Judd looked at Virgil for a long three seconds, then turned to Williamson. “You keep that out of the newspaper.”
Williamson shook his head. “I don’t work for you, Bill. I worked for your father, and now I work for your father’s estate. When the estate passes to you, I’ll be out of here like a hot desert breeze. Until then, I’m working for the estate.”
“You better find a job by the end of next week, then,” Judd said.
VIRGIL SAID TO JUDD: “We need to look at your father’s will. We assume it’s in a safe-deposit box. We’re gonna get a writ to open it, since it could be material for this investigation. Also because we’d like to see what else is in the safe.”
Judd nodded: “That’s fine with me. Let’s get Bob Turner and go talk to the judge and crack the box. Get things moving.”
“Can I come?” Williamson asked.
Stryker said, “No.”
Williamson grinned: “No harm in asking. Goddamn, it’s hot out here.”
ON THE WAY back to their vehicles, they stopped at the burn pit and Stryker called down, “Anything new?”
A chubby woman in a yellow protective suit and face mask stood up, used a paper towel to wipe sweat off her face, put the towel in a trash bag, and said, “I’m dying of heat prostitution.”
They all grinned down at her and she added, “Nothing else, really. But we’ve got the carpals and they’re intact; they were under a piece of sheet steel and that must’ve given them some protection, so I think we’re good for DNA. And with Bill Jr. to provide us a sample, we can be sure on the ID.”
“Get it done,” Stryker said.
On the way down the hill, Big Curly said, “I’d like to cut me off a piece of that,” meaning the woman in the yellow suit.
Stryker nodded. “I’ll mention it to Mrs. Curly.”
ONE OF the best things and one of the worst things about a small town was that everybody knew everything that was going on. The judge knew about as much of the Judd case as Virgil did, and pounded out a writ on his secretary’s computer, and printed it.
“Good to go,” he said, and handed the paper to Stryker.
Stryker called the Wells Fargo branch and talked to the manager, who said he’d be waiting. Judd’s attorney said he’d walk over.
“So let’s go,” Stryker said.
“GO” MEANT WALKING—the bank was three blocks away, two blocks through an older residential area, cutting the business district about halfway down Main Street. They walked past the drugstore, which gave out a whiff of popcorn, and Judd trotted back and went inside and then caught up, carrying a paper sleeve of it, munching at it like a starving man; and past the newspaper, which shared a building with an office that said JUDD ENTERPRISES, and one that said WILLIAM JUDD JR., INVESTMENTS, then on down the street past a combination barbershop and beauty salon.
The bank’s time-and-temperature sign said eighty-seven degrees when they walked under it, and into the lobby. The banker was a white-haired man with a neat mustache, and the lawyer was a white-haired man with a neat mustache; a Mexican-looking guy in jeans and a T-shirt, and a black mustache, stood off to one side with a toolbox. Stryker was becoming a white-haired man with a neat mustache. Should Virgil grow a mustache, he’d look like everybody else, Virgil thought: a monoculture of German-Scandinavian white people, now getting a little salsa poured on it, to the great relief of everyone.
The banker took the writ, and led the way into the vault, explained that since Judd had the necessary keys, which hadn’t been found in the burnt-out house, they’d have to drill the box, and would charge the estate for it later. Drilling the box took three minutes, the banker gave the Mexican guy a twenty, and the guy took his tools and left.
The box was one of the bigger sizes; big enough, say, to hold three roasted chickens. The banker carried it to a privacy carrel, but since they weren’t being private, they all crowded around when they popped the lid.
Judd said, with some reverence, “Holy shit.”
The box was filled with paper. The top two layers were paper money. “Not as much as you might think,” the banker said, earnestly, but his eyes had a light in them. “Hundred-dollar bills, ten-thousand-dollar bundles…fifteen, eighteen, twenty. Two hundred thousand in cash.”
“Why would he have two hundred thousand in cash?” Virgil asked Judd.
Judd said, “Don’t want to get caught short.”
