John Sandford - Mad River

“It’s not Dick’s fault,” John O’Leary said to Frank. Virgil hadn’t known that Ag was married; he assumed that “Dick” was her husband.

Mary: “If he’d taken better care of her, she wouldn’t have been here.”

“And then maybe it would have been you that got killed,” Jim snapped.

Virgil broke in: “Trying to backtrack a trail of what-if’s. . everybody does it, but it doesn’t help. The trail gets too twisted up, and you wind up damaging people who really don’t need it.”

Rob said, “We know that. We’ve even said that.”

Jim said, “But we keep doing it anyway.” He glanced at his father, then said, “Excuse the language, but it’s because Dick is such a. . dick.”

Virgil talked to them a bit more about Sharp, Welsh, and McCall, but none of them knew of any direct connection between themselves and the three suspects, except that their mother, Marsha, and Sharp and Welsh all came from Shinder. “But Mom left Shinder before they were even born.”

Virgil nodded, but didn’t mention the diamonds worn to the reunion; it would just be another cause for unwarranted backtracking, and sleepless nights.

Instead, he said, “So tell me about Dick.”

Dick Murphy was a couple of years younger than Ag, but they’d both gone up to the University of Minnesota, where they’d dated, had become serious, and eventually, after Ag graduated, had married. Dick’s father ran an independent insurance brokerage in town, and Dick quit school after three years to go to work as a salesman.

“They’re pretty rich, Dick’s whole family,” Rob said. “Dick was a running back on the football team, pretty good, he was always bombing around in those Mini Cooper cars in high school, and then he got a BMW when he went to college. You know, he’s a sales guy-he talks good and he looks good, but he’s sort of a dick.”

“He really loved her, I believe,” John O’Leary said. “I wouldn’t have let them get married if I didn’t believe that.”

“Dad. .” Mary said. She seemed fondly exasperated.

“You don’t think so?” John asked. His tone of voice suggested that he had his own doubts, Virgil thought.

“In his way, maybe,” Mary said. “Ag was hot, and we’re pretty rich, too, and Dick sees himself driving around in a convertible with a hot rich chick. But I think it could have been some other hot rich chick, and he would have been just as happy.”

“I’d like to know more about how she lost the baby,” Jack said.

“He didn’t have anything to do with that,” Mary said. “If you’re thinking. . He didn’t.”

“Didn’t want it,” Jack said. “He almost told me so. He had it all planned out. First they’d get a boat, then they’d get a cabin, then they’d get a time-share at Park City. . then maybe they’d get a kid. Like when they were fifty.”

“Ah, jeez,” Mary said. “So he’s a dick. But he still didn’t have anything to do with the baby.”

They all sat around and looked at each other for a minute or so, then John said to Virgil, “Dick didn’t have anything to do with this. He’s not a bad guy.”

Jim: “Except that he’s a dick.”

“I’m perfectly willing to believe you, that he’s not a bad guy,” Virgil said to John. “But let me ask one last ugly question, and then I’ll leave it alone.”

“What you’re going to ask,” Jack said, “is, ‘Did Dick, the dick, get anything out of her death?’ And the answer is, ‘Uh, yes.’”

John said, “Jack. .”

Jack said, “The cop wants to know, Dad.”

They reminded Virgil of his relationship with his own father: fond, but contentious. Virgil said, “So tell me about it.”

Rob said to Virgil, “The day we’re born, the old man sends a check to Fidelity Investments for the full exempt gift amount, for that year. Then he sends another check every birthday, every year. We were all told from the time we were old enough to understand it, that this money was to pay for our graduate school. It wasn’t for cars, or dope, or women, or any of that. It was for grad school. Dad would pay for undergrad work, but this fund would pay for graduate study. Ag didn’t do any graduate study. How much did she have in there, Dad?”

“She might have spent some of it,” John O’Leary said.

Frank said, “Bull hockey. She probably had more than a half-million dollars-because I’ve got that much, and she’s been collecting for a lot more years.”

Turning directly to Virgil, he said, “Our old man is no dummy. He got our money out of the market before the dot-com crash, then got us back in until things started looking ugly again, a few years ago. He got us back out, and after that crash, got us back in. . I don’t know exactly how much she had, but it was a lot.”

Virgil said, “A number would be nice. Just to give me a solid idea.”

John mumbled, “Last time we talked about it, she had seven-seventy.”

“More than enough for a boat and a cabin and maybe even a time-share,” Frank said. “Unless, of course, she walked out on him.”

“She wasn’t going to buy a boat and a cabin, she was going back to med school,” Jack said. To Virgil: “After she lost her baby, she moved out of Dick’s house and came back here.”

Virgil said, “When I hear about that much money, you know, I get curious, because I can’t help it. But I’ll tell you something: I’m about ninety-five percent, and climbing, that it’s Sharp, Welsh, and McCall.”

John O’Leary nodded, and said, “Okay. Then catch them.”

“I will,” Virgil said. “I just hope to God I catch them before they do any more damage.”

“You think you will?” Jack asked.

Virgil looked at them: tough and bright, the whole bunch. He said, “No.”

They talked a little more about the circumstances of the night of the murder-James and Rob had been at the university, but Jack had come home for the weekend. He and Frank were sleeping in separate rooms down the hall from the room where Mary and Ag were.

They were both awakened by shouting, then a gunshot, and then people running, and they ran into the hallway where they encountered their father and mother, heard people running down below. . but then they heard Mary screaming that Ag had been shot. Jack had started after the killers, but his father wrestled him back into the hallway, fearing that he’d also be shot.

Then John and Jack had gone to treat Ag, but knew immediately that she was dead. “Never any doubt,” John said. “She was just. . gone. I’m sure she never knew what happened. No pain, nothing.”

Virgil asked about the kitchen window. “That’s a mystery. I never looked at it. The lock. I talked to Marsha, she never looked at it, I talked to the housekeeper, she never looked at it. . It should have been locked. I guess it wasn’t.”

“Wonder when the last time. . Dick. . was in the kitchen,” Frank asked.

John shook a finger at him: “That’s enough. Shut up.”

Mary took Virgil to the door, while the males sat slumped in the living room, all looking as tired as men can look. Mary looked back at them and said, “Ag was the oldest. Because there were so many of us, she really wound up being a babysitter for most of us. She took care of us growing up.”

“I’m so sorry,” Virgil said, and he was. Then he asked, “When Ag lost her baby, you’re sure Dick didn’t have anything to do with it?”

She shook her head and said, “I’m sure as can be. She and a friend went shopping up in the Cities that day, and Dick was here. I saw him myself, and Ag was fine when she left. She called us from the hospital, told us that she’d lost the baby. She was only six weeks along, so it wasn’t like a big awful thing. She just started bleeding, and they went to the emergency room, but the baby was gone. She was back here the next day.”