'Who?'
'Roman Schmidt and his wife,' Stryker groaned. 'You gotta get over here.'
'Wait, wait, slow down. Roman Schmidt. I know the name…'
'He was the sheriff, three before me. Thirty years. Jesus, people are going to be rioting in the streets.'
'What's the body look like?' Virgil asked.
'Just like the other one. Propped up on a tree branch, this time. It's just…fuckin'…nasty.'
Virgil got directions to the Schmidt house, threw fifteen dollars on his plate. As he went by the pale-faced night clerk, the clerk blurted, 'Have you heard?'
'Ah, man…'
OUT THE DOOR, into his truck. He opened his cell phone, scanned down through the directory, punched the call button. A minute later, Lucas Davenport, his boss, said into the phone, 'This better be good. You better not be in a fuckin' fishing boat.'
'Listen, we got two more down here,' Virgil said.
'Oh, boy…' Davenport was in bed, in St. Paul. 'Same guy?'
'Yes. There's display on the body. Worse than that. It's Roman Schmidt, a former sheriff and his wife. Stryker says that townspeople are gonna be in the street. And since this makes five, we'll start getting heavy-duty media heat.'
There was a moment of silence, and then Davenport said, 'And?'
'And? And what?'
'What does this have to do with me, when it's not even seven o'clock in the morning?' Davenport asked.
'I thought you'd like to know,' Virgil said.
'I would have, I guess, at nine-thirty,' Davenport said. 'But at seven o'clock-before seven o'clock-it's your problem.'
'Thanks,' Virgil said. 'Listen, does that Sandy chick still work for you?'
'Part-time.'
'Can I call her?' Virgil asked. 'Get her to carry some water for me?'
'Yeah. Call me after nine, and I'll get you her cell number,' Davenport said. 'She goes to school in the morning.'
'What about the media? What do I do about them?'
Davenport said, 'Wear a fresh shirt, tell them that you're following up a number of leads but you're not able to talk about them for security reasons, that all state and local authorities are cooperating, and, uh, you expect a quick resolution to the case.'
'Thanks, boss.'
'Virgil, I didn't send you out there to be stupid. Handle it, handle the press, get back to me when you've got it figured out,' Davenport said. 'I'll monitor your activities on Channel Three.'
IF VIRGIL was having a bad morning, it was nothing in comparison to Roman Schmidt's. The killer had pushed a forked stick into the dirt of the driveway and had pushed the fork rudely beneath Schmidt's ears, one tine of the fork on either side of his neck. It was enough to hold the sightless body upright, but the down pressure of the body, pulling on the stick, had forced his tongue out. Flies were crawling around his face, into the eye sockets and his mouth.
His legs were splayed, and his penis peeked out of the fly of his boxer shorts.
'That is brutal,' Virgil said, standing with his hands in his jeans pockets. 'The family here yet?'
'Not much family, not that we know of-maybe some cousins. They never had children.'
Virgil and Stryker were fifteen feet from the body and Virgil could see heel grooves in the dew-soft soil of the parking area, where the body had been dragged from the house. 'Where was he killed?' Virgil asked.
'Right at the back door,' Stryker said. 'The first shot took him low in the heart, out a little higher in back. It looks like somebody knocked on the door, was standing on the step, Roman opened the door and bam! He's dead. We know he opened the door because the slug didn't go through it. Gloria was in the bedroom. Looks like they'd been asleep awhile. Then, whoever did it, came and put the last two shots through his eyes. There are holes in the kitchen floor, inside the door.'
The body was found by the newspaper deliveryman. Virgil was the fifth cop there: the two guys on the night patrol had come in first, Big Curly right behind him, because he lived only a mile away, and heard the call on his scanner, and then Stryker and Virgil. Now more cops were showing up, blocking off the yard, waving traffic through on the county highway. Crime scene running a bit late, but expected in the next several minutes.
'Any sign of resistance?'
'No, but that's not a sure thing. We cleared the house and then I got everybody outside, so's not to mess the place up,' Stryker said.
Big Curly came over. 'I barfed,' he said.
'You okay?' Virgil asked.
'I knew them my whole life,' Big Curly said. 'They lived three doors down when I was growing up. I said hello to Roman or Gloria every day for fifty years.'
'Maybe take a seat, get some coffee,' Virgil said. 'Not much to do until crime scene gets here.'
'Okay,' Big Curly said. He took a step, then turned, and said, 'You know, Jim, Rome liked his guns. That drawer was open on his bedside table. I bet there was a weapon in there. If somebody came in late, while he was asleep, I bet he took his gun to the door with him. The killer might have picked it up.'
Stryker nodded and Virgil said, 'Good eye.'
Curly went away and Virgil said, 'You've been assuming that the killer is a guy-male.'
'You think it's a woman?' Stryker's eyebrows went up.
'I had an open mind on the issue. These guys are old, and don't weigh much, but they were dragged. I'm thinking, now, Curly's right-it's a guy.'
'Uh…'
'A strong woman could have dragged them, as long as she didn't worry about hurting them, which she wouldn't, because they were dead. But: take a guy from Schmidt's generation. He's up, he's got his gun, he goes to the door, sees who it is-recognizes him-and opens the door. Gets shot.'
Stryker was puzzled. 'A woman couldn't do that?'
'A woman could-but Roman wouldn't have opened the door with his dick sticking out of his shorts. He would have said, 'Hang on, let me get some pants on,' and he would have put something on, and then he would have opened the door.'
Stryker looked at him for a minute, and then said, 'Sometimes I suspect you're smarter than I am.'
'Better ballplayer, too,' Virgil said. 'But where that leaves us, is right back at what you were assuming anyway. Not a major advance.'
'SPEAKING OF major advances,' Virgil said, 'have you heard from Jesse?'
For a moment, the issue of Roman Schmidt flicked out of Stryker's eyes: 'You sonofabitch, you've been messing with my love life.'
'And…' Like Davenport.
'I appreciate it.' Stryker started to laugh, remembered where he was, and choked it off. 'She called me up last night and she said, 'Jimmy, you want a chance with me?' I said, 'Yes,' or something like that. I actually mumbled a lot, but the basic bottom line is, I was gonna take her to Tijuana Jack's tonight.'
'It's off?'
'Of course it's off,' Stryker said, looking sideways at Schmidt. 'If I took her out tonight, and somebody from town saw me, I'd be dead meat, politically. That'd be the end of my job. They'll want me out there twenty- four/seven, driving the back roads, looking for Roman's killer.'
Virgil looked around, making sure nobody would overhear them: 'That's horseshit, Jim. Not that they wouldn't think it, but you're not gonna find the killer driving the back roads. You want some advice?'
Stryker shrugged. 'Depends on what it is.'
'Take her to Brookings. Or Marshall. That's what, an hour? Give you time to talk. Tell her straight out what's going on, why you've got to go so far. She seems pretty bright; she'll understand it. She'll understand that you're taking a risk for her.'
'Gotta think about it,' Stryker said.
