take Nancy Anderson, she’s really a nice girl, and we’d hoped . . . Do you think he was seeing this other girl? Kelly?”

“She lived out in the countryside,” Virgil said.

“He was always borrowing the car, soon as he got his license,” George Tripp said. “That wouldn’t have been a problem.”

“She worked at the Dairy Queen here in Homestead, during the summers,” Coakley said.

“There you go,” George Tripp said. “The Dairy Queen’s a regular meeting place for the kids. He would have been down there most every day, at one time or another.”

“So there’s a possibility he could have known her, but you don’t know that specifically,” Virgil said.

Irma’s head bobbed. “That would be it. But now that you bring it up, I think he must have known her. He was so strange last fall. He grew up a cheerful, outgoing kid . . .”

“Got a football scholarship, over in your hometown,” George Tripp said to Virgil.

“I heard that,” Virgil said.

“. . . but last fall, he was so gloomy,” Irma continued. “We thought maybe the football team, it didn’t do as well as people hoped. We thought he was down about that. But if . . .”

“We would like to look through his private things . . . anything would help,” Coakley said.

“What would you look for?” Irma asked.

“Any indication that he had prior contact with Flood, with Baker, with Crocker, any notes or letters . . .”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, turning to her husband.

“Probably the best thing would be to have agent Flowers look,” George Tripp said. He said to Coakley, “I know you were doing your duty, Lee, but I gotta say . . . if you hadn’t taken him . . . if your men were up to standard . . . he’d still be alive. I think I’d prefer it if you didn’t come back here. Not unless you have to.”

Coakley bobbed her head and said, “I know what you’re saying, George, and I’m so sorry. But Virgil would do a fine job, as good as anybody in the state. He’s one of their top men.”

“So let’s do that,” George Tripp said. “Not right now. Irma and I have to . . . do things. If we get our boy back tomorrow . . .”

“There’s a time problem,” Virgil said. “How about if I give you my cell number, and you call me when you’re okay with it. Tonight or tomorrow. There is the time thing. We’ve got at least one murderer running loose, and probably more.”

George Tripp nodded. “We can do that.”

5

Pat Sullivan, the newspaper reporter, covered cops and everything else in town, and had been calling the sheriff’s office on a fifteen-minute schedule since the rumors of Crocker’s death began to leak out. Coakley called him back, with Virgil sitting next to her desk.

She said, “Pat? Lee Coakley. You called?” She listened for a minute, then said, “Why don’t you walk over? We’ve got a state investigator here and we can fill you in.” A few more words from the reporter, and she said, “See you then,” and hung up.

To Virgil: “He’s on his way.”

“Good guy?” Virgil asked.

“Yeah, for a reporter,” she said. “He’s accurate, usually, but he’s ambitious. The editor tells me his friend—his relationship, his guy—lives up in the Cities. He’d like to get up there with the Pioneer Press or the Star Tribune.”

“Fat chance,” Virgil said. “Those places are bleeding to death. Bet there are a hundred good reporters looking for jobs.”

“You know them?”

“A few,” Virgil said. “And they talk about it.”

“You think they’ll be down here? For these murders?”

“May get some TV,” Virgil said. “The newspapers, you’re more likely to get a call. I mean, they could have a staff meeting in a phone booth.”

They sat for a minute, looking past each other, then Coakley asked, “You at the Holiday?”

“Yeah.”

They looked past each other some more, until Virgil asked, “You didn’t mention to Sullivan that we wanted to talk to him about Tripp.”

“I thought I’d leave that to you. Best to ask him first, before we get to Crocker. That way, we’re holding the Crocker information over his head. Or, you are. I’m just a humble county sheriff, who has to defer to the state agent, if he decides to screw over the local media.” She leaned back in her chair, turned, put her boots up on top of a wastebasket, put her hands behind her head, and stared at the ceiling. She did it in a