Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(85)

“Waiting for Margaret to tell us—but something’s going on. We know she was meeting with an informant last night. Apparently, somebody’s taking her money.”

“Keep me up to date,” Virgil said.

Jenkins said he would.

Fuckin’ Margaret S. Griffin.

—

Johnson showed up at ten o’clock, and, by eleven, Virgil was driving a Toyota 4Runner, with thirty thousand miles on it and a couple of dents. He didn’t like it as much as he liked the Tahoe, but it was cheaper and felt more like a real truck. That is, less comfortable than the Tahoe. Something to think about when he had the time, which he wouldn’t until he had the murders figured out.

When he left the Hertz agency, he followed Johnson back across the river to a La Crescent café, where they had breakfast, and Virgil stewed about the burning of his truck. Johnson had brought along a copy of the new Republican-River, and Virgil read with interest the story about the murders of Gina Hemming and Margot Moore, filled with quotes from Jeff Purdy, who was all over the case and who expected that an arrest would be made momentarily.

“What I’d like you to do,” Virgil told Johnson when he was done with the paper, “is to call Jesse McGovern behind my back, since you obviously know how to get in touch with her, and tell her to call me again. I want to know who’s shooting at me. I don’t know if I can trust her, but I can at least get a start on working it out.”

“I categorically deny knowing how to get in touch with her,” Johnson said. “But keep your phone handy when you’re driving back to Trippton.”

“You’re starting to piss me off,” Virgil said. “I was shot at. With a .308, or something like it.”

Johnson said, “You know I don’t lie to you much, and I’m not lying now. I don’t know how to get in touch with her directly. What I’ll do is, I’ll call a bunch of people who might know how to get in touch with her and tell them what you want. One or more of them can probably get in touch with her, but I don’t know which ones.”

“I need to talk to her,” Virgil said. “Bad.”

—

On the way back to Trippton, he called his insurance agent, told the agent that the car wouldn’t be coming back to Mankato unless State Farm wanted to truck it back. “It’s sitting in a junkyard and that would be the cheapest place to leave it,” Virgil said. “It looks like it’s been in a war zone. Bring your adjuster to the car, is what I’m saying.”

He was twenty minutes out of Trippton when Shrake called. “Margaret thinks she’s got Jesse McGovern spotted. She got direct testimony from her informant, and the governor got the AG to issue another search warrant. We’re on our way there, if you want to join up.”

He and Jenkins were north of Trippton, not more than ten or twelve minutes away, following Griffin out to another isolated farm. “Drive slow, I’m on my way,” Virgil said. “We’re also looking for a recently used .30 caliber rifle.”

“Hope they don’t use it on us,” Shrake said. “Get my bullet allergy all in an uproar again.”

—

Virgil didn’t even think about trying to warn Jesse McGovern—he wanted to get the whole Barbie-O case done with, and if that meant slapping McGovern’s ass in jail for a while, he was good with that.

The target farmhouse was up behind the bluffs, ten miles out of Trippton. Shrake called again and said Griffin was not going to slow down to wait for Virgil but was going straight in. “She’s paranoid about them getting away again. About her source playing both sides.”

“Coming fast as I can without wrecking the truck,” Virgil said.

But he was late.

When he got to the farmhouse, Jenkins’s truck was already in front of the barn, blocking the doors, and Griffin’s Prius was right behind it. The side door of the farmhouse was open, but nobody was in sight. Virgil pulled in, hesitated, got his Glock out of the gun safe, and put it in his parka pocket.

As he was walking to the house, Shrake stuck his head out, held up a hand, disappeared back inside.

Virgil followed him in and found Jenkins, Shrake, and Griffin facing three women sitting on a broken-down couch in the living room. None of them was Jesse McGovern.

Jenkins said to Virgil, “This is the main factory. We got three or four hundred dolls, and boxes of parts out in the barn, more in here. The sheriff’s bringing a van out here to take the Barbies and the parts. We’re waiting for that.”

Griffin added, “They’ve all been served, and we’ve got IDs on all of them.”

“I’d like to look in the barn,” Virgil said.

Shrake said, “I’ll take you.”

The three women on the couch, looking ragged and out of breath, all of them crying a little, hadn’t said a word to Virgil. He followed Shrake out the door and, on the way, said, “I’d like to talk to those women without Griffin around. You think you could get her out here and leave me inside?”

“Sure. When the truck gets here, we’ll get her out here to certify the seizure,” Shrake said. He added, “Can’t remember when I felt this bad about doing my job.”

“The question is, are we doing our job or are we running an errand for the governor because he’s hoping for payback from somebody?”