Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(12)

“She sure doesn’t need the competition,” Virgil said. “I ate the worst cheeseburger of my life there about five minutes ago.”

Skinner winced, and said, “I wouldn’t wander too far from a toilet. They got three cooks there; we call them Hepatitis A, B, and C. That burger’s gonna hit the bottom of the bucket in one piece, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Virgil said. “Maybe I ought to start a cafe if you’re afraid to piss off Holland’s mom.”

Holland had come up behind him, and now he said, “Who’s gonna piss off Mom?”

Skinner said, “Virgil got a cheeseburger down at the cafe.”

“That’ll teach you,” Holland said. “God knows where the meat comes from. Probably from a veterinarian’s.” Then, “Figure anything out?”

“Found a guy who thinks he might have heard the shots; I need to check some sight lines.” A couple of customers had edged up to listen in. Virgil said, “We can talk about it later.”

“That’s more than anybody else has gotten,” Holland said.

“If you could prove that it’s Holland’s mom who did the shooting, it’d benefit everybody,” Skinner said.

“Except Mom,” Holland added. To Virgil: “You had a hepatitis shot?”

“Already heard that joke,” Virgil said.

Skinner and Holland looked at each other, and then Skinner said, “That wasn’t a joke.”

“Ah, Jesus,” Virgil said.



* * *



—

Virgil left Skinner & Holland, chewing his way through the pack of gum, walked around to his truck, opened his camera case and took out his Nikon and a long lens. He hung the camera on a shoulder and got a pair of image-stabilizing Canon binoculars out of the gear box in the back. After locking the truck, he trudged over to where the shooting victims were hit and glassed the west side of the business district, picking out spots where a shot might have come from.

There were several. He took a series of photos that he could later review on his iPad.

On his way back to the truck, he saw Skinner leaving the store.

“Solved the restaurant problem,” Skinner said.

“Yeah?”

“Taco truck,” Skinner said. “Who doesn’t like tacos? On top of the tourists, we got a whole bunch of Mexicans in town, so that’d add to the market. Bet there’s a truck up in the Cities that we could buy—I’m gonna look at it this week. Get it going. Maybe we could find a Mexican lady to run it. I know there are some in town who make damn good tacos ’cause I’ve eaten them.”

“Why don’t you start a corporation?” Virgil said.

“Where would that get us?” Skinner asked.

“It’d give me an opportunity to buy some of your stock.”

“Ah,” Skinner said. “Hmm. Let me think about that.”





4


Virgil downloaded the photos to his iPad and walked back to the business district, checking the photographs for holes in the foliage or any other place where the shots might have come from. He discovered that the photos were a lot less help than he’d imagined they’d be. If the shot had come from that area, it could have come from anywhere.

When he finished, it was late in the afternoon. He heard the bells from St. Mary’s, saw a rush of people cross the street to the church for the first Mass. Nobody had been shot, so he went back to his car, found the address where Holland had arranged a room, and drove over.

An older Ford F-150 was parked nose in at the front door; a bumper sticker said “I dream of an America where a chicken can cross the road without having its motives questioned.”

Maybe the Vissers had a sense of humor; or maybe they were sincere and deeply into fowl. He climbed the stoop and knocked. A woman opened the inner door, looked through the screen, and said, “You’d be Virgil. You desperately need a decent haircut, and, fortunately, I’m the gal to give it to you. You don’t need it a lot shorter, but it does need to be cleaned up. Get rid of those split ends.”

Virgil asked, “Miz Visser?”

“Yup, as in ‘real pisser,’ as my husband would say, if he were here,” she said. “Walk around back, I’ll go through the house and open the door for you. You can park your truck at the side, on the gravel.”

Virgil parked on a gravel strip, got his bag, flipped the switch on what he believed was the loudest car alarm in the world, locked the truck, and walked around to the back door, where Visser was waiting. Virgil got a better look at her without the screen between them: a Netherlander blonde with pale blue eyes and nearly invisible eyebrows, she might have been a workout queen on a free cable channel. She was wearing a tight mock turtleneck, black yoga pants, and flats. She was pretty, in an earnest, small-town way.

“We don’t serve food, but you’ve got a microwave, and a comfortable bed.”

“It’s fine,” Virgil said, looking around the room. A compact bathroom, straight out of Home Depot, opened off the back wall, with a toilet, sink, and shower. The room smelled of pine-scented deodorizer.

“Fifty dollars a day, and we take it any way you roll it—cash, check, or Visa. But if it’s credit card, you have to go charge it at Skinner and Holland, and it’ll be fifty-five, because the store adds a ten percent service charge.”