John Sandford - Bad blood

"Okay-that's good," Virgil said. "What about Tripp? Was his family-"

"No. Lutherans. But still, there has to be a connection."

"I think you've made up the same story I have," Virgil ventured.

She said, "Crocker and Flood somehow get on to Baker's availability, maybe because of their church activities. Who knows how? They begin some kind of complicated sexual relationship, probably a four-way, between Crocker, Flood, Baker, and the other woman. Baker's in on it, voluntarily. Maybe Bobby and Baker have a secret relationship of some kind. She tells him what Flood is doing to her… maybe doesn't tell him about Crocker… and he reacts by killing Flood. We bring him in. Crocker realizes that Bobby could spill the beans about their sex ring, and also realizes that Bobby doesn't know who he is. But he's a danger, so Crocker sneaks into Bobby's cell while he's asleep, and kills him."

"The other woman?" Virgil asked.

"The woman who was doing oral sex on Crocker when she killed him."

"You think?"

"I think. It's plausible." Her mismatched eyes narrowed as she ran through it. "His penis is sticking out of his pants, he's lying way back on the couch, with his legs spread, one foot on the floor, and he gets shot under the jaw. If it's murder, and I think it is, that means that he let somebody get close enough to him to put that gun right under his jawline, and doesn't react. That's because he's reacting to something else."

"Why would she do it?"

"Because she was in on the Baker murder," Coakley said. "She was in on a statutory rape, which meant that Baker's death was murder."

"Like she had some legal knowledge. She knew she'd been contaminated by the death of Baker. And she knew Jimmy and knew how to handle his gun," Virgil said, with a faint smile.

She leaned back, picking up the implication. "I didn't do it, you jerk. If I had a choice between giving that moron a blow job and going to the chair, I'd take the chair."

"We don't have the death penalty-"

"You get the point," she said. "Jeez, I'm starting to understand 'that fuckin' Flowers' thing."

"Don't get in a huff," he said. "I was filling out your line of reasoning. And maybe teasing you a little."

"Fill it some other way," she said.

"Any other female deputies, or cops, who might have known what Crocker had done? Who he might have confided in?"

"Two, but they didn't do it. I know them well enough to say that. Though I guess we have to talk to them."

"You knew Crocker pretty well, too," Virgil pointed out. "Was he attractive to the other women in the department? Did he hang around with any of them? Where was his social life? In the department, or outside?"

She shook her head: "Not an attractive man, no. The other deputies… no."

"Of course, even if Crocker was getting oral sex, we don't know it was a woman."

"You think…?"

"What I think is, the sex with Baker was so crazy that they probably do a little of everything. Just for the excitement."

"That's a point," she said. And, "You know what? We need to talk to Bob Tripp's folks, like right now."

"And a newspaper reporter," Virgil added. "And Flood's wife."

She went to make phone calls, and Virgil kicked back and thought about Bob Tripp. And he thought, Why did he wait this long?

If Baker had told Tripp that she was being sexually abused, and he killed Flood out of a misplaced sense of justice, why did he wait more than a year? One possibility was that Tripp had been afraid to do it, and that suddenly having access to Flood at the grain elevator had triggered him. Maybe that was why he wanted to talk to the reporter-he'd confided in the reporter, in an effort to get something done, and the reporter hadn't been able to help.

Virgil preferred a second possibility: that Tripp had only recently learned something that triggered the murder of Flood. If that was true, then there was a way into the case, a source of information, if he could find it. If Tripp had learned something, then Virgil could find it.

Coakley came back and said, "We're in luck. Everybody's around. We'll do the Tripps first, and then run over to the Dispatch. The reporter's name is Pat Sullivan. Sully. I hate to say it, but he's usually pretty accurate. Flood's wife works in Jackson, but her father says she's due home at six o'clock."

The Tripps, George and Irma, lived in a fifties ranch-style single-story house, yellow, with a two-car garage at one end, arborvitae poking out of the snow along the driveway and under the picture window. George Tripp was standing behind the picture window, with his hands in his pockets, when they pulled into the driveway.

"The big issue here," Coakley said on the way over, "is that we haven't released Bobby's body yet, and they are getting pretty upset about it. They want to have a funeral, get him in the ground."

"When are you going to release him?" Virgil asked.

"Ike Patras says he doesn't think he can get anything more off the body, so I'm going to okay the release tomorrow morning. I'll tell George as soon as we're in the house. Maybe that'll loosen them up a little."

"You said you guys were friends."

"Friendly. Not friends," Coakley said. "We didn't see each other socially or anything, but we'd stop to talk on the sidewalk. They've been pretty unhappy with me since Bobby's arrest, and then his death-like I betrayed them." George Tripp waited until they were halfway up the walk before he left the window and opened the front door. He said, "Sheriff," with a nod, and a cold chill in his voice; he backed away from the door, his hands back in his pockets. Not going to shake with the law. Irma Tripp came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. The house was neatly kept, with family photos in frames, and wildlife art on the walls; it smelled of chili and wood cleaner. Virgil thought the Tripps were probably in their middle forties, Irma a bit younger than her husband.

Coakley said, "We have some news for you, George, Irma. We'll release Bobby tomorrow morning, so you can get on with a service."

"' Bout time," George Tripp said. He was looking at Virgil. "Who would this be?"

"Virgil Flowers, he's an agent with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension," Coakley said. "He works the southern part of the state."

Irma said, "I thought we were all done with investigation."

Virgil shook his head. "No, no. We do have some more news for you. Could we sit down? We really do need to talk."

They sat in a conversation group, a couch on one side of a wood-and-glass coffee table, two overstuffed chairs on the other side. Virgil leaned forward and said, "I really want to express my sympathy over the death of your son. It's an awful thing."

"How would you know?" Irma asked.

"Because I see a lot of awful things, and I'm pretty much like you folks. I grew up in Marshall, and my father is a minister. When a kid died, half the time the service would be in our church, and I'd know him. Know the family. I've been through it a lot."

Irma nodded: "He was the best thing we had. He was our only child."

Virgil glanced at Coakley, who nodded at him, and Virgil turned back to the Tripps. "We need to tell you that we no longer think that your son committed suicide. We've developed evidence that he may have been murdered by Jim Crocker, the sheriff's deputy who was on duty that night."

George Tripp lurched off the couch, to his feet, and said, "I knew it. I knew it," and Irma began to weep. George Tripp said, "Where is he? Crocker?"

Coakley said, "He's dead, George. We went to his house with a search warrant, and found him dead. He also looks like a suicide, but agent Flowers and I both believe that he was also murdered."

"What the hell is going on?" George Tripp demanded. His wife was twisting the dish towel into a rope; but Virgil's statement had stopped the weeping.