Bad Blood

listened for a minute, then said, “Why don’t you walk over? We’ve got a state investigator here and we can fill you in.” A few more words from the reporter, and she said, “See you then,” and hung up.
    To Virgil: “He’s on his way.”
    “Good guy?” Virgil asked.
    “Yeah, for a reporter,” she said. “He’s accurate, usually, but he’s ambitious. The editor tells me his friend—his relationship, his guy—lives up in the Cities. He’d like to get up there with the Pioneer Press or the Star Tribune .”
    “Fat chance,” Virgil said. “Those places are bleeding to death. Bet there are a hundred good reporters looking for jobs.”
    “You know them?”
    “A few,” Virgil said. “And they talk about it.”
    “You think they’ll be down here? For these murders?”
    “May get some TV,” Virgil said. “The newspapers, you’re more likely to get a call. I mean, they could have a staff meeting in a phone booth.”
    They sat for a minute, looking past each other, then Coakley asked, “You at the Holiday?”
    “Yeah.”
    They looked past each other some more, until Virgil asked, “You didn’t mention to Sullivan that we wanted to talk to him about Tripp.”
    “I thought I’d leave that to you. Best to ask him first, before we get to Crocker. That way, we’re holding the Crocker information over his head. Or, you are. I’m just a humble county sheriff, who has to defer to the state agent, if he decides to screw over the local media.” She leaned back in her chair, turned, put her boots up on top of a wastebasket, put her hands behind her head, and stared at the ceiling. She did it in a 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,