Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(62)

In bed that night, Birkmann remembered what Virgil had suggested about talking with God. He tried it. He tried confession, as he’d heard the Catholics did it. He contemplated the meaning of the two deaths: in the world, in the town. He never got an answer to anything. It didn’t make him feel better. There was no peace to be had.

When he closed his eyes, he didn’t see anything but the little orange things he always saw when he closed his eyes.

Talking to God. Might work for Flowers, but for the Bug Boy it was just more nerve-jangling horseshit. Better to sit up and watch the late show.





EIGHTEEN Virgil had spent the late afternoon processing Carolyn Weaver through the Trippton Clinic and filling out arrest forms when, he thought, he should have been raking the Cheevers over the coals.

The doc said Weaver’s injury was only superficially like Virgil’s. Weaver’s injury was much worse. She would need surgery to realign the nasal bones at the top of her nose, which had been broken, and to reestablish the contour of the nasal cartilage at the tip. To get that done, she would have to be shipped up to Mayo in Rochester.

When the doc had finished evaluating her, he put her to bed, and a sheriff’s deputy put a cuff around one of her ankles and locked it to the bed to keep her from running off. The doc took a look at Virgil’s face, said that he was doing fine, and that the squid could be removed . . . “But don’t hit anything else with your nose.”

Virgil promised to not do that, and the squid came off. He checked himself in a mirror and said, “I’ve lost my luster.”

“If you had any in the first place, it’ll come back,” the doc said. “You can talk to the admission clerk about insurance.”

While he was doing that, Griffin sidled up to Weaver’s bed, dropped a sheath of papers on her stomach, and said, “You’ve been served.”

On the way out, Virgil asked if serving Weaver would be good enough. Griffin said, “I’m talking to our lawyer about that, but I think I’m still gonna have to find that goddamn McGovern. I’m going back with a deputy to Weaver’s place, and we’ll seize those dolls and the parts. I’d like to get that done tonight, if I can.”

“Stay in touch,” Virgil said.

—

As Virgil was driving over to the Cheevers’ Chevrolet dealership, Johnson Johnson called to find out what had happened in CarryTown.

“I know Carolyn,” Johnson said after Virgil filled him in. “Her old man ran off to Canada a couple years back. She’s a tough old bird, and she needs the money, so I’m not surprised she was working with Jesse.”

He asked if there was anything new about the murder, and Virgil said there wasn’t, but he was planning to talk to a couple more people who’d been at Hemming’s party. “I’ve got to tell you, Johnson, I don’t expect much. I still think Fred Fitzgerald had something to do with the murder, but I’ve got nothing to pin him with.”

“Do what you can until seven o’clock,” Johnson said. “Clarice is making Norwegian lasagna.”

—

Virgil went over to the Chevrolet dealership to talk to Lucy Cheever about the loan problem she’d had with Gina Hemming, but a salesman said that she and her husband had gone to La Crosse to do some shopping and catch a movie and wouldn’t be home until late.

Virgil still had a name on his interview list, a divorced guy named George Brown, who owned and operated the town bowling alley, with a summer-only beach volleyball court in back.

Virgil talked to him in his office at the bowling alley, and Brown, a lazy-looking blond guy with a chunk, claimed to have been behind the bowling alley bar after the meeting at Hemming’s house. He’d been there until closing, at one o’clock. He did have a snowmobile but said he didn’t ice fish and didn’t have an ice auger.

Virgil pushed Brown about a possible relationship with Hemming, but Brown said, “She was far too good for me back in high school, and she was still too good for me. I run a bowling alley, Virgil, where I allow people to illegally smoke cigars, and I’ve got a minor but persistent drinking problem. In the winter, I sit in the back and drink beer, and, in the summer, I watch twenty-one-year-old girls in bikinis playing volleyball. Sometimes I hit on them. Sometimes they say yes.”

“You never dated Gina? Never asked?”

“Never asked. If I had, she’d have told me to get lost,” Brown said. “She was also too old for me. My date line is moving up, but, right now, it’s twenty-one.”

“Really?” Virgil said. “Mine’s thirty, and I’m six years younger than you are. I mean, if I were out dating.”

“You lack ambition, Virgil, you really do. If I was your age, my date line would be seventeen,” Brown said.

“Couldn’t do that,” Virgil said. “She’d be listening to bands like Scouting for Girls.” He shivered.

“There is that,” Brown admitted. “The last chick I dated didn’t know who the Eagles were. But Gina Hemming? No. Nope. No way. The chemicals were all wrong. You ought to check out David Birkmann. He was there that night and he’s been in love with Gina since forever.”

“Really? David Birkmann? I interviewed him, and he seemed all shook up by her death. You think he’d hurt her?” Virgil asked.

“Oh, jeez, I don’t want you to think that,” Brown said. “I mean, I spoke out of turn right there. Bug Boy’s always been in love with her, but he’s always been, well, Bug Boy. He had less chance with her than I did and he knew it.”