They stacked it to one side and Judd pulled up a plastic chair and sat down, staring at the money, while the banker and lawyer dug into the rest of the paper, insurance policies, deeds, photographs, a couple boxes of jewelry.
THAT WAS in the afternoon, in which some other things happened, but none that turned out to be important.
IN THE EVENING, Joan Carson sat in the candlelight at Tijuana Jack’s and looked terrific. She wore a cotton summer-knit dress the color of raw linen, with a necklace of marble-sized jade beads that perfectly matched her eyes. She had a scattering of faint freckles across her short nose, and Virgil noticed for the first time that she had a chipped tooth, which gave her a tomboyish vibration.
She leaned toward him, her dress opening just enough to reveal the tops of her breasts, though Virgil looked resolutely into her eyes, and she whispered, “Motherfucker?”
Virgil whispered, “That’s what the man said.” He laughed, a low, chuckling laugh, and said, “Junior Judd’s sitting down, staring at the money, two hundred thousand dollars on the table, three inches from his nose. He’s absolutely drooling on it. Then the lawyer says—Turner says—like it’s a big mystery, ‘I don’t see the will here.’ And Judd jumps up and screams, ‘Motherfucker!’”
She giggled, and rubbed her nose, her eyes bright with amusement.
Virgil continued: “I thought we were gonna have to club him down to his knees, to keep him off Turner’s throat. Turner keeps saying, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me,’ and Judd’s walking around saying, ‘Motherfucker! Motherfucker!’ and the bank guy pulls all the receipts and it turns out old man Judd went into the box a week ago. We talked to the vault lady, and she says when Judd went into it, he told her he didn’t want one of those privacy booths, he just wanted to get out a document. She saw it, and it was in a beige legal envelope, and we all think it was the one-and-only will.”
“Motherfucker!” she said. “I would have given a hundred dollars to see that. What else was in the box?”
“Legal papers, deeds, insurance. The house was insured for eight hundred thousand with another two hundred thousand on the contents, so Junior’ll get all of that. That’s a million, all by itself, including the cash in the box.”
“The old man owned a block of the downtown.”
“Where the newspaper is.”
“Yes, and he’s got several parcels of good land down south of here, that’ll be a nice chunk of cash,” she said.
“What’s Junior own? On his own?”
“He’s been in and out of a few businesses, hasn’t done so well. Right now he’s got three or four Subways in the small towns around, and he’s got a little land along the river that he’s been talking about developing…but to tell you the truth, there hasn’t been a big call for housing development around here. Why?”
“He seemed pretty damn excited about that cash,” Virgil said. “And pretty upset when it turned out he wasn’t going to get it in the next two weeks. I mean, he’ll have it in a month or two, but they’ll have to run it through probate. So what’s the difference, two weeks or two months? But he was pretty upset.”
“Huh. He’s a jerk, but he wouldn’t kill his dad, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Joan said. “I’ve seen them have some pretty friendly conversations.”
“Okay. Just trying to nail down stuff I can look into,” Virgil said.
“But I think I can tell you about why he reacted the way he did…”
“Yeah?”
“The Judds worship money. They made it a stand-in for all the other qualities of life. If you can be nice
, or have money, take the money. If you can be brave, or have money, take the money. If you can have friends or have money, take the money. They’re like that. They don’t even hide it. Take the money. Pulling two hundred thousand dollars in cash, out of a safe-deposit box, in front of Bill Judd Jr., would be like pulling Jesus Christ out of a box, in front of the Pope.”
“Not a nice thing to say about someone,” Virgil said. “Especially the Pope.”
“It’s the truth, though,” she said. Her eyes narrowed: “Can I tell all my friends about all this?”
“Well, let me think,” Virgil said. “The only witnesses were me, your brother, the lawyer, the banker, Judd, and the vault lady. What are the chances that they all kept their mouths shut?”
“Zero.”
“Right. Just don’t quote me, okay?” Virgil said. “You could get me or your brother in trouble. Maybe you could hear it from one of the wives first?”
