Mad River

by John Sandford

  “Good,” Duke snorted. Then, “What the hell is all this?” He picked up a DVD box entitled The Isle of Men.

  Virgil chewed back a grin and asked, “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like some kind of . . . homosexual . . . awful . . . Good grief.”

  “Yeah, there’s a bunch of it here. Probably a hundred of them in the TV cabinet,” Virgil said.

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “It’s Mr. Gates’s.”

  Duke said, “Huh,” and dropped the DVD. “Well, you learn something every day.”

  The colonel said, “If they were here overnight, then they’ve been gone for more than twenty-four hours, and that means they probably got through the net, and they might be anywhere. But if they were here both nights, then they’re probably still right around here. We’ve got people crawling all over the place, stopping every vehicle they see.”

  Virgil: “What I’m afraid of is, they’re holed up again. That they took off last night, drove ten miles, and then”—he gestured around the room—“did it again.”

  “Oh, fuck me with a fence pole,” the colonel said.

  Duke: “Hey. Language.”

  The colonel ignored him. “Isn’t there any way your crime-scene people could figure out how old the blood is? How long it’s been drying? I mean . . .”

  Virgil explained that it didn’t actually work quite the way it did on TV, and that lab tests would take some time, and be mostly irrelevant by the time the tests came back.

  The colonel asked, “Why couldn’t they just stick their thumb into one of the bandages. If it comes back bloody . . .”

  Virgil shrugged: “I don’t know. Maybe they could do that. They’ll be here pretty quick.”

  • • •

  OUTSIDE, THE CIRCUS HAD RESUMED. Two helicopters were orbiting the house, and a line of TV trucks was stacked up on the road at the bottom of the hill.

  Virgil asked Duke, “You want me to tell them?”

  Duke said, “Virgil, I know you don’t like me, that you think I’m an asshole, like all you city people do. And I gotta admit, I don’t care for you that much, so I gotta tell you, given all of that, I appreciate the offer, because I know it has to hurt. But yes. I’d like you to tell them.”

  21

  SO VIRGIL DROVE down to the end of the driveway and stopped at the edge of the road. Before he got out of the truck, he took his cell phone out of his pocket, pulled up a calculator, did a quick calculation, and wrote the number in the palm of his hand. The media guys were watching everybody coming down the hill, so when Virgil got out of the truck, walked to the middle of the road, and raised his hands in a “Come to Jesus” gesture, they stampeded over, not unlike a herd of hungry wildebeest.

  He kept it simple: that state agents doing a systematic survey of remote farmsteads in conjunction with the Bare County sheriff’s office and the Minnesota National Guard had discovered the body of a male shooting victim. They’d also found signs that the house had been used as a hideout by the fugitives who robbed the Oxford credit union; the signs included blood-soaked bandages, which led investigators to believe that one of the robbers had been seriously wounded.

  “When you say ‘fugitives,’ you mean Becky Welsh and James Sharp, correct?” one of the TV reporters asked.

  “We would certainly like to talk to them about any involvement that they may or may not have had in these events,” Virgil said. He added that the victim had not yet been identified, and when he was, his name would not be released until next of kin were notified. That was routine cop-speak and drew no objections.

  Ruffe Ignace, one of a half dozen newspaper reporters in the crowd, asked, “Virgil, do you have any idea when Sharp and Welsh left the farm—how far they may have gotten?”

  “Can’t tell exactly, but we think they probably spent the night before last at the farm, maybe the day yesterday, and then left sometime between last night and this afternoon,” Virgil said.

  A TV reporter said, “So you’re saying it was Welsh and Sharp.”

  “No. I was replying to the substance of Mr. Ignace’s question, of when the fugitives left,” Virgil said.

  Ignace said to the TV reporter, “Yeah, dumbass. And keep your mouth shut while I’m talking.”

  The reporter said, “Hey, we’re live.”

  Ignace said, “So am I.” To Virgil: “You cops are crawling all over the place, and if they went far . . . somebody would have stopped them, or there would have been some shooting. So that means they’re close by.”

