John Sandford - Shock Wave

Virgil had no answer for that. He said, “You need to lie down and take a nap before your brains burn up.”

So, Virgil asked himself, back in his truck, why’d he try to kill me?

Virgil intended to spend some time thinking-stretch out on the bed and have at it. As a backup, and just to make sure he didn’t fall asleep, he set the alarm, and the alarm woke him a half hour before he was to meet Good Thunder at Shepard’s lawyer’s office.

He got up, checked his vital signs-he had an after-nap erection, which was always good-brushed his teeth and took a quick shower.

Good Thunder had given him directions to the lawyer’s office, and wearing his most conservative T-shirt-an unauthorized souvenir from My Chemical Romance, with the band’s name only on the back, and with a black sport coat covering it-he set off for the lawyer’s office.

The office was in a low, low, rustic strip mall-fake log cabins-with Butternut’s most complete collection of upscale boutiques, including one called Mairzy Doats with a window full of stuffed velvet moose dolls. Good Thunder was sitting on the hood of her car, a new fire-engine-red Chevy Camaro, waiting. When Virgil got out of the truck, she said, in a phony baritone, “Johnny Cash, the ‘Man in Black.’ ”

“You seem to be in a pretty good mood,” Virgil said.

She hopped off the hood. “My boss put a thumb in the wind-that’s not where he usually keeps it-and decided that if we can bag the city council, if they really did it, then he’ll be a lock for reelection. What he really doesn’t want, though, is for us to screw it up. He’s gonna be really unhappy if we just wound them.”

Virgil nodded. “I know how it is. You get a wounded city councilman out in the brush, they’ll charge at the drop of the hat.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Let’s not have any show of wit in here. Let’s just play it straight.”

“This lawyer’s pretty smart?”

“As a matter of fact, he is.”

The lawyer was an extremely white man named Thomas LaRouche. His secretary ushered them into his office, where Jeanne Shepard sat in a corner chair, looking apprehensive. LaRouche was tall, courtly, and silver-haired, wearing a blue suit and a white shirt, open at the throat; a burgundy necktie was curled on a corner of his desk. He was maybe sixty, Virgil thought.

When they came in, he stood up, smiling, said, “Shirley,” and came around the desk and kissed Good Thunder on the cheek, and shook hands with Virgil and pointed them at two leather visitor’s chairs.

“I heard your boat was blown up this morning,” he said to Virgil, as he settled behind his desk. “That qualifies as a war crime.”

“You’re right,” Virgil said. “People keep asking me if I’m all right, but I keep thinking about the boat. I took that thing all over the place.”

LaRouche asked him what kind of boat it was, and when Virgil told him, he lit up, a bit, and said, “I used to have one like that-but it was years ago. I had a 40 Merc tiller off the back. One time up on Mille Lacs…”

By the time he got finished, he had Virgil liking him; that had happened before with lawyers, usually the kind who won in court. “So,” he said finally, “we have a situation here. I’ve agreed to represent Jeanne, and I have to say that I was a little disturbed when I heard about your conversation this morning.”

Then he and Good Thunder went back and forth for a while, on the propriety of having spoken to Jeanne Shepard without a lawyer being present, and while he scored a point or two, when they were done, Virgil had Good Thunder four points up and standing on the free-throw line with two seconds left in the game. It was over, and LaRouche knew it.

“The point being,” Good Thunder said for emphasis, “we do not necessarily have an issue with Mrs. Shepard, although, of course, she should have spoken to police immediately after learning that Mr. Shepard had taken a bribe.”

“We should be able to handle that,” LaRouche said.

“Oh, I think so. I’ve spoken to Theodore”-Theodore was her boss-“and he is totally on board with immunity for Mrs. Shepard, contingent only on her complete cooperation.”

“I should put in here,” Virgil said, “if Ms. Good Thunder doesn’t mind, I’d like to say that we’re coming from several different directions on this investigation. If Mrs. Shepard declines to cooperate, then, of course, there will be no immunity, and no second chance.”

“Aw, c’mon, Virgil, you don’t have to bring the knives out,” LaRouche said. “We’re all friends here, trying to do what’s right.”

When he was finished, and everybody agreed they were friends, Good Thunder produced a file of papers-a contract, more or less-that defined the terms of the immunity and the scope of her cooperation. LaRouche said he would look at them overnight, brief his client in the morning, and, if everything was properly done, return them signed that afternoon.

“The terms are all standard stuff, they shouldn’t give you any trouble,” Good Thunder told LaRouche. “But time is a major problem. It’d help a lot if we could get them back this afternoon, and talk with Mrs. Shepard tonight. We understand that she’s left her husband, and that could signal to him, and to the other people involved in this conspiracy, that there could be trouble. Evidence could be lost, if there’s a delay; or the conspirators could have a chance to talk about a common defense, before we can get to them.”

LaRouche: “I’m afraid we’ll need a little more time than that.”

Good Thunder: “Agent Flowers is planning to continue his investigation-time is of the essence. I have to warn you, that if there’s another development, with another suspect, the same deal might not be available tomorrow.”

LaRouche: “Shirley, gosh darn it, we need a little time.”

Good Thunder: “I’m not trying to be harsh, Tommy, I’m just saying that we have a serious time problem. Things are moving fast. If something else breaks… it breaks. We’ll have to jump at it. We have to take the bird in the hand, we can’t count on the one in the bush.”

There was more back-and-forth, and LaRouche asked them to step out of the office for a moment, so he could talk privately with Shepard. Virgil and Good Thunder sat outside for twenty minutes, talking about nothing, for the benefit of LaRouche’s secretary, who listened carefully while pretending to type, and finally LaRouche called them back.

“Shirley, I’m about ninety percent that your stance here was an effort to stampede us.”

“Tom, I’d never-”

“If so, you’ve succeeded. I’ve canceled my plans for the evening, and if you can get back here at six o’clock, we can at least start the conversation.”

“That will be fine,” Good Thunder said, with a smile. “I think this will be best for all of us.”

Back outside, she showed some excitement: “Damnit, Virgil, I’m actually gonna do some of that stuff we talked about in law school. Clean up the town. So far, it’s mostly been plea bargains to small amounts of marijuana. Tire theft and public urination.”

“Will you go after Shepard, or try to turn him?”

“I gotta talk to my people,” she said. “Jeanne Shepard might get us only her husband. If we can nail him down before anybody finds out, we might be able to make a deal with him. Put a wire on him, even. Get the whole bunch.”

“Up to you,” Virgil said. “I’d go for the whole banana stand, if I were you.”

“That’s what I’d do, too, but the boss might see one of those birdin-the-hand deals.”

“So: see you at six,” Virgil said. “If you don’t mind, I want to tip Ahlquist off: I don’t want it to catch him with his pants down. He’s already been in the paper standing next to Pye.”