John Sandford - Mad River

“You got your gun with you?”

“Yeah. What’s up, Dave?”

“The thing is, people are looking all over for that car,” the duty officer said. “A guy was apparently murdered for it in Bigham, night before last. The same people probably murdered a young girl just a couple blocks away from there, about five minutes before that. . I mean, you need some backup, man, or get the hell out of there.”

Virgil got the details, and said, “I’ll check with you later.”

He looked at the house: still dead quiet. He thought about it, then called Davenport, who said, without first saying hello, “You’re about to fuck up a perfectly good Sunday morning, aren’t you?”

“You know those murders in Bigham Friday night?” Virgil asked.

“Just what I heard around the office, when Ralph came back. Why?”

“Apparently the killers stole a car from one of the victims,” Virgil said. “So, I was out here looking at these two dead people, and tried to track down their daughter to see if she might know something. To cut the story short, I’m looking at that car. So now, we have four dead. We might have a spree.”

“Ah, shit,” Davenport said. “Who’ve you told?”

“You and Dave Jennings,” Virgil said. “I gotta tell Duke, but, uh, you might want to talk to the patrol guys and get the early warning system going.”

“All right. You talk to Duke, I’ll start jackin’ people up. Who’re we looking for?”

“Right now, I’d like to talk to a Jimmy Sharp and a Rebecca Welsh, who were both living somewhere there in the Cities. That’s about all the detail I’ve got, but I will get back to you with more.”

“Do you think Sharp and Welsh. .?”

“I don’t know, but it’s a possibility.”

“Quick as you can,” Davenport said. “If it’s a spree, we gotta move.”

• • •

VIRGIL GOT ON THE PHONE to Duke, told him where he was, told him what had happened, and asked him to come over with some deputies. “There’s nothing moving here now, but that could change,” Virgil said.

Duke said, “I’m activating the SWAT. And me’n a couple other men’ll be there in four minutes. You hang tight.”

Not like he had some other goddamn pressing thing to do, Virgil thought, looking up at the weathered old house.

Four minutes in the cities and New York and Chicago and LA were different from four minutes in Shinder, where four minutes was quite literal: you could drive from one end of town to the other in four minutes, with a choice of routes, in a place where two cars in the same block was a traffic jam.

Fifteen seconds after Virgil got off the phone with Duke, the sirens started, rapidly got louder, and four minutes after they talked, a shoal of sheriff’s cars piled into old man Sharp’s farmyard. Duke was alone in the lead car; he got out, walked around to the trunk, popped it open and took out an M16 and a magazine, and snapped the magazine into place.

He said to Virgil, “I’m good.”

Fifteen seconds later, Virgil was surrounded by six deputies and Duke. He pointed toward the garage. “We’ve got two dead at the Welsh house, two dead in Bigham, and the stolen car here. I think that’s enough to go into the house without a warrant-somebody could be dying inside. So. One of you guys come with me, and the rest of you post around the house in case we get a runner. Don’t shoot unless it’s in self-defense. We really need to talk to somebody.”

Duke said, “I’ll be going in with you, and John Largas, he’ll come, too.” He nodded at an older deputy. “The rest of you take the corners of the house.”

Virgil looked around: there was a woodlot a hundred yards or so behind the house, and some scrubby lilacs along the drive, but no real cover other than the garage. He said, “Somebody can post up beside the garage, but you guys on the other side, stay close to the house. I mean, get your backs right against it. You don’t want to be standing out in the middle of the yard where somebody could shoot you down before you know it. All these places got deer rifles and shotguns. Okay? Everybody understand?”

They all nodded, and the group broke up, the deputies pulling their pistols, and Virgil led Duke and Largas to the back door. Virgil pounded on it for fifteen seconds, shouting, “Police. Open up. Open up.”

Duke said, “Kick it,” but Virgil didn’t. Instead, he reached out and turned the knob, and pushed the door open. They were looking at a mudroom, a half dozen ragged coats hanging from pegs, maybe fifteen ball caps moldering on a shelf, and four or five pairs of worn shoes and boots under a bench. Two beat-up umbrellas sagged in one corner, with an old single-shot.22 rifle with a rusty barrel. The place smelled like dirt and sweat.

Another closed door led into the kitchen; the door had a glass window in it, and Virgil looked through.

“Got a dead guy,” he said. Duke looked through the glass, and Virgil said, “Through the far door. You can see a shoe with a foot in it. He’s dead, unless he picked that spot to take a nap.”

Duke said, “I’m afraid to touch the doorknob.”

“Got to go in, in case he isn’t quite dead.” Virgil put his hand flat on the face of the knob, so he wouldn’t touch the parts that would have fingerprints, and turned it, and the door popped open. They stepped through the kitchen in a straight line, Duke leading with the M16; Virgil was not inclined to walk into a possible gunfight in front of a man with a machine gun. But the house was quiet. From the far door, to the living room, they could see the body-a middle-aged man with a five- or six-day beard, in a long-sleeved woolen undershirt and jeans, lying flat on his back with a bullet hole in his forehead.

Largas, behind Virgil, said, “That’s five. Good God almighty.”

They cleared the house, then Virgil told Duke, “We need to round up everybody in town who knew Rebecca Welsh and James Sharp, get them in one place so we can brainstorm with them. We need to figure out where Welsh and Sharp are, right now.”

Duke nodded, turned to a deputy, said, “Get those two girls we talked to, get them to name everybody who knows these people. We’ll meet up at the elementary school. . ” He looked at his watch. “At eleven o’clock sharp. Get Don Watson to open the place up.”

The deputy left, and Duke asked Virgil, “What else?”

“The neighbor’s house down the road has a car outside, but I didn’t see anybody there. We ought to check all the neighbors, make sure folks are okay.”

Duke said, “I’ll get that going. What are you going to do?”

“I’ll call the crime-scene people, get them over here, talk to the DMV and find out what James Sharp, the old man, drives, and get people looking at it.” He thought for a second, then said, “Then I’m going to call my boss. . And listen, I need everything you’ve got on those Friday murders in Bigham. Who’s working that?”

“Ross Price, he’s our investigator. I’ll hook you up with him.”

Virgil started with the DMV-James Sharp Senior drove a ten-year-old, extended-cab, silver Chevy pickup-and then called Davenport. “Jimmy Sharp and Rebecca Welsh hung with a bunch of people in the Cities. I’ve got one name you could call to find out exactly who that might be. . who else they know. I already spoke to her this morning, so she’s familiar with the situation.”

“You’re sure it’s Welsh and Sharp?” Davenport asked.

“It’s better than fifty-fifty. Sharp’s got a bad rep here in town as a bully who might sell a little dope. Welsh is his girlfriend. If you actually spot them up there, look to see if they might be driving his old man’s Chevy truck. I think the killers have it, whoever they are. Welsh’s folks’ car is still in their garage.”