Rough Country (3 page)

Virgil said, quietly as he could, Johnson, try to stay out of the way for a few minutes, okay?

You didn't talk that way when you needed my truck, you bitch.

Johnson . . .

THE WOMEN TURNED and looked at them as they came along, and Virgil nodded and said, Hi. I'm Virgil Flowers, with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I'm looking for Sheriff Sanders.

He's out at the pond, said the older of the two. A bluff, no-nonsense, heavyset woman with tired eyes, she stuck out a hand and said, I'm Margery Stanhope. I own the lodge.

I need to talk to you when I get back, Virgil said. I noticed that somebody was checking out when we were coming a lady was loading luggage. I'll have to know who has left since the . . . incident.

Not a problem, she said. Anything we can do.

The younger woman was a small, auburn-haired thirty-something, pretty, with a sprinkling of freckles on her tidy nose; the kind of woman that might cause Johnson to get drunk and recite poetry, including the complete Cremation of Sam McGee. Virgil had seen it happen.

And she was pretty enough to cause Virgil's heart to hum, if not yet actually sing, until she asked, Are you the Virgil Flowers who was involved in that massacre up in International Falls?

His heart stopped humming. Wasn't exactly a massacre, Virgil said.

Sounded like a massacre, she said.

Stanhope said, Zoe, shut up.

I feel that we have to take a stance, Zoe said to her.

Take it someplace else, Stanhope said. She looked past Virgil at Johnson: You're also a police officer?

Virgil jumped in: Actually, he's my friend, Johnson. We were in the fishing tournament up at Vermilion and I got pulled to look at this case. The guys who'd normally do it are on that Little Linda thing. Johnson's not a police officer.

Pleased to meet you, Stanhope said, and shook with Johnson. What's your first name, again?

Johnson, Johnson said.

She said, Oh. Not sure if her leg was being pulled. What's your last name?

Johnson, Virgil said. When Stanhope looked skeptical, he said, Really. Johnson Johnson. His old man named him after an outboard. Everybody calls him Johnson.

Zoe was pleased, either with the double name, or the concept of a name based on an outboard motor. You get teased when you were a kid? she asked.

Not as much as my brother, Mercury, Johnson said.

Stanhope said, Now I know you're lying.

Believe it, Virgil said. Mercury Johnson. He suffers from clinical depression.

Thank God Mom decided to quit after two, Johnson said. Dad wanted to go for a daughter and he'd just bought a twenty-five-horse Evinrude.

I don't know, Zoe said. Evvie's kind of a nice name.

That made Johnson laugh, and, since she was pretty, laugh too hard; Virgil said, I'll talk to you ladies later. I gotta go see the deputies.

Stanhope said, blank-faced, to Johnson, This isn't a laughing matter. This is a terrible tragedy.

Virgil nodded and said, Of course it is.

Virgil and Johnson turned toward the dock, and Zoe asked, She's dead, isn't she? Little Linda?

I don't know, Virgil said, over his shoulder, still miffed about the massacre question. I don't know anything about it.

I wonder if it's connected to this death?

Virgil paused. Do you have any reason to think so?

Nope. Except that they happened only two days apart, Zoe said.

And about forty miles, Virgil said.

Don't you suspect it, though? She had warm brown eyes, almost gold, and he forgave her.

No. I don't. Too many other possibilities, he said.

She nodded. Okay. I see that. Kind of a stupid question, wasn't it?

Stanhope answered for Virgil. Yes. It was.

WALKING OUT TO THE DOCK, Johnson said, The old bag kinda climbed my tree.

One rule when you're dealing with people close to a murder victim, Virgil said. Try not to laugh.

VIRGIL INTRODUCED HIMSELF and Johnson to the deputies and one of them said, You're the guy who was in that shoot-out in International Falls.

Virgil bobbed his head and said, Yeah, I was there. I understand that the body is at a place called the pond?

Boy, I wish I coulda been there, the cop said, ignoring Virgil's question. That must've been something. My dad was in Vietnam, and he must've read that story about a hundred times, about the shoot-out. I bet he'd like to meet you.

The other cop said, Sheriff 's been looking for you. He's out at the pond now. They haven't done anything but look at the body, try to keep it from floating away. Don't want to mess with the scene. One of your crime-scene crews from Bemidji is on the way. . . . I could run you out there.

Floating away? She's in the water? Virgil asked.

Yeah. She got shot right in the forehead, bullet exited the back of her head. The cop touched himself in the middle of the forehead, two inches above the top of his nose. Really made a mess. She fell backwards out of the boat it's kinda like a kayak but her foot got twisted under the seat and that held her up on the surface. She was still floating there, last time I was out.

Doesn't sound like there'll be much of a crime scene, Virgil said.

Not much, the cop said.

Who found her? Johnson asked.

Guide. From the lodge. George Rainy, he's out there, too.

Then let's go, Virgil said.

Johnson asked, Am I coming?

You can, Virgil said. Or you could wait at the lodge with Miz Stanhope.

I'll go, he said.

THEY TOOK one of the Lunds, the standard Minnesota lodge boat, Virgil and Johnson in the front, the second deputy, whose name was Don, at the tiller of the twenty-five-horse Yamaha. The run was short, no more than a half-mile. There were no cabins along the way; Virgil could see cabins and boathouses on the other side of the lake, and down at the far end of it, but the shore elevation west of the lodge dropped quickly and became low and marshy around the outlet creek. They passed the mouth of a shallow backwater, and a line of beaver lodges, like haystacks made of small logs and sticks, turned around a point into the outlet, dodged a snag, went down a narrow channel, and emerged into the pond.

