a chipped tooth, which gave her a tomboyish vibration.
She leaned toward him, her dress opening just enough to reveal the tops of her breasts, though Virgil looked resolutely into her eyes, and she whispered, 'Motherfucker?'
Virgil whispered, 'That's what the man said.' He laughed, a low, chuckling laugh, and said, 'Junior Judd's sitting down, staring at the money, two hundred thousand dollars on the table, three inches from his nose. He's absolutely drooling on it. Then the lawyer says-Turner says-like it's a big mystery, 'I don't see the will here.' And Judd jumps up and screams, 'Motherfucker!''
She giggled, and rubbed her nose, her eyes bright with amusement.
Virgil continued: 'I thought we were gonna have to club him down to his knees, to keep him off Turner's throat. Turner keeps saying, 'It wasn't me, it wasn't me,' and Judd's walking around saying, 'Motherfucker! Motherfucker!' and the bank guy pulls all the receipts and it turns out old man Judd went into the box a week ago. We talked to the vault lady, and she says when Judd went into it, he told her he didn't want one of those privacy booths, he just wanted to get out a document. She saw it, and it was in a beige legal envelope, and we all think it was the one-and-only will.'
'Motherfucker!' she said. 'I would have given a hundred dollars to see that. What else was in the box?'
'Legal papers, deeds, insurance. The house was insured for eight hundred thousand with another two hundred thousand on the contents, so Junior'll get all of that. That's a million, all by itself, including the cash in the box.'
'The old man owned a block of the downtown.'
'Where the newspaper is.'
'Yes, and he's got several parcels of good land down south of here, that'll be a nice chunk of cash,' she said.
'What's Junior own? On his own?'
'He's been in and out of a few businesses, hasn't done so well. Right now he's got three or four Subways in the small towns around, and he's got a little land along the river that he's been talking about developing…but to tell you the truth, there hasn't been a big call for housing development around here. Why?'
'He seemed pretty damn excited about that cash,' Virgil said. 'And pretty upset when it turned out he wasn't going to get it in the next two weeks. I mean, he'll have it in a month or two, but they'll have to run it through probate. So what's the difference, two weeks or two months? But he was pretty upset.'
'Huh. He's a jerk, but he wouldn't kill his dad, if that's what you're thinking,' Joan said. 'I've seen them have some pretty friendly conversations.'
'Okay. Just trying to nail down stuff I can look into,' Virgil said.
'But I think I can tell you about why he reacted the way he did…'
'Yeah?'
'The Judds worship money. They made it a stand-in for all the other qualities of life. If you can be nice, or have money, take the money. If you can be brave, or have money, take the money. If you can have friends or have money, take the money. They're like that. They don't even hide it. Take the money. Pulling two hundred thousand dollars in cash, out of a safe-deposit box, in front of Bill Judd Jr., would be like pulling Jesus Christ out of a box, in front of the Pope.'
'Not a nice thing to say about someone,' Virgil said. 'Especially the Pope.'
'It's the truth, though,' she said. Her eyes narrowed: 'Can I tell all my friends about all this?'
'Well, let me think,' Virgil said. 'The only witnesses were me, your brother, the lawyer, the banker, Judd, and the vault lady. What are the chances that they all kept their mouths shut?'
'Zero.'
'Right. Just don't quote me, okay?' Virgil said. 'You could get me or your brother in trouble. Maybe you could hear it from one of the wives first?'
'I know both of them, banker and lawyer,' she said. 'One of them'll spill the beans, and then I can add everything you gave me.'
'Sounds good,' Virgil said. 'Did I mention I like your dress?'
'Really? I sewed it myself. Ordered the material out of Des Moines.'
'Seriously?'
'Try not to be stupid, Virgil,' she said. 'I bought it at Neiman Marcus, in the Cities.'
VIRGIL HAD GROWN UP in Marshall, Minnesota, sixty miles north of Bluestem, as the crow flies, or eighty miles, if the crow were driving a pickup. His father had the biggest Presbyterian church in town, until he retired, and his mother taught engineering and survey at Southwest Minnesota State University, until she retired. They were both still alive and played golf all summer, and had a condo in Fort Myers so they could play golf all winter.
Joan's father had been a farmer. He'd been involved with Bill Judd's drive to make a commodity out of the Jerusalem artichoke.
'I don't remember all this, because I was too young at the time, but Dad thought that nothing good was going to happen with corn and bean prices. There was too much low-priced competition around the world. He thought if we could come up with a new crop, that could replace oil…well, I guess back in the seventies and eighties there were all these predictions that oil might run out any minute, and then we'd all be screwed.'
'Like now.'
'Like now, with ethanol and four-dollar corn. Anyway, if you could grow oil…I guess he figured they couldn't lose. But it was all bullshit. It was a scam right from the start, cooked up by a bunch of commodities people in Chicago and some outlanders like Bill Judd. When it all went bust, Bill Judd didn't care. He was a sociopath if you've ever seen one. But people who were tied into him, like my dad, did care…'
She sighed and shook her head. 'Lot of people thought my dad was right there in with Judd. But Dad lost half his land. He was farming more than two thousand acres back then. He sold off the land at way-depressed prices, right into a big farm depression in the middle eighties, paid off all his debts, and then he got this.45 that he had, and killed himself. Out in the backyard, one Saturday afternoon. I can still remember people screaming, and I can remember Mom sitting in the front room looking like she'd died. That's what I remember most: not Dad, but Mom's eyes.'
'Jimmy was pretty hurt, I guess? Boys and fathers?'
'He was.' Her eyes came up to meet his. 'You don't think Jim had anything to do with Judd's murder?'
He shook his head: 'Of course not…Were the Gleasons tied in with Judd?'
'They were friendly,' Joan said. 'There was a tight little group of richer folks, like in most small towns. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, real estate dealers. People say that Judd helped some of them with investments…but the Gleasons didn't have anything to do with the Jerusalem artichoke scam. Everyone would have known-it all came out in the lawsuits…'
He leaned toward her again, pitching his voice down: 'I'll tell you what, Joanie. Jim and I and Larry Jensen, we all think that the Gleason murders and the Judd murder are tied together. Three murders in three weeks, all by somebody who knew what he was doing; where to go and when to go. Even did it under the same conditions, in the rain, in the dark. And that's after you haven't had any murders in twenty-two years.'
'What about George Feur? The preacher?'
'I heard of him…'
'He's somebody to look at-I even asked Jim about him,' she said. 'Jim says he's got an alibi. There was a prayer meeting that Friday night, and a lot of people stayed the weekend. There's somebody who'll say that Feur was there every minute of that time. Jim and Larry decided that it would have been hard for him to sneak away…'
'How long would he have to be gone?'
'Well, if he…' She looked up at the ceiling, her lips moving as she figured. 'Well, if he drove in and out, half an hour? Probably longer than that, if he walked part of it, or if they talked. But that's not very long, really.'
'It's not long if there are lots of people around, and everybody thinks you're talking with somebody else, and you're seen here and there…you might get away for half an hour.'
'And maybe one of his goofy converts would have been willing to do him a favor. But: if you think the same person killed the Gleasons and Bill Judd…I understand that Feur was trying to save Judd's soul, and that they got along. So that doesn't seem to fit.'