  Virgil said, “Ruffe, that’s not exactly a question, but I’ll pretend that it was, and I’d love to be able to answer it. We don’t think they’ve been gone very long, but if they snuck out last night, at four in the morning, and killed the lights on the vehicle, and drove very cautiously at twenty miles an hour until it got light . . . well, that’s forty miles or so. You know the formula: pi times the radius squared. If the radius is forty miles, square that, you get sixteen hundred, and you multiply that by pi . . .” Virgil put his hand to his forehead and rolled his eyes up, as if making the calculation. “About five thousand twenty-six point, uh, point fifty-four square miles. That’s a lot of territory, which is our problem. Our biggest fear, of course, is that they’ve moved to another hideout, with the same kind of situation as we’ve got here.”

  “You mean more dead people,” Ignace said.

  “That’s our greatest fear,” Virgil said.

  There were a few more questions, which Virgil answered or batted down, and then they went through the ritual of allowing each TV on-camera reporter to ask a question, mostly repetitive, so that cameramen could get a shot of them asking and Virgil answering.

  That done, Virgil said, “We’re finished,” and walked back to his truck, where Jenkins had been waiting. Halfway back, Ignace cut him off and said, “I’ve got an exceptionally reliable source at Stillwater who said you did a focus group there, about where Sharp and Welsh might have gone from the robbery. Lo and behold, you and three other guys found this place, while two hundred people were looking elsewhere, and didn’t come up with jack shit. That’s a pretty interesting story, Virgil.”

  “I really can’t talk about that right now,” Virgil said.

  “Well, I’ve got all the information I need, and I’m going to write about it tomorrow morning, unless you say you’ll talk to me later,” Ignace said. “If you talk to me later, I’ll hold off until then.”

  “You write what you want,” Virgil said, “but if you write that tomorrow morning, and it pisses off the people I’ve got to work with, then I will talk about it later . . . but not to you. I’ll talk to Channel Three and the Pioneer Press.”

  “It’s a shame you’re taking that attitude, because that means that I’ve got to leave the decision in the hands of the production-crazed morons on the city desk,” Ignace said. “If it were just you and me making a deal . . .”

  Virgil said, “Tell you what—you hold off, and I’ll talk to you later if I can clear it with my bosses. If I can’t, then you write what you’ve got, without me. But I’ll try to talk.”

  Ignace thought about that for a moment, and then said, “Deal,” and walked away.

  • • •

  BACK IN THE TRUCK, Jenkins said, “Sweaty work,” and Virgil said, “Yeah,” and dug a Diet Coke out of the cooler in the back.

  Jenkins said, “Davenport called and asked what you were up to. I told him to turn on the TV. Anyway, he wants a call back, when you can.”

  Virgil called, and Davenport said, “Pretty good job on the press conference. Sincere yet uninformative.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I told Shrake he was in for a commendation, for the way he spotted that body at the Gates place.”

  “Okay. And listen, it’s been nice talking to you. I’
ll get in touch again later.”

  “Virgil: that guy who beat you up, Duane McGuire. He’s hiding in his mother’s junk shop in Sleepy Eye.”

  “Sleepy Eye? I’m twenty minutes away. Give me the address.”

  Davenport said the information about McGuire came from one of his network of informants who saw McGuire leaving a Sleepy Eye convenience store with a bag of beer, heading back to his mother’s place.

  • • •

  THEY LEFT BOYKIN with his patrol car, and Shrake jammed himself in the backseat of Virgil’s 4Runner. Shrake said, “We’ve still got nothing to work with.”

  “I know,” Virgil said. “If Duane’s home, we’ll have to put on a little skit.”

  • • •

  THEY WORKED ON THE SKIT on the way over; came into town from the north, cut Highway 14 and took it down Main Street, spotted Martha’s Flea Market Creations, a small shabby shop with some lamps in the front window. They drove around the block, turned into a half-ass dirt alley that threaded behind the stores, and spotted the back entrance.

