Bad Blood

smiled at them, a formal smile, as they followed him through the door, Virgil saw that he was missing one of his upper eyeteeth; and a moment later, picked up a periodic whistle that came through the empty space when Leonard said a word that began with a “W.”
    Louise Baker was raven-haired and black-eyed; not pretty, but noticeable. She wore a formless dress, with a tiny red-dotted floral design, that fell to her ankles, and she was not, Virgil thought, wearing anything beneath it. Like, nothing—but what was under there was definitely of an interesting quality.
    Leonard Baker said, “If I understand this right, Miz Coakley thinks that our daughter’s death might be mixed up with this murder at the elevator? Then we heard that Jim Crocker got killed, and that maybe a woman did it?”
    “That’s what we think,” Virgil agreed.
    “But whoever killed my daughter, they were men,” Baker said. “That’s what the Iowa folks said.”
    “That’s probably right,” Virgil said. “But we’ve discovered that a boy named Bobby Tripp murdered Jacob Flood, and then that Tripp was murdered by Deputy Crocker. And that Bobby Tripp was a friend of your daughter’s. A good friend.”
    Louise was silent but Leonard Baker said, “Well, that’s not right. I would have known about something like that.”
    Coakley said, “Not intimate friends . . . they didn’t have a personal relationship. They were friends. They talked to each other, e-mailed each other.”
    “I keep a pretty sharp eye on that computer,” Baker said. Then, “But I suppose once they learn how to use it . . . we’re not here all the time.”
    “And there are computers everywhere,” Coakley said. “Libraries, schools . . .”
    “We homeschooled,” Louise Baker said. Her voice was crinkly, like when a sheet of vellum is crumpled in a hand. “Leonard taught her mathematics and German, and I taught her English and literature, and we both taught her religion.”
    Virgil caught what seemed to be an irritated look pass from Leonard to his wife when she mentioned religion, and he jumped on it.
    “If you don’t mind my asking, what religion? I’m a preacher’s son,” Virgil said.
    “We have a personal and private religion,” Leonard Baker said. “We really don’t talk about it to nonmembers.”
    “Okay,” Virgil said, and then quickly, following up, “Bible-based? Or . . .”
    Leonard Baker nodded: “Yes. We’re followers . . . well, yes. The Bible.”
    Virgil said, “I haven’t had a chance to review all the investigation from Iowa, but I know the outlines of your daughter’s case. The Iowa people say that you had no idea of what had happened with Kelly. Have you had any thoughts since that time? Has anything come up?”
    The couple looked at each other, then simultaneously shook their heads. “We are mystified. The police said . . . well, that Kelly was sexually active.”
    “That was ridiculous,” Louise Baker said. “When could she be?”
    Coakley: “You let young girls work in town, things happen. They grow up so fast now.”
    “We didn’t even know that she had male friends her own age, like this boy you’re talking about,” Leonard Baker said. “That she was not a virgin when she was killed—that doesn’t seem possible to us. The time factor . . . when could she have gotten out? She did work, summers, but she was a quiet girl.”
    “It’s a mystery,” Louise Baker said, her voice crackling with what might have been stress.
    “Do you know somebody named Liberty?” Virgil asked.
    The two looked at each other again, and Virgil had a sudden intuition: they knew, and they’d lie about it. They turned back to Virgil and both shook their heads. “No. Nobody named Liberty.”
    They said they knew who the Floods were, but weren’t really acquainted, and they did know Crocker. “He was a righteous man,” Louise Baker said. “He patrolled out here, before he was assigned in town, so everybody knew him. I suppose . . . no offense, Sheriff . . . I suppose most people out here voted for him.”
    Leonard Baker nodded: “If he killed the Tripp boy, it was for a reason. The Tripp boy must belong to a gang. If he knew Kelly, then I think you’ve taken a big step in finding out who killed her.”
    “Do you think your son might have known Tripp?” Virgil asked.
    Leonard Baker shook his head: “I don’t think so. He never worked in town. He was homeschooled, too, both of them were. When he graduated, two years ago, he