'Yeah, but I ignored it,' Virgil said. 'I'm with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, looking into the murder of Erica McDill.'
Slibe picked up his chain saw, popped the oil cap, paused, and asked, 'What's that got to do with me?'
Virgil said, 'I'm talking to everybody associated with Wendy's band. Your daughter had a sexual… interlude… with McDill the night before she was murdered. It turns out that McDill was involving herself in the affairs of the band. Some people don't like that, so it seems that we should check on the band.'
He was blabbing on, he realized, and cut it off, and asked, 'Where were you when McDill was killed?'
Slibe said, 'Well, from what Wendy told me, I guess I was feedin' the dogs, or trainin' them. Or in the house, or somewhere. I was around.'
'Anybody else around?' Virgil asked.
'Berni was over in the trailer for a time… The Deuce was around somewhere, probably out in the woods. And somebody might have drove by, but I didn't notice. You could check back down the road. See if anybody saw me.'
'Who's the Deuce?'
'Slibe Junior. He's called the Deuce.'
At that moment a dark figure, in a long-sleeve blue shirt and jeans and a yellow ball cap, slid from behind the double-wide, looked at them for a moment, then slid back behind it. Big guy.
'Your son wear a yellow hat?' Virgil asked.
Slibe turned and looked at the double-wide, and said, 'Yeah. Big kid? He ghosts around here like a… ghost. Spooks me, sometimes. Don't have much to say for himself.'
'Huh. Well… you got a rifle?'
Now Slibe showed an improbably white smile-false teeth, Virgil thought-though it was as thin and nasty as a sickle blade. He asked, 'You think you could find anybody around here who doesn't? Doesn't have about six?'
'How about a.223?'
'Yes, I do. Hasn't been shot for a while,' Slibe said.
'I'd like to take it with me, if I could-I'd give you a receipt for it,' Virgil said.
'Get a warrant,' Slibe said.
'Well, I'll do that,' Virgil said. 'But things could get pretty inconvenient for you, to do it that way. But if that's the way you want to go, it's up to you.'
Slibe asked, 'What's that supposed to mean?'
Virgil shrugged. 'If we get a warrant for weapons… they'll take all of them. No skin off our ass. Wind up sending in a crime-scene crew, search everything out here.'
'Aw, fuck. The goddamn government.' Slibe screwed the oil cap back on the chain saw and said, 'All right. In the house.'
'Let me get my notebook,' Virgil said. 'I'll write you out a receipt.'
He walked over to the truck, got a notebook, dug his pistol out from under the seat, and clipped it under his jeans in the small of his back. Turning out of the truck, he saw the Deuce slide back behind the double-wide.
He followed Slibe to the house; up close, it looked as neat as it did from the road. The kitchen was like Signy's, small, with a two-chair table, with a dog-fancier newspaper folded on the table. Slibe went to a kitchen drawer, pulled it open, rattled some forks around, came up with a small key, walked down a hall to a closet, and opened it, to reveal a steel gun safe.
He popped the safe, which had at least four rifles and two shot-guns, and, on the top shelf, showed the stock of a large-frame handgun. He pulled out a rifle and handed it to Virgil-a military-look semiautomatic Colt AR-15 Sporter II with open sights. More than enough to take out McDill. He hadn't heard back from Mapes on the extraction marks, but Mapes had thought they were probably from a bolt action, not from a semiauto.
Virgil said, 'Thank you,' pulled the bolt, sniffed, and smelled the distinctive cut of gun solvent. 'I'll get it back to you as soon as I can.' He poked back into the safe. 'These all Thirties?'
'Except for the.22,' Slibe said. 'A.308,.30-06, and the.22.'
Virgil pulled out the pump.22, checked it, put it back. A long-rifle slug would have killed McDill if it had hit her right, but wouldn't have done the damage.
'I thought she was shot in a swamp,' Slibe said.
'She was,' Virgil said, turning around to face him.
'But you found a slug? That's why you need the rifle?'
'No slug, but we've got a cartridge. We can do some tests of the shell… and we'll test fire your rifle, and then, if we ever do find a slug, we'll have it.' Virgil shrugged. 'But what we'll probably do is some metallurgy, check metal remnants in the rifle against the metal frags in McDill's skull.'
It was very quiet in the house, and Virgil became aware of a buzzing sound; a bee had gotten in. Slibe was staring at him, then blinked like a gecko and said, 'Well, do what you got to do. I'd like the rifle back, soon as you can get it. We might go out to Wyoming and shoot some prairie rats in October. It's something we do.'
'Do our best,' Virgil said. Coming out the door, he said, 'I hear you run a kennel out here.'
'Best dogs in Minnesota,' Slibe said. 'English Creme Golden Retrievers. I'm the biggest breeder in the Upper Midwest; you want one of my dogs, baby-trained, gonna cost you three grand.'
Virgil whistled. 'You get three grand?'
'And I got a waiting list long as your arm,' Slibe said. He pulled a can of Copenhagen out of his jacket pocket, stuck a pinch under his tongue. 'Ask anybody.'
'What did you think about McDill?'
'Didn't know her. From what Wendy said, she might have had some good ideas. Wendy's pretty anxious to get the show on the road.'
'What do you think about that?' Virgil asked.
Slibe poked a finger down toward the kennels. 'You see them dogs? They're solid gold. That's where the money is. Aren't nobody in Nashville going to pay any attention to a poor girl from Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Maybe twenty years ago, but not now. She wants to do it, but Wendy's a little crazy. I told her that a hundred times.'
'So you think she should stay with dog breeding.'
'That's what I think. But kids get crazy ideas. I mean, it's all right here. Everything she needs. I spent my whole life building this place up so she could take it over. And the Deuce, too, but the Deuce ain't got what it takes to run it. She knows that, but all she thinks about is that CMTV shit,' Slibe said. 'Now-you got the gun. You want anything else? I got some logs to split.'
Virgil nodded and headed for his truck, then turned and said, 'Wendy's a little better than good. I don't know if she's good enough, but she's better than good.'
Something shifted in Slibe's face. 'Don't go telling her that. She'll go sliding off to Nashville or L.A. and wind up on the street, selling her ass. She ain't a bad singer, but that's not why she's here.'
BY THE TIME VIRGIL got back to town, it was late in the day. He called the Bemidji office and arranged for a guy to pick up Slibe's rifle the next morning, looked at his watch, and headed out to the Eagle Nest, still dragging the boat. Margery Stanhope was sitting in her office, alone, sad, and pensive, as she had been the last time he'd seen her; the murder was working on her. Virgil went in, closed the door, and she looked up as he crossed the office and took one of the visitor chairs.
She glanced at the closed door and asked, apprehensively, 'What happened?'
'I have some embarrassing questions to ask, Margery,' Virgil said.
Her brow beetled: 'What?'
'Is it true that some of your waiter boys provide additional services to the guests?'
She leaned back and said, 'Oh. Damnit. Well, I'll tell you what, Virgil, I have heard that, but I do not make any inquiries. What our guests do, as long as they don't do it in the parking lot, is up to them. They are adults.'
'Yeah, but Margery… you hire them,' Virgil said. 'The boys.'
'You ever been to a Hooters?' she asked.
'No, I haven't.'
'I have. They didn't hire those girls on the basis of their master's theses.' She actually smiled. 'Have you seen Kevin?'
'No…'
'Nineteen. Sophomore at UMD next year. Half the people in town think Kevin might be gay, because he goes
