Dark of the Moon (virgil flowers) Read online

  "Was it dark?"

  "Probably. We can't nail it down exactly, but they were wearing the clothes that they wore Friday. Russell was still in his golf slacks with a fresh grass stain on the cuff. So, sometime after they got gas at nine-twelve-take them five minutes to get out to the house after paying-and before they'd changed clothes to go to bed."

  "Nobody saw any cars?"

  "No. I think the killer-I feel like it's one guy-came up the Stark River on foot, and then around to the front of the house. If he stayed down in the river cut, in the rain, hell, nobody would see him. A guy who knows his way around could walk downtown, almost, without being seen, on a dark night."

  "So tell me what you think," Virgil said. "Who did it? Who might've done it?"

  Stryker was shaking his head. "I don't know. This is too cold, for around here. There might be guys here who could do it, but it'd be hot. Lots of anger. Then they'd probably turn themselves in, or shoot themselves, or run for it. Or something. So, I don't know. You'll hear that all over town-that I don't know. But nobody else does, either."

  "All right," Virgil said. "Give me the rest of the day to look at the paper, and I'll talk to you tonight. I'll be down at the Holiday, you got my cell number if you need me."

  "Get you that key on the way out," Stryker said. "When you're done with the house, I'll probably let the Gleason kids have it. They want to get it cleaned out and set up for a sale."

  "Nobody's touched it?"

  "We've been through it, but we haven't taken anything out. Everything's like it was, but maybe a little ruffled."

  THE EVIDENCE ROOM was a closet with a fire door and steel sides. Stryker unlocked it, pulled out a basket, sorted through a dozen Ziploc bags, got the key, and handed it to Virgil. They walked along together to the courthouse door, past a guy painting woodwork.

  When they were out of earshot, Stryker said, "Listen, you know how it is in a sheriff's office. Half the guys working for me would like a shot at my job. If they smell a weakness…I'll be in trouble. So. You do what it takes. You need anything from me-anything-you let me know. Any of my people drag their feet, anybody in the courthouse gives you trouble, I want to hear about it."

  "I'll talk to you," Virgil said.

  THEY STEPPED OUTSIDE, into the sunshine. A woman was going by on the sidewalk, fifty feet away, slender, pretty, small features, white-blond hair on her shoulders. Maybe early thirties? He was too far away to be sure, but Virgil thought her eyes might be green. She lifted a hand to Stryker and he lifted one back, and her eyes caught Virgil's for a beat-an extra beat-and then she went along toward the corner.

  "Another thing," Stryker said. "We've got this newspaper here and the editor thinks he's the New York Times. His name is Williamson. He's investigating my investigation, and he says I'm screwing it up. Just a heads-up in case he calls you-and he will."

  Virgil nodded, then said, quietly, "Not to step on your train of thought, there, Jimmy, but look at the ass on that woman. My God, where do the genes come from? I mean, that's an artwork. That's the Venus de Milo, and you're a bunch of goddamned Germans."

  "Yeah," Stryker said, a noncommittal note in his voice.

  Virgil looked at him: "What? She's married to the mayor? You don't even look at her ass?"

  "No, I don't, really," Stryker said. "And she's not married. She's been divorced since February. Folks figure she's about ripe for the pluckin'."

  "Have you asked her out?"

  "Nope," Stryker said.

  They both looked after her as she crossed the street and went on down the sidewalk toward Main. Virgil said, "You're divorced, Jimmy. I know you're not hung up on your ex, because she's in Chicago and you hate her. I mean, I hate her, and I only met her once. So here's the woman with the fourth-best ass in the state of Minnesota, right in your hometown, and not a bad set of cupcakes, either, from what I could see…I mean, pardon me for asking, and not that it matters at all, but you're not queer, or something?"

  Stryker grinned. "Nope."

  The woman tossed her white-blond hair as she stepped up on the far curb, and might have glanced back at them-as all women would, she knew they were talking about her-and then Virgil turned to Stryker, about to continue his analysis of her better points, and noticed that Stryker had precisely the same white-blond hair as the woman; and Stryker had those jade-green eyes.

