Mad River

house.

Four minutes in the cities and New York and Chicago and LA were different from four minutes in Shinder, where four minutes was quite literal: you could drive from one end of town to the other in four minutes, with a choice of routes, in a place where two cars in the same block was a traffic jam.

Fifteen seconds after Virgil got off the phone with Duke, the sirens started, rapidly got louder, and four minutes after they talked, a shoal of sheriff’s cars piled into old man Sharp’s farmyard. Duke was alone in the lead car; he got out, walked around to the trunk, popped it open and took out an M16 and a magazine, and snapped the magazine into place.

He said to Virgil, “I’m good.”

Fifteen seconds later, Virgil was surrounded by six deputies and Duke. He pointed toward the garage. “We’ve got two dead at the Welsh house, two dead in Bigham, and the stolen car here. I think that’s enough to go into the house without a warrant-somebody could be dying inside. So. One of you guys come with me, and the rest of you post around the house in case we get a runner. Don’t shoot unless it’s in self-defense. We really need to talk to somebody.”

Duke said, “I’ll be going in with you, and John Largas, he’ll come, too.” He nodded at an older deputy. “The rest of you take the corners of the house.”

Virgil looked around: there was a woodlot a hundred yards or so behind the house, and some scrubby lilacs along the drive, but no real cover other than the garage. He said, “Somebody can post up beside the garage, but you guys on the other side, stay close to the house. I mean, get your backs right against it. You don’t want to be standing out in the middle of the yard where somebody could shoot you down before you know it. All these places got deer rifles and shotguns. Okay? Everybody understand?”

They all nodded, and the group broke up, the deputies pulling their pistols, and Virgil led Duke and Largas to the back door. Virgil pounded on it for fifteen seconds, shouting, “Police. Open up. Open up.”

Duke said, “Kick it,” but Virgil didn’t. Instead, he reached out and turned the knob, and pushed the door open. They were looking at a mudroom, a half dozen ragged coats hanging from pegs, maybe fifteen ball caps moldering on a shelf, and four or five pairs of worn shoes and boots under a bench. Two beat-up umbrellas sagged in one corner, with an old single-shot.22 rifle with a rusty barrel. The place smelled like dirt and sweat.

Another closed door led into the kitchen; the door had a glass window in it, and Virgil looked through.

“Got a dead guy,” he said. Duke looked through the glass, and Virgil said, “Through the far door. You can see a shoe with a foot in it. He’s dead, unless he picked that spot to take a nap.”

Duke said, “I’m afraid to touch the doorknob.”

“Got to go in, in case he isn’t quite dead.” Virgil put his hand flat on the face of the knob, so he wouldn’t touch the parts that would have fingerprints, and turned it, and the door popped open. They stepped through the kitchen in a straight line, Duke leading with the M16; Virgil was not inclined to walk into a possible gunfight in front of a man with a machine gun. But the house was quiet. From the far door, to the living room, they could see the body-a middle-aged man with a five- or six-day beard, in a long-sleeved woolen undershirt and jeans, lying flat on his back with a bullet hole in his forehead.

Largas, behind Virgil, said, “That’s five. Good God almighty.”

4

They cleared the house, then Virgil told Duke, “We need to round up everybody in town who knew Rebecca Welsh and James Sharp, get them in one place so we can brainstorm with them. We need to figure out where Welsh and Sharp are, right now.”

Duke nodded, turned to a deputy, said, “Get those two girls we talked to, get them to name everybody who knows these people. We’ll meet up at the elementary school. . ” He looked at his watch. “At eleven o’clock sharp. Get Don Watson to open the place up.”

The deputy left, and Duke asked Virgil, “What else?”

“The neighbor’s house down the road has a car outside, but I didn’t see anybody there. We ought to check all the neighbors, make sure folks are okay.”

Duke said, “I’ll get that going. What are you going to do?”

“I’ll call the crime-scene people, get them over here, talk to the DMV and find out what James Sharp, the old man, drives, and get people looking at it.” He thought for a second, then said, “Then I’m going to call my boss. . And listen, I need everything you’ve got on those Friday murders in Bigham. Who’s working that?”

“Ross Price, he’s our investigator. I’ll hook you up with him.”

Virgil started with the DMV-James Sharp Senior drove a ten-year-old, extended-cab, silver Chevy pickup-and then called Davenport. “Jimmy Sharp and Rebecca Welsh hung with a bunch of people in the Cities. I’ve got one name you could call to find out exactly who that might be. . who else they know. I already spoke to her this morning, so she’s familiar with the situation.”

“You’re sure it’s Welsh and Sharp?” Davenport asked.

“It’s better than fifty-fifty. Sharp’s got a bad rep here in town as a bully who might sell a little dope. Welsh is his girlfriend. If you actually spot them up there, look to see if they might be driving his old man’s Chevy truck. I think the killers have it, whoever they are. Welsh’s folks’ car is still in their garage.”

“What’s your next move?”

“We’re having a seance over at the elementary school with everyone who knew Welsh and Sharp. If they’re running, I need to know which way they’re going.”

“Good luck with that,” Davenport said. “I’ll get things going here. Stay in touch.”

Virgil downloaded Jimmy Sharp’s and Becky Welsh’s driver’s license photos to his cell phone, and spent a few minutes looking at them. Jimmy was a kid who a lot of people would have said was handsome-he had the cheekbones and the squared-off chin, but there was something about the cast of his features that wasn’t quite right: he looked sneaky. Becky should have been pretty: blond, small nose, big eyes, but there was a disappointment about her face-a disappointment with life-that made her look sad, and a little too hard.

But then, he thought, maybe makeup could fix it.

The gathering at Gerald Ford Elementary School brought in about thirty townspeople, who were sitting on metal folding chairs, talking quietly among themselves, when Virgil arrived. Virgil had told Duke about the silver pickup, and Duke had called back to his office and had an alert broadcast through the local sheriffs’ association, which covered eight counties in the western part of the state.

Virgil was wearing the black sport coat and collared shirt he’d worn to church, which passed for fairly sober wear in a country town. He smiled at the crowd when he came in, with Duke trailing behind, and picked up a folded chair, shook it open, and planted it in front of the group.

He introduced himself, and Duke, and said, “Y’all may have heard what’s going on, here. We’re trying to find Jimmy Sharp and Becky Welsh. I can tell you that Mr. and Mrs. Welsh and the senior Mr. Sharp were all found shot to death. We haven’t been able to find Jimmy or Becky. We don’t know whether they were involved in the shootings, or if they might be victims, or maybe they don’t even know about them. Anyway, we need to find them, and since you all know one of them, or both of them, we were hoping you could throw out some ideas about where they might be, or might be going, or who we might contact to find that out.”

A square-faced man with straw-colored hair raised a hand and asked, “Isn’t it a little. . abnormal. . to be talking to everybody at once like this?”

Virgil said, “This is an abnormal situation. We were hoping that if you folks listen to each other, and mix it up a little, we’ll spark off some ideas. We’re brainstorming.”

A woman off to one side muttered, “I don’t know nothing about this.”

Virgil said, “Look, what kind of a kid was Jim? When you knew him? Who knew him best?”

Everyone looked around, and eventually most of them focused on a young man who stirred nervously and