John Sandford - Mad River

Virgil called, and Davenport said, “Pretty good job on the press conference. Sincere yet uninformative.”

“Thanks.”

“I told Shrake he was in for a commendation, for the way he spotted that body at the Gates place.”

“Okay. And listen, it’s been nice talking to you. I’ll get in touch again later.”

“Virgil: that guy who beat you up, Duane McGuire. He’s hiding in his mother’s junk shop in Sleepy Eye.”

“Sleepy Eye? I’m twenty minutes away. Give me the address.”

Davenport said the information about McGuire came from one of his network of informants who saw McGuire leaving a Sleepy Eye convenience store with a bag of beer, heading back to his mother’s place.

They left Boykin with his patrol car, and Shrake jammed himself in the backseat of Virgil’s 4Runner. Shrake said, “We’ve still got nothing to work with.”

“I know,” Virgil said. “If Duane’s home, we’ll have to put on a little skit.”

They worked on the skit on the way over; came into town from the north, cut Highway 14 and took it down Main Street, spotted Martha’s Flea Market Creations, a small shabby shop with some lamps in the front window. They drove around the block, turned into a half-ass dirt alley that threaded behind the stores, and spotted the back entrance.

“Probably come running out of there,” Virgil said.

Jenkins said, “I’ll take it.”

“Don’t get hurt,” Virgil said.

Sleepy Eye was a fairly prosperous place, a railroad town, three or four thousand people, Virgil thought. Not much moving on a cold April day. Shrake and Virgil went around to the front of Martha’s, and parked and got out.

Always nervous going through a door. . but they went through, a bell ringing overhead as Virgil pushed the door open. Martha was sitting there, leaning on a glass-topped counter, reading a tabloid newspaper of some sort. McGuire was just coming into the room from the back, carrying a plate that held a piece of what looked like corn bread. His eyes met Virgil’s, and he dropped the plate and ran. Virgil shouted, “Stop,” and Martha shrieked, “Oh my God. Police, call the police,” and Virgil went through the inside door, with Shrake three steps behind him.

Virgil could see light coming through an open back screen door and, when he got through it, found McGuire sitting in the dirt, holding his hands to his face, Jenkins standing over him. Jenkins said, “He resisted.”

McGuire said, “Mmmpph.”

Virgil squatted next to him, looked up at Jenkins and said, “Put the cuffs on him.” To McGuire he said, “You’re under arrest for accessory to first degree murder, aggravated assault on a police officer, and so on.”

McGuire took his hands down and said, “What?” He was bleeding heavily from the nose, and at that moment, Martha came running out, carrying what appeared to be a very old.22-caliber revolver with a long thin barrel. She waved it awkwardly and said, “All-”

Shrake hit her in the forehead and knocked her down, then stood on the gun until Jenkins rolled her over and put another pair of cuffs on her.

“And Mom’s under arrest for aggravated assault on a police officer,” Virgil said to McGuire.

Martha groaned and then screamed, “Police.”

Shrake knelt next to her and said, “We are the police. We’re arresting your son for all these murders and shit you see on TV.”

“What?”

McGuire started babbling. “I had nothing to do with any murder, for Christ sakes. Did Royce tell you that? All we did was rough you up a little-hell, it was just a fight.”

Martha started crying and said, “My head, my head.”

“Probably ought to get her to the hospital,” Shrake said. “I didn’t have time to hit her easy.”

Virgil said, “Okay, ma’am, just take it easy, sit there. .”

A Sleepy Eye patrol car rolled into the alley, and a cop got out, a hand on his pistol, and Jenkins said, “Shit,” and took out his ID and shouted, “BCA, BCA. .”

McGuire said, “My mom’s hurt.”

Virgil: “I can’t feel too sorry about that. I’m still hurting from you trying to kick me to death.”

“We weren’t gonna kill you, man. Just supposed to smack you around a little.”

“I heard that Murphy wanted me dead,” Virgil said.

“No, no, nobody wanted you dead.”

Jenkins said, quietly, “Cop.”

Virgil said to McGuire, “You’re under arrest for assault. You have a right to an attorney. . ”

The cop was talking to Shrake when Virgil finished, and he went over and said, “Sorry we didn’t have time to call you, but we were afraid he was running. We just heard where he was a few minutes ago. We were over in Bare County with the search.”

The cop was a hefty man, with little hair on his head; he looked down at McGuire and said, “Duane, were you hooked up with all that?”

“No, man, I just. . Ah, shit.”

“He and a pal beat me up, over in Bigham,” Virgil said. “He admitted it before we could Mirandize him, just blurted it out. So. . we’re going to take him over to Bare County, drop him in jail.”

“What’d Martha do?” the cop asked.

“She saw us chasing her son and came running out with a gun. Probably. . misunderstood what was going on.”

“She under arrest?” the cop asked.

“For now. . we’ll get her over to the medical center. What we do after that depends a little on Duane, here. And, of course, what Martha has to say for herself.”

There’s a kind of arrest that’s simply tedious, with paperwork to be done and forms to be filled out, and care taken, and the arrest of the McGuires was all of that. A doctor at the medical center determined that Martha was not badly injured, and Virgil cut her loose after she signed a piece of paper that said she would not hold the state liable for any damage done to her, or her shop, during the arrest. A lawyer might later argue that the paper was signed under duress, but only if he was dumb: she’d come through the door with a gun, and might have been shot.

McGuire was cleaned up at the medical center, and got his nose taped and splinted, and they loaded him into the 4Runner and hauled his complaining ass back to the Bare County jail.

He’d never said, or even hinted, that he wanted a lawyer, and Virgil had Mirandized him, and he said he understood all of that, and that he’d been Mirandized before. So Virgil was in the clear when he asked, “How much did Murphy give you to beat me up?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” McGuire said. “He didn’t give it to me, he gave it to Royce. I just went along for the fun of it.”

“I can understand that,” Shrake said. “Just a good-ol’-boy thing.”

“That’s right.”

“So you didn’t get anything?” Virgil asked.

“Royce give me a hundred bucks afterward. I think he got more.”

By the time they got him to the jail, they had the whole story: Virgil, as he’d intended, had attracted Murphy’s attention when he started interviewing people in the bar, and asked about Murphy. He’d gotten more of an answer than he expected, but more than good enough.

At the jail, they did more paperwork, and then McGuire was taken back to a cell, the jail guard greeting McGuire with, “Hey, Duane, what you been up to?”

“Same ol’ shit,” McGuire said. “Listen, I don’t have no drugs stuffed up my asshole. Do you think. .?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the guard said.

“Aw, man. .”

Outside, Shrake asked, “What’s next?”

Virgil said, “Got to pick up Royce Atkins, and we’ve still got to find Sharp and Becky Welsh. That’s the main thing. Murphy, we’ll just leave him on the shelf for a few days.”

By the time they got McGuire stashed, it was late in the day. Duke was still out on the hunt, and Virgil talked with the chief deputy, who said there had been no more hints that they might be on the fugitives’ trail. “The sheriff just reoriented everybody around that farm you found, and people are working out from that. We’re assuming that since they ditched the Townes’ truck, they’re running around in Gates’s truck. Old red Dodge. We’ve got two choppers running a search pattern around the house, trying to see if they can spot it. Nothing so far, and with dark coming on. . probably not going to find it tonight.”