“I know both of them, banker and lawyer,” she said. “One of them’ll spill the beans, and then I can add everything you gave me.”
“Sounds good,” Virgil said. “Did I mention I like your dress?”
“Really? I sewed it myself. Ordered the material out of Des Moines.”
“Seriously?”
“Try not to be stupid, Virgil,” she said. “I bought it at Neiman Marcus, in the Cities.”
VIRGIL HAD GROWN UP in Marshall, Minnesota, sixty miles north of Bluestem, as the crow flies, or eighty miles, if the crow were driving a pickup. His father had the biggest Presbyterian church in town, until he retired, and his mother taught engineering and survey at Southwest Minnesota State University, until she retired. They were both still alive and played golf all summer, and had a condo in Fort Myers so they could play golf all winter.
Joan’s father had been a farmer. He’d been involved with Bill Judd’s drive to make a commodity out of the Jerusalem artichoke.
“I don’t remember all this, because I was too young at the time, but Dad thought that nothing good was going to happen with corn and bean prices. There was too much low-priced competition around the world. He thought if we could come up with a new crop, that could replace oil…well, I guess back in the seventies and eighties there were all these predictions that oil might run out any minute, and then we’d all be screwed.”
“Like now.”
“Like now, with ethanol and four-dollar corn. Anyway, if you could grow oil…I guess he figured they couldn’t lose. But it was all bullshit. It was a scam right from the start, cooked up by a bunch of commodities people in Chicago and some outlanders like Bill Judd. When it all went bust, Bill Judd didn’t care. He was a sociopath if you’ve ever seen one. But people who were tied into him, like my dad, did care…”
She sighed and shook her head. “Lot of people thought my dad was right there in with Judd. But Dad lost half his land. He was farming more than two thousand acres back then. He sold off the land at way-depressed prices, right into a big farm depression in the middle eighties, paid off all his debts, and then he got this .45 that he had, and killed himself. Out in the backyard, one Saturday afternoon. I can still remember people screaming, and I can remember Mom sitting in the front room looking like she’d died. That’s what I remember most: not Dad, but Mom’s eyes.”
“Jimmy was pretty hurt, I guess? Boys and fathers?”
“He was.” Her eyes came up to meet his. “You don’t think Jim had anything to do with Judd’s murder?”
He shook his head: “Of course not…Were the Gleasons tied in with Judd?”
“They were friendly,” Joan said. “There was a tight little group of richer folks, like in most small towns. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, real estate dealers. People say that Judd helped some of them with investments…but the Gleasons didn’t have anything to do with the Jerusalem artichoke scam. Everyone would have known—it all came out in the lawsuits…”
He leaned toward her again, pitching his voice down: “I’ll tell you what, Joanie. Jim and I and Larry Jensen, we all think that the Gleason murders and the Judd murder are tied together. Three murders in three weeks, all by somebody who knew what he was doing; where to go and when to go. Even did it under the same conditions, in the rain, in the dark. And that’s after you haven’t had any murders in twenty-two years.”
“What about George Feur? The preacher?”
“I heard of him…”
“He’s somebody to look at—I even asked Jim about him,” she said. “Jim says he’s got an alibi. There was a prayer meeting that Friday night, and a lot of people stayed the weekend. There’s somebody who’ll say that Feur was there every minute of that time. Jim and Larry decided that it would have been hard for him to sneak away…”
“How long would he have to be gone?”
“Well, if he…” She looked up at the ceiling, her lips moving as she figured. “Well, if he drove in and out, half an hour? Probably longer than that, if he walked part of it, or if they talked. But that’s not very long, really.”
“It’s not long if there are lots of people around, and everybody thinks you’re talking with somebody else, and you’re seen here and there…you might get away for half an hour.”
“And maybe one of his goofy converts would have been willing to do him a favor. But: if you think the same person killed the Gleasons and Bill Judd…I understand that Feur was trying to save Judd’s soul, and that they got along. So that doesn’t seem to fit.”
