Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(44)

But all that subsonic stuff sounded crazy smart and didn’t explain the two thuds heard by Smit. Nope. The shooter was probably using standard ammo, and the witnesses simply hadn’t identified the sonic boom as a rifle shot. Sonic booms, as far as Virgil knew, might be reduced by the frontal area of the bullet, and .223s were small, sleek slugs.

But Smit . . . Smit created a problem. Was it possible that he hadn’t heard the muzzle blast, the bang, but instead heard only the sonic boom, as the bullet passed close to his house?



* * *



—

Virgil was shaving when another thought occurred to him. He’d had an appointment the day before to meet Bud Dexter at Skinner & Holland at 4 o’clock. Virgil’d run a few minutes late, and they’d been talking for a while, but not too long, when Osborne got shot. She’d been shot, he’d bet, at 4:15, at almost exactly the time the other two were shot.

Why 4:15, or within a couple of minutes of 4:15? The obvious answer was that 4:15 was the time when you got the biggest crowds on the street corner across from the church. The first service was at 4:30, and if the Virgin Mary were planning to pop up, you’d want to be there a bit early to get a good seat.

But exactly 4:15? There’d be people on the corner at 4:10 and 4:25, as well. Maybe the shooter was coming from a job that ended at 3:30 or 4, and after going through whatever preparations he had to perform, it simply worked out to 4:15?

Nope. That wasn’t right.

Another little mystery.



* * *



—

When he was cleaned up and dressed, Virgil thought about walking out to Mom’s Cafe but decided he couldn’t face a Mom’s pancake. There wasn’t much to eat at Skinner & Holland, either, but even a nuked chicken potpie would be better than Mom’s.

Holland was hauling in more edible crap when Virgil walked into the store. The crowd was noticeably thinner than it had been the other times Virgil had been there, and he overheard two people who looked like townies complaining about the toll the shootings had taken on the tourist trade. “If I catch that rat, I’ll pop his head like a fuckin’ pimple,” one guy said to the other, who replied, “Shhhh. That’s the cop.”

Virgil nodded, and said, “How ya doin’, boys. If you catch the guy, let me know. I’ll come over and shoot him for you all legal-like.”

“Nice thought, but that’s not what I heard about you,” the pimple popper said.

Hung up deciding between a turkey potpie or a chicken, Virgil took a chicken, then put it back and took a turkey, then put that back, and one of the guys said, “Take the chicken. The turkey gives you bad gas.”

Virgil took the chicken, walked it into the back room, and shoved it in the microwave. Holland came through with a box full of blue corn chips, and said, “Hope I can sell this stuff.”

“I ought to bust you for trying,” Virgil said.

“That’s how Communism got started,” Holland said, as he disappeared through the curtain into the store. He was back a minute later, and said, “You know what goes with a chicken potpie?”

“A water glass full of Everclear?”

“Well, yeah, but I was thinking of Zingers. I got a gross of Zingers coming through in a minute.”

Virgil waved off the Zingers, when they came through, and poked holes through the potpie cover with a plastic fork. Holland took the Zingers into the store. He was back a couple of minutes later, pushing through the door curtain with the empty box, when Virgil heard Skinner’s voice call, “Wardell! Wardell!”

Wardell turned, halfway through the curtain. “Yeah?”

Virgil couldn’t see Skinner but clearly heard him say, “That fuckin’ Larry beat up Jennie, man, real bad. She’s got—”

He suddenly stopped talking, and Virgil knew that Holland had cut him off and was making some finger gestures that meant “Flowers is in the back.”

Virgil swallowed some potpie, and called, “Come on back and tell me about it, Skinner. Janet getting beat up and all.”

Skinner poked his head past the curtain. “You don’t know Janet.”

“Come in here. I want to hear about it, and I want to know why Janet got beat up,” Virgil said.

Holland came through with Skinner a step behind him, both obviously uneasy, shuffling their feet. Holland said, “This has nothing to do with the shootings. This is something else.”

Virgil kept eating, and, between swallows of molten chicken grease, said, “Tell me about it anyway.”

“Ah, man,” Skinner said. Then, to Holland: “I think we ought to tell him. We can’t let it go.”

Holland bowed his head, gripped his skull with one hand, then said, “This fuckin’ apparition is gonna be the end of us. We already got two dead and two wounded. It’s like we’re back in the ’Stan.”

Skinner: “We don’t even know that the apparition has anything to do with it. The guy’s obviously a nutcase. He was gonna go off sooner or later. What does that have to do with Larry?”

“Maybe . . .”

“Fuck it, I’m gonna tell him,” Skinner said.

“Go ahead,” Holland said. “I’ve got more boxes to unload.” He started toward the back door, stopped, turned, came back, and sank into a chair facing Virgil. “I’ll tell it.”