comfortably coordinated way, which made Virgil think it was her regular thinking posture. “I have two possibilities.”
“Only two?”
“No, there are several more, but two I’m thinking about. One: Flood and Crocker were friends, which we know, and that Crocker killed Bobby out of simple revenge. Two: Crocker killed Bobby because he was afraid that when Bobby told us why he killed Flood, that it’d come back on Crocker.”
They considered that for a moment, then Virgil said, “Crocker didn’t kill Tripp until early morning, almost time for a shift change. I wonder why he waited? I wonder if he needed to talk to somebody about it? Like your other woman. We oughta check the phones here, see if he called anyone during the overnight. And check his cell.”
“We can do that,” she said. Another moment, and she asked, “You cook? Or you eat out?”
“I’m not much interested in food,” Virgil said. “I mostly eat microwave. Healthy Choice, like that. Cereal. Milk. Scrambled eggs.”
“My husband used to cook, a lot, when I was married,” Coakley said. “I used to work some odd hours. Now, I get home in time to cook, most nights, but can’t get it going again. The boys are happy with pizza and burgers and fries, but I feel guilty about it.”
“How many kids you got?” Virgil asked.
“Three. Sixteen, fourteen, and twelve,” she said. “The twelve was supposed to be a girl. So was the fourteen, for that matter. All I got is a bunch of big lugs. Though I love them to death.”
“Sounds like you kept busy for a while. Three kids in four years.”
“Yeah, well. Going to Mankato State, got married halfway through my senior year. I was knocked up by Memorial Day,” she said.
“What’d your husband do?”
“He’s the new car sales manager over at Gable Ford,” she said.
“Still see him?” Virgil asked.
“Oh, no. The new wife wouldn’t like it, for one thing,” Coakley said.
“Oh-oh.”
“What can I tell you? He got married three weeks after our divorce was final,” she said. “I guess it had been going on for a while. Never saw it coming.”
“She have really big breasts?” Virgil asked.
The thin smile again. “Ample. Or ample-and-a-half.”
“Give her any speeding tickets?”
“Hadn’t thought of it, but now that you mention it, I’ll keep it in mind,” she said. Her phone rang, and she picked it up, listened, and said, “Send him in.”
PAT SULLIVAN was a short, thin man, of the sort that Virgil thought of as “weedy.” He had brown hair, a prominent nose, a brush mustache, and square Teddy Roosevelt teeth. He wore brown boots with studded soles, was carrying a parka and a reporter’s notebook.
“Virgil Flowers,” he said, when Coakley introduced him. “I’ve followed your adventures. That shoot-out up in International Falls, with the Vietnamese dragon lady. The one out by Bluestem, with the federal guys.”
“They’re like bad dreams slowly fading away,” Virgil said. He pointed at a chair: “Sit down. We gotta talk. There’s more going on than a story.”
Sullivan sat down, a skeptical look on his face: “Like what?”
“We have to go off the record for a bit,” Virgil said. “That good with you?”
“Depends. We can start that way. If I can’t keep it off, I’ll tell you,” Sullivan said.
“When Bob Tripp was arrested, he wouldn’t talk to the sheriff until he talked to you first,” Virgil said.
Sullivan’s eyebrows went up. “Me?”
“Yes. Are we off the record?”
“Okay. For now.”
“We wondered if you knew what he might have wanted to talk about,” Virgil said.
“So you didn’t ask me to come in as a reporter, but as a possible witness.”
Virgil shrugged: “I don’t care if you’re both. Not a problem for me.”
Sullivan said, “I’ll have to think about it . . . but if Bobby wanted to talk, why would he have committed suicide?”
Virgil said, “He didn’t. He was murdered. Probably by Jim Crocker.”
“Whoa.” Sullivan went pale, leaned forward. “This has got to be on the record. Not about Bobby wanting to talk to me, but about Bobby and Crocker.”
“We’ll come back to it, give you a formal interview, on the record. Let’s stay off for now.”
Sullivan paused, then nodded.
“Crocker isn’t a sure thing, for Bobby’s murder,” Virgil said. “I can think of scenarios where he didn’t do it—but we think he probably did. We may have more definitive answers after the investigation.”
Coakley jumped in, pressing the question, “Do you have any idea why Bobby might have wanted to talk to you?”
Sullivan leaned back, looked at Coakley, then Virgil, then back at Coakley. “Lee, I assume