Dark of the Moon

Bluestem. We’ll keep you right up to date on what’s going on…”
     
    V IRGIL PICKED UP his sound kit and unzipped it. The two microphones and transmitter together were no bigger than a matchbox, and the microphones themselves were as thin as pennies. “This is a radio,” Virgil said, showing it to them. “There are two microphones; they route separately through the transmitter. Like a cell phone, but the microphones are way better. We’ll tape the mikes to your chest—best if you wear a T-shirt—and clip the transmitter inside the waist of your jeans, at the small of your back. We’ll both be able to hear you, and record it at the same time.
    “When you meet him, you push him about the moon tattoo, the man-in-the-moon thing,” Virgil continued. “You push him about how he must’ve known that Judd was his father—how could a Twin Cities newspaper reporter, with all that curiosity, and all those records right there in St. Paul, not know who his father was? And didn’t he have grandparents, and wouldn’t they know? He won’t want you to ask those questions—he’ll be pretty hot about keeping you from asking. I think he’ll be right after you.”
    “What if he doesn’t do all that?” Jesse asked. “What if he goes home and goes to bed?”
    Virgil said, “Well, shoot. Then we’d have to start over with something else. But he was calling you because he wants to make some kind of move. I think.”
    “I’d like to get it over with,” Jesse said.
    “We all would,” Virgil said. “So. You want to take your shirt off?”
     
    W HEN HE LEFT Worthington the second time, at seven-thirty, Jesse was ready to roll, the wire tested both for recording fidelity and for direct sound.
    At five after eight, Virgil was back at the courthouse. Daylight was beginning to fade, the shadows long across Main Street, red light reflecting off west-facing windows. Sundown would come a few minutes before nine o’clock.
    Stryker was waiting, with the two Curlys, Jensen, Carr, and two guys named Padgett and Brooks.
    Virgil leaned on the front edge of Stryker’s desk. “I’ve pulled together evidence that suggests that Todd Williamson might have been capable of doing the Gleason and Schmidt killings, and the two Judds, and might have been inclined to do them. I’m going to feed that evidence back to him, tonight, through Jesse Laymon, and hope that it forces him into an overt act. They’re going to meet at ten o’clock at the Dairy Queen. After the meeting, which I’m set up to record, and to monitor, Jesse is going to take off as fast as she can, for home. So fast that Williamson won’t be able to ambush her, or run her off the road, on the way.
    “Deputies Padgett and Brooks”—he nodded at them—“will already be at her house, waiting. Jim and Larry will try to figure out where Williamson is, before he goes to the meeting, stake him out, and track him toward the Dairy Queen.
    “The two Curlys will be down south of the Dairy Queen, in separate cars. Once Jesse takes off, I want you two in front of her, heading back to her place…The rest of us will follow behind, so we’ll have him boxed in if he goes after her.”
    “What about me?” Carr asked.
    “I’ve got something touchy, if you’re willing to do it,” Virgil said. “I want you in civvies. But with a gun: this guy is dangerous. You’ll be in your own car, and as soon as Larry sees Williamson walk into the Dairy Queen, I want you to pull in and order an ice-cream cone. Sit outside on one of those benches, and lick it down. One hand on your gun.”
    She smiled: “Sounds good to me.”
    “Where’ll you be?” Stryker asked Virgil.
    “I’ll be in my truck, parked behind Jane’s Nails. I want to stay back in the dark, but I’ve got to be in radio range, too, so I can monitor the meeting.”
    “I’ve got a couple of questions,” said Brooks.
     
    “A LL RIGHT, ” Virgil said. “Let’s do the details. But: we’ve got to be in place an hour before Williamson is due to meet Jesse, by nine o’clock. Williamson is at his office: we don’t want to lose him…” He stepped to a wall map of Bluestem, on the wall behind Stryker’s desk, touched street corners. “I figure Stryker and Jensen will be here and here, covering the front and back doors of the newspaper office.”
     
    W HEN HE WAS DONE, Carr asked, “So if Todd doesn’t do anything, we just go home?”
    “No. We’ll be giving him a serious push—he won’t want