  A thought crossed Virgil's mind.

  He said, "That's your sister, isn't it?"

  "Yup."

  They both looked down the street, but the woman had disappeared behind a hedge, at a crooked place in the sidewalk. Virgil said, "Listen, Jimmy, that whole thing about her ass and all…"

  "Never mind about that," Stryker said. "Joanie can take care of herself. You just take care of this cocksucker who's killing my people."

  4

  AT THE HOLIDAY INN, Virgil spread the Gleason murder files across the bed and the small desk, isolating names and scratching out a time line on a yellow legal pad.

  The sheriff himself had served as the case manager, with a deputy named Larry Jensen as lead investigator. A woman named Margo Carr was the crime-scene tech, and a variety of other deputies provided backup. The medical examiner was based in Worthington and covered an eight-county area of southwest Minnesota. The pathology looked competent, but didn't reveal much more than the first cop figured out when he got to the scene: four shots, two dead.

  Carr, the crime-scene tech, had recovered all four slugs, but they were so distorted that their use in identifying the weapon would be problematic. The.357 was almost certainly a revolver-Desert Eagle semiautos, made in Israel, were chambered for.357, but that would be a rare specimen out on the prairie. The fact that no brass was found at the scene also suggested a revolver, or a very careful killer.

  A heavy-load.357 was not a particularly pleasant gun to shoot, because of recoil. A lot of samples passed through the hands of lawmen, who were more interested in effect than in pleasant shooting. A.357 would reliably penetrate a door panel on a car, which made them popular with highway patrolmen and sheriffs' deputies, who were often working in car-related crime.

  Something to think about.

  JENSEN AND CARR both mentioned in their reports the possibility that the break-in had been drug related, an attempt to find prescription drugs in the doctor's house. Two aspects militated against the possibility: Gleason had been retired for years, and anybody who had known where to find him would have known that; and Carr had found several tabs of OxyContin in a prescription bottle in a medicine cabinet, left over from a knee-replacement operation on Anna. A junkie would not have missed them.

  Russell Gleason still had a hundred and forty-three dollars in his wallet. Anna had seventy-six dollars in her purse. Junkies wouldn't have missed that, either. The money hadn't been missed, Virgil thought. The killer simply wasn't interested.

  THE COPS HAD INTERVIEWED fifty people in the case, including the housekeeper, and all the neighbors, friends, relatives, business associates, members of the golf club. There were some people who had disliked the Gleasons, but in a small-town way. You might go to a different doctor, or you might have voted against Anna when she was running for the county commission, but you wouldn't shoot them.

  One question popped out at him: why the lights on the body? The body would have been discovered the next morning, at the latest, sitting, as it was, so close to the street. If the killer had left the body in the dark, he'd have been certain of more time to get away. Was it possible that he didn't need more time, that he'd come from very close by?

  VIRGIL GOT A MAP at the front desk and asked the clerk about the Gleason house. The clerk was happy to put an ink dot on its precise location: "You go up this little rise here, and you come around to the right, I think, or is it left? No, right. Anyways, you'll see a mailbox down on the street that says Gleason, and the house is reddish-colored and modern-looking."

  "Thank you."

  "Folks say you're with the BCA," the clerk said. He was young and ginger haired and weathered, and looked a little like Billy the Kid.

  "Yup. We've been asked to look in on the Gleason case, bring a new point of view," Virgil said.

  "Seen anything yet?"

  "Got a couple of things going," Virgil said. He smiled and wrinkled his nose: "Can't talk about them, though. You know, though, you could give me a little help…"

  "Me?"

  "I've had one too many meals here. They're fine, but you know what I mean. Could you recommend another restaurant…?"

  THE PRAIRIE LANDS around Bluestem were not exactly flat; more a collection of tilted planes, with small creeks or farm ditches where the planes intersected, the water lines marked by clumps of willow and cottonwood and wild plum. The creeks and ditches eventually collected into larger streams, usually a snaky line of oxbows cut a few dozen feet deep in the soil; and sometimes into marshes or shallow lakes. Sticking out of the planes were isolated ridges and bumps, with outcrops of red rock, much of the rock covered with green lichen.

