that. He seems too… tight."

"I don't know. I just don't know," she said. "It doesn't make any sense."

ZOE ASKED WENDY, "If it was your father, if he killed all those people, why'd he do it? To keep you close?"

Wendy nodded. "The only people my dad ever loved was my mom and me. And the Deuce, I guess. He's told me that a hundred times. When she left, it almost killed him. He says I act just like her."