  “Probably come running out of there,” Virgil said.

  Jenkins said, “I’ll take it.”

  “Don’t get hurt,” Virgil said.

  Sleepy Eye was a fairly prosperous place, a railroad town, three or four thousand people, Virgil thought. Not much moving on a cold April day. Shrake and Virgil went around to the front of Martha’s, and parked and got out.

  Always nervous going through a door . . . but they went through, a bell ringing overhead as Virgil pushed the door open. Martha was sitting there, leaning on a glass-topped counter, reading a tabloid newspaper of some sort. McGuire was just coming into the room from the back, carrying a plate that held a piece of what looked like corn bread. His eyes met Virgil’s, and he dropped the plate and ran. Virgil shouted, “Stop,” and Martha shrieked, “Oh my God. Police, call the police,” and Virgil went through the inside door, with Shrake three steps behind him.

  Virgil could see light coming through an open back screen door and, when he got through it, found McGuire sitting in the dirt, holding his hands to his face, Jenkins standing over him. Jenkins said, “He resisted.”

  McGuire said, “Mmmpph.”

  Virgil squatted next to him, looked up at Jenkins and said, “Put the cuffs on him.” To McGuire he said, “You’re under arrest for accessory to first degree murder, aggravated assault on a police officer, and so on.”

  McGuire took his hands down and said, “What?” He was bleeding heavily from the nose, and at that moment, Martha came running out, carrying what appeared to be a very old .22-caliber revolver with a long thin barrel. She waved it awkwardly and said, “All—”

  Shrake hit her in the forehead and knocked her down, then stood on the gun until Jenkins rolled her over and put another pair of cuffs on her.

  “And Mom’s under arrest for aggravated assault on a police officer,” Virgil said to McGuire.

  Martha groaned and then screamed, “Police.”

  Shrake knelt next to her and said, “We are the police. We’re arresting your son for all these murders and shit you see on TV.”

  “What?”

  McGuire started babbling. “I had nothing to do with any murder, for Christ sakes. Did Royce tell you that? All we did was rough you up a little—hell, it was just a fight.”

  Martha started crying and said, “My head, my head.”

  “Probably ought to get her to the hospital,” Shrake said. “I didn’t have time to hit her easy.”

  Virgil said, “Okay, ma’am, just take it easy, sit there . . .”

  A Sleepy Eye patrol car rolled into the alley, and a cop got out, a hand on his pistol, and Jenkins said, “Shit,” and took out his ID and shouted, “BCA, BCA . . .”

  McGuire said, “My mom’s hurt.”

  Virgil: “I can’t feel too sorry about that. I’m still hurting from you trying to kick me to death.”

  “We weren’t gonna kill you, man. Just supposed to smack you around a little.”

  “I heard that Murphy wanted me dead,” Virgil said.

  “No, no, nobody wanted you dead.”

  Jenkins said, quietly, “Cop.”

  Virgil said to McGuire, “You’re under arrest for assault. You have a right to an attorney. . . .”

  The cop was talking to Shrake when Virgil finished, and he went over and said, “Sorry we didn’t have time to call you, but we were afraid he was running. We just heard where he was a few minutes ago. We were over in Bare County with the search.”

  The cop was a hefty man, with little hair on his head; he looked down at McGuire and said, “Duane, were you hooked up with all that?”

  “No, man, I just . . . Ah, shit.”

  “He and a pal beat me up, over in Bigham,” Virgil said. “He admitted it before we could Mirandize him, just blurted it out. So . . . we’re going to take him over to Bare County, drop him in jail.”

  “What’d Martha do?” the cop asked.

  “She saw us chasing her son and came running out with a gun. Probably . . . misunderstood what was going on.”

  “She under arrest?” the cop asked.

  “For now . . . we’ll get her over to the medical center. What we do after that depends a little on Duane, here. And, of course, what Martha has to say for herself.”

