Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(76)

The farm’s fields were actually cut into the hillside behind the house; a small apple orchard stretched along the road.

When Virgil arrived, Jenkins, Shrake, and Griffin were standing outside the barn, and a woman in a heavy sweater, arms crossed over her chest, was walking away from them. When she saw Virgil getting out of his truck, she stopped, glared at him, and went into the house; one of the women who beat him up, Virgil guessed. Virgil bumped gloved knuckles with Jenkins and Shrake, said hi to Griffin, and asked, “What’d you get?”

“To use official law enforcement terminology, ‘jack shit,’” Shrake said.

“There’s a big bare spot in the middle of the barn, and a dozen chairs, but not a single doll in sight.”

Jenkins said, “We talked to Miz Homer there, but all she said was she wants a lawyer. End of story.”

Griffin was fuming. “You can tell something was going on in the barn. All those chairs?”

“There’s a propane heater in there, but the heater’s cold and the barn’s cold, so if that’s where they were working, they weren’t working for a while,” Jenkins said. “The farm lady said they had a barn dance, is why they have the chairs.”

“She’s lying, it’s obvious,” Griffin said. “Who’s going to a barn dance here in the middle of winter? That’s crazy.”

“Probably. What are you guys going to do?” Virgil asked. Relieved in a couple of ways: nobody got hurt, and he was going to get away with it.

Jenkins shrugged. “We’re here overnight. It’s a bad trip down, the highways are a mess. We’re still good for dinner if you are.”

“I am. I’ll get Johnson Johnson, and we’ll make a deal out of it,” Virgil said. To Griffin: “How the heck did you find this place anyway?”

“Got a tip,” she lied. “I’ve been spreading some money around.”

Virgil played along. “Get back to your source. I agree that this was probably one of their assembly sites, if this farm lady is already talking about a lawyer. If your guy knew about this one, maybe he’ll know about another. The boys will be here overnight, if you can find the next spot . . .”

She nodded. “I’ll try. Christ, it’s cold. It’s like Siberia. Why the fuck would anybody live here?”

“We like it, that’s why,” Jenkins said. “Every March, me’n Shrake fly into LAX and drive over to Palm Springs to play golf. No offense, but L.A. is a shithole. Minnesota isn’t.”

—

On that note, they broke up, with Griffin still fuming, Jenkins and Shrake unfulfilled—they liked nothing better than a screaming raid—and Virgil satisfied that he’d worked things through. On his way back to town, Jesse McGovern called. All he saw on his phone was “Unknown,” but he’d wondered if she might call.

“We got raided this afternoon,” she said.

“I was there,” Virgil said, putting a little gravel in his voice. Maybe she was checking his voice to see if he was the man who tipped her. “We know goddamn well that you were building dolls down there. Give it up, Jesse.”

“You tracked me on my phone, didn’t you?”

“I can’t reveal law enforcement techniques, you gotta know that,” Virgil said. “If you’d stop making those dolls, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Tell that woman that we’re almost done.”

“I told her last night,” Virgil said. “She used to be a cop, and she’s getting paid for being here. I don’t think she’s gonna quit until she hands you the paper. You know, you could stop doing the dolls now, knock on her door down at Ma and Pa’s, take the paper, and she’ll be out of here. She doesn’t like the winter. If you can show that you’ve ceased and desisted—take a vacation down to Florida—you’d be in the clear.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“I got a question for you about that van your guy saw,” Virgil said. “Is it possible that whoever saw it saw it a little earlier than you say?”

“No.”

“That sounds pretty definite.”

“She gets off work at nine o’clock, I won’t tell you where,” McGovern said. “She stopped at Piggly Wiggly to get a rotisserie chicken and some potato salad, which probably took ten minutes, and then saw the van when she was driving home. Probably between twenty after and nine-thirty.”

“She got off at nine o’clock for sure?”

“Where she works, they don’t go a minute past nine. Her replacement doesn’t start a minute before nine. That kind of place. She walked out no later than nine-oh-one, or however long it took her to put her coat on.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“I’ll tell her,” McGovern said and hung up.

—

Virgil drove into town, thinking it over. The woman had a job and got off at nine. She had a replacement, a swing-shift worker. That probably meant that the job was either a two-shift or a full twenty-four hours a day. The clinic? A possibility. What else was open those hours in Trippton?

He called Johnson Johnson and got a list. The clinic, one convenience store, three restaurants, two liquor stores, the bowling alley. Bernie’s Books was open until eleven, but nobody would be working a two-hour shift. And Jimmy worked until it closed, Johnson thought . . . The sheriff’s office . . . The boot factory had once had two shifts but now was down to one, seven to three, and even that shift was light. . . . Other than that, nothing.