Bad Blood

eyebrows went up, and he quickly added, “No, no, no. You’d be covered twenty-four hours a day. That’s why I want to stage it in a small town. Have you ever heard of Hayfield?”
    “No. It’s in Minnesota?”
    “Yeah, it’s up north of Austin. I got involved in a missing-kid case up there. People thought a kid had been kidnapped, but he hadn’t been—he’d drowned, actually. I mean, a tragedy. But I know a lot of people in town from the investigation. The thing is, we could put you in a house there, and talk to the neighbors, and when anybody unfamiliar went by, we’d get an instant alert. I mean, the town’s half as big as Sleepy Eye. Maybe less than half.”
    “How long would it take?”
    “If they didn’t bite in a few days, they wouldn’t,” Virgil said. “You could just come back here, and be done with it.”
    “Would I get paid?” she asked.
    “Sure, we could fix something up. Not a lot, but something.”
    “The thing is, work is really slow right now,” she said. “Dave would be happy to see me take a couple of weeks off.”
    Virgil said, “So. We got a deal?”
    “Better’n sorting nuts,” she said. “Or bolts. I’ll do it.”
    They talked about it awhile longer, and then Virgil walked her back to the Ace Hardware. “I’ll get back to you—but it’ll be in the next couple of days. Soon. I’ve got to run over to Hayfield and set up a house, get some guys to work it with me. Then we’ll go for it.”
     
     
    VIRGIL CALLED COAKLEY: “She’ll do it. I’ve got to call my boss, get his okay, and then I’m going to run over to Hayfield and see if I can find a house. I know an old guy up there who I think will help us out.”
    “Loewe is in the wind,” Coakley said. “He sold his truck yesterday up in the Cities, got cash for it. Went right to the bank with the buyer. I called his bank here, and he took everything but five dollars. That’s confidential, by the way, I got that on a friendship basis.”
    “I think we let him go, for now,” Virgil said. “If we said anything publicly . . .”
    “That’s what I think. You’re coming back tonight?”
    “I think so. I’ll see what happens in Hayfield,” he said. “If we’re going to do this, we want to do it quick. I keep worrying that somebody will tell them about the young-sex angle, and those pictures go up in smoke.”
    “So we hurry,” she said. “We hurry.”

17
    V irgil headed for Hayfield, and got on the phone with Davenport to tell him what he wanted to do. “I worry about bringing in a civilian,” Davenport said. “What if they walk through the door and pop her?”
    “This isn’t about bringing in a civilian—it’s about bringing in the only person who could do the job, Birdy’s twin,” Virgil said. “I’ll put her in a vest, but I don’t think they’ll go right to guns. They’ll want to know what she said to me before they do that. I need a couple of guys, though. Del, Shrake, Jenkins, you, I don’t care, but at least two.”
    “I can’t do it, but I’ll get you two. Do you have a house in mind?”
    “Yeah, an old guy named Clay Holley, and some people in his neighborhood. I got to know them pretty good, and I think they’ll go for it.”
    “When are you going to make the call?” Davenport asked.
    “Tomorrow, or the day after, if Holley goes along,” Virgil said.
    “All right, I’ll see who I can shake free. Stay in touch. And, Virgil . . . you’re sure about this sex thing?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “If you’re so sure, why can’t you just file on it, get a search warrant?” Davenport asked.
    Virgil said, “That’s a sensitive issue.”
    After a moment of silence, Davenport said, “I’ve had a few issues myself. Good luck with that.”
     
     
    CLAYTON HOLLEY WAS eighty-nine years old and lived in the perfect house—perfect for a minimum-wage farm woman who’d fled her husband. The house was old and very small, white clapboard, two bedrooms, a narrow living room, a kitchen a little larger than the house deserved, a damp basement that smelled of mildew, rusting tools, sour drains, and clothes-dryer exhaust, along with the slightly musty alcoholic odor from five or six barrels of Concord grape and rhubarb wine that Holley usually had cooking in the basement.
    Holley came to the front door when Virgil knocked, adjusted his glasses as he looked through the storm door window, then smiled and said in a frog’s croaking voice, “That effin’ Flowers, as I live and