Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(50)

Virgil to Ryan Harney: “You let me think you hardly knew her . . .”

“I really messed up the middle part of my life when I fell in bed with her,” Harney said.

“You betcha,” Karen Harney said.

Harney continued. “But I broke down and told Karen, and we put things back together, after a rough time, and I . . . well, I thought the fact that we’d had an affair, so long ago, wasn’t really relevant. Then that fuckin’ Corbel showed up last night.”

Virgil told him Cain’s theory that Harney got drunk—and Karen Harney interrupted to say, “He does drink too much”—and got violent after being turned down for sex. “He’d never get violent,” Karen Harney said.

Harney said, “We’ve been up all night here. This whole thing . . . we’re going to change our lives. We’re not happy here. I’m going to start looking around for a job in the Cities, or in Rochester. Maybe even Denver. Maybe an emergency room gig: get some regular hours, for a change, spend more time with Karen and the kids.”

“I do love him,” Karen said. “But Trippton’s never been right for us. We need a bigger place.”

—

They talked some more, and the Harneys ate four of the pastries and Virgil ate one (chocolate-glazed), and the two Harneys so casually dismissed Cain’s theory as crazy that Virgil decided he wouldn’t get anywhere with them without more facts to back him up.

As he was putting on his coat to leave, Harney said, “Virgil, you know, I didn’t want to say anything about this because it’s so minor . . .”

“Nothing’s minor in a murder,” Virgil said.

“When we were leaving, I was out at my car, and Justin and Margot walked down her porch steps, and Gina was up there alone with Lucy Cheever, and there was something really . . . tense . . . about their body relationships. They looked like they were arguing. But this was only a glance as I drove by. It’s probably nothing.”

“I’ll ask,” Virgil said. “I’ll keep you out of it.”

Driving away, Virgil thought a bit about Karen Harney. She’d dropped both Burke and Corbel Cain, two well-known brawlers, with a closet rod. There was a willingness to use violence . . . although it could have been simple fear and anger.

Still . . .

Betrayed by her husband, worried that he might be straying again . . .

—

At nine o’clock, he eased into a freshly plowed parking spot on Main Street in front of Margot Moore’s office at Moore Financial. The secretary said Moore was not in yet but was expected any minute. “Probably over getting a cup of coffee.”

Virgil waited in the lobby, reading an old copy of Modern Farmer, a magazine aimed at yuppies (“The Complete Chicken Guide”), and ten minutes later Moore came in, stomping her diminutive L.L. Bean rubber mocs. She saw Virgil, stopped, and said, “Oh, shit.”

Virgil asked, “Is that nice?”

“Come on in.” To the secretary she said, “Jerry Williams is supposed to be here at nine-thirty. I should be done with Virgil by then, but, if I’m not, stall him. I don’t want him to go away.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Moore led the way back to the office, hung her parka on a hook, and asked, “What now?”

Virgil sat in the client’s chair and asked, “Was there some tension at the reunion meeting between Lucy Cheever and Gina?”

She tapped her lips with a forefinger, thinking, and said, “Maybe.”

“Why was that?” Virgil asked.

“Don’t know. They’re both about money. If there’s something there, you should probably talk to Marv Hiners.”

“But you said, ‘Maybe.’”

“Gina and Lucy are sort of rivals for the title of richest woman in Trippton. Lucy’s empire is growing. Whenever you’d see them together, they’d be a little gushy like they were the best of friends. They weren’t doing that Thursday night. If anything, they were cool with each other.”

“Okay,” Virgil said.

“That’s it?” Big smile.

“No . . . How often were you and Gina Hemming getting together with Fred Fitzgerald?”

Moore stared at him for a few seconds, sputtered, “What? What?”

Virgil said, “Hey, Margot—don’t bullshit me. I not only know about you guys, I actually bought myself a whip at the same place Fred got his.”

She sat in mortified silence, a tear leaking out of one eye. “This could ruin me.”

Virgil said, “Doesn’t have to. I’m looking for information, not publishing it. I can promise you, nobody will hear about you from me, nothing that you give me confidentially.”

She yanked open a desk drawer and pulled out a Kleenex, dabbed at her face. “I bet you made me wreck my makeup.”

“Yeah, well, Margot, I’m not trying to make you cry—I’m investigating the murder of a woman who was probably your best friend and you’re holding out on me. Don’t tell me about your fuckin’ makeup.”

“We . . . Gina and me and Fred . . . were playing. That’s all. And when I say Gina and me, I don’t mean we were all in bed in a pile,” she said. “Fred would come over to my place or I’d go over to his. He always went to Gina’s, because his place kinda scared her. We were playing. He had this little whip, he’d spank our butts a little, he’d put on handcuffs, and . . . do stuff. It was all pretend.”