"Maybe she decided to stop and do some shopping-"
"That's not the way I see it," Baker said. "For one thing, it was later in the afternoon by that time, and she was picking up beef for dinner. Len likes his dinner at five o'clock sharp, so she would have gone straight to the locker, and then home."
"But you said she wasn't in a hurry when she left," Bill Clinton said.
"She wasn't. She had time, but she had to move along."
"Maybe she was in a little bit of a hurry," Luanne Baker said. "But she wasn't in a rush or anything."
"Let me ask you about the church," Virgil began.
John Baker interrupted: "What religion are you?"
Virgil evaded a direct answer: "My father's a Lutheran minister. Over in Marshall." He paused, then asked, "Is it possible that Kelly was meeting, or was flagged down by, members of the church? Why would she stop for strangers, or go with strangers?"
"Because we do that around here," John Baker said. "If somebody has a problem, we don't expect them to be crazy killers. We stop and help out."
"That's nice," Bill Clinton said. He fished a piece of Dentyne gum from his shirt pocket, unwrapped it with one hand, and popped it in his mouth. "But I thought you were standoffish."
"That's what people say, but we help as much as anybody," John Baker said. "We're just private in our beliefs. This whole country is dying from a lack of good morals and proper behavior, and we don't want no part of it. We keep ourselves out of it, and we keep our children out of it, and we tend our farms."
"You don't know any church members who might have run off the tracks, or had a reputation for being a little wild…?"
"It's not the church," John Baker said. "It's not. You're barking up the wrong tree. You know who killed Jake Flood. That boy is the one who did it-he's the devil. He's the devil in this. I heard that you think Jim Crocker killed him, and maybe he did, but if he did, it was because that boy attacked him. I think Jake found out something, and the boy killed him, and then maybe Jim asked him something, and he went after Jim-"
"Then Jim was murdered-" Virgil said.
"By the accomplices," John Baker said. "It's as plain as the nose on your face."
Virgil pushed them on the church, but got nowhere. A bit of history: the church members had been a branch of a fundamentalist movement in Germany that began in the 1830s, and had immigrated en masse to the U.S. in the 1880s. After arriving here, the group split up. Most of the various branches had eventually merged with other churches and movements around the Midwest and, finally, except for the Minnesota branch, had disappeared.
"We're the last of them," John Baker said. "The last who know the old ways."
They talked for a while longer, but got no useful information-Kelly Baker had arrived, had sat in the kitchen and chatted, had looked at a Christian computer game with the children, and had left, moving quickly but not rushed, to go to the locker. That was all. Back in the car, they rolled out the driveway, and Virgil asked Bill Clinton, "What do you think?"
"Not much," he said. "That thing about the Muslim medical examiner…"
"You see that a bit out here. People have ideas about Muslims and Jews," Virgil said.
"Yeah, but… not like that. Not like some giant conspiracy," Clinton said. "Then there was that whole thing about morals and good behavior. I'm not sure exactly… I'd like to know what their definition of 'moral' is. I mean, you smell that place?"
"You mean the soup? It smelled pretty good."
"I mean the smoke. The dope. The spliff, the ganj. As these good Germans would say, the dank."
Virgil put a hand to his forehead and rubbed. "That's what it was. I was thinking it was some kind of herb in the soup."
"It is some kind of herb, but I don't think it was in the soup," Clinton said. "I think it was in the curtains and the couch and the rugs. I think she was cooking up that soup to cover the odor. Those people are Christian fundamentalist stoners. I was sitting there grinning the whole time, listening to them. They were totally full of shit… depending on how you define 'moral.'"
"What is it with these guys?" Virgil asked. "These church people… I talked to one today who was carrying a gun in her pocket. I think some of them know a lot more about Kelly Baker than they're saying. I think-"
"I'll tell you what it is," Bill Clinton said. "What it is, is, something is seriously fucked. I wish you luck in detecting what it is."
10
Virgil called Coakley, who suggested that they meet at the Holiday Inn restaurant, away from the office and "not at the cafe, where half the town is, waiting for you to show up."