Four more boats, with seven people, were floating along the eastern shore, and Don took them that way. The guy in the white ball cap is the sheriff, Don said. The guy in the boat by himself is George, the guide. The two guys in the green emergency vests are from the funeral home; they're here to pick up the body. The other three are deputies.

How'd George happen to find her? Virgil asked. Anybody know?

Nobody saw her at dinner last night, but sometimes, people will cook something up in their cabin, though Miz McDill usually didn't do that, Don said. Anyway, nobody really looked, but then early this morning, some of the women were going on a paddling trip and one of the boats was missing. One of them said, My gosh, didn't Miz McDill take one out last night?' So they went and looked at her cabin, and she wasn't there, and they knew she liked to paddle down and look at the eagle's nest he pointed at a white pine that stood over the end of the pond, with an eagle's nest a hundred feet up so George jumped in a boat and he came down here and says, There she was.' He came back and they called us.

Don killed the motor and they coasted down on the cluster of boats. As they came up, Virgil stood and looked over the bow, saw an upside-down olive-drab plastic boat, with a body in a white shirt bobbing in the water next to it. The sheriff stood up and asked, You Virgil?

Yeah, I am, Virgil said, and they bumped gunwales and shook hands. The sheriff was a tall, fleshy man with a hound-dog face, wrinkled like yesterday's tan shirt; and he was wearing a tan uniform shirt and brown uniform slacks, along with heavy uniform shoes that weren't right in a boat.

I read those stories you wrote for The New York Times, he said. Pretty interesting.

Couldn't miss it was an interesting case, Virgil said.

Sanders mentioned the names of the other cops and Rainy, and said, nodding at the two men from the funeral home, These guys are here to pick up the body.

What do you think? Virgil asked.

It seems to me like a murder, but it could be suicide, I suppose, Sanders said, looking back at the body. But you don't see women like this one, shooting themselves in the head. Too messy. So . . . somebody got close and shot her. Might possibly be an accident, I guess.

Murder, Virgil said. Small chance it could be a suicide, but not an accident, Virgil said, looking around.

Why's it not an accident? Johnson asked.

Too many trees, Virgil said. It's too thick in here. To get a slug through the trees, you'd have to be right on the edge of them. Then you could see her. So it wasn't like somebody fired a gun a half-mile away, and she happened to be in front of it. And if it was somebody in a boat, who met her here, and they were both bobbing a little bit, they had to be really close to hit her.

Johnson nodded, looked at the white shirt floating around the body, like a veil, and turned away.

Virgil asked the sheriff, Is there a time of death? Did anybody hear any shots?

Not that we've been able to find.

Virgil nodded and said, Don, push us off the sheriff 's boat, there, get me a little closer.

They got close, and Virgil hung over the boat, getting a good look at the body. He couldn't see her face, but he could see massive damage to the back of her head, and looked back over his shoulder and said, If you don't find a large-caliber pistol at the bottom of the pond, then it was a rifle.

The sheriff nodded. Thought it might be.

Gotta have the crime-scene guys look for a pistol, though. If the shooter was in a boat, he might have dumped it over the side; or if it's a suicide. No other signs of violence. One shot, and the woman was gone. Virgil pushed himself upright and asked, Where's the nearest road?

The cops looked around, then one of them pointed. I guess it'd be . . . over there.

How far?

Probably . . . a quarter mile? There's a town road around the lake, and it crosses this creek about, mmm, a half-mile down, then hooks up a little closer to the lake and then goes on around to a cluster of cabins right on the west point of the lake. You probably saw them when you were coming in.

Could you paddle up the creek? Virgil asked.

Naw. It's all choked north of the culvert, the cop said. Be easier to walk, 'cause the creek's not that deep, but it's got a muck bottom. . . . I don't know. I don't think you could walk it, either. Not easy, anyway.

THEY FLOATED AND TALKED for a couple of minutes. They hadn't taken the body in, the sheriff said, because they wanted the BCA agent, whoever he was, to take a look and say it was okay: We don't have a hell of a lot of murders up here.

Virgil said, You can take her. There's enough current here to drift her a bit, and if there was any wind at all . . . no way to tell exactly where she was hit, unless we find some blood spatter. He looked around, and then said, You might have a couple guys slowly . . . slowly . . . cruise the waterline, all the way from the channel to the far end of the pond, look at the edge of the weeds and the lily pads, see if there's any blood on the foliage. If she'd been right up against the weeds, there should be some.

The sheriff pointed at the cops in one of the boats, and they pushed off.

WHILE THEY WERE TALKING, the two funeral home guys had moved over to the body. They had a black body bag with them, and were discussing the best way to hoist the body into the boat without hurting their backs. Virgil noticed that Johnson wouldn't look at the body.

Sanders said, I'm gonna really have to lean on you and the other guys from the BCA on this thing all my guys are up working on the Little Linda case. That thing is turning into a nightmare. Linda's mom is some kind of PR demon; she's holding press conferences, she hired a psychic. It's driving us crazy.

No sign of Little Linda?

No, but the psychic says that she's still alive. She's in a dark place with large stones around her, and she's cold. He sees moss.

Johnson: Moss?

That's what he says, Sanders said.

You're investigating moss?

THEN ONE OF THE COPS who'd gone looking for blood called from fifty yards up the pond, toward the lake: Got some cigarettes here. And then the other one said, There's a lighter.

Virgil nodded at Don, and the sheriff told the rest of them to stay where they were, and Don started the motor and Virgil's boat and the sheriff's drifted up the pond. There, they could see what appeared to be a nearly full pack of Salem cigarettes floating on the surface and, a little beyond it, the bottom end of a red plastic Bic cigarette lighter.

She a smoker? Virgil asked.

Don't know, the sheriff said.

We need to mark this this may be close to where she was killed. He called back to the guide, who motored over. You got any marker buoys? Virgil asked.