we were old enough to understand it, that this money was to pay for our graduate school. It wasn’t for cars, or dope, or women, or any of that. It was for grad school. Dad would pay for undergrad work, but this fund would pay for graduate study. Ag didn’t do any graduate study. How much did she have in there, Dad?”
“She might have spent some of it,” John O’Leary said.
Frank said, “Bull hockey. She probably had more than a half-million dollars-because I’ve got that much, and she’s been collecting for a lot more years.”
Turning directly to Virgil, he said, “Our old man is no dummy. He got our money out of the market before the dot-com crash, then got us back in until things started looking ugly again, a few years ago. He got us back out, and after
Virgil said, “A number would be nice. Just to give me a solid idea.”
John mumbled, “Last time we talked about it, she had seven-seventy.”
“More than enough for a boat and a cabin and maybe even a time-share,” Frank said. “Unless, of course, she walked out on him.”
“She wasn’t going to buy a boat and a cabin, she was going back to med school,” Jack said. To Virgil: “After she lost her baby, she moved out of Dick’s house and came back here.”
Virgil said, “When I hear about that much money, you know, I get curious, because I can’t help it. But I’ll tell you something: I’m about ninety-five percent, and climbing, that it’s Sharp, Welsh, and McCall.”
John O’Leary nodded, and said, “Okay. Then catch them.”
“I will,” Virgil said. “I just hope to God I catch them before they do any more damage.”
“You think you will?” Jack asked.
Virgil looked at them: tough and bright, the whole bunch. He said, “No.”
They talked a little more about the circumstances of the night of the murder-James and Rob had been at the university, but Jack had come home for the weekend. He and Frank were sleeping in separate rooms down the hall from the room where Mary and Ag were.
They were both awakened by shouting, then a gunshot, and then people running, and they ran into the hallway where they encountered their father and mother, heard people running down below. . but then they heard Mary screaming that Ag had been shot. Jack had started after the killers, but his father wrestled him back into the hallway, fearing that he’d also be shot.
Then John and Jack had gone to treat Ag, but knew immediately that she was dead. “Never any doubt,” John said. “She was just. . gone. I’m sure she never knew what happened. No pain, nothing.”
Virgil asked about the kitchen window. “That’s a mystery. I never looked at it. The lock. I talked to Marsha, she never looked at it, I talked to the housekeeper, she never looked at it. . It should have been locked. I guess it wasn’t.”
“Wonder when the last time. . Dick. . was in the kitchen,” Frank asked.
John shook a finger at him: “That’s enough. Shut up.”
Mary took Virgil to the door, while the males sat slumped in the living room, all looking as tired as men can look. Mary looked back at them and said, “Ag was the oldest. Because there were so many of us, she really wound up being a babysitter for most of us. She took care of us growing up.”
“I’m so sorry,” Virgil said, and he was. Then he asked, “When Ag lost her baby, you’re sure Dick didn’t have anything to do with it?”
She shook her head and said, “I’m sure as can be. She and a friend went shopping up in the Cities that day, and Dick was here. I saw him myself, and Ag was fine when she left. She called us from the hospital, told us that she’d lost the baby. She was only six weeks along, so it wasn’t like a big awful thing. She just started bleeding, and they went to the emergency room, but the baby was gone. She was back here the next day.”
“All right,” Virgil said. “Like I said, I’m ninety-five percent that I know who did it, I just have to find them.”
He took another step and said, “Just to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s. . what was the name of the friend who went to the Cities with Ag?”
Mary touched her neck, just at the collarbone, and said, “Why, Laura Deren. She’s an old friend of ours. Ag’s, especially. She lives here in town-she’s an accountant.”
“Thank you,” Virgil said. He looked out at the town-the O’Leary house was just at the crest of a hill, looking out over it-and he said, “You’ve got a great view up here.”
“It looks awful to me, right now,” Mary said. “It looks cold and lonesome forever.”
Virgil called Duke. “Heard anything?”
“Silent as a tomb. Can’t figure out where that silver truck went. We’ve stopped every silver truck for five states around.”
“Well. Keep looking,” Virgil said. “The media on you yet?”
“Yes. They’re setting up on the courthouse lawn. We’ll have a press conference in a couple hours.”
“I’m gonna stay clear,” Virgil said. “If you need any information from me, give me a ring.”
“I’ll do that,” Duke said. “I should be okay. I did a few of these during the hassle over the so-called concentration camp.”
“I suppose you did,” Virgil said. “I’m going back to Shinder, and then probably on to Marshall for the night. Nothing much to do except monitor the phones. Not until they pop up again.”
The crime-scene crew was still working on the two sites in Shinder, but had nothing that was either new or relevant. Virgil made some calls about getting the stolen car back to the Rogers family, and was told that it would be a few more days. He called LuAnne Rogers and told her that.
If Sharp, Welsh, or McCall had had more friends, there would have been more talking to do; as it was, Virgil sat outside the Surprise, eating an ice cream sandwich, and tried to think of something that he needed to do, that would help, but he couldn’t think of anything.
Eventually, he drove over to Marshall, called his parents and invited himself to dinner, then took a shower and a nap.
Thought, as he drifted away, that everything had gone too quiet, and smiled at the thought, remembering the old black-and-white films on late-night TV:
7
When Virgil arrived for dinner, there were three freshly painted chairs sitting in the mouth of his parents’ two-car garage. His father collected old furniture from the congregation, repaired it, painted it, and passed it along to anyone who needed it, except the twenty or so people who populated the local Church of Scientology, which he loathed.
“If I go to hell, which would be very disappointing, I can tell you, after all my efforts, it’ll be because I really. . despise those people,” he said. He was in the mudroom, scrubbing his hands with odorless mineral spirits. “I can’t find it in my heart to forgive them,” he said. “It’s the biggest con job in the history of the United States. It makes what’s-his-name look like a piker.”
“Good old what’s-his-name was a jerk, that’s for sure,” Virgil said.
“You know who I mean. That guy who stole all those billions of dollars. The Ponzi scheme.”
“Madoff.”
“Yeah. Him. They make him look like a piker,” his old man said.
“That’s interesting,” Virgil said. “I don’t think I’ve heard the word ‘piker’ and ‘Madoff’ in the same sentence before.”