"Works for me," Virgil said. "I'll see you in twenty."
Most sheriffs in Minnesota wore uniforms; a few didn't. Virgil hadn't seen Coakley in a uniform until she showed up at the Holiday Inn. When she took her parka off, she was wearing a star and had a pistol on her hip.
Virgil had gotten to the restaurant a couple of minutes earlier, and already had a booth. When she came up, he said, "You look like a cop."
"Feels weird, wearing a uniform," she said. "I wore one for five years before I became an investigator, and never did like it. But since I was working with the girls today…"
"Show some solidarity," Virgil said. "They come up with anything?"
"Nothing that we didn't know. Crocker and Jacob Flood were close. They all belong to a fundamentalist church that goes back to the Old Country, meaning Germany. They homeschool their kids, church services move around from one home to another."
"Services are held in barns," Virgil said.
"Nobody seems to know much about the religion, except that it's conservative," Coakley said. "They're all farmers, or come from farm families. Some people say they're standoffish, but other people say they know members of the church who work in town and are like anyone else. Which sounds like Crocker."
A waiter came up, and they ordered hamburgers and fries, and Coakley got coffee and Virgil got a Diet Coke, and when the waiter went away, Coakley asked, "Did Spooner have anything to contribute?"
"Not much," Virgil said. "She kept trying to get around the questions. But I expect she's the one who killed Crocker."
Coakley's eyebrows went up. "What?"
"She let me sit on her couch, and using a special BCA investigatory technique, I got some of her hair," he said. "I need to get it up to our lab. Then I'm going to use unfair tactics to get the lab to do some rush processing on it, so we ought to know for sure by day after tomorrow."
"Virgil, how…?"
Virgil told her about it: about the gun in Spooner's pocket, about the lipstick, how nobody knew of anyone Crocker was seeing. "On that basis alone-somebody familiar enough with him to get involved with oral sex-she'd be a suspect. The gun thing is big. She's a member of the church, born to it. I've got a feeling that the church could be involved here. Or maybe there's just something going on with this tight little knot of people, coming down through the generations. Most of them are related to each other, if I understood Spooner right. Lot of intermarriage."
"If she's the one, that'd be a pretty amazing clearance," Coakley said. "It's like you plucked her out of the air."
"Nah. All you do is, you look around," Virgil said. "Everybody says Crocker didn't have much to do with women, and the woman we know that he had something to do with, happens to carry a gun in her pocket. So she knows how to use one, and is maybe prepared to do it. Plus, she wears lipstick, which most women out here don't, except on special occasions. It's just… obvious."
"What if she killed him for some personal reason that has nothing to do with Flood or Tripp?" Coakley asked.
Virgil was already shaking his head. "Too big a coincidence. I'll tell you something else. I led Spooner on a bit…"
"How unlike you…" But she said it with a smile.
"… and she told me that Einstadt gave a nice talk at Kelly Baker's funeral. Einstadt and the Floods and the Bakers know each other very well, and they're lying about it. Why would they do that?
"
"They…"
"They're covering something up. Maybe Kelly Baker's death," Virgil said.
She looked at him for a long time, then said, "Maybe. But it's a jump."
The food came, and Virgil asked if she could send one of her deputies up to the BCA, in St. Paul, with Spooner's hair samples. She nodded. "Most of them would be happy for the chance, on the county's dime. Do some shopping."
"I'll give you the sample when we leave," he said.
She was picking at her food without much interest, and then she said, "I was talking to a friend up at the BCA. She said you've been married so often that the judge gives you a discount."
Virgil nearly spat out his hamburger. "What? Who told you that?"
"A friend. She's anonymous," Coakley said. "She said she thought you've been married and divorced four times."
"That's slander; I'd arrest her if I knew who it was," Virgil said.
"So how many times, then?"
"Three," Virgil admitted. "But it's not as bad as it sounds."
"Tell me the truth," Coakley said. "How bad did it hurt? When you got divorced?"
