Stryker cracked a smile. 'That'd give old Junior a major case of the red ass, you betcha.'
Virgil: 'Who's George Feur?'
'Nutcase preacher, found Jesus in prison,' Stryker said. 'He's got a so-called religious compound over by the Dakota line. He was trying his best to save Bill Judd's soul, according to the local gossip.'
'He's nuts?'
Williamson said, 'He believes in the purity of the white race and that Jesus was a Roman, and thinks blacks were stuck in Africa because of the curse of Cain, and they should all be shipped back there so they can properly suffer the righteous wrath of God, instead of polluting white women and gettin' all the good jobs at Target. Once a month or so, he and a bunch of people get some signs and go march somewhere, and say all of that. Here, Worthington, Sioux Falls.'
Little Curly: 'He says Indians are the Lost Tribes of Israel, and they're Jews, and they should all go back to Israel so we can get the Second Coming. Had a few fights with Indians.'
Virgil: 'And he was converting Judd?' He was thinking of the book of Revelation on the Gleasons' end table.
'He needs rich recruits,' Williamson said. 'How else is he gonna get the money to buy guns to overthrow the godless Democrats and ship the blacks back to Africa?'
'Ah.'
'And the Mexicans back to Mexico, and the Chinese back to China, and the Indians to Israel, and so on and so forth,' Williamson said. 'I wrote a long feature on him, got picked up by the Associated Press.'
'HERE COMES TROUBLE,' Big Curly muttered.
Virgil looked and Bill Judd Jr. was headed toward them. Judd was a heavy man, with a turkey-wattle neck under a fat face, thinning hair, and small black eyes. He must have been close to sixty, Virgil thought.
Judd nodded at Williamson, glanced at Virgil, and asked Stryker, 'What're you going to do about this, Jim? If that's Dad down there, and if that boy from the state fire marshal was right, then it's murder. What're you going to do?'
'Investigate it,' Stryker said.
'Like you're investigating the Gleasons?' Judd shook his head, his wattles swinging under his chin. 'Give me a break, Jim. You bring in the BCA or…Goddamnit, you bring in the BCA.'
Stryker tipped his head toward Virgil. 'Meet Virgil Flowers, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.'
Judd's face snapped toward Virgil. He examined him for a moment, checked the T-shirt, then said, 'You don't look like much.'
Virgil smiled. 'I'm not easily insulted by suspects,' he said. 'There been too many of them over the years.'
'What the fuck's that supposed to mean?' Judd asked.
'Well, you're pretty much the only suspect we've got at the moment,' Virgil said. 'In a situation like this, you always ask, 'Who inherits?' The answer, as I understand it, is you.'
Judd looked at Virgil for a long three seconds, then turned to Williamson. 'You keep that out of the newspaper.'
Williamson shook his head. 'I don't work for you, Bill. I worked for your father, and now I work for your father's estate. When the estate passes to you, I'll be out of here like a hot desert breeze. Until then, I'm working for the estate.'
'You better find a job by the end of next week, then,' Judd said.
VIRGIL SAID TO JUDD: 'We need to look at your father's will. We assume it's in a safe-deposit box. We're gonna get a writ to open it, since it could be material for this investigation. Also because we'd like to see what else is in the safe.'
Judd nodded: 'That's fine with me. Let's get Bob Turner and go talk to the judge and crack the box. Get things moving.'
'Can I come?' Williamson asked.
Stryker said, 'No.'
Williamson grinned: 'No harm in asking. Goddamn, it's hot out here.'
ON THE WAY back to their vehicles, they stopped at the burn pit and Stryker called down, 'Anything new?'
A chubby woman in a yellow protective suit and face mask stood up, used a paper towel to wipe sweat off her face, put the towel in a trash bag, and said, 'I'm dying of heat prostitution.'
They all grinned down at her and she added, 'Nothing else, really. But we've got the carpals and they're intact; they were under a piece of sheet steel and that must've given them some protection, so I think we're good for DNA. And with Bill Jr. to provide us a sample, we can be sure on the ID.'
'Get it done,' Stryker said.
On the way down the hill, Big Curly said, 'I'd like to cut me off a piece of that,' meaning the woman in the yellow suit.
Stryker nodded. 'I'll mention it to Mrs. Curly.'
ONE OF the best things and one of the worst things about a small town was that everybody knew everything that was going on. The judge knew about as much of the Judd case as Virgil did, and pounded out a writ on his secretary's computer, and printed it.
'Good to go,' he said, and handed the paper to Stryker.
Stryker called the Wells Fargo branch and talked to the manager, who said he'd be waiting. Judd's attorney said he'd walk over.
'So let's go,' Stryker said.
'GO' MEANT WALKING-the bank was three blocks away, two blocks through an older residential area, cutting the business district about halfway down Main Street. They walked past the drugstore, which gave out a whiff of popcorn, and Judd trotted back and went inside and then caught up, carrying a paper sleeve of it, munching at it like a starving man; and past the newspaper, which shared a building with an office that said JUDD ENTERPRISES, and one that said WILLIAM JUDD JR., INVESTMENTS, then on down the street past a combination barbershop and beauty salon.
The bank's time-and-temperature sign said eighty-seven degrees when they walked under it, and into the lobby. The banker was a white-haired man with a neat mustache, and the lawyer was a white-haired man with a neat mustache; a Mexican-looking guy in jeans and a T-shirt, and a black mustache, stood off to one side with a toolbox. Stryker was becoming a white-haired man with a neat mustache. Should Virgil grow a mustache, he'd look like everybody else, Virgil thought: a monoculture of German-Scandinavian white people, now getting a little salsa poured on it, to the great relief of everyone.
The banker took the writ, and led the way into the vault, explained that since Judd had the necessary keys, which hadn't been found in the burnt-out house, they'd have to drill the box, and would charge the estate for it later. Drilling the box took three minutes, the banker gave the Mexican guy a twenty, and the guy took his tools and left.
The box was one of the bigger sizes; big enough, say, to hold three roasted chickens. The banker carried it to a privacy carrel, but since they weren't being private, they all crowded around when they popped the lid.
Judd said, with some reverence, 'Holy shit.'
The box was filled with paper. The top two layers were paper money. 'Not as much as you might think,' the banker said, earnestly, but his eyes had a light in them. 'Hundred-dollar bills, ten-thousand-dollar bundles…fifteen, eighteen, twenty. Two hundred thousand in cash.'
'Why would he have two hundred thousand in cash?' Virgil asked Judd.
Judd said, 'Don't want to get caught short.'
They stacked it to one side and Judd pulled up a plastic chair and sat down, staring at the money, while the banker and lawyer dug into the rest of the paper, insurance policies, deeds, photographs, a couple boxes of jewelry.
THAT WAS in the afternoon, in which some other things happened, but none that turned out to be important.
IN THE EVENING, Joan Carson sat in the candlelight at Tijuana Jack's and looked terrific. She wore a cotton summer-knit dress the color of raw linen, with a necklace of marble-sized jade beads that perfectly matched her eyes. She had a scattering of faint freckles across her short nose, and Virgil noticed for the first time that she had
