John Sandford - Mad River

At the Box house, he learned from the crime-scene crew that the couple had been killed with two different guns, one an old-fashioned.38 revolver that shot one-hundred percent solid lead bullets, the other a 9mm shooting modern copper-jacketed hollow-points. They’d picked up the 9mm shell and could see a partial print on it, but hadn’t determined who the print belonged to.

“Right now, I’m ninety-nine percent that the.38 was the same one used to kill the first several victims,” said Sawyer, the crew leader. “I’m just eyeballing it, but it’s the same kind of mungy old lead. I suspect he changed to the nine-millimeter because he’d run out of bullets for the.38. It’s a six-shooter.”

“I’ll tell you what, Bea, you’re right. We got it from another source,” Virgil said, and he told her about talking with McCall.

Duke had come over to Marshall from Bigham, and Virgil took him aside and said, “What do you know about the Murphys there in Bigham? Ag O’Leary’s husband-or Ag Murphy’s?”

“Ag Murphy,” Duke said. “What’s up?”

Virgil told him about the conversation with McCall, and McCall’s claim about the thousand dollars. Duke pinched his bottom lip as he listened, then said, “First time I ran for office, Stan Murphy-he’s the old man-gave five hundred dollars to my opponent because my opponent was favored to win. The next time I ran, he gave five hundred dollars to me. We had an old-timey Episcopal church there in town, and Stan was a member. They had a big hoorah about women being priests and homosexuals and all that, and the congregation split in half. Stan didn’t do anything until he saw which way a couple of the richest guys in town were going, and then he went with them.”

“You’re saying. .”

“The old man’s all about money. Nothing else. Just money,” Duke said. “In fact, somebody told me that back in Butternut Falls, where he was originally from, he was a Catholic, and didn’t join up with the Episcopals until he got here and saw which way the wind was blowing. Where the money was.”

“Okay. But what about Dick?”

“I don’t know the boy that well,” Duke said. “He was a pretty good running back in high school, not good enough for college ball, but okay-he was honorable-mention all-conference, or something. But given his old man’s attitude, I’d say some of that must’ve rubbed off.”

“So if Ag’s getting a divorce, and she dies before it gets done, the kid gets seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Virgil said. “Does that engage your interest?”

“It does,” Duke said. “But if there’s anything there, you’ll have to find it. You’ve met my investigator. He’s all right on some things, but this is out of his league.”

“I may go over and talk to folks in Bigham,” Virgil said. “I wanted you to know.”

After talking to the Marshall chief of police, and the sheriff, Virgil got back in his truck and called Davenport, and filled him in.

“You made all the national talk shows,” Davenport said, when Virgil had finished. “They’re saying Bonnie and Clyde . They’re saying Natural Born Killers . You could probably sell an option on a movie, if you move fast. Everybody in the world is headed your way, and they’re all hoping for a big bloody shoot-out.”

“Most of them are already here,” Virgil said. “I just saw Ruffe.”

“That figures. He’s still trying to get to the Times ,” Davenport said. “You want me to send you any help? Jenkins and Shrake are available.”

“Lucas, it’s mostly a hunt and everybody for a hundred miles around is hunting for them. Jenkins and Shrake wouldn’t add much to that. I’m just hoping McCall gets back to me.”

“All right. Well, anything I can do,” Davenport said.

“I wish you could do something,” Virgil said. “It’s the most frustrating thing. We know who’s doing the killing, but how do you find them? You gotta wait until they fuck up, and they could kill any number of people before they do that.”

Virgil called Ruffe Ignace. He’d worked with the reporter a few times, in an “I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine” arrangement that had usually worked out well for both of them. Virgil regarded him as almost trustworthy. Ignace answered on the first ring and asked, without preamble, “You working on anything else for the Times ?”

“No, but just between you and me, I’ve almost got a story locked up with Vanity Fair . Just a matter of signing the contract.”

There was a long silence, then Ignace said, “If you aren’t lying, I’m going to kill myself.”

“Use a lot of pills and alcohol, that’s the best way,” Virgil said. “Guns and ropes, you can get it wrong and wind up a vegetable.”

“Aw. . Jesus.”

“So you wanted me to call?”

“Aw, Jesus.” More silence, then, “I went to the press conference this morning. I need some details that nobody else got. I’ll be just about exactly twenty-four hours behind the TV people.”

“What do I get?” Virgil asked.

“I can’t promise favorable mentions, because that would be unethical. But I can’t help it if I feel favorably toward you.”

“All right.” Virgil gave him a few crime-scene details about the bodies, the murder scenes, about how he’d linked the car in James Sharp Senior’s garage to the murders of Ag O’Leary Murphy and Emmett Williams.

“That’s good, that’s good stuff,” Ignace said. “So-off the record, just between you and me. . what are you doing for Vanity Fair ?”

After talking to Ignace, Virgil left Marshall and drove to Bigham, thinking about the O’Learys and the Murphys, and a little about Sally Long. Like this: Gonna have to be careful with the Murphys and the O’Learys, I don’t want to spark off a feud that’ll get the kid lawyered up. . talk to them, get the details, swear them to silence. . What do I say to Dick? How do I get started. .? Boy, she really kept her figure over the years. . She looks better now than she did in high school. .

He teased at the Murphy puzzle; if it was true that Dick Murphy paid for the killing of his wife, Virgil had three potential witnesses, all of them mass murderers. In Virgil’s experience with mass murder, which was mostly through TV news, Sharp and his friends were likely to wind up dead before they ever got to a court.

As he was going past Shinder, he got the phone out again and called Davenport: “You said, and I quote, ‘Anything I can do.’”

Davenport temporized: “Well, that was maybe a little hyperbole.”

“I need to get into your database for Bigham,” Virgil said.

After a few seconds’ silence, Davenport said, “Okay. What are you looking for?”

“The baddest people in town. Not stupid, though,” Virgil said. “I want somebody you might go to if you were thinking about hiring a killer.”

“I won’t have anybody like that,” Davenport said. “The best I can do is, I might have somebody who could point you in the right direction.”

“That’ll work,” Virgil said.

“Give me a couple hours,” Davenport said.

Davenport had spent the best part of two years building a database of people in Minnesota who would talk to the cops, and who also knew a lot of bad people. He had a theory that every town of any size would have bars, restaurants, biker shops, what he called “nodes” that would attract the local assholes.

He was trying to get two informants in every node, and did that by selling what he called “Cop Karma.”

“Karma’s just another word for payback,” he told the more sophisticated of his recruits. “You stack up some good karma points with me, and the next time you drive into the ditch, if it’s not too serious, you could get yourself some payback.”