  The Gleasons lived on one of the bumps.

  Virgil took a left out of the hotel parking lot, drove five or six blocks north into town, took a right on Main Street through the business district, and headed east. He could see the Gleasons' neighborhood as soon as he turned: straight ahead, a wooded slope, with a hint of glass and shingles. He crossed the murky Stark River and drove up the hill, past a couple of well-kept suburban ranch houses and split-levels, with decks facing west toward the river. Up on top, coming around to the right, he saw the Gleason mailbox right where the motel clerk said it would be.

  The Gleason house was built of redwood and glass, with the requisite deck. He pulled up to the garage door, climbed out, remembered what Davenport told him about going into strange houses without his gun, th
ought, Fuck it, life is too short, and ambled once around the house, looking at it from the outside.

  Nice house.

  Single living level, with a basement, a dozen maple trees on an acre of land, reasonably healthy-looking lawn, a garden shed in a cluster of lilacs at the back. The deck looked both west and south over the river, toward town, and out toward the interstate, a mile away. It'd be pretty at night, Virgil thought, but the way the house sat up high, it'd be colder'n a bitch in the winter. The northwest wind would blow right up into the garage door.

  He could see how somebody could walk in with near-invisibility, especially in a rainstorm. Park on any of the streets near the edge of town, jog across the bridge and drop down into the Stark River cut, and follow it right around to the Gleason house. Climb the bank, a matter of a hundred yards in distance and fifty feet in height, and there you were. Back out the same way. There'd probably be enough light from the houses along the edges of the slope, and coming in from town, that you wouldn't even need a flashlight.

  Huh.

  HE FINISHED his circuit of the house, took the key out of his pocket, unlocked the front door, and stepped inside. The inside smelled like a crime scene: like whatever was used to clean up blood, some kind of enzyme. He stepped into the stillness, to the sense of dustiness, and walked through the entry, past the entrance to the kitchen, into the living room.

  The couch where Anna was shot was in a semicircular niche off the living room, designed as a small theater, and aimed at a wide-screen television. The bullet hole was in the far left back-cushion, next to an end table with a TV remote and several magazines, a crossword-puzzle book, a wood cup with a selection of pens and pencils, and a couple of books. That was, he thought, Anna's regular spot, because Russell's regular spot was in a leather recliner at the other end of the couch, under a reading light. The bloodstain on the seat and back of the couch had been doused with the blood-eating enzyme.

  The other scrubbed-out stain was in the entrance to the dining room. There were three dug-out bullet holes in the carpet. Standing there, in the quiet, Virgil saw how it must have happened. They knew the killer-Anna was comfortable in her regular spot, and hadn't bothered to get up. Russell and the killer had both been standing, and fairly close to each other. The killer pulled the gun, if it wasn't already out, and leaned into Anna and fired once. She hadn't made a move to get off the couch. Russell turned, got three steps, and was shot in the back.

  But they knew the killer, Virgil thought: they must have. Anna was facing the TV, as though she might not even have been part of the conversation. If she'd been ordered to sit down, or forced to sit, she would have been facing into the room, where the killer was; she wouldn't have been facing the TV.

  He quickly checked the end table for any possible effort by Anna to leave something behind-a scribbled name, anything. Felt foolish doing it, but would have felt more foolish if he hadn't, and something was found later. Nothing. The books were a novel by Martha Grimes and a slender volume titled Revelation, which turned out to be, indeed, the book of Revelation.

  Virgil muttered, to nobody but the ghosts, "And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him…"

  HE CHECKED the table by Russell's reading light; nothing interesting. Drifted out of the shooting area, through the rest of the place. A den opened off the dining room, with file cabinets and an older computer. A hallway next to the den led to a big bathroom, but without a tub or shower-the public bath-and three large bedrooms, each with a full bath.

  He walked through the master bedroom, looking, not touching, and into the kitchen. He was in the kitchen when he heard the sound of a vehicle outside. He went back to the front door, and found a sheriff's patrol car stopped behind his, and a deputy looking at his license plate.

