Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(87)

“Something like that? How are you something like gay?” Blaine asked.

“What do you call it if one guy thinks he’s incorrectly gendered and is actually a woman in a male body, and he’s dating a man? I mean, if he’s a woman . . . and the guy’s a guy . . . they’re not gay, are they?”

“Beats the heck out of me,” Blaine said. “I’m comfortable not thinking about it.”

—

Le Café was crowded, for two o’clock on a chilly afternoon, but Gurney and Pendleton, two short men in late middle age, were willing to make some space in the work routine to talk to Virgil. They agreed that they knew Knox, who had patronized Le Café because, as a gay man, he felt more comfortable there than anywhere else in town.

“He took cooking classes from us, and he worked—for free—in our kitchen for a few weeks, at night, getting experience,” Gurney said. “He hoped to open his own café somewhere, which he did. He hired a person who worked here in Prairie du Chien, and used to work for us, to be his main cook. Rob is still learning.”

“Did he have a paying job here in town?” Virgil asked.

“Yeah, he worked at the Kaiser Inn as an assistant manager, which meant, you know, the night man,” Pendleton said. “They serve meals there, morning and evening only. I guess he started making crêpes for breakfast . . . which was something beyond their regular cook.”

“I believe he worked in hotels and motels for a while, sort of drifting around the country,” Gurney said.

“You say ‘I believe’ . . . Does that mean you didn’t know him all that well?”

“We don’t, really.” The two glanced at each other. “I hope you didn’t come down here thinking that we had, or one of us had, a relationship with him,” Gurney said. “Because we didn’t. We knew he was gay, of course, but we didn’t particularly care for him. He was on the make. A hustler.”

“Interesting,” Virgil said. “I’m most concerned about last Thursday night . . . he said he was here until late.”

“I don’t know how late he was, but he was here Thursday afternoon for one of our master classes. He’s obviously picked up some practical experience, because he was cooking well,” Pendleton said. “After the class, he was gone for a while, but he came back for an early dinner, and we talked about his effort in Trippton . . . Le Cheval Bleu? He said it was going well, but I have my doubts.”

“Why doubts?”

“Well, you have to know quite a bit to run a place like this . . . It looks simple, but it isn’t,” Gurney said. “Like baking. Mark is a great baker. We do a third of our business between seven in the morning and nine, and it’s probably the most profitable part. Coffee and bakery, it’s marked up more than alcohol. Rob didn’t have a clue.”

“And you say he was here for an early dinner.”

“Yes, he came in at five o’clock, or maybe a bit after,” Pendleton said. “Our early dinners are lightly patronized, so he could get in. But we had a birthday dinner at seven, and his table was reserved for then. I can’t tell you exactly what time he left . . .”

They talked for a few more minutes, but Virgil came away with the information that if Knox had driven directly back to Trippton from Le Café, he might possibly have been there by nine.

Except, he thought, that it was snowing, and at night. And Virgil had taken nearly two hours to drive down during the day. On the other hand, Gurney and Pendleton couldn’t say exactly when Knox had left. Could it have been as early as six? No, not that early, they had thought. But maybe as early as six-thirty . . .

Tight, Virgil thought. Very tight.

—

Son Davis, the third reference given by Knox, worked at the Kaiser Inn and was leaving for the day when Virgil and Blaine arrived. Knox had visited on Thursday after taking a cooking class at a cookware store, Davis said. But Knox hadn’t had many friends at the Kaiser, Davis said, and had left after a few minutes. That had been around five o’clock.

Blaine summarized as they walked back to Virgil’s truck. “He doesn’t have a perfect alibi, but it would have been tough getting back to Trippton on that night in time to kill your victim.”

“Yes. But it could be done . . . Maybe,” Virgil said. “Gurney and Pendleton said he was a hustler—and there’s a million bucks on the table.”

“I wouldn’t kill anyone for a million bucks,” Blaine said. “But I’m glad nobody’s offered me the chance. Heck of a lot of money.”

Night was falling as Virgil crossed the bridge back into Iowa and turned north. Even driving in the dark, he made it back to Trippton in two hours—but without the snow factor. As a cop in southern Minnesota, he’d driven through any number of heavy snowstorms. In the daylight hours, it was easier, but at night it was sometimes impossible. He’d been forced off the road a half dozen times during blizzards, to wait it out in whatever motel he could find. He and a dozen other people had once spent a sleepless night in a convenience store in western Minnesota that its manager had kept open specifically as a refuge.

—

As he drove, Virgil kept running the numbers in his head: if Knox left Prairie du Chien at 6:20, say, he would have had two hours and forty minutes to make it back to Trippton to kill Hemming at nine o’clock. If he’d killed Hemming at 9:15 rather than immediately after nine, he’d have had almost three hours.