John Sandford: Bad blood

"But if you kill him, you're going to have to pay. If you-"

"I already killed Wally; I'm going to have to pay for that, anyway," she said. "What are they going to do, make me pay twice?"

"It goes beyond that," Virgil said. "You're not only threatening to kill him, you're dragging your daughters into it, by making them vote. And you think it's not going to hurt them, growing up without parents, after everything that they've been through? Killing Wally, you're going to have to pay for-but given what was going on, I've got to believe that a judge will let you out pretty quick. Plead temporary insanity-"

"It's not temporary," she said.

"Plead insanity. I think you'd get off, and given some time, you'd get out to see your children. Maybe even some grandchildren, someday. Edna and Helen will be taken care of by the state, and given treatment, and maybe, there's a possibility that everything will work out for them. So the thing we've got to think about here, is not your father, but what happens to you and the girls."

"I don't care much what happens to me," Edna said. "The World of Spirit is coming to an end, and I don't know if I can live in the World of Law."

"You'll fit right in," Virgil lied. "You'll be amazed. You're young enough that in a few years, with treatment, this life will be like a bad dream."

Alma said, "Pretty smart. Taking that path, I mean. Saying it's not about Father, it's about us. You're a smart fella, Mr. Flowers."

"I got more, if you want it," Virgil said. "You've been reading the Bible, I know, the New Testament and the Old Testament, and they both have a lot to say about killing, and it's not good. If you hope… if you have a soul, killing won't do it any good."

"Do I have a soul?" Alma asked.

"I believe you do," Virgil said.

"Of course you do," Einstadt said. "Maybe you think what happened here was wrong, I can see you believing that. But you do have a soul, Alma. It may be a pitiful thing, covered with bloodstains from poor Rooney here, but it's still alive; it can still be saved. You can't shoot your own father."

"Sure I can," she said. "I just pull the trigger."

"Don't do it," Virgil said.

Alma said to Edna: "So what do you have to say? Guilty or not guilty?"

The young girl looked straight at her grandfather and said, "It's not only what you made us do to you, all the men want that; it's what you made us do to each other, after Helen got old enough. And that wasn't Spirit. That was you wanting it to be like pictures on the Internet. That was not right and you should burn in hell for that."

"I'm your grandfather," Einstadt said. "You remember the toys you got for Christmas? Where did those come from? You remember when we built the swings?"

"This is pathetic," Alma said. "Edna, say what you think."

"Oh, he's guilty," she said. "But I leave it up to you, Mother. Mr. Flowers might be right. It might hurt us more than it hurts Grandfather."

"Listen to your daughter, Miz Flood," Virgil said. "She's a smart one."

Alma said to Helen, "What do you think?"

Helen looked at her grandfather and said, "You hurt me really bad. I think you liked hurting me, after that first time, when you found out how much it hurt. I think you're a rotten old man who never thought of anything but himself."

"You never told me any of this," Einstadt said. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought-"

"You thought we liked it?" Alma said.

"I don't know." He looked away.

Helen said, "But I think the same as Edna-that Mr. Flowers might be right. I think I would like to get to live with you, Mother, after all this is done, and maybe the World of Law will let you get away with Rooney, because of what he did, but I don't know if they'll let you shoot two. Two seems like a lot more than one."

"Guilty or not?"

"He's guilty. We all know he's guilty. I don't even know why we have to have a trial. But should we shoot him? I don't know about that. Maybe we should listen to Mr. Flowers."

Alma said to Virgil, "You made an impression on the girls, anyway. But you haven't said one word in Father's defense. You want to say that word now?"

Virgil shook his head. "Miz Flood, I think just like Edna. He is guilty, I believe, but let the law take care of it for you."

Alma said, "I'm a child of the World of Spirit, Mr. Flowers, and I don't pay too much attention to the World of Law. My father was right about that: the World of Law is crazy. We see it on the television, and we know how crazy it is-people go around killing other people, and nothing happens to them; people stealing money so big that you could buy all the farms in this whole country for the money they steal, and nothing happens. That's crazy. I don't give two bits for your World of Law."

"Miz Flood-"

"Don't 'Miz Flood' me, Mr. Flowers. Either say your defense, or give up."

"I don't have a defense," he said. "But don't do this to yourself."

Einstadt said, "For God's sakes, Alma, don't be crazy. Put up the gun and let's go with Flowers."

As she turned back to Einstadt, Virgil, who'd had his feet flat on the floor, slowly pulled them back, got his toes cocked: given a half-second distraction, he might be able to knock the shotgun sideways. Most people thought of shotguns as being infallible at short distances, as though the shot goes out in a wide screen. In fact, at the distance that separated Alma and her father, the spread would only be a couple of inches across, or maybe three or four at the most. If he could knock it just a bit sideways…

He said, "Miz Flood… I do have one more thing to say…"

She off-paced him again. As Virgil was getting ready to fling himself at her, leaning forward, cocked, ready, she said, "Father. I always wanted to do this."

And she pulled the trigger, with the same tremendous blast as the one that killed Rooney, and Virgil flung himself from the chair and knocked the shotgun sideways, and then wrestled it away from her.

Too late for Einstadt: the shot had hit him in the stomach and lower chest, and though he was still alive, he wouldn't be for long, with a hole that you could put a fist into.

Einstadt was trying to speak, but couldn't, and Virgil yelled at the radio, "Get somebody in here, I've got the gun," and at that instant, Jenkins burst in, and then stopped. "Holy shit."

Alma leaned forward, putting her face in front of her father's clouding eyes, and said, "You're on your way to hell, Father. Maybe I'll see you there sometime. I hope not, but maybe I will. In the meantime, I hope you burn like a sausage on a griddle."

Einstadt might have heard some of it-his eyes flicked with the words-but he didn't hear the griddle part, because at some point between "on your way to hell" and "sausage," he died.

Jenkins said to Virgil, "We recorded it. Some of it was a little dim." He picked up the taped radio and pulled the tape off, clicked it, and said, "Gene, keep most of the people out of here. We've got a crime scene."

Schickel came back: "Copy that."

Jenkins said to Alma, "Miz Flood, I'm sorry for your troubles. I truly am. And I gotta tell you, I would have pulled the trigger. If you want to call me up in court, I'll tell them that. I think you did the right thing."

She looked up at him and said, "So you don't agree with Mr. Flowers, that it was about us? Me and the girls?"

"I have a different view of it," Jenkins said. "If you'd seen that old sonofabitch living in prison, getting three meals a day and hanging out with his pals, you would have wondered where the justice was. Well, you know where it is now." He put out a hand to her. "Come on along. I'll take you and the girls into town."

Virgil lay between Coakley's long legs, with his head on her tummy, and she lazily scratched his scalp with her nails, and she said, "I keep thinking, one more day and it'll be back to normal."