Bloody Genius (Virgil Flowers, #12)(13)

Hubert Humphrey, the former vice president and onetime Democratic presidential candidate, had a lot of stuff named after him around the Twin Cities, including an airport, a domed stadium—later torn down—and the building where Virgil was parking.



* * *



—

Minnesota, for some unknown reason, had chosen the thirteen-lined ground squirrel as its mascot, although they called it a golden gopher, and, in a stroke of literary brilliance, had named it Goldy Gopher. The university’s colors were red and gold, and red was splashed everywhere on buildings, including the Humphrey Center.

The center housed the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and both the Cultural Science and Anthropology departments, all of which had gopher-red carpets. Above the atrium were hung the flags of all the nations of the world, Virgil thought as he walked in, though he didn’t count them.

Green’s office was on the third floor, and Virgil took the stairs, cruised by the Cultural Science office once, checked a bulletin board in the hallway, saw nothing of interest except for a homemade “Pretty Kittens” poster with pull-off phone number tabs and with a photograph of two attractive, decidedly non-collegiate-looking blondes holding kitties in their laps. Virgil spent a moment considering the ambiguity of the poster, then ambled back to the office, a few minutes early for the appointment.

The bird-like, gum-chewing secretary gave him a puzzled look: he didn’t fit into any of the niches with which she was familiar. “Yes?”

“I’m Virgil Flowers, BCA agent. I have an appointment to speak with Professor Green at four-thirty.”

“Really? Where’s your gun? You don’t look like a police officer,” she said. She gave her gum a few rapid chews with a snap at the end for emphasis.

“My gun’s locked in my truck. I don’t usually carry it,” Virgil said.

“Really? Is that a new trend with police officers?”

“I’m trying to start one. Anyway, when I need to kill someone, I use a shotgun,” Virgil said. “They’re awkward to carry in offices.”

“Oh . . . Okay . . . Well, that makes sense . . . I guess,” she said. “We were expecting you. Let me check that Dr. Green is off the phone.”

She turned away, made a call, mumbled for a moment, hung up, and said, “This way.”

Virgil followed her to a modest office done in blond wood with a blond wooden desk and gopher-red carpet and a blond occupant. A large built-in bookcase dominated an interior wall and was stuffed with academic awards, appreciation plaques, ethnic pottery, and doodads. A vase of pale yellow silk flowers sat on a windowsill, which looked out over an atrium.

As Tuna Fish had said, Green was a hottie, one of those attractive, smart, professional women with wire-rimmed glasses and a nice haircut and tidy breasts under a pale blue blouse who’d look great with her head on a pillow and her legs wrapped around his neck, in Virgil’s humble opinion. He didn’t mention his opinion but looked steadily into her eyes and extended a hand to be shaken, which she did.

She pointed at the visitor’s chair, sat down herself, and asked, “Have you really killed someone with your shotgun?”

“Yes,” Virgil said. “He was trying to kill me at the time. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was recalcitrant and continued trying to kill me. So, I shot him. I feel bad about it. But not too bad. The memory isn’t incapacitating or anything.”

“That would be an interesting study . . . people who have killed other people and how they feel about it,” Green said. “Has modern American gun society so deadened our reactions to killing that we don’t even experience an emotional toll when we ourselves kill someone? A longitudinal study, going back after a month, six months, a year, two years, and so on, would be interesting. Does the memory fade? Does the shooter avoid negative psychological consequences because of cultural conditioning through social media? How do American reactions to killing compare with non-gun societies? England, perhaps. Or Denmark.”

Virgil crossed his legs, settling into his chair, and said, “I personally know several guys—actually, I know a woman as well—who’ve killed other people and their reactions are all over the place. Some of them, it doesn’t seem to affect, but others are screwed up about it. Still others seem screwed up, but only to the extent that it gets them time off or disability pay or job preferences.”

“Interesting,” she said. She made a note on a desk pad. “Now, what can I do for you? On this Quill murder? I’ve told the police—”

Virgil held up a hand. “I know, I read Sergeant Trane’s account of your testimony. I just wanted to push it around the plate.”

“I don’t believe I’ve encountered that idiom before, ‘push it around the plate,’” Green said. She scribbled another note. “Where’d you hear it?”

“My mother used it,” Virgil said. “So. What was your personal relationship to Dr. Quill?”

She recoiled. “None. I never . . . Are you suggesting—”

“No, no, no.” Virgil smiled. “I’m not talking about sex, heaven forbid. I’m asking if you talked, outside of these conflicts you had recently, about the t-word thing?”

“‘T-word’? You mean ‘twat’?’”

“Yes. Did you talk—”