town, took the turn west with Highway 7. It was ten minutes, more or less, out to the Rouse place, following the web of small roads through the countryside.
The Rouse farmhouse, like the Floods’, sat on a low rise, with a woodlot behind and a thick L-shaped wall of evergreens on the north and west. A little slough, frozen over, came down to the road, with brown broken cattails sticking out of the crusty snow. A mailbox at the end of the driveway said, “Rouse,” and Virgil went on by. Couldn’t see a kennel.
What to do? He could go hassle Loewe some more—he’d been nervous, and might be cracked—or the Bakers, or he could go socialize with Coakley. But what he really needed was the DNA report on Spooner.
He thought about it, yawned, turned back to I-94, went on down the highway to the Holiday Inn at Homestead, and took a two-hour nap.
UP AT FIVE, when Coakley called on his cell phone. “Where are you?”
“Just got back to the Holiday,” he said. “I’m colder’n hell, I want to stand in the shower for a while.”
“We’re all set here,” Coakley said. She was excited. “Gene Schickel’s on his way over to Blue Earth to get the plane. He should be off the ground in fifteen minutes. The Wednesday meetings are after supper, starting usually around six-thirty.”
“Okay. I’ll be over at your office in half an hour,” Virgil said.
“Better come to my house. I’m trying to keep this as hushed as we can.”
“See you there.”
AFTER SHOWERING, Virgil got his super-duty winter gear out of the duffel in the back of the truck and tossed it on the backseat—heavy, hooded, insulated camo coveralls of the kind sold to late-season deer hunters and musky fishermen, a pair of insulated high-top hunting boots, a full-face ski mask, and insulated downhill ski gloves. He got to Coakley’s in a half hour and found her stacking similar gear in the front hallway, along with a couple of sleeping bags.
Her three boys, in annual sizes from high school down, all with long, honey-colored hair and round faces, were watching with heavy-lidded teenage curiosity, and nodded politely to Virgil and said, “Hi,” when she introduced them.
She gave them last-minute instructions involving pizzas and a girl named Sue who probably should stay home and study that night, and went out the door, carrying her gear. They’d agreed earlier to go in separate trucks with one of the trucks ditched a mile or so from the worship service, as a backup.
“I got sleeping bags from the guys in case we have to lay out there awhile, and binoculars, flashlights, some granola bars to chew on,” she said, as she loaded it into her truck. She handed him a radio handset. “It’s all set to a command channel. Just key it and talk. Gene’s on the same channel up in the plane.”
Virgil nodded and said, “Okay. You lead, you know the maps better.”
“I printed out satellite and terrain maps of that whole area of the county. I’ll call you on the radio when we’re close. Might not be any cell service, depending on where they go.” She put the radio to her face, keyed it, and said, “Gene?”
“I’m here.” Schickel’s voice was clear as glass: Virgil realized he was probably very close by, but straight up. He looked for the plane’s wing lights, but didn’t see them.
“Gotcha covered,” Schickel said. “Boy, it’s pretty up here, all the lights out on the lake.”
AN HOUR LATER, Virgil and Coakley were sitting inside Virgil’s truck seven or eight miles east of Battenberg—the meeting was apparently later than they’d thought—when Schickel called. “I’ve got the Platts moving out. More than one, but I couldn’t see how many. I think it could be all of them, but the truck’s parked outside the barn light.”
“Stay with them,” Coakley said.
“They’re heading south on 28. . . .”
“Got that.” Coakley bent over the map, marking the Platts’ movement with a highlighter pen. Schickel came back. “Okay, I got Floods. More than one, but I can’t see how many . . . in their truck . . . okay, they’re moving, they’re heading south. . . .”
After following the two vehicles on the map for five minutes, Coakley said, “They’re going to the Steinfelds’.”
She leaned across to show Virgil, said, “We’ll leave your truck . . . here. Or right around there. It’s a back road, no traffic, but it’s plowed.”