'Damnit. He didn't have a handgun or anything?'
'There was some confusion at the scene, but it was all complicated,' Virgil said. 'If he'd gotten back into the trees, with a gun, it would have been hell getting him out of there. Don't know what to tell you, Bob-but this might've been for the best. Nobody else got hurt.'
'Tell that to Channel Three,' Sanders said.
'They up here?'
'They called. I don't know if they're coming or not,' he said. 'How about your pal from the Star Tribune?'
'I don't know where he is; he's not exactly a pal-'
'Bullshit,' Sanders said, showing a thin grin. 'You must not have seen this morning's paper.'
'Aw…'
'Smiling face right out there, on the front page,' Sanders said. 'Cracked the case.'
'Aw, man.'
SANDERS SAID THEY WOULDN'T know anything for certain until the surgeons came out to talk, and he thought that would be a while; an hour or two. 'They gotta do a lot of work,' he said.
He was going to wait. Virgil walked down to the front entrance and found a copy of the Star Tribune, paid for it, and looked at himself, standing, arms crossed, talking to Slibe. Not a bad shot; and he'd never seen Ignace shoot it, didn't even know that he carried a camera.
He looked pretty good, he thought. He was still thinking that when his cell phone rang. He pulled it out: Davenport.
'Yeah.'
'You see the Star Tribune this morning?' Davenport asked.
'I'm looking at it right now. Let me tell you a few things; we had some trouble this morning…'
When he finished, there was a moment of silence, and Davenport asked, 'How strong's the case?'
'We're doing DNA on the blood on the sleeve, and we can get DNA on Windrow from his house… get the Iowa guys to do it. If we get a match, and with the credit card, we'll put him away.'
'So, we're happy, right?'
'Not happy. The kid could have done it, but I went out there looking at his old man. His old man feels right for it, but I don't know about the kid. The kid doesn't seem like a planner, to tell you the truth. I don't know…'
'So you won't be back tonight.'
'No. And probably not tomorrow night. Goddamnit, Lucas, this has got a mushy feel about it.'
'Stay with it, let me know what happens,' Davenport said. 'A state senator, Marsha Williams, called about the McDill case. She's a friend of McDill's father, wanted to see what was up.'
'You're taking pressure?'
'No, not really, she was doing a favor and she asked to be kept up-to-date,' Davenport said. 'If it's okay with you, I'll give her a ring, tell her where we're at.'
'You can, but, uh… leave a little wiggle room.'
HE WAS WALKING back toward the emergency entrance when Wendy Ashbach ran through the doors. She was dressed in a loose white blouse, jeans, and flip-flops, her hair uncombed; she stopped, looked around, saw Virgil, and cried, 'Is he dead? Where's my brother?'
Virgil came up and said, 'He's in the operating room. He was shot.'
She began to weep, and pleaded with him: 'He'll be all right? He'll be all right?'
'He was mostly hit in the legs, but he's hurt,' Virgil said. 'He lost a lot of blood before they got him here, but they're putting more into him. They've got two docs working on him.'
'Where is he?'
He led her along to the emergency room, where Sanders was waiting with two more deputies, and Sanders saw her and came striding over and took her hand and said, 'They're working on him. I can't tell you how he is, yet, but as soon as I know, I'll let you know.'
She began getting angry, wanted to know what had happened, and Sanders put an arm around her shoulder and walked her down the hall. Virgil thought that he wasn't bad at that-at taking care of a relative.
THEY WAITED ANOTHER HOUR. Virgil took a call from Ignace, and asked, 'When did you start carrying a camera?'
'Pretty neat, huh? It's about the size of your dick, so it's easily concealed. Fully automatic, point-and-shoot. How'd you like the picture?'
'Okay, I guess.'
'I'll make you a print,' Ignace said. 'So, anything happen this morning?'
TWO HOURS AFTER the Deuce went in the operating room, a stocky dark-bearded surgeon came out and said, 'We've stabilized things, but he's pretty messed up. We've stopped the worst of the bleeding, but he has multiple shattered bones in his leg and pelvis. He's taken four units of blood. We've got a helicopter coming from Regions Hospital in St. Paul, we're going to lift him out.'
'Will he be okay?' Wendy asked.
'He'll need a lot of rehab,' the surgeon said. 'And, uh, he's not totally out of the woods, yet. He's still in trouble, but we can move him.'
THEY GOT MORE DETAILS, and Zoe came through the door, wrapped up Wendy. Half an hour later, the Deuce was rolled out to a waiting helicopter, saline and painkillers flowing into one arm, was loaded aboard, and was gone.
24
VIRGIL, SANDERS, AND JOHN PHILLIPS, the county attorney, met for a few minutes at Phillips's office. 'If the blood works out, and with the credit card, and if his old man goes along, we're probably good,' Phillips told Virgil. 'But we could use a statement from Ashbach, when he recovers enough to give one. You should be right there. Get in there and read him his rights, and then see what he has to say. No big rush to get a public defender with him… wait until he asks.'
'I wish I could find that damn.223,' Virgil said. 'He must have it hidden somewhere around the farm. I'm going to push Wendy and Slibe about it, see if he has a special place out there, in the woods.'
'The gun would be the icing on the cake, if we could take a couple of prints off it,' Phillips agreed.
VIRGIL CALLED DAVENPORT AGAIN, to fill him in on the meeting, and to impress on him the thinness of the case against the Deuce. 'Gotta push that DNA, man. I know we're stacked up, but we need it.'
Zoe called and said, 'I'm at my house, with Wendy. You better come over here.'
WENDY AND ZOE WERE sitting in Zoe's living room, both looking a little apprehensive, when Virgil arrived. The odor of marijuana floated softly through the room, and Virgil said, 'Mellowing out, huh?' and Zoe said, 'Not exactly,' and Wendy said, 'You're an asshole.'
'I didn't like seeing your brother get shot,' Virgil said. The two women were on the couch, side by side, and he sat down opposite, in an armchair. 'I don't like seeing anybody get shot. The deputies were worried that if he got back in the trees with his rifle, he could pick them off one at a time.'
'They could have just stayed back and waited-they didn't have to shoot him,' Wendy said. 'He was probably scared to death, with a helicopter coming down on him, and all those boats.'
'You were out there?' Virgil asked.
Wendy shook her head and Zoe said, 'No, but it's all over the radio. Everybody's talking about it.'
Virgil said, 'Wendy-I'm sorry.'
Zoe: 'Wendy: tell him.'
Wendy started to cry. 'Ah, God,' she said, 'this is so awful.'
Virgil: 'Tell me what?'
Wendy looked at Zoe, who nodded, and turned back to Virgil and said, 'I don't think the Deuce did it. I think my dad did.'
After a moment, Virgil asked, 'Why do you think that?'
She said, 'The day Erica got killed… I left out of there early in the morning, but I was feeling really up about
