I know there’s bad blood between the Bakers and Brian Craig, because of a drainage problem off the Bakers’ land that they’ve never been able to work out. There’s another guy, Peter Van Mann, and I don’t think they get along, either. I don’t know what the problem is, something about a dog. That’s before my time on the route. Let’s go inside, and I’ll spot them on the map. . . .”

THE SUN WAS SLIDING hard to the southwest when Virgil pulled into the Craig place. Craig, said his wife, was out in the barn trying to fix the front frame of a hay wagon, which had bent while they were pulling in the last cut of hay in late summer. They had lived with it then, but once winter shut down the field work, it was time to do repairs.

Virgil found Craig struggling to get the left side of the frame up on a jack, under a couple of work lights. He saw Virgil come through the door, stopped struggling, and asked, “Who are you?”

“A cop. State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Virgil said. “I need to talk to you for a bit.”

“About what?”

“About Kelly Baker, and the Bakers in general,” Virgil said.

“I don’t know much about Kelly. . . .”

His wife pushed through the door behind them. She’d pulled on a letter jacket and run over to listen in.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” Virgil said. “We’ve got a hell of a problem here and . . .” He hesitated, then asked, “What’s the deal with your frame?”

“I cut out the bent part, and when I jack up one side, there’s enough torque to twist the frame when I’m jacking up the other.”

“Let me give you a hand with that.”

Craig didn’t say no, and they spent five minutes getting both sides of the front frame up on jacks and lined up to each other. Craig fit a piece of steel across the gap and clamped it in place, put on welding glasses, and said, “Don’t look at the spot.” He made a number of quick welds to hold it square, and the barn was suffused with the odor of burning iron. When it cooled, he used a spare piece of L-bar to check the squareness, and took the clamps off.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You want to come in for coffee?” his wife asked. “It’s pretty cold out here.”

Virgil shrugged, and Craig said, “Might as well. I can do the final weld anytime, now.”

They sat at the kitchen table, and Virgil said, “I understand that you and the Bakers haven’t always gotten along. One thing cops do is, we talk to people who don’t like other people, because they’re usually less reluctant to talk. It sounds mean, but that’s the way it is.”

“Does sound mean,” Craig’s wife said, and Virgil said, “You didn’t mention your first name.”

“Judy,” she said.

“It is mean,” Virgil said. “But we’re talking some nasty murders here. I’ve spoken to the Bakers, and what they tell me isn’t as consistent with the evidence as it should be.”

“For example?” Craig asked.

“For example, Jacob Flood and members of the Flood family say they don’t know the Bakers that well, and the Bakers agree with that, but we’ve talked to other people who have suggested that they’re actually quite close. And that they’re all involved in a fundamentalist religion that’s really pretty tight.”

Craig and his wife glanced at each other, and then Judy Craig asked, “What do you know about their so-called religion?”

“Nothing,” Virgil said. “It seems to be pretty private, but you do see some of that around.”

Brian Craig leaned forward and tapped his finger on the table. “Our kids both go to public schools, and I’ll tell you what: I do not encourage them to hang around with anybody from this church. I just don’t want those people around them.”

“Tell me why you feel like that,” Virgil said. “I’m not talking about formal testimony, here. Nobody’s going to write anything down. Anything helps . . .”

The couple glanced at each other again, and then Judy Craig said, “You see people every day out here, and even if you don’t talk much, you know them. Know when they have babies, for example, and about how old their kids are. Even when they don’t go to school. You know what I mean?”

“Sure. I’m a small-town kid,” Virgil said.

“Okay. If you keep track of what’s happening around the countryside, it doesn’t take too many years to realize that all the people from this