Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(54)

“At least one,” Virgil said.

“No goddamn excitement at all,” Jenkins said. “I expected more.”

“This is Iowa,” Shrake said. “Your expectations were grossly misplaced.”

“We got a big meth bust coming in a day or two,” Easton said. “The cookers have lots of guns, from what we hear.”

Jenkins regarded her for a moment, then said, “Now you’re teasing me.”

She said, “I don’t tease, pal. I deliver.”

That killed conversation for a few seconds, then Jenkins asked, “You ever think of moving to the Cities and the big time?”

That made her laugh.



* * *



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As the Minnesota cops and Skinner were packing up, Virgil quietly asked Wood, “So what exactly is your relationship with cupcakes?”

“Shhhh . . . Don’t even ask that question, and for God’s sakes don’t use words like ‘cupcakes.’ Or ‘peaches.’ Or any small, round objects at all,” Wood muttered.

Virgil said, “Or any members of the melon family?”

“Oh, Jesus, no,” Wood said, glancing sideways at Easton, who was thirty feet away, talking with Skinner. “Tell you the truth, I’m almost afraid to work with her. She’s an excellent cop, but she’s too good-looking, and that ain’t good, if you know what I mean. I don’t joke with her. I don’t walk too close. I won’t even buy her a cup of fuckin’ coffee. Or even non–fuckin’ coffee.”

“Very strange,” Virgil said.

“It is, and she doesn’t like it any more than us guys. But it’s not up to her. Somebody else could say I was walking too close to her, and, the next thing you know, there’d be an inquiry and we could both have career problems,” Wood said. “The world is getting goofier by the minute, Virgie.”

“I will be talking to you,” Virgil said. And to Skinner: “We’re outta here.”



* * *



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Skinner was silent for the first ten minutes of the ride back, but shortly after they crossed the Minnesota line, heading north, he said, “I kinda liked that.”

“What? Being a cop?”

“It’s embarrassing,” Skinner said. “All I ever knew about cops was that they’d hassle you for having a beer.”

“When you were twelve,” Virgil said.

“Minnesota and Wisconsin are to beer what wine is to France, and, in France, kids can drink a little wine,” Skinner said.

“Okay. Now, let me tell you about cops,” Virgil said. “There are a lot of good ones, but I couldn’t claim that they’re in the majority. Maybe a third of them are pretty good, another third are just getting through life, and the last third are bad. They’re poorly trained or burned-out, not too bright, have problems handling their authority. You got cops who’ll hassle women for sex, use drugs, steal stuff . . . basically, criminals. But you get a job like mine, it’s interesting. And you’re doing some good.”

“I don’t know if I could handle making people feel bad, like Jill and Billie,” Skinner said. “Of course, there’s the money thing. Cops don’t make any.”

“There are some downsides,” Virgil said. “The money thing, and, then, crooks are human. They cry. They get sad, they apologize. But you know what? All that comes after they fuck somebody over. You gotta keep that in mind. The money thing . . . I have a hard time worrying too much. I got enough.”

“Stealin’ Legos? Is that really fuckin’ somebody over? Bet it all got covered by insurance.”

“Probably. But people who steal and don’t get caught, they don’t stop until they do get caught. They do all kinds of damage along the way. If Van Den Berg hadn’t gotten caught, and if he’d gotten rid of all those Legos, he’d be looking for another score,” Virgil said.

They rode along in silence for a minute, then Virgil added, “A few weeks ago I busted a guy about five years older than you, over in Owatonna. He was burglarizing houses. He’d stalk housewives, who’d leave their house to pick up their kids at school. He knew when they’d be gone, and he knew what their husbands did and that they wouldn’t be home. He’d ransack the house, looking for anything small and valuable. Wasn’t all that much money involved, and most of it was covered by insurance, but some of those women? They didn’t want to live in their houses anymore. There’d been a criminal inside, somebody had been watching them, and it scared them. That guy’s going away for a while, but he did a hell of a lot of damage before I got him. The damage won’t go away, because the damage was done to those women’s heads.”

Skinner said, “Huh.”

Virgil said, “A smart guy like you, Skinner, you could do four years at the U and maybe get a graduate degree in something. From there, you could get a job with the cops, do two or three years on the street, which is fascinating in itself, and then move into investigations. It’s an interesting life, if you’re the kind of guy who likes to think.”

“You know I do.”

“That’s why I said it,” Virgil said.



* * *



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