John Sandford - Mad River

The “prisoner’s dilemma” came out of game theory, but cops only used part of it. When they had two or more suspects, they’d make a simultaneous offer to all of them: talk first and you get a reduced charge on a plea bargain. Hold out, and you carry the full load. With your ex-buddy testifying against you, you could kiss your ass good-bye.

“I need them to do that-I need one of them, or both of them, to testify that Dick Murphy paid them,” Virgil said. “If we can keep Jimmy or Becky alive, it won’t be so critical.”

“We better plan on it being critical,” Shrake said.

They drove through Arcadia on the way south; Boykin said that the search was being run out of the filling station there. He’d be parked across the street.

When Virgil, Shrake, and Jenkins arrived, they found what amounted to a media village-three news helicopters sitting in a hay field just north of town, at least a dozen satellite trucks lining the main street, along with a dozen cop cars from various jurisdictions, and a half dozen Humvees. The Guard had set up a bunch of big olive-drab field tents, which smelled like telephone poles, and one of them was working as a cafeteria, passing out ham and egg-salad sandwiches, and bottles of water. They parked behind Boykin’s patrol car and got out.

Boykin came over, carrying an egg-salad sandwich, and said, “The Ferris wheel ain’t here yet,” and Jenkins shook his head: “Dumb shits probably got lost somewhere.”

Shrake: “That egg salad was made for the invasion of Iraq. I hope you got a case of toilet paper in the car.”

“It’s actually quite tasty,” Boykin said. “I talked to the young woman who made it, who is also quite tasty.” He added, “You’re just in time. Duke is going to make a statement. He is in a bad mood, and when he makes a statement to the TV people, in a bad mood, like he was with that concentration camp thing, it is usually something to see. He does put on a show.”

“Ah, man,” Virgil said, and, “Excuse me for a minute.” He walked across the street and got a Diet Coke at the gas station, and then with the other three, walked down to a Guard tent that was being lit up by the TV cameramen. He saw Duke a couple of tents down, and went that way.

“Sorry I couldn’t wait for you to wake up this morning,” Duke said, as Virgil came up. “But I heard it wasn’t that bad. Though, I see you’re limping.”

“Got my ass kicked, is what happened,” Virgil said. He said, “Lewis, we’ve got to talk. It’s not going to help you to go out there and throw a fit.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Duke said. “I learned my lesson. I’m going up there, and I’m going to be polite, and tell them what’s going on, and that we’re following all the rules and regulations.”

“They might start ragging on you.”

“I’ve had that done before,” Duke said.

“Just don’t shoot anybody,” Virgil said.

For the first time since Virgil met him in Shinder, to look at the Welshes’ bodies, Duke cracked what might have been a smile; but not a pleasant one. He seemed to be fantasizing about the possibility of blowing up the media. “I can’t make no rash promises,” he said.

“Ah, man,” Virgil said.

One of the guard people had created a large dry-erase schematic map of southwest Minnesota, and she put it up on the stage, with a red dry-erase pen. Duke climbed on the stage a moment later, along with a National Guard lieutenant colonel whom Virgil didn’t know. With the media people pressing into the tent, Duke introduced the colonel, who pissed everybody off by citing his authority going back to Abraham, by giving the Guard credit for providing vehicles, sandwiches, and water, and by concluding with a confession that nobody had seen anything.

Duke then described the ongoing search of local farmhouses, using the red pen and the map to locate the tightening search-information that everybody already had.

A reporter called, “Bottom line-you haven’t found anything, and as far as you know, they could be in Quartzsite, Arizona.”

“Not at all,” Duke said. “We’ve got very good reason to believe that they’re contained.”

“Then how come the state agents are looking for them way down south of here? Who’s stupid?”

“Nobody’s stupid. The state officers are working with a different set of parameters.”

“How many more will die before they’re caught? I’m not asking for an exact number, but how about an estimate?”

Shrake turned to Virgil and said, “Uh-oh.”

The question was followed by laughter, which irritated Duke more than the question had, and he said, “I’m glad somebody can laugh at this tragedy. I assume you’ll be showing that on your news shows tonight.”

Somebody said, “Fuck you,” just loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough for anybody to identify the source; Virgil thought it might be one of the cameramen. Duke said, “What was that?” and a senior reporter for one of the more dignified news channels said, “That was disgraceful,” and there was a muffled “Suck-up,” followed by more laughter, and then a man whom Virgil recognized as the second-string anchor for Channel Three stood and raised a hand, and Duke poked a finger at him.

“Sheriff Duke, everybody here has heard rumors that James Sharp and Becky Welsh won’t be given a chance to surrender-that you’ve put out a shoot-to-kill order on them, a shoot-on-sight. Is that correct? Are you going to kill them? Or are you going to give them a chance to give themselves up?”

“I’ll take them any way I can get them,” Duke said. “If they turn themselves in, they’ll be protected.”

“I was told by a very reliable source in your department that one of your men would have shot Tom McCall except for the intervention of a state agent.”

“I know that’s a lie because my people don’t talk out of school,” Duke said.

Virgil put his hands over his ears as the anchor said, “You’re calling me a liar? Wait a minute-did you just call me a liar?”

“I’m saying that none of my men-”

“Well, one of them did.”

Another reporter: “I talked to the same guy, and he told me the same thing.”

“Well, if you’d give me that man’s name-”

“You’d fire him.”

Duke’s mouth flapped a few times, and then he said, “Damn right I would. There’s nothing more important in law enforcement than loyalty, and you can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry shooting off their mouths to a bunch of media whores who don’t want to do nothing more than splash blood all over their TV screens.”

Almost everybody-almost everybody -was delighted. Virgil turned to Shrake, Jenkins, and Boykin and said, “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

As Virgil and Jenkins got in Virgil’s truck, Virgil could hear Duke screaming into the microphone.

Something about. . “pissants.”

Becky was worried about Jimmy. He was getting hotter all the time, his face red, his eyes glazed. He’d stopped complaining about the pain in his leg, and about most everything else.

They were still holed up in the old dead man’s house, had eaten their way through a good part of the old man’s food supply-bacon and eggs and bread and oatmeal-and most of their own junk food. The beer was gone.

Becky tried to keep Jimmy awake because she was terribly afraid that if he went to sleep, he’d die. She didn’t know why she thought that, but she did.

Early in the afternoon, she helped him into the bathroom, and then back to the couch; she almost lost him on the way back, when he lost his balance, and they began to reel out of control. She managed to steer him onto the couch, and he screamed when his leg hit the leather.