Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(49)

“Good,” Jenkins said. “Let me get my iPad. Does this place have WiFi?”

It did.



* * *



—

Shrake found Marlin Brown crawling around his freshly tilled garden plot, following a yellow string across the ground, his nose about two inches from the dirt. He was a compact man, wearing compact coveralls with plastic knee protectors. Shrake watched him, puzzled, then called, “Mr. Brown?”

Brown looked up. He had dirt on his nose. “Hi.”

“I’m with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’d like to speak to you for a moment.”

Brown stepped carefully out of the garden plot, and Shrake asked, “What the heck are you doing?”

Brown said, “Planting radishes.” He held out a cupped palm.

“Really.” Shrake peered into Brown’s hand, which contained perhaps a hundred reddish gray spheres smaller than BBs.

“Cherry Belle Organics,” Brown said. “I’m a little late getting them in, but it’s been cool.”

“Those’ll turn into radishes?”

“Not a gardener, huh?”

“I once grew a marigold,” Shrake said. “It died and made me sad.”

“That’s life on the farm,” Brown said. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”

Brown went to Andorra’s range to shoot his shotgun and didn’t know much about the rifle guys. He did have some names of people whom he’d seen shooting rifles, and Shrake made notes on his list. “This is shotgun country down here,” Brown said. “Not much call for high-powered rifles.”



* * *



—

Dick Howell was a rural route mail carrier. When Jenkins pulled into his driveway, he found Howell’s girlfriend unloading groceries from her car. Jenkins was aware that country women, when alone, were nervous about large men in suits showing up unexpectedly, so when he climbed out of his car, he stood next to the car door, and called, “I’m an agent with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Is Mr. Howell here?”

“He’s out carrying his route,” she called back. Jenkins had seen her relax, so he took his ID out of his coat pocket and walked up to her, showed her the ID, and asked, “Do you know where he might be?”

“I can call him and ask,” she said.

She did, and Jenkins caught Howell as he waited in a turnout by a bridge over a wide creek; he was sitting on the railing, looking down at the water.

Jenkins introduced himself, and asked, “Any fish in there?”

“Nothing you’d want to eat, I don’t believe,” Howell said. He was chewing tobacco, and he hocked a wad into the creek.

Jenkins thought, Not now anyway, but didn’t say it. Instead, he said, “I’m looking for information about target shooters over at Glen Andorra’s range.”

“I heard about Glen,” Howell said. “Sounded bad.”

“Yeah. Anyway, we need to talk to people who were friends with Glen, who might’ve spent some time shooting with him.”

“The only guy I saw him shooting with at all was a guy from town, Clay Ford. Don’t go telling Clay I told you that . . .”



* * *



—

Virgil found Will Courtland working on a piece of farm machinery in the welding shop next to his house. The shop smelled of hot metal and welding rods, and Virgil got him out in the driveway and asked about Andorra’s friends.

“The thing about Glen was, everybody liked him but he wasn’t a hang-out kind of guy,” Courtland said. “As far as I know, he mostly worked around his farm and at the range. Close friends . . . I’m not sure he had any. I can tell you the names of a couple of people I supposed would be his closest friends and maybe they could tell you more, but I can’t say that they’re superclose to him. I wasn’t. But, you know, you don’t have to be a close friend to go inside somebody’s house. You get deliveries from UPS and boxes from the mailman; you maybe get plumbers or electricians for stuff you can’t do on your own . . .”

He gestured to the machine in his shop, and said, “I’m working on this fellow’s rake. When I take it back, I’ll probably go sit at the kitchen table while he writes a check or gives me his VISA card. I mean, I’m friendly with him and all, but we’re not close. But there I’ll be, right in his house. Like the guy who shot Glen.”



* * *



—

That’s the way the day went.

They met at 5 o’clock at the Tarweveld Inn, where Jenkins and Shrake checked in. They left their luggage in their rooms, and Virgil took them down the street and introduced them to the back room at Skinner & Holland. Holland sat in with them.

Virgil summed up. “We got six consensus names and seven more random maybes,” he said. “The problem being, not a single person thinks any of those guys would be the shooter, and only two of them live in Wheatfield.”

“You think the shooter has to live here?” Jenkins asked.

“I think the shooter has to be somebody that people see regularly, so that he fits in, and they ignore him. Also, he’s familiar enough with Wheatfield that he’s got a spot to shoot from, and that he can get out of, without people noticing.”