6
WHEN HE'D GOTTEN off the phone with Williamson, Virgil punched up Stryker's cell-phone number, thought about it for a moment, then tapped it. Stryker came up five seconds later. From the background rush, Virgil could tell that he was in his truck.
'Did you talk to the Laymons?' Virgil asked.
'Yeah: sex and money on the low plains,' Stryker said. 'They're telling the truth. They've talked to an attorney over in Worthington, and they're going to petition the district court for a part in the probate process. Margaret says Jesse will stand up to a DNA test.'
'Where're you at now?' Virgil asked.
'Heading back to the office.'
'Got your heart in your mouth?'
'I wish I hadn't told you about that,' Stryker said. 'You gonna spread it all over town. On the other hand, I've got Joanie to hold over your head.'
'Listen. I'm just coming up to I-90 after talking to Feur. Not much to report there. So: tell me how to find the Laymons. And give me their phone number.'
GEORGE FEUR'S readiness to swear on the Bible, and in a comprehensive way, had impressed Virgil. Feur had the stink of fanaticism about him, and fanatics, whatever else you might say about them, didn't take the Word lightly. Interesting, though, that he'd denied knowing the Gleasons. That was something that could be falsified…
The town of Roche once had a bar and a combination grocery-gas station. Now it had two empty and unsalable old commercial buildings slowly sinking back into the earth, and a dozen houses, some neatly kept, some not: flower gardens here, untrimmed lawns there; grape arbors and old wire fences, rusting swing sets and a brand-new tree house, a collapsed chicken house, abandoned farm equipment from the first half of the twentieth century, all gathered on the banks of the Billie Coulee, a seasonal creek that ran down to the Stark River.
A white dog with floppy ears was sitting in the middle of the street when Virgil got there, twenty minutes after talking to Stryker. The dog examined the front of Virgil's truck, realized that it didn't belong to anybody in town, and so ambled off to the side, keeping an eye out for trouble.
The Laymons' house was on the left side of the main street, a white-clapboard story-and-a-half with a brooding dark roof and a brick chimney at one end, a narrow front porch with a white-painted railing. Orange earthenware pots of geraniums sat on the railing, and hollyhocks grew next to the steps. A huge cottonwood stood in back, towering over two smaller apple trees.
A side yard was occupied by a vegetable garden, neatly laid out, tilled and weeded. The sweet-corn leaves were showing brown edges, the corn silk brown, the ears ready to eat. Four rows of potato plants marched along at eighteen-inch intervals, and cucumber and squash vines sprawled around the corn. The whole thing was edged with marigolds, which, Virgil thought, were intended to ward off some kind of rootworm.
In any case, his parents still did the same thing: grew an annual vegetable garden, and edged it with marigolds.
Virgil parked and got out and the white dog barked at him, but only once, and then tentatively wagged his tail. Virgil grinned at him: a watchdog, but not an armed-response dog. At the house, a blond woman came out on the porch. She was dressed for an office in black slacks and a white blouse. She said, 'You're Mr. Flowers.'
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER didn't look much alike. Margaret, the woman who'd met him on the porch, was in her mid-fifties, Virgil thought, and dressed from Target or Penney's, standard office wear. She was about five-six, a bit too heavy, and busty, with short, heavily frosted hair, plastic-rimmed glasses, and the lined face of a woman who'd been long out in the wind. She'd been pretty; still was, for her age.
Her daughter was almost her opposite: long dark hair, eyes that were almost black, slender, with high cheekbones and a square chin. She was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a plain white T-shirt. She had pierced ears, and was wearing silver crescent-moon earrings. She was waiting in the living room, standing next to an old upright piano. An electric guitar was propped next to it, with a practice amp; the window ledges were lined with pots of African violets.
Virgil stood in the living room for a moment, blinking in the dim light, and Jesse asked, 'Ooo. Do you like to rock 'n' roll?'
'I do,' he said. He recognized her. She'd been at Bill Judd Sr.'s house, the night of the fire. She'd had a beer can in her hand.
Jesse, to her mother: 'He looks like a surfer dude, doesn't he?'
'He's a police officer,' her mother said dryly. 'You probably should remember that.'
'Police officers gotta fuck,' Jesse said, flopping back on a worn couch, smiling up at him. 'If they didn't, where'd we get all those goobers who go to monster truck rallies?'
'Jesse!' her mother said.
'Thank you,' Virgil said. Jesse teased her mother with the f-word, and her mother pretended to be shocked, but wasn't; it looked like an old mother-daughter game. 'If I ever have any little goobers, I'll name one of them Jesse.'
She laughed, and said, 'Want a Pepsi?'
'No thanks, I just want to chat,' Virgil said.
'Might as well. The newspaper just called, and every single soul from Fairmont to Sioux Falls will know about it tomorrow morning…'
HER MOTHER had been at work when the Judd mansion burned down, and had no idea where she'd been when the Gleasons were killed. Jesse had been on her way to a bar in Bluestem, and saw the fire on the ridge, and trucks pulling out of the bar's parking lot, heading up the hill.
'That good enough?' Jesse asked.
'If you hadn't been to the bar, where'd you get that beer? The one you had at the parking lot?'
She tipped her head toward the kitchen: 'Out of the refrigerator.'
'So you just went up to the fire to look at it?'
'Of course,' she said. 'What do you think? You ever lived in a small town?'
'I have, and I know what you mean,' he said.
'THESE PEOPLE who got killed, the Gleasons and Judd. They were the same age, and friendly, at least,' Virgil said, turning to Margaret. 'I'm wondering if there's something way back that's only coming out now. Something that really pissed somebody off, thirty or forty years ago, and winds up in these murders.'
Jesse looked at her mother, and Margaret shrugged. 'I had a pretty hot affair with Bill Judd, but the only thing I came out of it with was that girl…' She nodded at Jesse. 'I loved her from day one. For the first eighteen years, Bill sent me a check every month to cover her upbringing, so I don't have any complaints that way, either.'
'Don't have any complaints that he didn't marry you?'
'He never asked, which would have been polite, but I wouldn't have done it, anyway,' Margaret said. 'He could be a good time, but he was twenty-five years older than me, and he could be a mean jerk. I mean really, violent, beat-your-face-in mean.'
'How long did you date him?'
'Oh…a year or so. But it wasn't exclusive, on his part. He'd screw anything he could get his hands on.' She smiled, then tilted her head and asked, 'Have you talked to his sister-in-law? She might be able to tell you about those days.'
'I didn't know about a sister-in-law. What's her name?'
'Betsy Carlson,' Margaret said. 'Sister to his wife. She's been in a rest home over in Sioux Falls for, gosh, twenty-five or thirty years now. Think Bill was paying for that, too.'
Virgil said, 'You sort of linked screwing, with his sister-in-law. Was there something going on there?'
'Yeah.' She said it flatly, her voice like flat rocks smacking together.
'Before his wife died, or after?' Virgil asked.
'If you want my opinion, I'd say before he married his wife, during, and after,' Margaret said.
