Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(36)

“Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m really upset. Maybe we ought to talk about this some other time.”

“Tell me what Flowers asked you,” Birkmann said. “If I have some time to think about it, maybe I’ll figure something out.”

“Well, he wondered if anyone on the committee might have killed her,” Moore said.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s what I told him . . .”

She outlined her conversation with Virgil, and five minutes later Birkmann was back in the donut shop. “Give me two chocolate-frosteds and don’t tell me about my heart,” he told Alice. “Give me the fuckin’ donuts.”

—

Across the street, Moore was back on the phone with a man who had a deep voice. “Dave doesn’t have any idea of what happened,” she said. “If somebody blew his brains out, it’d take him two weeks to notice.”

“You can see where this is going. I mean, it’s freakin’ me out,” the deep voice said. “I’ve had problems with the law, and if Flowers gets to me, he’s gonna hang me up like a piece of Sheetrock. I’m like a cop’s dream. I got a beard, a tattoo on my neck, I got a Harley, I done time for assault. You put that together with whips and chains, the fuckin’ jury gonna airmail me to Stillwater prison. I gotta do something.”

“Don’t panic. I put him off. Who else could give you up?” The silence on the other end of the line lasted a couple of beats too long, and Moore’s voice went cold as she half repeated what she’d said: “Who else could give you up?”

“You . . . weren’t my only clients.”

“Clients? Clients? What are you talking about? We didn’t pay you.” More silence. “Did we pay you?”

“Gina . . . helped me out from time to time.”

“Oh my God, you’re a hooker,” Moore screamed. “Have I got AIDS?”

“No, you don’t fuckin’ have AIDS. I’m not a hooker. I’m a sexual therapist, registered by the State of Minnesota. Listen, I gotta think about this. This is a murder case, and running won’t do me no good . . . not if my name comes up.”

“Maybe . . . Maybe you should go talk to Flowers. He’s supposed to be a good guy. You could say it was you and Gina, and you never hurt her, and you wouldn’t have to say anybody else was involved.”

“Are you deaf? Beard, tattoo, a Harley Softail, assault convictions, whips and chains? Are you shittin’ me? He gets my name in connection with Gina, I’m SOL.”

“Listen! Think of something else, if you can. Think about the possibility of going to Flowers. I saw him in action a couple of years ago and he’s a smart guy. If you’re straight with him, he could believe you. Tell him it was playacting. Tell him where you were Thursday night . . .”

“Thursday night? Thursday night? I got an alibi for every night except Thursday night. Ain’t that the way it is? Every fuckin’ night but Thursday.”

He hung up.

Moore spent the afternoon obsessing about the conversation. He was going to get caught, she thought. The therapy sessions—that’s what she and Hemming had called them—had been arranged by email, and Flowers would have access to Hemming’s computer. Sooner or later, he’d track the guy down.

If he confessed that Moore was involved in the whole B and D thing, it’d get all over town. How would she handle that? Every single thing she had on earth came out of her business . . .





THIRTEEN Virgil talked to Lucy Cheever, the Homecoming Queen, and Barry Long, the Homecoming King, got one good alibi and one reasonable one for Thursday night after the meeting.

Cheever had gone home after the meeting and put the kids to bed after checking their homework to make sure it all got done.

Cheever said that she’d left the meeting at nine o’clock, one of the last three people to see Hemming—the other two being Rhodes and Moore.

“We all left at once,” she said. “Of course we’ve all thought about who might have done it, and we’ve talked about it, too, along with everybody else in town. That’s about all we talk about anymore. Who would hurt her? We mostly liked her. Maybe a couple of people didn’t see eye to eye with her, especially her politics, but they wouldn’t kill her, for God’s sakes. They didn’t even argue with her.”

Cheever’s alibi seemed solid to Virgil for a couple of reasons: she was a small woman and would have had a hard time moving Hemming’s body; and, according to Johnson Johnson, she and her husband were “richer than Jesus Christ and all the apostles,” which took the money issue out of it.

Clarice said that Cheever and her husband, Elroy, had been partners and lovers since high school, and that she felt it was highly unlikely that Cheever’s husband would have had a relationship with Hemming, creating a revenge motive.

Virgil hinted at the possibility, and Cheever picked it up immediately and laughed. “Elroy’s never wanted anybody but me and I’ve never wanted anybody but him. Even if he did want somebody else, he couldn’t hide it from me. I’ve known him since he was two years old. We got caught playing doctor when we were seven. I mean, no . . . he didn’t have an affair with Gina, and I’ve never had an affair, either. Elroy and I are going the whole route.”