Thought about local and picked up the phone on the desk and got a dial tone. All right; she had a direct dial phone. He would have to get those calls from the phone company…
After a last look-around, he wrote a quick note to crime scene, explaining the lipstick card and the cardless camera, and left it on the chest of drawers.
He wrote, DNA on the lipstick? What do you think?
4
VIRGIL WALKED BACK to the lodge, nodding to a couple of women along the way, picked up his duffel bag, found Margery Stanhope, and asked, 'Have you heard anything from Miss McDill's friends?'
'They called from the air. They decided to fly up, which wound up taking longer than driving would have.'
'Maybe I'll see them at the airport?'
She shook her head. 'No. One of the things that took so long is that they apparently had the impression that we're way deep in the woods. They got a floatplane out of St. Paul; they'll be coming straight into the lake.'
Virgil looked out at the lake, which was not an especially large one, a couple of thousand acres at most, cluttered with islands. Pretty, but not exactly a landing strip. 'You land floatplanes?'
'From time to time,' she said. 'It annoys people-one cranky old man in particular, who'll be calling me tonight and the county commissioners tomorrow.'
'All right. Well, if I can find your accountant…'
'She's down at the shed-you get there through the parking lot.'
'I saw it. Okay: I'll see you later. I'll want to talk to Miss McDill's friends,' Virgil said.
'You find out anything?'
'Maybe,' Virgil said, going for the enigmatic smile.
ZOE TULL WAS TALKING to a Latino man who'd been working on a gas-powered weed whip, which he'd disassembled on a workbench. She saw Virgil and waved, went back to talking to the Latino. Virgil fished McDill's keys out of his pocket, pushed the unlock button, and saw the lights flash on a silver SL550.
He popped the driver's-side door, squatted, and looked inside: car stuff, Kleenex, a cell phone charger plugged into the cigarette lighter, a bottle of Off!, a box of Band-Aids, breath mints, chewing gum, two lipsticks, an ATM receipt that showed a checking account balance of $23,241 at Wells Fargo, pens, pencils, a checkbook, a utility knife, an LED flashlight, two empty Diet Pepsi bottles, a sweater, a cotton jacket, an umbrella, a dozen business cards in a leather case.
He was thinking, What a pile of shit, when Zoe said over his shoulder, 'She keeps her car pretty neat.'
Virgil stood up, said, 'I was hoping for a blackmail note. You all done?'
'Yes. Getting more numbers.'
Virgil glanced over at the Latino, who'd gone back to working on the weed whip. 'He illegal?'
'Would you arrest him if he was?' she asked.
Virgil laughed. 'If I started arresting illegal Mexicans, I wouldn't have anyplace to eat.'
'Well, he's not-I think Margery runs a few illegals in and out, paying them off the books, but since Julio's name was right out there, I wanted to get his green card number,' Zoe said. 'That way, the feds'll think we're on the up-and-up.'
'I don't want to disillusion you, but the feds don't think anybody is on the up-and-up.'
'And they wouldn't be wrong about that,' she said. 'I know a judge who deducted a wife and daughter as dependents for three years after the divorce and they moved to California.'
'He do time?' Virgil asked.
'He never got caught,' she said, adding, 'He wasn't a client of mine. I heard about it from an accountant friend who was reviewing his returns. He was like, 'Well, I didn't know.' Idiot.'
'Seems to be the excuse du jour when you've committed a major crime,' Virgil said.
'My,' she said, 'he knows French.'
ZOE DROVE A RED HONDA PILOT with a metal file box behind the driver's seat, and a clutter of empty water bottles and ice cream wrappers in the passenger-side foot well. She put the file folder in the metal box, snatched up the ice cream wrappers and bottles and threw them on the backseat, and they took off.
'So-who did it?' she asked. 'Any ideas?'
'Some,' he said. 'But let's not talk about the murder-let's talk about you. Your life and your boyfriends, and all of that. Say, those are nice shoes. Are they Mephistos?'
She glanced at him, puzzled, and said, 'What?'
'Just trying for a little friendly conversation,' Virgil said. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Zoe, he could smell a floral scent, light and vanilla-y.
'Virgil, are you on drugs? Is this something I should know about?'
'They're not Mephistos, are they?' She glanced at him again, then lifted her left foot off the floor so he could see the Nike logo. 'I wouldn't know a Mephisto if one bit me on the ass,' she said.
'Now there's a war crime for you,' Virgil said.
She smiled and said, 'Bob Sanders told me that you were sort of full of it.'
'I'm shocked,' Virgil said, the uninterest set deep in his tone. 'Shocked.'
'You don't seem like somebody who would have perpetrated a massacre,' she said.
'I didn't.'
THEY'D GOTTEN TO THE END of the driveway, and when Virgil looked left, he saw the crime-scene van rolling toward them. He said, 'Hold on for a second, will you? I want to see if these guys got anything else.'
He hopped out of the car, and when the van driver saw him, he pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. Mapes climbed out of the passenger seat carrying a small plastic bag, which he handed to Virgil. Virgil held it up to the sky, to get some light on it.
'A.223,' he said. The shell's brass was still bright.
'Hasn't been there long-I could still smell the powder burn,' Mapes said. 'It was caught in some logs, a couple inches above the water. The shooter couldn't have looked for it long-it was right there.'
'Off to the right? Like it was thrown out by an autoloader?'
'Ah, yes-off to the right, but the extraction marks look like they came from a bolt action. I'm sending Jim'-he jabbed his thumb back toward the truck-'back to Bemidji with it, see what we can see. The other guys are still working the beaver lodge.'
'Good going, man.'
'Well, it was right there-even you could have found it,' Mapes said. Pause. 'Maybe.'
Virgil handed him McDill's car keys and said, 'I knew you were going to insult me, so I carefully contaminated the car. See if you can find something anyway.'
VIRGIL GOT BACK in the Pilot and told Zoe about the shell. 'Now all I have to do is find a rifle and some Mephistos, and we've got it.'
'You'll be able to tell the rifle from just one shell?'
'Not me, the lab. But, yup. Extraction marks. And if we're lucky, she pushed the cartridge down in a magazine with her thumb, and there'll be a big ol' thumbprint. Brass takes good prints.'
'Mmm. Well, I for one have no Mephistos,' she said. 'Why'd you ask?'
'Because the woman who killed Erica McDill may be local-she knew exactly when and how to get into the pond to catch McDill alone. And she may wear Mephistos.'
'You thought I did it?'
'You've been sort of hanging around. A psychopath might do that,' Virgil said.
'I've been hanging around because I'm curious,' she said. 'Also, I'm not a psychopath. I'm an obsessive- compulsive.'
'That's what a psychopath would say,' Virgil said. 'The case of the curious accountant-a woman for whom blood was just another cocktail.'
She brushed the chatter away, as though it were a fly. 'You know for sure it's a woman?'
'Pretty sure,' he said.
