Bad Blood

witnessing that she’s answering voluntarily. Okay?”
    They nodded, and Brown asked her, “You want to know the questions?”
    “I’m not saying I’ll answer them,” she said.
    Virgil asked, “To your knowledge, does Wally Rooney have a sexual relationship with the daughters of Jacob Flood? Edna and Helen?”
    She looked away from them, then shook her head and said, “Yes. I think so.”
    “The daughter of Karl and Greta Rouse. To your knowledge, does she have sexual relationships with the men of the World of Spirit?”
    Again, the sour twisting away, the head shake, and, “Yes.”
    “To your knowledge, do the Bakers, Kelly Baker’s parents, know who was with their daughter when she was killed?”
    She looked down at the floor now, shook her head a last time, and said, “Yes. But she wasn’t murdered, she died. Maybe . . . too much excitement.”
    Virgil wanted to punch her, but instead, said to Shrake, “Take her,” and to the others, “Let’s go, guys.”
     
     
    VIRGIL WENT out the door, feeling a cop-like elation: he had them. But even as he went, he thought, Should I be happy that I was right, and that children are being abused? So he said that to Jenkins: “I got this rush, you know, being right about this. Being right about kids getting abused.”
    “That’s not why you got the rush,” Jenkins said. “You got the rush because we’re going to stop it.”
    “That’s right,” Virgil said. “I like your reconceptualization.”
    “I’m really good at that,” Jenkins said. “Let me get some stuff out of Shrake’s trunk.”
    What he got out of Shrake’s trunk were a bulletproof vest and two M16s with low-light Red-Dot scopes and ten thirty-round magazines. “I brought one for you, if you want it,” he said.
    “Might be a little overgunned,” Virgil said.
    Jenkins said, “I’ve never been overgunned. I have been under-gunned. After that happened, I reconceptualized.”
     
     
    THEY HEADED SOUTH down Highway 56 for I-90; Brown and Schickel would be five minutes behind, Brown saying that he needed to hit the can and then stop in town for a couple of bottles of Pepsi. “All Clay has is Cokes, and I can’t stand that shit,” he said.
    Jenkins drove while Virgil worked his cell phone. He called Coakley and told her about it: described the scene, and what they’d gotten on tape.
    “It’s everything we need. The thing is, those three guys are headed your way, and they’re probably on the phone themselves. They know we’re looking at kids, so we gotta nail down the Rouse place right now. Right now . Get your guys, and get out there.”
    “We’re going now, four of us. The warrant’s ready, I talked to the judge, clued him in; he’ll sign it as soon as you say, ‘go.’”
    “Go.”
     
     
    JENKINS DROVE TOO FAST, better than eighty-five: they came over a hill, and a car coming toward them popped up its light bar, and Jenkins said, “Ah, shit, it’s the cops.”
    He braked and moved to the side, and a highway patrol car passed them and swung through a U-turn. Virgil reached over and clicked on his own flashers, front and back, and when the cop stopped behind them, Jenkins started to get out and the patrolman yelled, “Stay in the car, sir.”
    Virgil was done with Coakley, clicked off, and clicked through on his speed dial to the duty officer at the BCA: “We might want to borrow a highway patrolman for a heavy-duty issue in Homestead,” he said. “I’ll get you the guy’s name in a minute. Can you make the connection?”
    “Give me the name,” the duty officer said.
    The patrolman shined a flashlight in the back window of the truck, saw the two naked M16s on the floor, and Jenkins stuck his hand out the window with his ID and said, “BCA. We’re on an emergency run to Homestead.”
    The cop eased up and took the ID, and Virgil said, “We’re calling the patrol headquarters right now. We may need to take you with us.”
    Now the cop came to the window. “What do you mean, take me with you? I was going home for dinner.”
    “That may have to wait,” Virgil said. “We’re on our way to Homestead, and we’re gonna need some help.”
    “Ah, for cripes sakes, what are you guys up to? Driving near ninety miles per in a fifty-five . . . Are you that fuckin’ Flowers?”
    Virgil said, “That’s me. And hey, give Jenkins a ticket if you want. You can write it up on the way, would be better—but you’ll be getting a call.”
    He got the cop’s name,