John Sandford - Mad River

“All they ever talked about was going to Los Angeles and working in the movies,” a young girl said. “If I were you, I’d start looking around Sioux Falls or out by Mitchell. They’re probably on their way.”

“Not if they’re driving Jim Sharp’s Chevy,” said a broad-shouldered man with oily blond hair. “The gol-darned tires on that thing won’t get them past Marshall. Jim brought it in for gas last week, and the deepest tread was the tread-wear indicators. Tires are like paper and the transmission sounds like it’s made out of rocks. Won’t get them fifty miles, unless they find new tires.”

“Becky worked for a while over at a McDonald’s in Marshall-maybe they went there. At least she knows the city,” a woman said.

They Talked for a few more minutes, until the people began repeating themselves, and Virgil called it off. Out on the school porch, he said to Duke, “We’ve got a couple dead-enders with a gun. We’ve gotta find that pickup, Lewis. The problem is. . we might find more dead folks when we find the pickup.”

“I’ll get onto Marshall, have them check the place street by street,” Duke said. “And every other town for fifty miles around. We won’t be able to keep it quiet. We’ll start getting the media messing with us.”

“That’s not all bad,” Virgil said. “The more people spotting for us, the better. We’ll just have to put up with the bullshit that comes with it. Or really, you will-you’ll be the face on this thing, until we get them or there’s more shooting.”

“So maybe instead of sneaking around until they find out, we oughta just go ahead and bring the media in right away. Make an appeal.”

Virgil nodded. “Think about how you want to do that. We’re not even sure that these kids are involved. . but we do need to find them.”

“Let me think about it,” Duke said. “What’re you going to do?”

“Call people up on the telephone,” Virgil said.

Davenport, working the phones with a couple of other BCA agents, had tracked down Jimmy Sharp’s last known address, a room in a postwar house on St. Paul’s East Side. The owner, whose name was Ronald Deutch, had originally rented the room to another man from Shinder, named Tom McCall. McCall had let Jimmy and Becky sleep in his room for the week before Deutch kicked all three of them out for non-payment of rent.

“As far as we could tell, all three of them were effectively homeless,” Davenport said. “Deutch was renting them the room for fifty dollars a week, and they were two weeks overdue and couldn’t come up with even a night’s rent. They left there two weeks ago, and the landlord hasn’t seen them since.”

“So there might be three of them, instead of two,” Virgil said.

“Yeah. You gotta see what you can find on this McCall guy.”

“I’ll do that,” Virgil said.

Virgil had been working the telephone from his truck, where he could keep the phone plugged into the charger. He’d just hung up from the Davenport call when a man stepped up beside the truck and knocked on the passenger-side window. He was a thin man who wore a cowboy hat, a tan, western-style canvas sport coat, and rimless eyeglasses. Virgil ran the window down and the man said, “I’m Ross Price. I’m the-”

“Investigator,” Virgil said. “Hop in. We need to talk.”

Price got in and said, “Five dead. These kids have gone crazy.”

“If it’s them,” Virgil agreed. “I’ve talked to Duke about the murders Friday night, but I’d like to get the details.”

“I’ve been writing up everything. I’ve got files on my computer I could send you.”

“Do that. But just tell me what you’ve seen so far.”

Price looked out the window, scratched his forehead, then said, “It seems simple, but it feels complicated. I’ve never been the lead investigator on a murder where we really needed investigation. I’ve done two murders, but we knew who did both of them the minute we walked in the door. One was a bar fight, the other one was a domestic. But this one. .”

Virgil nodded: “I know what you mean. My first murder investigation, you know, a real investigation, I was so confused that I didn’t know if I was coming or going. But, after a while, it smooths out. So just tell me what you saw, and what people told you.”

The murder victim was named Agatha Murphy, shot in the head during what looked like a burglary gone bad. Or a robbery gone bad-Price wasn’t sure which it was.

“They came in like burglars. We think three of them, but it could have been two-the surviving witness wasn’t sure about that. At least one was a woman. But two men and a woman, that fits with what you’ve got going here.”

“Yes, it does,” Virgil said. “What kind of neighborhood was it? Was the house picked by chance?”

“I can’t say,” Price said. “They passed a lot of houses that looked as good as the O’Leary house. That had me confused. But now that it seems like these kids are from here in Shinder, it makes more sense. Mrs. O’Leary was from here in Shinder, and I guess she was flashing some expensive diamonds. . ”

Price repeated the story about O’Leary and her jewelry. He said one of the intruders apparently came in through a back window that had been left unlocked, and then opened a back door for the others. They’d crept through a sleeping house, eventually entering the front bedroom where two women, sisters, were sleeping. One of them, Agatha Murphy, was staying at her parents’ house after separating from her husband some months earlier. The other, Mary O’Leary, was a senior in high school, six years younger than Agatha.

“They came in the bedroom, said they were there to do some robbing,” Price said. “Ag Murphy-they call her Ag-got up in their face, and one of them knocked her down. That spooked them, and they ran for it. But before they went, the leader shot Agatha in the forehead and killed her. Medical examiner said death was instantaneous. Mary O’Leary says that Agatha was kneeling on the floor when she got shot, and was no threat to the killer. He shot her down in cold blood. Just. . nuts.”

Virgil: “Did they ask for money or jewelry?”

“Didn’t ask for anything. The leader said he was there to do some robbing, but then, the girl got on him, and he hit her and then shot her. Then they ran.”

“Can Mary identify them? Any way at all?”

Price shook his head. “The leader had a flashlight in their faces. Your crime-scene people couldn’t come up with prints, and we haven’t heard back about DNA but they weren’t too confident about that, either. They did find some denim threads on the windowsill, and some brown cotton threads that might have come from gloves. . so they were ready to do it.”

“The back window. . Did the O’Learys say why it was open?”

“They didn’t think it was. Everything else was locked. And I’ll tell you something-this is about the only bit of real detecting I’ve done: I saw that whoever opened that window pried it up with a knife, or maybe a screwdriver. A knife, I think. But I looked at all the other windows down that side of the house, and you know what? There’s not another knife-dent to be found. They went right straight to the open window and pried it up. It’s like they knew .”

“Nice piece of work there,” Virgil said. “Like the window had been spotted in advance.”

“The thing is, the windows have locking levers on both sides. They fold down to lock, up to unlock, but you can’t see what position they’re in from outside. You either knew the window was open, or you had to try them all. Or, you got a giant coincidence.”

“We got a saying about coincidences in the BCA,” Virgil said.

Price bit. “Yeah? Like what?”