Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(35)

“Jeff Purdy in a satanic cult? I don’t think so,” Birkmann said.

Alice said, “But wouldn’t it be the person you’d least suspect?”

Another donut eater jumped in to answer that: “Maybe, but Jeff is too damn dumb to be in a satanic cult. He has trouble starting his car.”

“You got me there,” Alice said.

—

Now, on Wednesday morning, here was Flowers leaving Moore Financial and heading straight across the street to the donut shop. Birkmann wasn’t ready for that and retreated to the kitchen, where he could hear what was being said but couldn’t be seen from the counter.

And what was said was . . .

Alice: “What is that on your poor face?”

“Nose brace,” Flowers said. “I got beat up.”

“You must be Virgil. I heard about that,” Alice said. “Told it was a bunch of women.”

“Yeah, it was. They’re gonna enjoy their visit to Shakopee. Lots of time to discuss their problems and become emotionally engaged. You know, do all that women stuff.”

Alice: “Why would they be going to Shakopee?”

“’Cause that’s where the women’s prison is,” Virgil said. “They should have read section 609.2231 of the Minnesota Statutes before they jumped me. Assaulting an officer of the law and doing a demonstrable injury is a felony. Does this blue thing”—he pointed at his face—“look like a demonstrable injury?”

“Looks like a blue squid,” said one of the donut eaters. “A small blue squid. Like one of them things they’ve got down at Ma and Pa Kettle’s on Friday nights.”

Alice: “Calimari?”

“Before they’re fried.”

“Calimari aren’t blue,” Virgil said.

“You apparently ain’t been down to Ma and Pa’s and looked at the squid,” the donut eater said. “I stay away from them, myself.”

Alice turned back to Virgil. “What can I do for you?”

“Give me two peanut . . . no, one peanut and one Boston crème . . . and a Diet Coke.”

“Sure. Gotta charge you for the Coke, but the donuts are on the house for all our first responders.”

Donut eater: “We’ve been told on good authority that Gina’s heart was cut out with a surgical tool and placed on a satanic altar by the sewage plant. Is that true?”

Virgil: “What do you think?”

“I think it’s horseshit.”

Virgil: “You’re a lot smarter than you look.”

“Thank . . . Hey!”

Alice: “I put an extra donut in the sack for you, honey. That’ll be a dollar eighty-seven for the Coke.”

—

When Flowers had gone, Birkmann stepped out of the kitchen and watched as he walked up the street, munching on a donut, back the way he’d come. When he was a full block away, Birkmann pulled on his coat, told Alice, “Good move with the extra donut,” and headed across the street to Moore Financial.

Margot Moore kept him waiting for five minutes. When she finally called him in, she looked as though she’d been crying. Birkmann dropped into a client’s chair and said, “You look like I feel.”

“Virgil Flowers just left,” she said.

“I was over in the donut shop and saw him coming out. I figure he must be interviewing all of us on the reunion committee.”

“That’s what he’s doing, but he . . . I don’t know, Dave. He’s asking about some things . . .”

“What things?” Birkmann asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s rather private,” Moore said.

“He’s gonna ask me anyway, isn’t he? We’re both in the same place.”

Moore opened a desk drawer and took out a pink tissue, blew her nose with an unfeminine HONK! and said, “Well, he says they have evidence that Gina was involved in B and D.”

The letters meant nothing to Birkmann. Sounded like a railroad: riding the rails to Frisco on the old B & D. He asked, “What? What’s that?”

“You know, whips. Getting tied up.”

Birkmann still looked blank, and Moore said, “For sexual purposes, for Christ’s sakes, Dave. Bondage and discipline. B and D.”

“Whips?”

“Not real whips, play whips. Flowers said he found one in her bedroom.”

“Play whips? You’ve seen them?”

Moore backtracked. “I assume they’re play whips. I talked to Gina every day, and we worked out together at the Y, and I never saw any whip marks on her. Must be play whips.”

Birkmann didn’t entirely buy that, the backtracking, but had no place to go with it. Instead, he asked, “Who was tying her up? Somebody from Trippton?”

“I suppose . . .”

“From Trippton?”

“Dave, Dave . . . try to pay attention, okay? I mean, you can buy vibrators at Target. People in Trippton do more than the missionary position.”

“I didn’t know that,” Birkmann admitted.

“Maybe that’s why your wife ran off with a donut shop guy,” Moore said.

“You don’t have to be offensive,” Birkmann snapped.