“Hey, Harry, come on in,” Virgil said. To the others, “Sorry, guys, but you’ll have to go.”
Holland led Skinner and Fischer out through the drapes that separated the back room from the store, but Virgil didn’t hear the front door close. They were all listening from the other side of the curtain, but he didn’t care as long as he could testify that nobody but himself, Jenkins, and Harry Scorese were in the room, should anybody ask.
Virgil asked Scorese, “So . . . what?”
“I put them to bed. I guess they’re early to rise. Anyway, it’s interesting listening,” Scorese said. “We do have to get in there tomorrow and retrieve my mics.”
“Bottom line?” Jenkins said.
“You got them, cold,” Scorese said. “They were both involved.”
“You were right,” Jenkins said to Virgil.
Virgil said, “I hope you got the good stuff.”
“I did,” Scorese said.
He set his recorder on the table, along with a hand-sized speaker, and started pushing buttons.
* * *
—
Davy Apel: “What do you think?”
Ann Apel: “We’re okay, any way they cut it. No way they’re going to charge us, with our alibis stacked up like that. If they did charge us, they’d never convict. I’d like to move the rifle, but they could be watching. We should wait a few days.”
Davy Apel: “I’m still worried about the cartridge. I can’t figure out why they didn’t print us. They had that warrant.”
Ann Apel: “You know what I think? I think they were playing us. I don’t think they’ve got a fingerprint. We were awful careful.”
Davy Apel: “I thought about that, too. But they better not have a print, because I don’t know how we’d beat that.”
* * *
—
Here’s another good one,” Scorese said, looking at a digital counter on the recorder. More buttons.
* * *
—
Ann Apel: “How long before we can get our money?”
Davy Apel: “If Margery’s will is read in Florida, I don’t know how long that’ll take. But I think we submit our loan papers up here—I think the money has to be passed from Margery’s estate to Barry’s estate, and we submit to Barry’s estate. We need to get a lawyer involved, but I’m thinking six months, even a year?”
Ann Apel: “Stupid loan. I don’t know what the heck we were thinking.”
Davy Apel: “We were flush with the money from your mom, and it sounded like a great idea . . . lots of traffic and all. Shoulda worked.”
* * *
—
And another,” Scorese said.
* * *
—
Ann Apel: “I’m not sure it was necessary to kill Barry. That could be our biggest problem.”
Davy Apel: “Maybe I panicked. But he was looking at me weird, and . . . I don’t know . . . I think he would have said something to Flowers. If he had, then Flowers could have snuck up on us, somehow. Could have used Barry against us.”
Ann Apel: “But if not for Barry, the cops would never have talked to us.”
Davy Apel: “They would have, sooner or later. When they spotted the interest payments. You know what we could have done is, we could have gone to Margery, and said, ‘Look, Barry owes us almost a quarter million, and we need the money. Help us out.’ I think she might have. Then . . . I feel kinda bad about Glen. Not too bad, since you were fuckin’ him.”
Ann Apel: “I don’t wanna hear—”
Davy Apel: “I’ll tell you one thing. We’re gonna have an amicable divorce, split fifty-fifty. I won’t take a penny less. And I don’t want to hear you sneaking around the house at night or you could get shot as a burglar.”
Ann Apel: “Fuck you, David. You better stay away from my end of the house or you’ll get the same thing that Glen did. I’ve still got that old Woodsman under the bed, and I’m carrying it during the day.”
Davy Apel: “Well, fuck you back, bitch . . .”
* * *
—
One more,” Scorese said.
* * *
—
Davy Apel: “I hope to hell you didn’t touch that grille with your bare hands. Flowers said something about bringing a DNA guy down.”
Ann Apel: “I had Tom Benson’s old work gloves on, when I climbed up and down, and I didn’t touch anything with my bare hands except the rifle. I hope you didn’t—you’re as clumsy as a circus clown. But, both our DNA is all over the machine, since we work with it every day. I don’t think that’s a problem.”
* * *
—
There are some more bits and pieces, but those are the best ones,” Scorese said. He looked pleased with himself.
* * *
—
It’s more than enough,” Jenkins said. “It sounded like they were all over the house. How many bugs did you stick in there anyway?”
“Eighteen. We could have recorded a rock ’n’ roll record,” Scorese said. “I got one in the bathroom, Ann Apel took a leak that must have gone on for five minutes.”
“Can’t wait to hear that one,” Virgil said. And, “I’ll call Zimmer.”
“Take them tonight?” Jenkins asked.
“Why not,” Virgil said. “They’ll be tired and disoriented. We’ll separate them, see if we can get them talking about who did what.”
* * *
—
Scorese traveled in a van full of electronic equipment and didn’t like to leave it where somebody might break into it. “The recordings are digital. I’ll ship everything back to the office tonight and leave a thumb drive copy for you guys, and a copy of the warrant, and I’ll keep the originals. If we can get this done early enough, I might pull my mics and drive back tonight.”
“Don’t run off the highway and kill yourself,” Virgil said. “We’ll need your testimony.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Scorese said.
Virgil had been looking past Scorese’s head, and he saw the curtain between the store and the back room twitch. To Scorese he said, “Listen, one more question. Suppose somebody made a recording of a person speaking but nobody knew whether it was an actual person speaking or another recording. Could a guy like you tell which it was? A recording or a natural voice?”
Scorese said, “Maybe. If the original voice recording was good enough and there wasn’t much ambient noise between the second recorder and the first one . . . and if the acoustics were good.”
“What if none of that was good? Bad acoustics, recordings done with iPhones, people screaming?”
“Not a chance,” Scorese said.
* * *
—
Holland stuck his head through the curtain, and said, “We were out here working on inventory, but I couldn’t help overhearing some of that.”
“There’s a surprise,” Jenkins said.
“So, what are we doing?” Skinner edged through the drapes, behind Holland, and Fischer poked her head out behind Skinner.
“Who are these people?” Scorese asked.
“Store owners. All three of them. Potpie pushers,” Jenkins said.
“At the very most, you’re going to spectate,” Virgil said to Holland, Skinner, and Fischer. “We’ll get some deputies down here to help with the arrests. I don’t want you around before we actually go into the house and grab them. When we’ve got them, you could stand out on the lawn and watch.”
“How’d you figure this out?” Skinner asked.
“Jenkins kept saying the circumstantial evidence against them was too good, and he was right,” Virgil said.
“Of course I was,” Jenkins said.
“There was a case in California last year that failed because there were two possible suspects, both claimed to be innocent, both blamed the other guy, and the juries couldn’t manage to convict either one. Once they were acquitted, they couldn’t be tried again. This one felt like that. I bet they read that story when they were working this out. Anyway, if both the Apels had separate alibis and they did it, then it had to be both of them. When you look at their alibis, they never both had an alibi for the same shooting. One was always available to shoot.”
“That’s one of the coolest things I ever heard,” Holland said. “Let’s call the cops.”
* * *
—
Zimmer was in bed but said he’d be in Wheatfield in half an hour. “Hot dog! It’s about time. How many deputies do you want? I got five on the road right now.”
“Five would be good,” Virgil said.
* * *