  • • •

  THERE’S A KIND of arrest that’s simply tedious, with paperwork to be done and forms to be filled out, and care taken, and the arrest of the McGuires was all of that. A doctor at the medical center determined that Martha was not badly injured, and Virgil cut her loose after she signed a piece of paper that said she would not hold the state liable for any damage done to her, or her shop, during the arrest. A lawyer might later argue that the paper was signed under duress, but only if he was dumb: she’d come through the door with a gun, and might have been shot.

  McGuire was cleaned up at the medical center, and got his nose taped and splinted, and they loaded him into the 4Runner and hauled his complaining ass back to the Bare County jail.

  He’d never said, or even hinted, that he wanted a lawyer, and Virgil had Mirandized him, and he said he understood all of that, and that he’d been Mirandized before. So Virgil was in the clear when he asked, “How much did Murphy give you to beat me up?”

  “Shit, I don’t know,” McGuire said. “He didn’t give it to me, he gave it to Royce. I just went along for the fun of it.”

  “I can understand that,” Shrake said. “Just a good-ol’-boy thing.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you didn’t get anything?” Virgil asked.

  “Royce give me a hundred bucks afterward. I think he got more.”

  By the time they got him to the jail, they had the whole story: Virgil, as he’d intended, had attracted Murphy’s attention when he started interviewing people in the bar, and asked about Murphy. He’d gotten more of an answer than he expected, but more than good enough.

  At the jail, they did more paperwork, and then McGuire was taken back to a cell, the jail guard greeting McGuire with, “Hey, Duane, what you been up to?”

  “Same ol’ shit,” McGuire said. “Listen, I don’t have no drugs stuffed up my asshole. Do you think . . . ?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” the guard said.

  “Aw, man . . .”

  Outside, Shrake asked, “What’s next?”

  Virgil said, “Got to pick up Royce Atkins, and we’ve still got to find Sharp and Becky Welsh. That’s the main thing. Murphy, we’ll just leave him on the shelf for a few days.”

  By the time they got McGuire stashed, it was late in the day. Duke was still out on the hunt, and Virgil talked with the chief deputy, who said there had been no more hints that they might be on the fugitives’ trail. “The sheriff just reoriented
everybody around that farm you found, and people are working out from that. We’re assuming that since they ditched the Townes’ truck, they’re running around in Gates’s truck. Old red Dodge. We’ve got two choppers running a search pattern around the house, trying to see if they can spot it. Nothing so far, and with dark coming on . . . probably not going to find it tonight.”

  • • •

  A HELICOPTER FLEW over Gates’s truck and the abandoned farmstead just after full dark. A searchlight poked through the woods, then spent a moment probing the old sheds, then moved on down the road. Becky held her breath as she heard it coming in, and let it out when it moved on.

  The beating blades woke Jimmy, who groaned and said, “This fuckin’ leg is killing me,” and, “What the fuck is going on?”

  He sounded clear-minded, and Becky said, “A helicopter. Jeez, Jimmy, they’re using everything. It’s going away now.”

  “Didn’t see us?”

  “No, I put some old tar paper over the truck. We look like a pile of dirt.”

  “Good. We got any more pills?”

  “One.”

  Jimmy took the pill and a long drink of water, and then asked, “What time is it?”

  She said, “After seven. We’ve been sitting here a long time.”

  “Gotta move before it gets light,” he said. “Get way south, toward . . . Ohio or . . . whatever.”

  “Iowa,” she said.

  “Farther than that. Ohio or . . . Kansas. Those helicopters . . . didn’t think they’d get no helicopters to chase us.”

  “Got searchlights on them, just like in the Cities.”

  “If we could get to the Cities, we could get lost,” he said.

  “I don’t think we’d get that far,” Becky said. “That’d be running toward them. We’ve got to run away.”

  “Okay.”

  She was a little surprised by his acquiescence; he usually wanted to be the boss. She asked, “You want a cigarette?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  She found a pack of Marlboros, shook one out for him, lit it with a paper match. The smoke smelled good, though she didn’t smoke herself.