"It hurt," Virgil said. "I'm human."
"But she said all of this, all three marriages and divorces, were like in five years. And you have another girlfriend about every fifteen minutes. And that you've supposedly slept with witnesses. I don't know. I was kind of shocked."
"Hey…"
"Because when I got divorced, I mean, I was lying there for months, at night, trying to figure out what went wrong-and whose fault it was. I still do it," she said. "You know. I could no more have gotten married again in six months… I was still a basket case in six months."
"Well, I didn't have so much of that," Virgil said. "It was pretty clear, pretty quick, that me and my wives weren't going to make it. One of them, it was about a week and a half, you know, that we had the talk."
"That's absurd," Coakley said.
"Yeah," Virgil said. "I know. I did like the first one. But she had lots of plans. I didn't have much input into them, and I wasn't doing what she planned. Then, one day, I just wasn't in the plans anymore. She'd decided to outsource her expectations."
"How about sex. Did she outsource the sex?"
"Not that I know of-that wasn't the problem," Virgil said. "The problem was more… business-related. She'd decided I couldn't really be monetized."
"Hmph," Coakley said.
"That was a denigrating hmph."
"Well. Might as well get it out there," she said. She glanced around the room. "The thing is, when Larry stopped having sex with me, I thought maybe he was… just losing interest in sex. I'd never gotten that much out of it. I'm not especially orgasmic, and so, I just let it go. But then, he dumps me off, for this other… person… with big… and I start to wonder, maybe I'm just a complete screwup as a woman."
Virgil held up his hands, didn't want to hear it. "Whoa, whoa, this is a lot of information-"
She said, "Shut up, Virgil-I'm talking. Anyway, I'm wondering, am I a complete screwup? The major relationship in my life is a disaster-"
"Hey, you've got three kids," Virgil said. "Is that a disaster?"
"Shut up. Anyway, I know I'm not all that attractive-"
"You're very attractive," Virgil said. "Jesus, Lee, get your head out of your ass."
"Well, see, nobody ever told me that-and you might be lying," she said. "I suspect somebody who got married and divorced three times in five years probably lies a lot."
"Well…"
"So, you can see where this is going," she said.
"I can?"
"Of course you can. I'm the sheriff of Warren County. There are twenty-two thousand people here, and all twenty-two thousand know who I am. I can't go flitting around, finding out about myself. If I pick out a man, that's pretty much it. But how can I pick out a man if maybe I'm a total screwup as a woman? I mean, maybe I should be gay. I kind of dress like a guy."
"Do you feel gay?"
"No, I don't. What I feel like, Virgil, is a little experimentation, something quick and shallow, somebody with experience," she said. "I can't experiment with the locals, without a lot of talk. So I need to pick somebody out and get the job done."
She peered at him with the blue eye and the green eye, waiting, and Virgil said, finally, "Well, you've got my attention."
When Virgil left the Holiday Inn, he drove over to the cafe, thinking about Coakley on the way-the proposition seemed pretty bald-parked, went inside, and ordered a piece of cherry pie and a Diet Coke. Jacoby, the owner, sidled over with the pie and asked, "Hey, Virg. Any more news?"
The close-by people stopped eating, and one man who'd been at the end of the bar picked up his coffee and moved to a closer stool.
Virgil asked, "Have you ever heard of a man, or a place, called Liberty? Some man around here, or some place around here?"
"Liberty?" Jacoby moved his lips as though he were sampling the word. Then, "No, I never did. Is it important?"
"Could help us out with the Kelly Baker murder," Virgil said.
"There's a 'New Liberty,' but it's way down in Iowa, way down past Cedar Rapids," said a guy in the booth behind Virgil. "That wouldn't be it."
"I got a feeling it's something around here," Virgil said. "And maybe a person. Huh. I guess I'll just have to keep asking around."
"Well, if we hear anything, we'll let you know," Jacoby said. He watched as Virgil took a bite of the pie. "How is it?"
"I've had worse," Virgil said.
