Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(101)
“Johnson is. Turns out the only wine he likes is expensive,” Clarice said. “I’m good with any old sangria, as long as it’s got ice cubes in it.”
Johnson broke out the wine, and Clarice got giggly, and Virgil got as mellow as he could get a few hours after shooting somebody in the gut, and they traded theories about David Birkmann and what love could do to you.
“I’m not sure it was love,” Clarice said, as she drank down her second glass of wine. “Maybe he just wanted her, you know, trying to get some status in the old hometown after all those years of being Bug Boy. What sparked him off was, she told him he couldn’t have her. That he was Bug Boy and that he was going to stay that way forever.”
“Dave did tell me he didn’t know much about sex,” Virgil said. “I’m not ready for a psychiatric analysis of David Birkmann vis-à-vis Gina Hemming, but I’d really like to know about him killing Margot Moore. He was friends with her . . . sort of. They used to talk over at the donut shop, I know that.”
“Yes, that was . . . weird. Awful,” Clarice said.
“What I think is, Dave got used to killing stuff over the years,” Johnson said. “Bugs, coons, rats . . . whatever. You do it long enough, and casually enough, snuffing them out without thinking, that’d make it easier to kill a human being.”
Virgil: “You really think so?”
“I do,” Johnson said. “Not if a guy goes out and knocks over a deer or two during hunting season—I know a lot of hunters who jump through their asses telling themselves that it’s all right, it’s the way of the world and all that, and they feel kinda bad about the dead animal. But I think if you kill things every day, day in and day out, for years . . . you get some calluses.”
—
When the wine, Johnson, and Clarice were gone, Virgil called Frankie and told her all about it and that he felt bad about it. She might have had a callus or two herself, Virgil thought as they talked. She had a harsh, clear view of justice, and she wanted it done. “Virgil, wake up: maybe the guy started as an accidental killer, but he wound up as an assassin, with a silenced pistol, killing a woman who’d never done anything to him. And if you hadn’t shot him, he’d have shot you and Peters, and there would have been two more people murdered and he’d still be on the loose,” she said. “Besides, he’s not even dead. If it’d been me, I might have put a couple more bullets in him.”
Virgil said, “Pweters.”
“What?”
“His name is Pweters, not Peters.”
“Probably a misspelling on his birth certificate,” Frankie said. “Nobody is named Pweters. God, I wish I could get my hands on you right now.”
“I wish you could, too,” Virgil said. “But it’s going to be another day or two.”
“Maybe I should drive over,” Frankie said.
“Nah. You don’t take your chick to the gig,” Virgil said. “I’m gonna be stir-fried in bureaucracy and I’m gonna be in a bad mood. Couple of days, sweetie.”
—
The shooting team, two senior BCA agents, showed up the next morning. Virgil knew both of them and thought they were capable investigators. They interviewed Virgil and Pweters separately, recorded everything, then walked Virgil through the investigation that led up to the shooting.
When it was all done, one of the agents, whose name was Russell Roy, told Virgil that they would take his Glock back to BCA headquarters for a test firing to harvest slugs for comparison with the one that had buried itself in the wall behind Birkmann and would return the gun to him the following week. “You’re temporarily suspended, with pay. Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but you’re not going to have a problem as far as we’re concerned. Good investigation and the shooting was fully justified. Jeff Purdy agrees.”
“Thank you,” Virgil said.
Roy glanced around—they were in Birkmann’s house, where the crime scene crew was at work—and said quietly, “Jon Duncan says he’s arranged for you to be suspended for three weeks, with pay . . . if you get my meaning.”
“Excellent,” Virgil said.
“One more thing,” Roy said, again the lowered voice. “Jon said that since you’re suspended . . . you’re done with the Barbie-O investigation.”
“Aw . . . man. Yes. Yes.”
—
Virgil told the reporter/editor/publisher of the Republican-River that he couldn’t comment on a continuing investigation, but neither Purdy nor Pweters had a problem with talking.
Purdy said, “We’ve worked hard to train our men to be the best law enforcement officers in the region,” thus taking credit for the overall quality of the work, “and I feel Deputy Pweters certainly met our standards,” thus subtly suggesting other well-trained Buchanan County deputies under Purdy’s command would have done at least as well, and that while Pweters met the standards, he possibly hadn’t exceeded them.
Pweters said, “I can’t talk too much about it, but I have to say I’ve never encountered a situation quite as desperate as what I faced with Agent Flowers at David Birkmann’s house. We were seconds from being murdered ourselves, and if Birkmann had been a tiny bit quicker with his .357 Magnum, the outcome might have been a tragedy rather than a victory for Buchanan County law enforcement,” meaning him.