Dark of the Moon

got everything in quintuplicate, and they want it today.”
    “Okay. See you tomorrow, then.”
    She laughed at the tone: “I’ll brace myself.”
     
    H E CALLED the Laymons, but nobody answered. Called Stryker, and asked if he had Jesse’s cell phone. He got the number and said to Stryker, “I’m running up to the Cities. Back tomorrow.”
    “Anything good?”
    “Just some federal bureaucratic bullshit. How’s the election looking?”
    “Folks are smiling at me,” Stryker said. “I’m golden for at least a week; and as long as you’re wrong about Feur. If somebody else gets killed, now that Feur’s gone, I’m back in the toilet.”
     
    V IRGIL CALLED J ESSE. She answered after a couple of rings: “Virgil…”
    “Jesse: listen. I’m going to the Cities. It’s really important that you and your mom get someplace safe. Don’t get alone with any third person, no matter whether you know him or not. Maybe go over to Worthington or Sioux Falls, check into a motel. Just overnight—I should be back tomorrow.”
    “You think somebody’s looking for us?” she asked.
    “It’s possible. I don’t want to take any chances. Get yourself under cover until tomorrow.”
    “Mom’s at work,” she said.
    “Pick her up,” Virgil said. “Keep her away from the house.”
    “I was planning to go out tonight…”
    “Jesse, just for the heck of it…let’s say you should stay away from Jim Stryker, too.”
    “Jim?”
    “Just for the heck of it. Until I get back.”
     
    H E SWUNG BY the motel, picked up a bag, headed out on the highway. As soon as he was clear of town, he turned on the flashers and dropped the hammer. Got settled online, and called Davenport. He wasn’t in the office, but he got him on the cell phone. “Can I borrow Sandy or Jenkins or Shrake for a few hours?”
    “Jenkins and Shrake are picking a guy up,” Davenport said. “Sandy’s working on something, but if it’s important…”
    “I’m cracking this thing,” Virgil said. “I need some names and some record checks.”
    “She’ll call you back.”
     
    V IRGIL REMEMBERED Joan’s mother, Laura, talking about grandmothers—about how she wanted to be one, about how she wanted to watch her grandchildren grow up, about how she had time to see great-grandchildren.
    Laura Stryker wasn’t that old—a baby boomer, in fact. A rock ’n’ roller. The same age as Williamson’s mother. Williamson’s mother might have been dead, but it was possible that his natural grandparents were still alive. And grandparents do take an interest; normal ones, anyway.
    So there might be, Virgil thought, somebody in the Cities who’d taken a lifelong interest in Todd Williamson…
     
    H AD TO BE Williamson, Virgil thought.
    Judd Sr.’s sister-in-law, Betsy Carlson, in wandering in and out of rationality, had mentioned the man in the moon. Virgil had connected that to the man- on -the-moon party at Judd’s, but Betsy had been right: she said she’d seen the man in the moon. She’d talked to Williamson at some point, had seen Judd within him, and had seen the tattoo, which brought everything back.
    And Williamson would have no reason to talk to Betsy Carlson, unless he knew that Judd was his father.
     
    N EW FACT: When he and Stryker checked Williamson’s police record, they’d found nothing at all. But the tattoo on Williamson’s arm hadn’t come from a tattoo parlor. It was a prison tattoo, done with a sewing needle and ballpoint-pen ink. Maybe he’d gotten it on the outside, from somebody who’d been inside, knew how to do it. Maybe he chose a crude tattoo for aesthetic reasons. But Virgil was willing to bet that Williamson had been inside, at least for a while.
    So why didn’t Virgil know that? Why hadn’t a record popped up? He could think of one good reason…
    He looked down at the speedometer: one-oh-one. He called the Highway Patrol in Marshall again, and cleared the way out front. Got off the phone, then got back on when the cell burped.
    Sandy.
     
    “S ANDY: I want you to find Todd Williamson’s adoptive parents. Search every database you can find. Look at their taxes, find out when they stopped paying them, then check all the surrounding states and Florida, California, and Arizona, see if you can find them. Call old neighbors, if you have to.”
    “I can do that,” she said.
    “Then: Check Margaret Lane, died seven-twenty-sixty-nine. See if you can find a birth certificate. Find out if her parents are still