“He’s got some bully in him, for one thing. Not physical—that’s one thing I’m not sure about in this Tripp thing. The Tripp boy was a hell of an athlete. Jim Crocker is a big guy and strong as a bull, but I don’t know if he’d have the guts to take on Bobby Tripp.”
“So when you say Crocker’s a bully . . .”
“He’s political, always sucking around for something,” Schickel said. “He was Harlan’s messenger boy, when somebody had to give out the bad news. You know, if somebody was gonna get fired, or laid off, or disciplined. He was like the assistant principal, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“And he enjoyed doing it. But he was also one for dodging serious work. When he went for the sheriff’s job, practically the whole department was out there talking up Lee. I would’ve quit, if he’d won.”
“But not crooked . . . not on the take, or anything.”
“Not like payoffs, like protection. But he’d do a favor for somebody,” Schickel said. “One time, two or three years back, a doctor’s kid got caught driving drunk, one-point-one blood alcohol. No accident or anything, pretty good kid, otherwise, but drunk. His old man came in to talk to the sheriff. Said they had a family cabin up in Canada, and the Canadians wouldn’t let the kid into the country with the conviction. He wanted a little consideration.”
“And the sheriff said . . .”
“Basically, that it was too late. Everybody in town knew about the situation. Best to hire a good lawyer. Anyway, when they went to send the file over to the county attorney, the key evidence was missing. The original ticket with the blow-tube numbers on it,” Schickel said. “So the prosecutor refused to prosecute, because of tainted evidence and mishandled paperwork. She was happy to do it, because she didn’t want to hang up the doctor’s family anyway. And she had an out: she blamed our office. Hell of an embarrassment. The eventual . . . conclusion . . . was that Crocker lifted the file.”
“But no proof.”
“No proof, but I’m on board with the conclusion,” Schickel said. “Crocker . . . you can have a beer with the guy, and he can tell a story, but basically, not a good guy.”
THEY FOLLOWED DUNN off I-90 at Highway 7, turned south through the town of Battenberg. Schickel pointed out a grain elevator: “That’s where Tripp killed Jake Flood.”
“Oh, yeah? Was Crocker in on that? The investigation?” Virgil asked.
“No, he had nothing to do with that. That all happened in the daytime, and Crocker’s been working nights,” Schickel said.
“Did he work last night?”
“Nope. Yesterday and the day before was his weekend. He’s on tonight.”
They passed the high school and went on down Main Street to the intersection of a county highway, turned back east for a couple miles, jogged south.
“He’s really out here,” Virgil said. “He got a family?”
“No. Wife took off a few years ago. She’s married to a guy over in Jackson, now. Or was. This house belongs to his uncle: he gets it free, as I understand it. Otherwise, it’d probably be abandoned. His folks have a farm further on south.”
THE FARMHOUSE SAT on the south side of a tangled woodlot of cottonwoods and box elders, beside a shallow drainage creek that crossed the roadway south of the house. The house was typical old Minnesota: a narrow two-story clapboard place in need of paint and new shingles, and probably new wiring. A thin stream of heated air was coming from a chimney, visible as a shimmer against the sky.
A machine shed, showing fresh tracks going in, but not out, with a new garage door, sat to the left of the driveway, with a ten-foot-long propane tank to one side. The front porch was covered by untracked snow; entry was apparently through the side door, next to the driveway. A satellite dish was bolted to one of the porch pillars, aimed to the southwest.
Dunn led the way in, and Virgil parked behind him, and they got out and stretched and stomped their feet in the snow-covered drive, and Dunn said to Virgil, “Well, time to do your thing.”
Virgil nodded and said, “You know what?” He went back to the truck and got the Glock out of the center console and put it in his pocket.