their heads. “We know them,” Einstadt said. “They belong to the same church we do. But we don’t know them well. We’re not close. We know about what happened to Kelly Baker, of course. Everybody was talking about it.”

Alma Flood asked, “Do you think they are connected? Kelly Baker and what happened to Jacob? That the Tripp boy did it?”

Virgil had been considering the possibility, but hadn’t worked through it until Alma’s question clocked a new scenario into place: what if Tripp and some other kids had been using Baker, and Flood found out? What if Tripp had confessed to Crocker, and Crocker had killed him because of some relationship between himself and the Baker family? And that the other person involved in the murder of Baker had killed Crocker . . .

But that didn’t work well: Crocker had been involved with a woman. Could there have been some kind of teenage sex ring, that included females, and something went wrong with Kelly Baker? But why wouldn’t Crocker simply have alerted the sheriff, rather than murdering Tripp?

There was no logic to it—though that didn’t always mean much. But Virgil shook his head at Alma Flood and said, “No, we can’t make that work. Although Tripp did know Kelly Baker.”

“Then you’ve got one boy you know for sure is a cold-blooded killer, who killed Jake. And he knew another girl who was killed, somehow. I won’t tell you how to do your business, but that looks like a solid connection to me,” Einstadt said. “How many murderers do we got in this county, anyway? Looks to me like the Tripp boy and one of his friends might have been up to something here.”

Another scenario flashed: suppose Kelly Baker had been gay, and they had a three- or four-way thing going, involving the other woman? Too far-fetched . . .

“Well, we’ll sure look into it,” Virgil said. “Like I said, we think Crocker was murdered. We’ll know for sure soon enough, and we’ll probably get some DNA from the killer.” The cat made a snogging sound behind his ear, and he reached back and scratched her again.

They talked for a while longer, but on the central issue—what Jacob Flood might have known, or said, that triggered his murder—they came up empty. “I’d never heard of this Tripp boy before we were told that they arrested him,” Alma Flood said.

When they were done, Virgil stood up and said, “I may come back, if I find more questions. I’m not familiar with this corner of the county. But if you talk to your acquaintances around here, you might ask if anybody knows of a connection between Deputy Crocker and Kelly Baker. Or Crocker and Tripp, for that matter.”

“We’ll do it,” Einstadt said. “We’re just buckling down for winter, so we’ll be coming and going—we’ll see a few folks.”

Virgil gave them a business card, carefully removed the cat from his shoulders, scratched her head, and put her back on the floor. “I appreciate all your help,” he said.

WHEN HE WAS GONE, Einstadt looked at Alma Flood and said, “You know who killed Crocker?”

“I was thinking Kathleen.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “I’ll get Morgan and we’ll go have a talk with her.”

He stood up and said, “Rooney will be over tomorrow.”

Alma Flood whined, “We can get along all right. We don’t need Rooney.”

“Rooney’s a good man and you’ll knock some edges off him. The thing about it is, you leave a bunch of women alone in a house like this, you can’t tell what they’ll get up to. Rooney’ll handle that, and take care of the farm, too.”

“He’s rougher’n a cob,” Alma Flood said.

“Like I said: you’ll knock some edges off him.”

“Be happy if he took a bath,” Alma Flood muttered.

“I’ll tell him that,” Einstadt said. He looked at the two girls, standing in a corner. “You girls get your asses upstairs. I’ll be up in a minute.”

One of them said, “Yes, Grandpa,” the other one said nothing, and they both headed for the stairs.

Einstadt said to his daughter, “When Rooney gets here tomorrow, I want you to make him welcome. I don’t want any trouble about this. But—don’t tell anyone that he’s moving in. That’s private business.”

He turned away and followed the girls toward the stairs. He hadn’t had any sex for two days, and he needed it, and the last time he’d bent Alma over the kitchen table, she’d been dry as a stick.

The girls, though . . .

He left Alma