“I was told this by the girlfriend, so maybe she would,” Virgil said. “She could use the money.”
“Probably. But since she’d be dealing with the weasels from an insurance company, I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Wood said. “In the meantime: details.”
Virgil told him the whole story, and Wood said, “What? They’re down here in Iowa?”
“Barely, I think. They’re not actually in Armstrong; they’re a few miles north of town. You don’t have to go very far north before you’re out of Iowa and into Minnesota. The guy who found them, who is fairly smart, says they’re in Iowa.”
“I’ve been in Armstrong,” Wood said. “The high school’s on the north side of town, right as you’d be coming in. You can’t miss it. Why don’t you come on down around ten o’clock, we’ll meet in the parking lot?”
“That’s good. The guy’ll make bail between nine and ten, and if he’s going to move the truck, he’ll have to pick up his tractor unit. We can watch his brother’s place until he shows and grab both of them. I’d sorta like to see this guy get some time.”
“Ten o’clock, then,” Wood said. “By the way, Jack Carey told me this morning that you’d been seen in Wheatfield and that shortly after you arrived a woman got murdered.”
“You shouldn’t draw any conclusions from that, about me being a curse, or anything, but yeah, that’s basically what happened,” Virgil said.
* * *
—
Virgil had pulled back onto Main Street when his phone buzzed again: Jenkins, another BCA investigator.
“Where are you?” Virgil asked. “Is Shrake with you?”
“He’s about a hundred yards back,” Jenkins said. “We thought two cars would be handy. We’re on I-90, going past Blue Earth. See you in a half hour or so.”
“Glad to have you. We’ve got some boring stuff to do today.”
“That’s great. I Iove boring stuff. So does Shrake. Any nice-looking women in Wheatfield?”
“Well, as you know, there’s the Virgin Mary,” Virgil said. “If she knows you’re coming . . . But, of course, she would.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where do you want to hook up?” Jenkins asked.
“About fifteen miles past Wheatfield,” Virgil said. “You got your iPad?”
“Does the Tin Man have a sheet metal cock?”
“I assume that means yes,” Virgil said. “Let me give you the address. It’s out in the countryside.”
* * *
—
Bea Sawyer, the crime scene specialist, had hidden the key to Glen Andorra’s house, wrapped in a plastic baggie, beneath a brick by the mailbox. Virgil retrieved it, went into the house. The odor of death still lingered, but not with the choking virulence of Virgil’s first visit; the Vicks wouldn’t be necessary.
Sawyer’s partner had duplicated the hard drive on Andorra’s Dell laptop for further examination at BCA headquarters. The password had been “ppasswordd,” and Virgil turned the computer on, entered it, and searched for “range.”
He found a long series of emails and several WordPad documents, including one that was a list of range members, with their addresses, phone numbers, and emails. He printed out the list, which turned out to be twenty-four pages long, then scanned through the last hundred or so emails, where he found nothing of interest.
He remembered what Bud Dexter, Andorra’s shooting friend, had said about Andorra getting a new showerhead. He climbed the stairs to the main bathroom, where he found what looked like a new showerhead in the stall and, in the wastebasket, the package it had come in. Maybe Andorra never emptied the basket, but it seemed more likely that he’d been killed shortly after Dexter had spoken to him on the range.
As he was walking back down the stairs, a civilian Crown Vic that dated back to 2011 pulled into the driveway, followed by a Ford Explorer. Jenkins got out of the Crown Vic, waited for Shrake to catch up. They were both large men, somewhat battered, who wore too-sharp gray suits and high-polish steel-toed dress shoes.
Virgil went to the door and let them in, and Shrake wrinkled his nose, and asked, “You got something in the oven?”
“Guy was dead here for a couple of weeks,” Virgil said. “Anyway, we need to interview a bunch of people. We’re looking for a good marksman who knew Glen Andorra. Andorra was the dead guy here—”
Jenkins interrupted. “We got a briefing from Jon before we came down. He told us you’d screwed up the investigation, as usual, and were looking for a couple of pros to figure it out for you. We know about Andorra and Osborne and the two wounded victims, and that you can’t figure out why nobody could hear the gunshots—”
“Figured that one out,” Virgil said.
He brought them up to date, including the fact that they were back to square one. “We’ve got some legwork to do. I’d be willing to bet that the shooter was a regular out here and knew Andorra well enough to be invited to his house and allowed to walk around, out of sight, while Andorra sat in his easy chair. The range has something like a hundred and eighty members. I don’t think we need to interview all of them; I think we can talk to a couple of dozen, at random, and get some pointers to the real possibilities.”
He divided up the list of range members, taking eight pages himself and giving eight more each to Shrake and Jenkins, and added, “We’ll want to spot these addresses on our mapping software so we can work through clusters of people instead of running all over the place.”
“Good,” Jenkins said. “Let me get my iPad. Does this place have WiFi?”
It did.
* * *
—
Shrake found Marlin Brown crawling around his freshly tilled garden plot, following a yellow string across the ground, his nose about two inches from the dirt. He was a compact man, wearing compact coveralls with plastic knee protectors. Shrake watched him, puzzled, then called, “Mr. Brown?”
Brown looked up. He had dirt on his nose. “Hi.”
“I’m with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’d like to speak to you for a moment.”
Brown stepped carefully out of the garden plot, and Shrake asked, “What the heck are you doing?”
Brown said, “Planting radishes.” He held out a cupped palm.
“Really.” Shrake peered into Brown’s hand, which contained perhaps a hundred reddish gray spheres smaller than BBs.
“Cherry Belle Organics,” Brown said. “I’m a little late getting them in, but it’s been cool.”
“Those’ll turn into radishes?”
“Not a gardener, huh?”
“I once grew a marigold,” Shrake said. “It died and made me sad.”
“That’s life on the farm,” Brown said. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”
Brown went to Andorra’s range to shoot his shotgun and didn’t know much about the rifle guys. He did have some names of people whom he’d seen shooting rifles, and Shrake made notes on his list. “This is shotgun country down here,” Brown said. “Not much call for high-powered rifles.”
* * *
—
Dick Howell was a rural route mail carrier. When Jenkins pulled into his driveway, he found Howell’s girlfriend unloading groceries from her car. Jenkins was aware that country women, when alone, were nervous about large men in suits showing up unexpectedly, so when he climbed out of his car, he stood next to the car door, and called, “I’m an agent with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Is Mr. Howell here?”
“He’s out carrying his route,” she called back. Jenkins had seen her relax, so he took his ID out of his coat pocket and walked up to her, showed her the ID, and asked, “Do you know where he might be?”
“I can call him and ask,” she said.
She did, and Jenkins caught Howell as he waited in a turnout by a bridge over a wide creek; he was sitting on the railing, looking down at the water.
Jenkins introduced himself, and asked, “Any fish in there?”
“Nothing you’d want to eat, I don’t believe,” Howell said. He was chewing tobacco, and he hocked a wad into the creek.
Jenkins thought, Not now anyway, but didn’t say it. Instead, he said, “I’m looking for information about target shooters over at Glen Andorra’s range.”