"He just can't remember when," said the guy on the stool. HAVING DONE his data dump at the cafe, Virgil was headed out to his truck, followed by one of the customers, a thin man with thin hair, wearing a sheepskin-lined jean jacket and leather gloves: a cowboy-looking guy, except for his big round plastic-rimmed glasses, and not ungrizzled.
He said, "Uh, Virgil. I need to chat for a minute. About the Tripp boy."
"Sure," Virgil said. "Back in the cafe, here, somewhere? Or we could take a ride in my truck."
"Not here. How about the truck?"
The man's name was Dick Street, he said, and he had a farm out toward Battenberg, though he lived in Homestead. "I use the elevator at Battenberg, and met the Tripp kid. You know he was a football player?"
"Yeah. Hurt himself this year, was going out to Marshall next year," Virgil said, as he backed out of the parking place and started around the block.
"Yup. Anyway, I mentioned to my daughter that he seemed to be a pretty nice kid. Hard worker, good-looking. She was the same grade as him. She said, 'Yes, but I think he's gay.'"
"Your daughter said that?"
"Yeah. I almost fell off my chair," Street said. "I said, 'Why do you think that?' and she said, 'I don't know, I just think so.' Turns out, some of her girlfriends thought the same thing, that he might be a homosexual."
"Did everybody think that? His schoolmates?" Virgil asked.
"I don't know. But it wasn't exactly nobody. Some people suspected. So anyway, if he was a homosexual, I guess that's neither here nor there, when it comes to killing somebody. But. This sort of came to be a hot topic around the dinner table, because my daughter also thought that he might've been… doing something… with somebody."
"Does she have any idea who?" Virgil asked.
"I was gonna say, you oughta talk to her," Street said. "She works at the Christmas Barn. Anyway, I can tell you that a lot of the farmers around here don't care too much for homosexuals. I was thinking, maybe Flood found out and said something, like he was going to tell everybody. And Bob Tripp hit him to stop that from happening. I mean, if he's gay, maybe he'd lose his football scholarship or something?"
"I hadn't thought of that," Virgil said, though he had.
"Or, maybe he had something going with Jake Flood, and it was like a lovers' thing."
"Jake Flood was married," Virgil said.
"Yeah. But just between you, me, and the fence post, there was something not quite right about him," Street said. "He had
a strange way of looking at people. There was a sex thing in it. You know how some guys will look a woman up and down, seeing what she got? You got the feeling that Jake did that with everybody. Men, women. Whatever. Well, not dogs or anything. Maybe a heifer, if it was a good-looking one." He shot a quick glance at Virgil, and hastily added, "That was a joke, Virgil."
"I'm laughing myself sick, inside," Virgil said, but he said it with a grin. "Back to Jake Flood…"
"He was a weird one. I would not have wanted one of my daughters to be around him," Street said. "I just wonder if that weirdness might have set something off with Bobby?"
"Huh. Something to think about." They were almost back at the cafe. "I'll stop and talk to your daughter. What's her name?"
"Maicy. She'll talk to you. She's a talkative girl."
They turned the corner and Street said, "You can let me out by that Tundra up there, the gray one. Don't tell anybody what I said about this-the fact is, we don't know if Bobby was a homosexual, and it's not right to bad-mouth the dead. But since more people were getting killed, I thought I should mention this."
"Glad you did, Dick. Thank you."
"The Christmas Barn is four blocks straight ahead, on your right. They also sell some of the best saltwater taffy on the face of the earth."
"Okay. How do you like that Tundra?"
"It's all right. It's my first Jap truck," Street said. "They had a recall for the floor mats, and then for the gas pedal, but I haven't had any trouble. Probably go back to Chevy, though. I don't know why I ever jumped the fence. You have any trouble with your 4Runner?"
"Not yet," Virgil said. "I asked you about the Tundra because the 4Runner is based on it…"
They chatted about trucks for a few minutes, especially the tow package, then Street looked at his watch and said, "Got to get back. See you at the cafe, maybe."
"Thanks again," Virgil said, and he rolled on down the avenue.
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