I can help, but come in.”

He was a tall man, who did look a bit like Lincoln, thin but hard, with knobby shoulders and hands, and big, square, slightly yellow teeth. His hair was as long as Virgil’s, and he was wearing low-rise jeans, a purple cotton shirt, and loafers. “Putting this plastic up—the house has got no insulation in the walls whatsoever. I put in sixteen inches of fiberglass in the attic, and when I get the windows sealed, I can at least keep the place warm without going broke.”

“You own it, or gonna buy it?” Coakley asked.

“Nah, probably not,” he said. “I’m thinking of moving up to the Cities, after next fall, go back to school.”

“Good idea,” Coakley said. “What’d you be taking?”

“Studio art, at the U,” he said. “I’m a painter, when it isn’t too cold. So: how can I help, and why me?”

Coakley said, “We’re looking at these murders—Flood, Tripp, Crocker. And Kelly Baker.”

His eyebrows went up. “They’re connected?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Virgil said. “We’ve heard—we’re keeping our sources pretty close to our chest, and we’ll do the same with you—but we heard that you were friends with Baker and with Bobby Tripp.”

Loewe sort of leaned back, the way people do when they’ve heard something they don’t like. He didn’t answer for a minute, then said, “Yeah, I was. I talked to the Iowa police a couple of times. Nothing ever came of it.”

“We’re coming at it from a different angle,” Virgil said. “Because we also know about the relationship between Tripp and Kelly. We’re wondering if Kelly ever told you about that relationship, or if Tripp did. If there was something in there that could cause Tripp to kill Flood. Did Flood have some sort of abusive relationship with Kelly?”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Loewe said. “Jake could be a jerk, that’s for sure. I just wonder if there wasn’t a fight between him and Bobby, and it got a little too serious?”

Virgil shook his head. “If there’d been a fight, it would have shown up on Tripp—he would have been bruised or cut up or something. Flood was a big guy, and solid. We think Tripp snuck up on him, hit him with a ball bat.”

“Mmm, boy, I don’t see him doing that. He was a pretty tough guy, football player and all, but he wasn’t mean,” Loewe said.

“Do you think he was gay?” Coakley asked. She asked it with a motherly, understanding undertone that gave her thought away.

Loewe flinched: “Gay? Doesn’t seem likely. He was a big football guy.”

“It’s been suggested that you may have had a relationship with him,” Virgil said.

Loewe took a step back, but didn’t say anything for a moment, then, instead of saying, “No,” he asked, “Who said that?”

“Look, we’re keeping all of this very close. And we don’t even need to know whether or not you did, because that’s private, and I don’t see how it could affect the case. But: we need to know what Kelly did, what caused her to be murdered, and why Tripp would murder somebody in return, and then be murdered himself . . . and on down the line. Do not forget that there’s still a murderer running loose.”

“You don’t think I’m involved . . .”

“I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Are you?”

Loewe turned, walked away from them, picked up a roll of the plastic window sheeting. “I’m not going to talk to you anymore. This is crazy—I don’t know what happened to anybody.” His voice was climbing in pitch: he was scared, and Virgil decided to push it.

“Do you think the killings might have anything to do with your church? We’ve noticed a lot of connections there—you know. Kelly Baker, Flood, even Crocker.”

“The church? What connection could it have to the church?” he asked. “I think there might be some connection because everything happened in the same place . . . but not the church. Look, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore. But I’ll tell you: I have nothing to do with this. Any of it. I was freaked when Kelly Baker died, and I was freaked when Jake Flood got killed, and even more freaked when B.J. was killed.”

“Did you ever know a woman named Birdy Olms?” Virgil asked.

“Birdy? What does she have to do with it? She took off years ago. Back when I was a kid.”

“Any idea where she went?” Coakley asked.

“Nobody does,” Loewe said. “I guess that’s how she planned it. She’s