Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(9)

Skinner shook his head.

“I’ll tell you something, Skinner. Anybody who snipes innocent people is seriously unbalanced even if he believes he has a reason,” Virgil said. “Most people won’t even shoplift for fear of getting caught. Shooting people? You’re dealing with a nut even if there’s a payoff somewhere.”

Skinner nodded. “I’ll think about that, too.”



* * *



—

Virgil walked Skinner up to the corner where Rice was shot and then down the street where Coates was hit. They talked about possible angles, but if you made the simplest assumption, that both were square to the street, then the shots would have come from the general area of the business district. If their hips were turned one way or the other, the shots could have come from behind any business on either side of Main Street or from a residential area farther back.

“I need to look at a satellite photo,” Virgil said, “to try to narrow things down. Will you be around?”

“Until five, at the store. We got a girl that comes in and takes it to eight o’clock, when we close. I’ll give you my cell number. If you need anything, call me.”



* * *



—

They exchanged cell phone numbers—Virgil gave Skinner his direct number on the off chance that Skinner actually might think of something—and then Virgil went out to his truck and got his iPad. A Google Earth satellite photo gave him a solid overhead shot of the town. It had been taken in the winter, with no leaves on the trees, so he had an unobstructed view of the street layout.

Assuming that both victims had either been standing more or less square to the street or turned slightly one way or the other, Virgil configured a slice of pie extending from the points where the victims were standing down to the business district.

Only a half dozen houses fell within the pie slice, as well as a number of auto-or farm-related shops and services. One section of the slice that included Rice didn’t include Coates. Virgil thought that probably eliminated that area. If the sniper successfully got away from his first position, why wouldn’t he go there again?



* * *



—

Time for a walk-around.

Virgil spent two hours working his way up and down the Main Street shopping area. There were twenty storefronts on the block-long business district. All of them had apartments or storage on the second floor, and a half dozen of them were being rehabbed as short-term housing for visiting pilgrims. The carpenters and other construction workers quit at 4 o’clock, according to one store owner, which made Virgil think that might have restricted the time that the sniper had to shoot—it had to be after 4.

Virgil climbed the stairs to two of the units being renovated. The entire length of Main Street stretched out below him, and he could easily see both ends of town, fading into newly plowed rolling black prairie, and the church steeples, which were the highest points in Wheatfield. He could clearly see where the two victims had been standing. There were several solid positions—windowsills, framing for walls—where a rifle could have been supported. There hadn’t been much wind the day before—at least, not in Mankato—and a quiet day would help with accuracy.

The building owner had climbed the stairs with him to the second apartment, watched him calculate the distances and angles. “Even on a quiet day, it’d take some good shooting,” Virgil told the owner, whose name was Curt Lane.

Lane said, “Hang here one second,” and he turned and ran down the stairs; he was back a minute later with a golf range finder. He handed it to Virgil, and said, “Put the crosshairs on the spot they got shot and push the button on top.”

Virgil did and got two hundred and forty yards for Rice and two hundred and seventy for Coates. “Good shooting,” he said. “Our guy might not be just a regular nut, he might also be a gun nut. Know anybody like that?”

“There are a lot of gun guys in town, there not being a lot else to do,” Lane said. “You go out to the old quarry and shoot you some soda bottles, or there’s a sportsman’s club a few miles farther out. Most all the guys hunt, and quite a few of the gals.”

Virgil nodded, then looked up and down the street. Two-thirds of the parking spaces were taken, and he could see perhaps twenty people out walking. “If the shooter was up here, you’d think somebody would have heard the shot.”

“I would have,” Lane said. “I’m right downstairs. You say the guy was shooting a .223? I hunt up north, where rifles are legal, and I know what a .223 sounds like. Guys up there deer hunting let go a half dozen shots—POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP!—most likely a .223 or an AK. They’re loud. Not a big boom like a .30–06, but you’d hear them for a few blocks anyway.”

“As far as I can find out, nobody heard anything,” Virgil said.

“Don’t know what to tell you, except maybe he was a lot farther out,” Lane said.

“I hope so,” Virgil said. “If he’s local and he’s shooting from a thousand yards, or something, we’ll spot him pretty quick. Not many people are that good, and the ones who are are known.”



* * *



—

When he’d worked his way down one side of Main Street and up the other, Virgil walked around behind the buildings, first on the east side, then on the west. The east side was bricked in with commercial buildings: a Goodwill store, housed in an unpainted metal hobby barn, Burden’s Tractor & Implement, a car wash, the brick Fraternal Order of the Eagles, which was mostly a bar with a rooftop that might have provided a sniper’s nest, and STM Wine & Spirits. The Eagles club wasn’t open, but Virgil saw somebody walking around inside and banged on the door until Goran Bilbija pulled it open an inch, and said, “We’re closed.”