“They’re better skinheads, Jim . . . You know, you’re making me tired,” Marie said.
Button took the chair vacated by the tattoo lady and leaned toward Marie, who was dabbing the ointment on her earlobes. “You’re not listening, Marie. If we pull this off, we could all move to Texas, where, you know, they’d treat us right.”
“So tell me what you thought up,” she said. And then: “Hey! Hey! Did you eat all the Cheez-Its? Goddamnit, those were mine. I was saving them . . .”
The sound of wheels coming off.
* * *
—
Twelve hours later, Wardell Holland pushed through the curtain into the back room at Skinner & Holland, where he found Virgil, Jenkins, and Skinner sitting around the card table, Virgil and Jenkins finishing off potpies.
He held up the letter, and said, “You guys won’t believe this.”
“I don’t believe I ate another potpie, so that’ll be two things I don’t believe,” Jenkins said.
Virgil: “What is it?”
“You might want to handle it carefully in case there are fingerprints,” Holland said. He handed Virgil the envelope, and Virgil opened it, shook out a sheet of wide-lined notebook paper, and used a clean paper napkin to unfold it. A message was written in purple ink:
To who it may concern (Agent Flowers):
We know who the killer is. We were talking to Lawrance Van Den Berg about the killer before Lawrance (Larry) was killed and he told us who it was. We didn’t believe him (because you would never think of that name), but when he got killed, that proved it. We are afraid but we will tell you who it is if you give us the reward (up front). Put $10,000 in a secure envelope (not a letter envelope like this one) and wait for our phone call to tell you where to leave the money ($10,000 in Small Bills like 20s). We don’t know how to call Agent Flowers, so we will call Wardell at the store and he can tell Agent Flowers. We will call soon.
* * *
—
Virgil looked at the envelope, and said, “No stamp.”
“Somebody left it in my mailbox last night,” Holland said. “I heard a car stop outside, but then it drove away. Maybe . . . two o’clock? I didn’t look at what time it was.”
Jenkins and Skinner had read the letter over Virgil’s shoulder, and Skinner said, “Sounds like the Nazis.”
“That’s what I thought,” Holland said.
“Do they have anything to do with Van Den Berg?” Virgil asked.
“Not as far as I know,” Holland said, and Skinner shook his head, and said, “Don’t think so.”
Virgil turned the letter over, but there was nothing else except a small yellow smudge at the bottom of the page. “Looks like whoever it is, they were eating Cheetos.”
“Cheez-Its,” Skinner said. “There’s a subtle difference in the yellow grease, as you’d know if you worked in the store.”
“What do you think?” Jenkins asked Virgil.
“I’ll bag the letter, but they’d have to be dumber than the Nazis to have left any fingerprints on it,” Virgil said. “I suppose we could drive out and ask them if they’re the ones behind it, but I doubt they’d admit it.”
“There’s always the chance that they’re not the guilty ones,” Skinner said.
“There’s that,” Virgil said.
He carefully slipped the letter back into the envelope, and said to Wardell, “Let us know the minute they call. If they’re on a cell phone, we can probably track the call.”
* * *
—
Virgil and Jenkins went out to Virgil’s Tahoe, and Jenkins said, “I’m going to suggest something you might not want to hear.”
“Lay it on me. I’m hurting for help.”
“Wardell Holland and J. J. Skinner. Holland’s a combat vet. Probable history of killing people. Claims to have been in the store for one of the shootings, but do we know that for sure? He’d only have to sneak out for a minute.”
“He was with a woman when Van Den Berg . . .”
Jenkins shook a finger at him. “He told you he was with the woman until about midnight. Van Den Berg was moving a little after eleven o’clock. Suppose he set his clock forward an hour, the woman thinks she left around midnight. It’s hard to keep track of time when you’re getting your brains banged loose.”
Virgil: “Wardell was in the store talking to me when Osborne was shot.”
“But where was Skinner?”
“Thin,” Virgil said. “Very, very slender.”
“Maybe, but consider this: they’re huge beneficiaries of the apparitions.”
“Which is where you lose the motive,” Virgil said. “Why would he want to shut down the church?”
“Wait, let me finish. He’s not closing down the church permanently, he’s only closed it down temporarily,” Jenkins said. “Suppose Margery Osborne was going to close it permanently?”
“Like . . . how?”
“From what everybody says, she went to church all the time. She was on the church council, came back from Florida after the apparitions, stayed all winter. Now, I gotta confess, I don’t go for all this Virgin Mary magic show horse manure. I think it’s a shuck. What if Holland, or Holland and Skinner together, set up the whole thing somehow?”
“I might have visited Janet Fischer’s home when she wasn’t there,” Virgil said. “And . . . You’ll keep this strictly confidential . . .”
“Of course. I’d never rat out a colleague on a righteous burglary,” Jenkins said.
“I think I found the Virgin Mary costume under her mattress.”
“Think?”
“Ninety-five percent anyway.”
“So, there we are,” Jenkins said. “She also works at the store, making the big bucks. Big bucks for this town. Skinner, Holland, and Fischer set up the shuck. Osborne finds out about it. Thinks she’s figured out how it was done and lets it slip to one of those three. Holland knows where he can get the gun he needs and he kills to get it. He then shoots two innocent people to set up the real target, Margery Osborne. Then Van Den Berg gets some semblance of the truth out of Fischer and threatens to expose them. Holland kills him. Then he goes after you with a bow . . . wearing combat gear and showing some real nighttime combat mojo. Cold as ice, nails Shrake—who has a gun, for Christ’s sakes.”
After a moment, Virgil said, “That’s well thought out, but I don’t believe it.”
“Why?”
“Because Wardell’s a good guy, and I like him,” Virgil said. “So’s Skinner.”
Jenkins nodded. “That’s a problem, and that’s why I said you might not want to hear it.”
“Holland’s working all day,” Virgil said.
“True.”
“His trailer’s out on the edge of town . . . You could drop me,” Virgil said.
“It’s a risk. And you don’t have a key.”
“There’s no trailer on the face of the earth that I can’t get into with my butter knife,” Virgil said. “Even if I got caught, if I explained it right, I don’t think he’d turn me in.”
“I could watch him, tell you if he’s leaving the store.”
* * *
—
They cruised the trailer once and decided on a diversion. Jenkins would drive and would stop close to the front of the trailer. Virgil would get out of the backseat on the same side. Jenkins would go to the front door while Virgil slipped around the side to the back door. There were no other houses looking at that side, or the back, either. Jenkins would get in the truck and drive away when there was no answer at the front door.
Should work.
Jenkins dropped him, and Virgil tried to stay in the shadows until he got around to the side. He didn’t need his butter knife to get into the trailer because the back door wasn’t locked. He was inside ten seconds after Jenkins drove off.
The trailer smelled like microwaved everything—tacos, burritos, pasta, pizza, oatmeal—anything you could jam in a microwave. Even a few potpies. Holland was not the neatest man, nor the messiest.