  He stepped out on the porch, and the deputy's hand drifted to his hip, and Virgil called, "Virgil Flowers, BCA." Across the way, at the next house down the ridge, he could see a man standing in his backyard, watching them with binoculars.

  The deputy said, "Larry Jensen. I'm the lead investigator for the sheriff."

  Jensen was another of the tall, thin types, burned and dry, sandy hair, slacks and cowboy boots, sunglasses. They shook hands and Jensen asked, "See anything in there?"

  "Nope. I'd like to come back later and go through those file cabinets."

  "You're welcome to…" Jensen turned and waved at the man in the next yard, who waved back. "That's the guy who ratted you out."

  "Too bad he wasn't watching the night the Gleasons were killed," Virgil said.

  "Got that right."

  Jensen was easy enough, took him in the house, told him how he thought the killings must have happened, and his reconstruction jibed with Virgil's. They walked through the rest of the house, including the basement, and on the way back up, Jensen said, "I have the feeling…" He hesitated.

  "Yeah?"

  "I have the feeling that this was something that stewed for a long time. I went through every scrap of business dealings that the Gleasons had in the last ten years, I talked to about every single person that they knew, interviewed the kids and the kids' spouses. I have the feeling that this goes back to something we don't know about. I'm thinking, Russell was a doctor. What if he did something bad to somebody. You know, malpractice. What if back there somewhere, years ago, he killed somebody, or maybe didn't save somebody, a wife or somebody's daddy, and they just stewed and stewed and now they snapped? I mean, Russell dealt with a lot of death in his time-he was the county coroner for years-and what if it goes back to something that just…happened? Like happens to all doctors?"

  Virgil nodded. "That's a whole deep pit…"

  Jensen nodded. "When I worked through it, I decided that it meant everybody in the county would be a suspect. So it's meaningless."

  Virgil said, "I've got a question for you, but I don't want you to take offense."

  "Go ahead."

  "Did your office ever issue.357s? To your deputies?"

  "Yeah, you could of gone all day without asking me that," Jensen said. "We did, but years ago. We went to high-capacity.40s when the FBI did."

  "What happened to the.357s?"

  "That was before my time. As I understand it, guys were allowed to buy them at a discount. Some did, some didn't. Tell you the truth, some went away, we don't know where. Record keeping wasn't what it should have been. This was two sheriffs ago, so it doesn't have anything to do with Jim."

  "But you thought of that," Virgil said.

  "Sure."

  THEY TALKED for another fifteen minutes, and Jensen said that he was looking through medical records at the partnership that had taken over Gleason's practice, and also at the regional hospital. "It's buried back there somewhere. Maybe the same guy killed Bill Judd, if Judd is really dead. He and Gleason were almost exactly the same age, so there's gotta be a tie. Maybe this killer-guy is waiting to go after somebody else, sitting out there thinking about it."

  "Could have gone all day without saying that," Virgil said.

  VIRGIL FOLLOWED JENSEN back into town, cut away when Jensen turned north toward the courthouse. The motel clerk had recommended two lunch spots, Ernhardt's Cafe and Johnnie's Pizza, both on Main Street. Virgil decided Italian might be too much, and checked out Ernhardt's.

  The cafe turned out to be a combination German deli and bakery, cold meat, fresh-baked potato bread, pickles, and sauerkraut. Virgil got a roast beef on rye with rough mustard, a pickle, and a half pound of bright yellow potato salad, and took it to one of the low-backed booths that lined the wall opposite the ordering counter.

  A minute or so after he sat down, the sheriff's sister stepped in, blinked in the dimmer light, said hello to the woman behind the counter, ordered a salad and coffee, spotted Virgil in the back booth and nodded to him. He nodded back, and a moment later, she carried her lunch tray over and slid into the seat on the other side of the booth.

  "Are you going to save Jimmy's job?" she asked.

  She was not perfectly good looking-her eyebrows might have down sloped a little too much, her mouth might have been a quarter-inch too wide-but she was very good-looking, and certainly knew it. She was smiling when she asked her question, but her green eyes were serious.