Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(55)

Virgil, Jenkins, and Shrake rendezvoused in Skinner & Holland’s back room to try to rekindle the investigation into the shootings. With the church still closed, there wasn’t much movement around town.

Jenkins said to Virgil, “We can’t operate on the theory that the shooter’s a nut, because if he is, we can’t do anything but wait until he gives himself away. If he quits now and throws that rifle into a river, we’ll never get him. We’ve got to assume there’s a motive.”

“If he’s got a motive, it’d almost have to involve Miz Osborne,” Virgil said. “The other two victims weren’t from here, didn’t know each other, didn’t have anything in common that we know of, other than they were both shot.”

Skinner, who was sitting in, said, “What if the real target in this thing was Glen Andorra, and this guy’s done these other shootings to divert attention away from Glen?”

They all thought about that for a while, then Shrake shook his head. “It’s possible, but I don’t think so. The three shootings here in town were too carefully thought out. He planned all this before he went after Andorra.”

“We have to go back to Andorra, though—and Osborne, too,” Virgil said. “We’re getting late in the day. Let’s think about it and pick it up tomorrow.”



* * *



—

Jenkins and Shrake wanted to get something decent to eat, which meant going out to a larger town. They invited Virgil to go along, but he decided to drive back to Mankato and spend the night with Frankie.

“I’ll be back by nine o’clock. We’ll go back on Osborne and Andorra. Something has to be there, with one of them.”





15


After Larry Van Den Berg and his brother were arrested, they were taken to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Department and processed. Bell Wood came by later with Katie Easton, but Ralph Van Den Berg had called a local lawyer, who’d told them not to make any statement at all until he could talk to them the next morning, so they didn’t.

The Van Den Bergs were put in separate cells at the county jail, far enough apart that they couldn’t talk. There’d be a bond hearing the next morning, the lawyer told them, and they’d need to put up either cash or something of serious value if they wanted to get out. Ralph could put up his house; Larry could put up either his house or his truck, or, if he needed to, both.

The real problem was, cash to pay the lawyer.

Larry lay on his bunk and thought about that. They needed cash and they needed it in a hurry. He had four thousand dollars in his checking account, and something like another four in savings, but that wouldn’t cut it. If he hadn’t punched Fischer, she might have been a source of a few thousand more, but that was gone now. Couldn’t sell the house, because he’d probably need it for bail; even if he did sell it, it’d go so cheap that he’d never find a comparable place that he could afford.

He was jammed up, due to that fuckin’ Flowers.



* * *



—

The jail turned out to be a good place to think: there weren’t many customers, and so the place was fairly quiet.

And as evening shaded into night, Van Den Berg began thinking about the Wheatfield shootings. As Fischer had said, he wasn’t stupid. He knew more about Wheatfield money, and who had it, than anyone. There was only one good reason to kill somebody, he thought, and that was money. Shortly after midnight, having thought about several dozen possibilities of who the shooter might be, and with his mind going round and round, he thought he’d identified his man.

The guy was superficially mellow enough, but Van Den Berg had known him since he was a child and had always been wary of him. His own parents were heavy boozers and brawlers, and he’d been regularly whacked on the side of the head and occasionally beaten with a leather belt, but even as a child he’d recognized that the shooter was something a bit different. Not so much an active threat; but when he looked at you, he looked at you like you were a bug ready to be stepped on.

Since the Lego heist wasn’t related, and wasn’t even under Minnesota jurisdiction, giving the identity of the shooter to Flowers wouldn’t raise a nickel or buy him a break. On the other hand, the shooter had a few bucks . . .

He thought about that for the rest of the night. When the sun came up, he was sixty-seven percent sure he was correct in his identification of the killer; and thirty-three percent possibly wrong.



* * *



—

The next morning was tedious, going back and forth from the cell like a trolley car, talking to the lawyer, signing papers for the cops and finally for his release. The local prosecutor stood in for the state at the bail hearing and agreed to release the brothers if they both wore GPS ankle monitors and put up their major assets—their houses—as bond for their later appearances in court.

In Larry Van Den Berg’s case, the judge agreed that he could continue to drive his tractor-trailer cross-country if he agreed to sign a waiver of extradition processes from whatever state he tried to hide in, if he did that. “I don’t want to deprive you of your source of income before you’re found guilty of a crime, but if you abuse this agreement in any way, I can assure you that I’ll put you in jail, and leave you there,” the judge said.