Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(22)

Virgil repeated what he’d told the woman, and Cain said, “Well, come on back.” He led Virgil through a door at the back of the building and into an office that smelled of cigarettes and was decorated with a couple of stuffed muskies, a twelve-point deer head, and an ancient, carefully preserved Snap-on Tool calendar.

Cain stripped off his jacket, dropped it on the floor, sat behind his desk, pointed at a plastic visitor’s chair, and asked, “What’s this about?”

“About Gina Hemming,” Virgil said, as he settled into the chair.

“I don’t want any shit about that, from you or anybody else, especially that dipshit Purdy,” Cain said. “I’m really serious. I liked her, she was an interesting woman, and I’m more than a little pissed about what happened.”

“I don’t know yet if I’m going to give you shit, Corbel, but I’ve got some questions and I need some answers,” Virgil said.

Cain was an inch or two shorter than Virgil, but wider and thicker. He had a strong-boned face, and wore his hair longer than Virgil’s, halfway down his neck. His face and hands were heavily weathered, and he had a piece of paper medical tape stuck to one cheek over the hint of a nonstick pad. He put a leg up on a corner of his desk, the cleats pointed at Virgil’s face, scowled, and said, “If you’re here, you know I used to sleep with Gina. I haven’t for years. The murder’s got nothing to do with me.”

Virgil said, “A couple of people have mentioned that you and Gina had an off-and-on sexual relationship. You also have several domestics on your record, so . . .”

Cain shook his head. “I don’t know who told you about the affair, but they must not have told you it’s been over for quite a while. We broke it off three years ago, and I’ve hardly seen her since—never, except on the street. When we saw each other on the street, we usually had a good laugh. I never would have hurt her. I never would have. I liked the pussy, but we were never like a big passion or anything.”

“Three years?”

“About three . . . except it was in the summer when we broke it off . . . It could be two and a half, could be three . . . Let me think.” He scratched at the bandage and said, “Three. Yup, three years. Three and a half. I didn’t have to shut her up to hide her from my wife or anything stupid like that because Janey already knew about it. You can ask her, if you want.”

“Purely out of friendly curiosity, where did that bandage come from? On your face?”

“Why? Did she fight back and cut somebody?”

“Where—”

“She did, didn’t she? She was a tough girl. Good for her.” Cain reached up and touched the bandage. “Mohs surgery, they cut out one of those basal cell panorama things. Takes six or eight weeks to heal up. I can give you the doctor’s name and all kinds of people have seen it on me, for three weeks now. Looking at you, by the way—you’re gonna get some real-time experience with the Mohs. Blond and too much sun will do it every time.”

Virgil asked him a few more questions—Cain said he had no idea of who else Hemming had dated recently. Virgil mentioned the signs of a B and D relationship, and Cain’s eyebrows went up. “Really? That’s something new. I mean, that girl really liked to get moved around, if you’ll pardon the expression, but she never even hinted she’d be interested in anything like that.”

“When you say that Gina liked to be moved around . . .”

“She liked it that I was big. And I’m strong. So . . . I could pick her up and turn her around and move her. She was pretty big herself, and she said I made her feel like a girl . . . that’s what I meant. She was married to this guy . . . Justin . . . he didn’t move her around much. If at all.”

“You weren’t exactly sweethearts,” Virgil suggested.

“Like I said, not a big passion. I was having trouble with my wife . . .”

“Involve a shotgun?” Virgil asked.

Cain flinched, then smiled. “Damn, you’ve got some sources there, Flowers . . . Nobody there for that except me and the old man. There wasn’t a shotgun, the time I’m talking about. What I was going to say is, I was having trouble with my wife, I was living at Ma and Pa’s for a couple of weeks. I called up Gina and she blew me off—she was packing for a trip. I got down to pleading with her. Didn’t do any good, she blew me off anyway. Another time, she called me up, but I was going deer hunting and I didn’t want to miss the party we have the night before the season opened, so I blew her off. Made her unhappy. We were like that: we liked the sex, but we weren’t all that romantic about it. Or committed to anything.”

—

Okay.” Virgil pushed him on the charges of domestic violence, but Cain claimed they came in the wake of brawls with his wife, brawls that went both ways. He claimed that she’d attacked him more often than he ever smacked her, and she usually came after him with something that would hurt, like a coffeepot.

“The cops always charge the guy, and after everybody talks to the sheriff and the judge, they usually let it go. That’s what happened with me,” Cain said.

“Don’t do that anymore,” Virgil said.

“What am I supposed to do when the woman comes after me with a coffeepot?”

“Run,” Virgil said. “Seriously. It’s the best answer.”