Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(21)

“I’ll put up a request for information,” Danielle Visser said. “Most everybody in town reads me, now that we got so much going on.”

“Do that,” Virgil said. “Ask for email replies to my official address. I’ll give you that. Don’t pass on my phone number. The nuts would drive me nuts.”



* * *



—

The Vissers went to post the request for information, and Virgil turned on the small television and clicked around until he found a Minnesota Twins game, turned down the volume, and got on the phone to Frankie.

“I thought about coming home tonight, but . . . I need to push,” he said.

“We’re fine . . . It was windy here today. All the apple blossoms blew off the trees. They looked kind of neat on the ground, like a quilt.”

They talked for an hour and a half about stuff that nobody else would be interested in.

The Twins lost.





6


Janet Fischer’s great-great-great-grandfather had arrived in Wheatfield in the last half of the nineteenth century and, though Fischer didn’t know it, had given her the same oval face, yellow-blond hair, and bright blue eyes as he had.

She’d inherited her figure directly from her mother, a woman of French-Canadian descent who could still turn heads after sixty-two years and five children. Janet had been considered a Wheatfield natural resource since high school.

Not a totally untapped resource. She’d been engaged to marry Larry Van Den Berg for nine years and was known to be growing impatient. She’d heard the phrase “If he’s already gettin’ the milk, why would he buy the cow?” at least fifty times too many, but still had some faith that Van Den Berg would take her to the altar.

Van Den Berg was an over-the-road truck driver, working out of Albert Lea, making regular runs in a refrigerated rig to supermarkets on the West Coast. Fresh sausage, mostly. As a driver, he was gone for days at a time, and Janet—Jennie—found somewhat guilty solace in the arms of John Jacob Skinner.

Fischer worked afternoons at Skinner & Holland, except on weekends, when Skinner covered the store, and she was exceptionally well paid for a cashier. That afternoon, she’d washed her car and spent some time texting with girlfriends; but at 5 o’clock she’d taken a phone call from Van Den Berg and had immediately called Holland. She told him they all needed to meet at her house as soon as it got dark, that it was urgent, and that she didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.

At 9 o’clock, Skinner and Holland snuck between two Concord grape arbors in her backyard and into the house through the back door. The door led into a short hallway that went past her bedroom and into the living room. When they were in the living room behind drawn curtains, safe from the eyes of passersby, Holland asked, “What’s going on?”

Before Fischer could answer, Skinner asked, “Where’s Larry?”

“He’s parked off I-80 outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, conveniently close to Diamond Jim’s Gentleman’s Club, all-nude entertainment twenty-four/seven, free parking for trucks,” Fischer said.

Holland: “How do you know that?”

“I put a tracking app on his cell phone,” Fischer said. “There are times”—she glanced at Skinner—“when I wouldn’t want to be surprised about where he is.”

“Okay. So what’s the big crisis?” Holland asked. “He find out about you and J.J.?”

“Worse,” she said. “He might suspect that I’m the Virgin Mary. It’s my fault.”

“Oh, no,” Holland said. He ran both hands through his hair. “That’s bad.”

“You didn’t tell him?” Skinner asked.

“No. He doesn’t know for sure. When the first postcards came out, he said something about how it looked like me. He never said anything more about it. But then after I got the job down at the store, I opened up a new checking account at First Bank over in Blue Earth. My regular account is at Wells Fargo, and that’s where Larry’s is, too. Anyway, I got a new Visa card through First Bank, and Larry was sort of snooping around the house while I was in the shower and he found a statement. I’d bought some clothes . . .”

“How much?” Skinner asked.

“Four thousand . . . at Nordstrom’s, up at the Mall of America,” Fischer said. “I’m usually at Old Navy. I told him I needed new clothes for the job. He seemed to buy it, but he called an hour ago and said to tell you that he wanted a cut. I asked him, ‘A cut of what?’ He said, ‘You know what cut.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t.’ And he said, ‘Yes, you do. You ain’t that good a virgin.’ I said, ‘Fuck you, Larry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He said, ‘Tell Wardell,’ and hung up. I think he must’ve been sitting there in the driver’s seat, all the way out to the West Coast and halfway back, wondering where I got the money, and thinking about how you guys got the store going right away after the apparitions, and he figured it out.”

“Oh, boy,” Holland said.

“He’s got no proof,” Skinner said.

“He doesn’t need proof. All he needs to do is start running his mouth, and we’re in trouble,” Holland said.

They all looked at one another, and Fischer said, “Well, we can’t just shoot him.”