about it.”

She surprised Virgil by saying, “Possible,” which sounded almost like an affirmation.

“We talked to a fellow who is familiar with your church, and he noticed that there were quite a few older men marrying girls right after they turn eighteen, and the question arises, is there some kind of religiously based, or church-sanctioned, contact between these older men and the younger women?” Virgil asked.

Another improbable pause, and then she said, a light growing in her eyes, “We have no specific rules regarding that. Specific rules come from the World of Law; and you can look around the world, and see what the World of Law has done to you, with your wars and crime and corruption. Two Peter two:nineteen—‘They promise them freedom, but they themselves are the slaves of corruption.’ ”

“But like it or not, you also live in the World of Law,” Virgil said. “And look at the next sentence in Two Peter: ‘For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.’ Are any of these church members enslaved to that which overcomes them?”

She sighed and shook her head.

Virgil said, “‘For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.’ Are you having a little trouble with that, Alma?”

“I can’t talk to you,” she said. “My husband has just passed, I can’t—”

Virgil said, “Mrs. Flood—”

“I can’t talk,” she repeated. Then: “I’ve been reading the Book hard and long. It’s all I do when I’m not cooking or making beds. I’m thinking about it. Maybe we could talk again . . . someday.”

VIRGIL LEFT IT at that. There were more questions to be asked, but he’d gotten some answers, even if they weren’t stated aloud. Wally Rooney, plucked chicken in hand, stepped out of the barn to watch him leave. At the bottom of the hill, he turned toward I-90 and got on the phone to Davenport.

“We got the plane?” he asked.

“You got it. He’ll fly into Blue Earth, they’ve got a little strip down south of town, off 169,” Davenport said. “Lee Coakley suggested that would keep curious people from wondering where the deputy was going.”

“Good. Now listen, Lucas, I’m serious here: we may have the biggest goddamn child abuse problem that we’ve ever seen,” Virgil said. “It might have gone on for a hundred years. I mean, really, a hundred years. It’s one of those weird cults, and they raise their children in the cult and I have the feeling that they go at them when they’re pretty young. I’m talking twelve. That’s with the girls; I don’t know about the boys.”

“When you say big—”

“The cult—they call themselves the World of Spirit—looks to have maybe a hundred families or more, including a lot of kids,” Virgil said. “I asked one of the women, Flood’s wife—the first guy killed—if the older guys ever hooked up with the younger women. Girls. She wouldn’t talk about it, but the answer was ‘Yes.’”

“Oh, boy. Work it as hard as you can, Virgil, but put Coakley out front,” Davenport said. “These kinds of things generate a terrific smell. If you’re out front, you could spend the next two years of your life doing depositions, and I don’t want to lose you for that long.”

“All right. Push those DNA guys for me. I need to know, soon as they get it.”

“I’ve been doing that—and they say, noon tomorrow,” Davenport said. “No sooner, maybe a little later. I’ll be standing there, and I’ll call as soon as they tell me.”

“Thank you.”

“One more thing, Virgil. I’m going to brief Rose Marie on this, and I suspect she’ll want to have a quiet word with the governor. You know, so that if it really blows up, they’ll know what’s coming, and they’ll have had a chance to talk through the response.”

“Okay, but you gotta keep it close,” Virgil said. “These people don’t see us coming yet, and I don’t need them burning evidence.”

VIRGIL RANG OFF, took out his notebook, looked at it, then called Coakley: “I need the address of Greta and Karl Rouse, R-O-U-S-E. They live west of Battenberg somewhere.”

“Give me ten minutes. I’ll check their fire number.”

Virgil drove toward Battenberg, taking his time, thinking over his options. Coakley called back and said, “Okay, I’ve got them spotted. Starting at North Main in Battenberg, you go out on Highway 7 until County 26 splits off. . . .”

Virgil crossed 94 into Battenberg, trundled through