Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(102)

His statement somewhat obscured the question of exactly who shot Birkmann, and the first couple of paragraphs of the Republican-River’s story reported that Birkmann had been shot in a confrontation with Deputy Luke Pweters and BCA Agent Virgil Flowers, further obscuring the issue. The Republican-River’s reporter/editor/publisher clearly understood Flowers wouldn’t be buttering their toast after the next election, but Pweters might be.

—

Margaret Griffin was told by her employers that they were satisfied with Jesse McGovern’s statement to a Minnesota state law enforcement officer—Virgil—that they wouldn’t manufacture any more dolls, and she was recalled to Los Angeles.

She tracked down Virgil the day after the shooting and said, “Congratulations. Sounded like a regular old Trippton rodeo. I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”

“So am I,” Virgil said. “This is an unusual town.”

Griffin had white patches on her forehead, nose, and cheek where she’d been burned by the hot pizza. “You okay on the shooting?”

“Looks like,” Virgil said. “Are you headed home?”

“As fast as I can get back to the Twin Cities. I’ve got a flight out this evening.” She looked around at Main Street. “It’s been . . . real. Wish I’d found that goddamn McGovern.”

“You take it easy, Margaret,” Virgil said.

“I will. Hello, Santa Monica.” She pronounced it Son-ta Mo-NEE-ka.

Later that afternoon, on her way up to Minneapolis–St. Paul International, Griffin hit a patch of black ice with the Prius’s slick hard tires and skidded off the road backward into a shallow ditch north of Rochester. She wasn’t hurt, but the car had to be towed, and statements made to Avis, and all the flights the next day were full. She wound up staying two extra days in Minneapolis, with temperatures in the minus teens.

Virgil didn’t laugh when he heard about it, but he may have smiled.

—

Fred Fitzgerald was told by a county judge to keep his nose clean after the county attorney announced that Fitzgerald would not be prosecuted on the gross misdemeanor of interfering with a body because the information he voluntarily gave to authorities was instrumental in solving the murders of Gina Hemming and Margot Moore.

He walked.

—

Elroy and Lucy Cheever got their loan from the Second National Bank of Trippton and bought the Ford dealership. By the end of the year, they’d driven the Dodge dealership out of business. The bank itself was sold a few months later to Wells Fargo, and Marvin Hiners stayed on as the manager of the local branch.

—

Rob Knox, as it turned out, had a greasy thumb: over the next year, he added fried chicken, open-face roast beef sandwiches, and Jell-O with carrot shreds to the menu of Le Cheval Bleu, and the restaurant began to prosper. Mac and cheese with truffles . . . mashed potatoes with brown mushroom gravy aux chanterelles . . .

Justin decided that he wasn’t female but was gay, and their relationship continued.

—

Virgil planned to leave town the third day after the shooting. The night before, he had dinner with Clarice and Johnson Johnson at the steak house. Johnson was unusually subdued, and finally Virgil asked Clarice, “What’s wrong with Johnson?”

She lifted her hands above her head and waggled them and said, “He just . . . he just can’t leave well enough alone. It’s like that goddamn airplane . . .”

“It’s purely a business deal,” Johnson said.

“It’s morally reprehensible, in my opinion.” Clarice said to Virgil. “Although I’ll probably still sleep with him, if only to give my horses a barn to live in.”

“Tell me,” Virgil said.

Johnson had been making inquiries, having noticed that Margot Moore had no living relatives to sue Birkmann for her murder. “I talked to Hemming’s sister . . . she’s not going to sue, either. She said all she wants is to be done with it all. So Birkmann’s got some assets . . .”

“How does this affect you?”

“Dave’s gonna need some money for his defense,” Johnson said. “His extermination techs are already talking about getting together to buy the business from him.”

Clarice rolled her eyes, turned to Virgil, and said, “Johnson thinks he can pick up the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise. Cheap.”

Virgil pointed his fork at Johnson and said, “Johnson, you don’t know a fuckin’ thing about running a donut shop.”

“Neither did Dave,” Johnson said. “All the employees transferred over to Dave from his wife’s lover. They’d be transferred over to me—everybody needs jobs. I’m thinking, ‘Donut King of Trippton, Minnesota.’”

Virgil said, “Hail to the chief.”

The deal closed in May. Johnson FedExed a dozen Bavarian Kremes to Virgil, and they were only a little squashed when they got to the farm.

—

Virgil left on the third day after the shooting. He stopped at a Kwik Trip in La Crescent to get cheese-and-peanut-butter crackers and a Diet Coke and was backing away from the cooler when he bumped into a woman coming down the aisle behind him.

He said, “Excuse me,” and noticed the gold-flecked green eyes, and the woman smiled at him and said, “That’s okay.”

The voice sounded familiar. He took another look at the auburn hair and the freckles and the foxy face, now some fifteen years older than when he saw it in the yearbook: “Jesse?”