Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(42)

Johnson checked the hole again and said, “Yeah. I’d throw it in the hole. The river’s low and slow, it’s probably right down there.”

“Maybe with the murder weapon,” Virgil said. “We need an ice diver.”

“Don’t know of one,” Johnson said, “though I imagine they’re around.”

—

They headed back to the cabin, letting the sleds run two or three miles north of the turnoff to Johnson’s slough, a wildly enjoyable ride on a darkening afternoon. At the cabin, they parked the sleds next to it because Virgil thought they’d probably need them again, and Johnson said, looking at the sky, “If you’re gonna find a diver, you better get going. A quick eight inches of snow would cover that hole right up.”

“Is it supposed to snow tonight?”

“Not supposed to . . . or not much . . . but still . . .” He looked up at the oncoming cloud bank.

Virgil called Jon Duncan, told him what he’d found.

“I know there are divers around, I’ll find one,” Duncan said. “What’s happening with the, uh, Barbies?”

“Got a name on that—I’m going to feed it to this private eye, hope we get clear,” Virgil said.

“Good. Good. I’ll tell the governor. His weasel called this morning. I told him you were all over it.”

“You can count on it,” Virgil said.

—

After ringing off from Duncan, he called Margaret Griffin and gave her Duane Hawkins’s name and said that he worked at the Kubota dealership. “I’ll be all over his credit history in five minutes; I’ll be collecting his ears by ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” she said. “Virgil, thank you.”

When Virgil hung up, Johnson made a dusting-his-hands motion and said, “We done good. I’m thinking burgers and fries.”

“I need to finish some interviews,” Virgil said. He took a slip of paper from his jeans. “What do you know about David Birkmann?”

“Bug Boy? He’s kind of a sissy,” Johnson said. “His wife got it on with the owner of Dunkin’ Donuts, and they split up, and she made him buy the donut shop so she and lover boy could buy another Dunkin’ Donuts in Austin. Or maybe Houston. I get them confused. That’s the story anyway.”

“Why’s he called Bug Boy?”

“He owns the pest control company, bugs and rodents and skunks and so on,” Johnson said.

“And the Dunkin’ Donuts.”

“Right. You can talk to him, but I kinda don’t think he did it—killed Gina. He is sort of a sissy.”





FOURTEEN David Birkmann lived in an American foursquare farmhouse a mile west of Trippton, above and west of the riverfront bluffs. The house was basically a two-story clapboard cube painted a grayish white with a pyramidal roof, and a dormer centered over the wide front porch.

The front lawn, going up to the porch, was a plateau of unmarked snow. A narrow barn-shaped building sat to the left side, in back, with newer garage doors. The driveway had been plowed back to the garage and up to the side door leading into the house. Snow was starting to fall; not heavy yet, but with the slanting, serious feel that would leave behind at least a few inches by morning. The yard was lit by a sodium-vapor pole light that threw a flickering orange glow on the falling snow, the plowed snowbanks, and the side of the house.

As he drove up the driveway, it occurred to Virgil that if it had been a scene from a Stephen King movie, somebody was gonna die and it was gonna be ugly.

He parked at the side of the house, considered for a moment, knelt on his seat, opened the lockbox in back, and took out his backup pistol, a small Sig 938 in a flat, front pocket carry holster. He slipped it into his jeans pocket, as a porch light came on next to the side door, and got out of the truck and walked over.

The chubby, balding dark-haired man stood behind the half-open door, wearing tan slacks and a plaid shirt, the shirt open at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He called, “Can I help you?”

Virgil said, “I’m an investigator with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Are you David Birkmann?”

“Yes. You must be Virgil Flowers.”

“I am,” Virgil said. “I need to speak to you about Gina Hemming.”

“I was expecting you,” Birkmann said. “Come on in.”

They walked up a short flight of steps into a kitchen, with an old linoleum floor, that smelled of fried eggs, grease, and maybe oatmeal. Birkmann asked, “You want a beer or a Pepsi?”

“Thanks, I’m good,” Virgil said, he being a Coca-Cola snob.

Birkmann led the way out of the kitchen through a squared-off arch into the dining room and through another arch into the living room, where a couple of easy chairs faced an oversized television. He pointed Virgil at one of the chairs, which turned out to have a revolving base, and he took the other, and they rotated toward each other.

Birkmann said, “Ask away, but I don’t think I can help you much.”

“You last saw Gina Hemming Thursday night?”

“Yeah. I left there about eight forty-five. I sat in my truck for a minute, wrote down some stuff from the meeting—when we were supposed to meet again; what I was supposed to do, exactly; the deadlines and stuff. There were still a few people there when I left . . .”