Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(47)

Cain thought about it, and seriously, but hadn’t gotten there yet.

—

As Virgil was getting ready for bed that night, Cain was disturbing the peace at George Brown’s bowling alley.

After Brown cut him off, Cain struggled out into the parking lot, where, with his oldest pal, Denwa Burke, at his side, they mutually agreed that they needed more excitement in their lives, because, honestly, when you thought about it, too much was never enough.

Driving drunk usually provided solid entertainment. Because bars were such a large part of Trippton’s economy, the cops generally stayed away from drivers who might have an extra cocktail under their belts as long as they didn’t run into anything too expensive or uninsured.

Cain got in his Jeep Rubicon, fired that mother up, and five minutes later launched himself and Burke onto the frozen Mississippi River. Once clear of the first ice village, he aimed the truck north and dropped the hammer. The Jeep bucked and thrashed and occasionally went airborne off the windrows of snow, Burke screaming his approval—and chipping a tooth on a bottle of Stoli—until they hit the main channel, where the wind had cleared most of the bumps.

There, running the Jeep up to fifty, Cain cut sharp left, and the Jeep spun down the ice like a top. He did it again and again, then the snow came, and they were essentially flying blind, but still working the ice, until Burke shouted, “Stop, stop!” and Cain yelled back, “You pussy!” and Burke shouted, “No, stop, stop!” Cain got the Jeep stopped, and Burke popped open his door, got out, and barfed most of several beers, a pint of Stoli, and four or five hot dogs onto the ice, got back in the truck, wiped his chin with his parka sleeve, and said, “I’m good.”

“’Preciate that,” Cain said, and, “Pass the bottle.”

Denwa passed it, Cain took two long swallows, passed the bottle back, and dropped the hammer.

Once, a few minutes before he’d gone out on the ice with his truck, a deputy asked him, “Why do you do that, Corbel? Drink and fuck around on the river?”

Cain answered, “Because that’s what we do. We’ve always done that.”

—

Off the ice, but no less hammered, Cain pulled the Jeep to the side of the street and said to Burke, “I gotta tell you something, Denwa. Not exactly a secret, but kinda like that.”

“Go for it,” Burke said.

“You know Ryan Harney?”

“The doctor? He did my hemorrhoids,” Burke said. “What’s the secret?”

“A few years back, he was fuckin’ Gina Hemming.”

Burke looked at him slack-jawed, puzzled by the importance of this secret. “Yeah? So what?”

“So what? So everybody in town knows he’s got trouble with his wife, and what I think is, Gina told him she was gonna come out with the news, and his wife was gonna find out, so he killed her and threw her body in the river.”

“No shit,” Burke said. He held up the bottle of Stoli, realized there was less than half an inch left. He finished it and threw the bottle out the window, where it shattered on the street. “What’re we gonna do about it?”

“Go kick his ass,” Cain said.

“Let’s do it,” Burke said. “Motherfucker can’t go around killing our women.”

Cain dropped the hammer, and the Jeep lurched away from the curb.

“Say,” Burke said, “Didn’t I hear from somebody once that you used to fuck Gina? Might have been your wife said it.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t kill her. She needed me, because . . . Justine.”

“Huh. Justine,” Burke said. He burped. “You know, if he gets the operation, I could go for a piece of that.”

“What?”

“Good-looking woman . . . or whatever,” Burke said.

Cain didn’t want to hear it. And had an idea that he wouldn’t remember it anyway. That was a good thing.

—

They showed up at Harney’s house, a sprawling tan-brick affair with a three-car garage and a couple of bay windows poking out on either side of the recessed front door. There were lights on at both ends of the house. Cain pulled into the driveway, killed the engine, the two men piled out, and Cain led the way to the door. He rang the doorbell and pounded on the door, and a minute later the door popped open, and Harney was there in a robe and slippers, the open robe showing the top of a pair of blue pajamas.

He asked, “Somebody hurt?”

“You motherfucker,” Burke shouted. “You killed Gina Hemming. You motherfucker . . .”

Burke seemed to have lost the thread at “motherfucker,” and Cain stepped up. “We know all about it, Harney,” he said. “Gina was going to turn you in, to your wife, and you decided to shut her up.”

“You guys are drunk.”

“Damn right,” Burke said.

Harney’s wife, Karen, showed up in a robe behind Harney and asked loudly, “Ryan, what’s going on?”

“There she is,” Burke shouted. “Your old man killed Gina Hemming because he was fuckin’ her and he didn’t want you to find out.”

She crossed her arms. “What?”

“Not true, not true, none of it’s true, they’re drunk idiots,” Harney said. As Cain shouted, “Who you callin’ idiots?” Harney turned to his wife. “You know everything that happened, it was years ago, and these assholes are drunk . . .”