That, he thought, was something.
Looking through a half-dozen Judd accounts, he found more than thirty thousand checks, so many that he simply didn't have time to work through them. But there were no incoming checks for $547 between 1970 and 1985; no sign that Roman Schmidt had ever written a check to Judd. Just as interesting, during the whole period of the Jerusalem artichoke scam, he found little variation in Judd's income or outgo. There had to be other accounts that he didn't know about. He'd talk to Sandy, Davenport's research assistant, and see what she could find in the state's corporate filings…
AGAIN, the Gleasons were a dry hole.
WHEN VIRGIL WALKED out the door, it was one o'clock in the afternoon, one of the best of the year: very warm, with a touch of breeze, and the smell of August coming up. He got on his cell phone, and called Joanie: 'I thought you might be the tiniest bit irritated with me when I dropped you off,' he said. 'Were you?'
'Somewhat. But I'm over it,' she said. 'I was surprised, more than anything. After I thought about it, I wasn't surprised anymore.'
'Mmm. Would you be interested in going out to the farm this evening? Explore the pond and the waterfall?'
'Maybe, if you play your cards right,' she said.
'What cards would those be?'
'Stop at Ernhardt's and buy us a box lunch and a six-pack. Or box dinner. Picnic. Then I won't have to cook anything.'
'Deal,' Virgil said. 'I've got a question. Is there a funeral home in Bluestem?'
'Sure. Johnstone's. Over on the west side, by the cemetery. Go out on Fifth Street, you'll run right into it.'
'Do you think they might have records going back to the seventies?'
'Well, Gerald Johnstone's still alive. He must go back to the fifties. His son, Oliver, runs the place now. But Gerald's sharp as a tack, he lives up by the Gleasons. About six houses down the way, on the left. Right on the edge of the coulee. Wife's name is Carol.'
'Hmm.' Virgil thought: Betsy Carlson, the old woman in the nursing home, said that 'Jerry' had been there the night of the man in the moon.
'He sure as heck didn't do it,' Joan said. 'He's sharp, but I doubt that he could pick up a gallon of milk, much less a body.'
'All right…What kind of sandwiches?'
VIRGIL WALKED OVER to Ernhardt's Cafe, ordered a box lunch, roast beef sandwiches on sourdough, with mustard and mild onions, a pound-sized carton of blue-cheese potato salad, a six-pack of Amstel, two plastic plates, and two sets of plastic silverware. The woman behind the counter said he could have it in ten minutes, or he could pick it up anytime before six o'clock. He told her he'd be back at five, borrowed her phone book, and looked up Gerald Johnstone's address.
JOHNSTONE LIVED in a redwood-sided ranch-style house with a walkout basement on the coulee side, a deck looking out at the town, and a three-car garage. A sprinkler system was watering the unnaturally green lawn when Virgil pulled into the drive. He dodged the overlapping wet spots along the drive and the walk to the front door, ducked under a wind chime, and rang the bell.
A moment later, an elderly man, gray-faced and wary, spoke through a screened window to the side of the porch. 'Who are you?'
Virgil held up his ID. 'Virgil Flowers, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Like to talk to you for a couple of minutes, Mr. Johnstone.'
Johnstone unlocked the inner door, pushed open the screen door. He was well into his eighties, Virgil thought, tall, too thin, with shaky hands and blue eyes that seemed to be fading. He was bald on top, with a few strands of silvery white hair combed over the bald spot. 'Don't usually have everything all locked up,' he said. 'My wife is pretty nervous about all these killings. Old people like us.'
As he said it, a woman called from the back, 'Jerry? Who is it?'
'Police,' he called back.
As Virgil stepped across the threshold, she came out of the back of the house holding a stack of neatly folded towels. She was a pink, round, busy woman, fifteen years younger than her husband. She asked, 'Are you the Flowers gentleman?'
'Yes, I am,' he said. 'Pleased to meet you.'
THEY TALKED in the living room. The Johnstones didn't know anything about anything, but they were scared to death and were willing to admit it. 'He's killing my friends, whoever it is,' Johnstone said. 'Bill Judd wasn't much of a friend, especially in later years, but I knew him pretty well. Roman and Gloria and Russell and Anna were my friends. I'm afraid that…you know…he might be coming for us.'
'Any idea why he might be? What he's doing?' Virgil asked.
'No idea at all. We've been wracking our brains,' Johnstone said.
Carol Johnstone said, 'In a town like this, everybody has a little spot of trouble with everybody else, sooner or later-we're all too close together. But you get over it, and you're friends again. But who could hate this much…' Her voice trailed off. Then, 'I'd like to say something, but I wouldn't like it getting around.'
'Absolutely,' Virgil said.
'George Feur was working on Bill Judd,' Carol Johnstone said. 'Talking to him about his soul, trying to get some money out of him-and he did get some money out of him, I think. Feur deals in hate, and the people around him are attracted by it. I think that's where the problem might be, but why they would kill old people, I don't know.'
''Cause they're nutcases,' Gerald Johnstone said.
Virgil said to Gerald Johnstone, 'I'm looking at Reverend Feur. But there's also a possibility-because the victims are somewhat elderly-that something happened way back when,' Virgil said. 'I'd like you to look at a photograph of a body and tell me if it was in your funeral home.'
And to Carol Johnstone: 'It's not a pleasant picture, ma'am…'
'Pictures of bodies never bothered me,' she said. 'I worked in the funeral home for thirty years and saw everything you can see.'
Virgil nodded, and took out the color Xerox of the woman on the table. He handed it to Gerald Johnstone, who looked at it with his vague eyes, focused, and then seemed to shudder with recognition.
He said, 'That looks like our funeral home. This is a funeral home in the picture, and it looks like our dressing table…but I can't say that I remember the case. It appears to be an automobile accident, is what I'd say. We had lots of those. Didn't have full funerals-just dress the body and ship it back to wherever they came from. So…I can't remember.'
Virgil thought, He's lying.
Carol was shaking her head: 'I'd remember it if I'd seen it, but I never saw it. Where did it come from?'
'I don't know,' Virgil said. 'I was hoping you could tell me.'
She shook her head. 'I was there, but I never saw that woman. Must have been a dress-and-ship. Whoever she is, she isn't local.'
'Okay,' Virgil said. Gerald Johnstone was still peering at the picture, replaying something in his mind, but again he shook his head. 'I'm sorry,' he said.
Carol Johnstone, Virgil thought, was telling the truth. Gerald Johnstone was lying through his teeth.
HE PUSHED the old man: 'It's important that we know if it's your place or not,' he said. 'Is it your funeral home?'
'It could be,' Johnstone said. 'But the way the picture is…it's too close up. The table is the same kind we had, a stainless-steel Ferno. We don't have it anymore.'
Carol Johnstone said, 'That is our place, Jerry, before the remodel.' She tapped one corner of the photo, the corner of an odd machine that looked like an oversized blender. 'That's that old Portiboy, remember? I'm sure that's our place.'
Gerald Johnstone shook his head: 'I think it is, but I don't remember the case. We did hundreds of automobile accidents over the years, and I'm just…too old.'
Still lying, Virgil thought. 'When did you do the remodel?' he asked.
'That was 1981 into 1982. All new equipment by 'eighty-two,' Carol Johnstone said. 'Whoever that is, had to
