John Sandford: Heat Lightning

The problem with a pro was that there’d be none of the usual skein of connections that tied a killer to a victim. The crime scene would be useless, because a pro wouldn’t leave anything behind. If a bunch of bodies added up to a motive for some particular person-the person who hired the pro-that person would have an alibi for the time of the killings, and could stand silent when questioned. The pro, in the meantime, might have come from anywhere, and might have gone anywhere after the killings. With hundreds of thousands of people moving through the metro area on any given day, how did you pick the murderous needle out of the innocent haystack?

VIRGIL AND SHRAKE walked together back to the veterans’ memorial. The TV trucks had all come in, and Mattson was standing in a pool of light, talking to three reporters. Brandt came over and asked, “You done with Miz Owen?”

“For tonight. If you could find a friend…”

“Got her sister coming over. She lives in Eagan, it’ll take a while, but she’s coming,” Brandt said.

“Good,” Virgil said. He nodded toward the monument. “The ME’s guys say anything?”

“Yeah. He was shot twice. In the head.”

“Well, shit, what more do you want?” Shrake asked. Brandt’s nosed twitched, picking up Shrake’s bourbon bouquet, and Shrake sidled away.

Brandt said to Virgil, “The mayor would like to talk to you.”

“Sure,” Virgil said. “Where is he?”

BRANDT TOOK THEM OVER, Shrake staying downwind. The mayor was a short, pudgy man, a professional smiler and a meet-your-eyes-with-compassion sort of guy, whose facial muscles were now misbehaving. He said to Virgil, “What-a, what-a, what-a…”

Virgil knew what he was trying to ask, and said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with your town-I think Mr. Sanderson was a specific target. The same man killed another victim down in New Ulm. That’s what I think. You don’t have much to worry about.”

“Thank you for that,” the mayor said. He rubbed his hands nervously, peering about at the crime scene. “I feel so bad for Sally. Gosh, I hope she gets through this okay.” He seemed to mean it, and Virgil nodded and said to Shrake, “We oughta head back. We need to get at some computers.”

Shrake nodded. Virgil said a few more words to the mayor, gave his card, with a couple of spares, to Brandt, and told him to call if anything turned up. “The guy had to get here somehow. If anybody even thinks they might have seen a car, or a guy…”

“We’re doing it all, man,” Brandt said.

The mayor said to Brandt, “And good for you . Good for you, by golly .”

On the way back to his car, Virgil asked Shrake if he knew anything about a veterans’ center on University Avenue.

“Sure. Something going on there?”

Virgil told Shrake about Sanderson and the therapy group, and Shrake said, “Sounds right. That’s what they do there.”

“E-mail me an address or something,” Virgil said. “I gotta get some sleep before I go back out.”

“Me, too,” Shrake said, and yawned.

Virgil felt somebody step close behind him and then a small hand slipped into his back pocket, tight inside the jeans. He twisted and looked back over his shoulder: Daisy Jones, blond, slender, a little tattered around the eyes, glitter lipstick with tooth holes in it.

“Virgil Flowers, as I live and breathe,” she said, moving close, letting the pheromones work on him. “I was laying in bed tonight…”

“Laying? Really? Not lying?” Virgil said. She did smell good. She only used the choicest French perfumes, which reached out like the softest of fingers.

She ignored him, continued: “… when I felt a kind of feminine orgasmic wave cross over the metro area. I said to myself, ‘Daisy, girl, that fuckin’ Flowers must have come back to town.’”

“That was me,” Virgil admitted.

“I got my sap,” Shrake said to Virgil. “We could whack her, throw her body in the lilacs.”

“Shrake, you gorgeous hunk, I get so aroused when you talk about my body,” Jones said. She pressed her hand against Shrake’s chest, lightly scratching with long nails, and made him smile. “Is it true that this murdered man had a lemon in his mouth, and was shot twice, an identical killing to the one in New Ulm?”

“Goddamnit, Daisy, we don’t need that lemon stuff out there,” Virgil said.

“Oh, horseshit,” she said. “The killer knows he does it. You know he does it. I know he does it. The only people who don’t know he does it are the stupes. So I’m going to put it on the air, unless you give me something better.”

“Okay, here’s something better,” Virgil said. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“The killings are virtually identical,” he said. “The same guy did them both.”

“Can I quote you?” she asked.

“You can say that you spoke to me briefly, and that I acknowledged that there were striking similarities between the two,” Virgil said.

She stuck out a lower lip: “I’m not sure that’s enough to kill the lemon angle. The lemon has a certain… interest about it.”

“A lemon twist,” Shrake offered.

“Oh, shit! That’s my lead,” Daisy said. “Thank you, Shrake.”

“Okay. You’re gonna use it,” Virgil said. He stepped toward the TV lights. “I’ll go over and go on camera with these other guys, and give them my opinion about the killings…”

“Virgil-don’t do that,” she said, hooking his arm.

“Daisy…”

“ All right . But if anybody else squeals lemon , I’ll be five seconds behind them.”

“If you use my name on the air,” Virgil said, “mention that thing about the orgasmic wave, huh?”

AS THEY WALKED away from her, Shrake said, “I think she’s getting better as she gets older.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever…?”

“No, I did not, for Christ’s sakes. I don’t… Never mind.”

“You mean, fuck everybody?” Shrake was enjoying himself.

“Shrake…”

“ Davenport tried to do that, you know, before he got married. You guys are somewhat alike.”

“Bullshit. I’m a lot better-looking.”

VIRGIL WAS staying at the Emerald Inn, made it back about a hundred feet in front of the first rush-hour car, went to his room, got undressed, set the alarm, and fell facedown on the bed.

Too much.

Four Leinie’s at the club, bedtime with Janey, then the murder. He’d started the day at five o’clock in the morning in Mankato, eighty miles south of the Twin Cities, and now was twenty-five hours down the line, with a hard day coming up.

He would have been asleep in forty seconds, except thirty seconds after he landed facedown, the nightstand beeped at him. Beeped again thirty seconds later; again thirty seconds after that. No point in resisting: it wasn’t going to quit.

He pushed up on his elbows, looked at the nightstand. Nothing there but a pile of dollar bills, the clock, and the lamp. Another beep. Had to be the clock, which had gone nuts for some reason. There was nothing to turn off except the alarm, and he needed the alarm, so he put the clock on the floor, pushed it under the bed, and dropped back on the pillow.

Another beep, right next to his ear.

Groggy, he looked at the nightstand. Nothing now but a pile of dollar bills and the lamp. He pulled open the only drawer, found a Gideon’s Bible, which he opened. The Gideon was not beeping him.

Another beep. The lamp beeped? With the feeling that he was actually going insane, he inspected the lamp but could find no sign of anything that might beep. He’d just drawn back from it, looking at his pillow, when it beeped again.