“I got O’Hara organizing that,” Ahlquist said. “She and her crew are talking to everybody for a couple blocks around.”
“What about the letters?”
“We’re delivering them right now. We should be done by noon.”
Before he went to the sheriff ’s office, he walked around the block and found O’Hara.
She jogged up, smiling, squeezed him on the upper arm, and said, “Man, you got bigger balls than anybody I ever heard of.”
“Huh?”
She stepped back and said, “I heard all about it. Your boat got blown up right behind you, and you got knocked out of your truck, and then, then, you went out and got breakfast. That is cold, dude.”
Virgil said, “That’s not exactly… hmmm… Anybody see anything?”
She shook her head. “Nobody saw nuthin’. The thing is, this guy is very smart, and he’s careful. I’m really interested to see who it’s going to be.”
“If you find out, call me,” Virgil said.
Virgil left her and drove to the sheriff ’s department, and looked at a Xerox copy of the note sent to the newspaper. It was couched in a faintly ridiculous faux-lefty cant: The bombing campaign against PyeMart, Willard T. Pye, city officials who support the PyeMart’s oppressive action against our people, and state and federal Gestapo agents will continue until PyeMart steps back from its current plans and the Butternut City Council withdraws permits to build the PyeMart store. To ensure this gets done, we demand: -A public statement from Willard T. Pye that store construction will be abandoned. -Destruction of the footings already laid for the store. -Reversal of the zoning changes made to allow the store to be built. -Elimination of the sewer and water lines to the store site. - Resignation of those members of the city council who voted to allow the changes. -Resignation of Mayor Geraldine Gore. – Withdrawal of federal and state Gestapo agents investigating the case on behalf of PyeMart. Until this is done, we will continue to deliver our bombs to those who support PyeMart. To prove that this note is legitimate, we will reveal that another attack will take place today, and another boot will be removed from our necks.
“I’m saying that ‘another boot will be removed from our necks’ hooks up with ‘Gestapo agents.’ He didn’t want to say that you specifically were going to be attacked, in case you hadn’t been by the time the note got here,” Ahlquist said. “But the hint is strong enough, after the fact, for us to know what he was talking about.”
“I see that,” Virgil said. “I’d say you’re right. That’s clever-a clever guy. Do we know where it was mailed from?”
“Here in town. It went through the post office, but there are lots of places where it could have been dropped.”
“Fingerprints…?”
“We sent the original letter and envelope down to St. Paul, to your lab, to see if they can get anything off it. It looked pretty clean, just eyeballing it. No watermark on the paper, or anything-it looked like standard copy paper.”
The note was interesting, in a way, helping to build a better mental image of the bomber, but there wasn’t much real information in it. The scariest thing, Virgil thought, was that the guy was picking targets and turning out the bombs so quickly. He told Ahlquist, “If I were you, I’d have a serious talk with the city council people, and tell them they’re at risk. I told Gore, but she didn’t want to hear it.”
“All right. Are you just waiting for your letters to come back?”
“I got another thing I’m working on,” Virgil said. “I’m going to spend a little time with that. I’ll see you again this evening. I want to get going on those letters as soon as we start getting them back.”
“Already got two,” Ahlquist said. “I’m looking at the names, and I’m thinking, Yeah, this might work. Some people I didn’t think of, but you see their name, and you think, You know… that might be right.”
“All right. Maybe it’ll be something,” Virgil said. Then, “Do you know a woman named Marilyn Oaks?”
“Marilyn Oaks… that seems… Just a minute.” He stuck his head out in the hall and called, “Hey, Helen? Could you step in here?”
A clerk came in, an older woman with silvery hair: “Yes?”
“Marilyn Oaks. I’m thinking, the country club. Like the… dining lady, the caterer…”
Helen bobbed her head at her boss: “That’s right. Thin woman. Dark hair.”
“Got her,” Ahlquist said. “Thanks, Helen.” When Helen was gone, he said to Virgil, “Now you know everything I know about her.”
“Is she hot?”
Ahlquist’s eyes narrowed, then he said, “Nooo… I guess I wouldn’t call her hot, exactly. She does have a look about her. Like, you know, she’d fuck back at you. Is that sexist?”
“No, I don’t think so, but I’m not totally up on my feminist theory.”
Five minutes later, after getting directions from Ahlquist, Virgil was on his way to Doug Mackey’s house, the schoolteacher who’d phoned the tip to Thor, the desk clerk. Mackey wasn’t home, but a neighbor said, “He’s probably out at Cottonwood. He’s the pro there, in the summers.”
Cottonwood was a privately owned public golf course five minutes south of town. After inquiring in the pro shop, Virgil found Mackey by himself, on the driving range, working on a half-swing pitch out to a fifty-yard can.
He turned to Virgil with a golf pro’s inquiring smile, which faded when Virgil introduced himself and said, “I need to talk to you about how you know that Pat Shepard took twenty-five thousand dollars from Pye-and how you know he’s nailing Marilyn Oaks.”
Mackey’s mouth dropped open: “You were… Did you… Was there a tap on my phone?”
“No, nothing like that. But you know how word gets around, especially in a small town,” Virgil said.
“What?”
“You know how word gets around,” Virgil repeated. “Anyway, we do know, and lying to me is a crime, called obstruction of justice, but knowing what you know isn’t a crime, so it’d be best if you just told me the truth. If you tell the truth, you don’t get arrested, get to keep your job, and so on.”
Mackey stared at him for a second, did a baton twirl with his sand wedge, stuck it back in his bag, and then said, “I gotta have a beer.”
The club had a porch overlooking the eighteenth green, and they got a Bud Light for Mackey and Virgil got a Diet Coke, and they sat down at the far end, away from a foursome that had just come off the course.
“This is pretty awful,” Mackey said, after a couple of swallows. “They’re friends of mine. I feel like I’m betraying them.”
“Things were going to get awful the minute you picked up that phone,” Virgil said. “The other way to look at it is that you’re an honest citizen, doing your duty.”
“Doesn’t feel that way,” Mackey said. They sat looking at each other for a moment, then he asked, “Do they have to know that I’m the one who turned them in?”
“I don’t know,” Virgil said, though he thought it would probably all come out, if the case ever got to court. “It depends what happens. I was talking to a psychologist about all of this, and explained that you were all teachers in the same school. He suggested that this might involve some personal relationship between you and Jeanne Shepard.”
Mackey didn’t say anything, but took another hit on his beer. Virgil took one, and finally Mackey said, “Pat’s a golfer. Not very good, but he works at it. He asked me to give Jeanne some lessons, so they could play together.”
“Something happened there?”
Mackey shook his head. “Jeez. You know? It didn’t take long. A little kissy-squeezy stuff. Then one day she came out for a lesson, and we saw Pat teeing off with his regular foursome, knew he’d be gone for at least five hours. We dropped my car off at Walmart, and took her car over to her place.”
“Is she the one who told you about Pat taking the money?”
“Yeah… I’m not sure why. I kind of think she wouldn’t mind if somebody spilled the beans and Pat went away,” Mackey said. “She could get a divorce, probably get the house. They’ve got a fifteenyear mortgage, almost paid off. Start over, maybe have another kid. She’d like to focus on her art.”
“She a good painter?”
“If you like sunsets,” Mackey said. “I never cared that much for them, myself.”
