John Sandford - Mad River

Virgil shouted, “Call me back.”

Maybe too late: McCall was gone.

Virgil punched up the number of the BCA duty officer and at the same time brought up his computer; the duty officer said, “Sorry, Virgil, he was on AT amp;T and I still don’t have anybody who can help me out. I got the phone number and your number and maybe we’ll get something out of that.”

Virgil told him to call anytime he had anything of substance, and then did a search for Shell stations in Minnesota. There was one at Springfield, probably fifty or sixty miles away, but there was no way that one would be open at four o’clock in the morning; the other one was at Luverne, just off I-90. That one was a possibility.

Another minute of digging on the ’net got him a phone number, and he called it, but there was no answer. Luverne didn’t have a police department, but was covered by the Rock County sheriff. Virgil had that number in his database, called it. The duty officer said, “Tell you what-they aren’t open. If he told you he was calling from the Shell station in Luverne, he was pulling your weenie.”

“Could you send a car by?”

“I’ll have one there in two minutes.”

“If you see them, don’t try to go one-on-one-for one thing, there are three of them, and they are killers. Get everybody you can find to help out.”

Then Virgil sat on his bed and stared at his telephone. Ten minutes later, Rock County called back and the duty officer said, “Virgil, there’s nobody there. The station’s closed. There’s nothing moving downtown, nothing at all. If they were here, they’re gone-but I got people looking anyway.”

Virgil thanked him and hung up. He called the duty officer at the BCA and told him to get set on Nina Box’s cell phone. “If he calls again, I want to know where he is, and I want to know right now . I want them all over that phone. If they want a warrant, get one. Call when you find out, and call me whatever time it is.”

Then he called Springfield, wound up tracking down a police sergeant, who confirmed that the Shell station was closed and had been for hours. He told the cop why he was calling, and the cop said they’d keep their eyes open, “but they weren’t buying any groceries here.”

Virgil thought about that for a while, and wondered why McCall had specified a Shell station. Was it possible that he’d been at a Shell station earlier? If they were going to Los Angeles, they wouldn’t be going out I-90. On the other hand, I-90 did go west, and everybody said Jimmy Sharp was a little dumb.

He didn’t think he would sleep, but there wasn’t much of an alternative-nothing to do but think-so he finished undressing, lay down, and opened his eyes at seven-thirty with a good solid four hours of sleep behind him; and felt not bad. He rolled out of bed and called Duke, and told him what had happened.

“Ah, jeez, you didn’t have any way to run him down? You had nothin’?”

“I had nothin’,” Virgil said. “I was pulling my hair out, trying to think of something. One thing for sure, we got the right people. And we got the highway patrol and every sheriff’s deputy in four states looking for the pickup and the Boxes’ cars. . but what else is there?”

When Virgil got done with Duke, he called the BCA and found out that while Nina Box had an AT amp;T phone, the call had come in on a non-AT amp;T tower, through some kind of roaming arrangement, and they were still trying to sort out the wheres and whens.

“Let me know,” he said.

Virgil needed to scratch out some kind of plan, and he’d always found a good place to do that was a restaurant booth. He went over to a Perkins diner and got a booth and ordered the barn-buster breakfast, two eggs, hash browns, three buttermilk pancakes, with whole wheat toast, and lots of butter and syrup. He got his iPad and a stylus out and began doodling.

McCall had said that Jimmy Sharp had come back from the O’Leary house with a thousand dollars; that he’d been paid to kill Agatha. The O’Learys had said that if Ag died before the divorce, her husband would get three-quarters of a million dollars, or more. Virgil had known people to kill for three-quarters of a hundred dollars, so it wasn’t hard to believe that somebody would kill for three-quarters of a million.

He’d have to talk to Duke about that, and then make another pass at the O’Learys. He liked seeing his folks, but maybe, he thought, he should find a motel over in Bigham.

“Well, Virgil Flowers, as I live and breathe,” a voice said, and he turned in the booth.

In his own defense, Virgil thought later, her breasts were right there, in a form-fitting sweater, practically in his ear. He did not goggle at them, but even if he had, it would hardly have been insulting, given their quality, and perhaps he did delay a microsecond before lifting his eyes to hers and saying, “Sally! Hey, jeez, I heard you moved to Omaha.”

Sally Long. She was short and dark-complected, with black eyes and black hair, fifty percent Sioux, she’d told him, both of her grandfathers being full-bloods. She had been a high school junior when Virgil, a senior, had taken her to the junior prom. He’d spent the rest of the following summer plotting to get into her shorts, but never had. She said, “I did. With my husband. He’s still there. With his second wife.”

Virgil said, “Uh-oh.” He pointed her to the seat on the other side, and she slid into it and smiled. She’d always been a happy sort.

She said, “Yeah,” and shrugged, and said, “We had a few good years.” There was a beat, and then she said, “Okay, a few good weeks. He was a fuckin’ goat-roper right from the start.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” she said. “I heard you’re an important cop, and you’ve been in shoot-outs with spies, and that you’ve been married four times and divorced all four.”

Virgil: “That’s a lie. It’s three.”

They both laughed, and the food arrived, and she ordered a much smaller breakfast, but when it came, she used just as much syrup. The thing was, Virgil was really pleased to see her; happy right to the bottom of his toes. She seemed happy enough to see him, too.

“Your old man still got that tire place on 59?” he asked, as he worked through the pancakes.

“Yep. I’m the manager, now,” she said. “You need your tire changed?”

Virgil’s mind went blank for a moment, then he said, “Maybe,” and the idea of a motel in Bigham slipped away.

The next time Virgil looked at his cell phone, he realized that they’d been talking for more than an hour. He’d told her about chasing the three killers, and the possibility that they were headed west. Now, he said, “Ah, man, I’ve got to go. I’m staying at the Ramada. There’s a good chance I’ll be back tonight, unless we run these kids down. You wanna go out for a salad and a beer?”

She would. He got her phone number and took off.

He tried to plan-he really did need one-but his mind kept skipping back to memories of Sally and that summer before he went to college. He’d been juggling three simultaneous romances, which was not easy to do in a small town; impossible, actually-he’d been caught out by all three of the women. Or girls. Or whatever they are when they’re still in high school.

Crazy days. First time he’d ever smoked dope; remembered sitting up behind the Olson brothers’ barn, by the old abandoned cattle pen, smoking ditch weed and fooling around with Carol Altenbrunner. .

The crime-scene crew had shifted to the Box house in Marshall, working with the Marshall cops. Virgil stopped there first, wending through a line of TV trucks to get there. All the major Twin Cities stations were there, and local stations from all over western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota. A Twin Cities newspaper reporter named Ruffe Ignace saw him go through the line and put a hand to his cheek in a “call me” sign. Virgil nodded, held up a finger, meaning “It’ll be a while,” and went on through.