Bad Blood

dirt around. The furnace has been blowing dust on everything. It’s going to be a chemical mess. Our best hope is the DNA on his penis, and we’ll check the fly of his pants.”
    “We’re also looking for a pair of uniform pants, green wool, with blood on them,” Virgil said. “Could be a very small amount, but you’ve got to find them. Check every pair of green wool uniform pants you can find. The blood comes from a ripped fingernail, so there might not be much. We’ll need DNA on that, too.”
    “If it’s there, we’ll get it,” she said.
    “Bea . . .”
    “Don’t say it,” she said. “The huckleberry thing. Once was annoying enough.”
     
     
    ON HIS WAY back down the hall to Coakley’s office, Virgil got a local call, from a number he didn’t recognize. He answered, and found Bob Tripp’s father on the other end. “I’ve talked to my wife, and we’re going over to the funeral home tonight at seven-thirty. If you wanted to get here at seven twenty-five, we could put you up in Bob’s room by yourself. We’d just as soon not be here when you go through it.”
    “I’ll see you then,” Virgil said. “Thank you.”
    Coakley was alone when Virgil got to her office. She had her boots back on the wastebasket, and was staring out her office window. When Virgil stuck his head in, she pointed at a visitor’s chair.
    “Look a little bummed,” Virgil said.
    “I am.”
    “We’ll get this cleared up, you’ll be the town heroine,” Virgil said.
    “Three murders,” she said. “And probably four. You know the last thing I did before I got elected sheriff? My last investigation? I was looking for some kid who was going around keying trucks.”
    “Catch him?”
    “No, but I know who did it,” she said. “I got myself close to the little asshole’s father, down at the diner, in the next booth. I was having lunch with the chief, and I said, ‘There’s gonna be trouble when I catch this kid. He’s done fifty thousand dollars’ worth of damage, and the insurance companies will be after him or his parents with a chain saw.’ That stopped it, you betcha.”
    “Well, that’s good,” Virgil said.
    “But you never did car-keying investigations,” she said. “And I can tell you, you can flat get whiplash from the change in speed, from car-keying to quadruple murder.”
    “Never did a car-keying investigation, but I once investigated the theft of toddlers’ pants,” Virgil said. He told her about it, and they exchanged a few more stories, and Virgil told her about the phone calls, and finally she sighed and said, “It’s supper time. You should get out to Flood’s, and I’m going home to cook some . . . crap. Macaroni and cheese. I can’t stand to think about it.”
    “So take some time, cook something good. Think about the case while you’re doing it. Call me when you think of something.”
    She poked a finger at him. “And you call me. Tonight. I want to hear about Flood, and about Bob Tripp’s room. Tonight.”
    They walked out to the parking lot together, and then Coakley said, a frown on her face, “By the way, when we were talking to Pat, you said you could think of a few scenarios where Crocker didn’t kill Bobby. So what’re the scenarios?”
    Virgil shrugged. “Crocker is having an affair with a female deputy, who came in to shut up Bobby. She kills him, while Crocker is off someplace, doing something. Gets her pants scratched. But she’s worried that Crocker is going to tell somebody that she was there—use her for an alibi, if somebody finds out Bobby was murdered. And maybe she knows enough about autopsies to know that we might find out. So she goes over to Crocker’s and kills him to shut him up, before he can tell anyone that she was at the jail.”
    “Well, goddamnit, Virgil, you’re coming back on me again,” she said.
    “No, I’m not,” Virgil said. “I was just thinking of scenarios. Besides . . .”
    “Besides, what?”
    “Bobby was a star athlete,” Virgil said. “I don’t think you’re strong enough to keep him pinned long enough to strangle him.”
    “Ahh . . . Go away.”
    “You gonna think about it?” Virgil asked. “The scenario?”
    “I’ll think about it, but it’s bullshit,” she said, and Virgil went away.
     
     
    VIRGIL GOT to the Flood house well past dark, but could tell the house was a big one, a cube, white clapboard around the first floor, dark brown shingles around the second floor and the attic level. It sat