“It’s a connection, though.”
“It is…” she said. “Feur’s a violent man. He was violent when he was a boy—his old man abused him—and he’d go around robbing stores and maybe even banks, when he was in his twenties. Jim tracked him down after a robbery up in Little America. Arrested him out at his aunt’s place. He went to prison, got Jesus and all the other crap, too—the white supremacy, and that. Went out west, someplace, studied for the ministry, got a license in Idaho. When his aunt died, he came back here and took over the farm. We’d thought we’d seen the last of him.”
“He ever shoot anybody? Ever suspected of it?” Virgil asked.
“Not as far as I know. I do know he used a gun in the robberies.”
ON THE WAY BACK to Bluestem, out on I-90, Joan said, “You are very talkative for a cop. I’ve known every cop in Bluestem and a few from Worthington; some of them were pretty old friends, and none of them have been as talkative as you—telling me all about the case, and so on.”
“A PERSONALITY FAULT,” Virgil offered.
“Really? I started to wonder, ‘Did this man take me out to a fancy Tex-Mex restaurant, and tell me all of this, because he figures I’ll blab it all over the place, and that’ll stir everything up?’”
“I’m shocked that you’d even think that,” Virgil said.
“You don’t sound shocked,” she said.
“Well, you know,” he said. He glanced at her in the dark, and said, “One thing—you’re a little smarter than I was prepared for.”
She laughed and they went on down the highway.
LATE THAT NIGHT, Virgil turned on his laptop, flexed his fingers, and began writing his story, a little fact, and a lot of fiction. Fiction was different than outdoor writing. Different because you had to think about it, make it up, rather than simply report an experience. He stared at the computer screen for a moment, and began:
The killer climbed out of the river valley, stumbling in the dark, slipping on the wet grass; paused at the edge of the yard, then crossed quickly to the sliding glass door at the back of the house. He’d seen the Gleasons arrive, their headlights carving up the hillside through the night; you could see them from a half mile away.
Now, through the wet glass, he saw Russell Gleason standing in the living room, hands in his pockets, looking at the television. His wife, Anna, came out of the kitchen, carrying a glass of water, sat on the couch. They were talking, but with the rain beating off the hood of his jacket, the killer couldn’t hear what was being said.
The killer touched the gun
in his pocket: .357, always ready. No safety, no spring to get soft, every chamber loaded. Inside, Gleason laughed at something: a last time for everything, the killer thought.
The killer stepped back in the dark, walked around the house to the front door. Gleason had been involved in it, right up to his chin: he and Judd would have to pay. He rang the bell…
Virgil touched his chin, reading down the electronic document. He was already cheating: he kept writing “the killer,” repetitively, which clanked in his writer’s ear. He needed a workable synonym. He couldn’t use the pronouns “he” or “she,” because he wasn’t sure which was correct. And Gleason had been involved in whatever it was, with Judd, right up to his chin—but what was it?
He had no idea.
But there would be, he thought, a link.
Before he finished the story, though, he’d need a lot of other answers. Where did the killer come from? Where did the gun come from? Where did he/she learn to use the gun? Why was the body dragged to the yard, why were the lights turned on? Had the killer known about the lights on the exterior, and where the switch was, suggesting a familiarity with the house, or had the act been spontaneous? Why the shots in the eyes?
Why then, at that exact moment, had the killer come to the Gleasons?
Why hadn’t Stryker mentioned that his father had killed himself because of the Jerusalem artichoke scandal, and his relationship with Judd? How had he, Virgil, managed to get picked up by Stryker’s sister on his first day in town? Why had she steered him toward Todd Williamson and George Feur?
Things you had to know, for a decent piece of fiction.
5
Wednesday Morning
FOUR FAT GUYS in short-sleeved shirts, standing outside the courthouse, stopped talking and stared at Virgil inside. Virgil gave the high sign to the secretary, who took in his antique Stones/Paris T-shirt, and shook her head and sighed as though a great weight were sitting on her soul.