Dark of the Moon

out here,” Williamson said.
    “They must’ve changed then, because I’m from out here,” Virgil said. “I played high school baseball against Jimmy here, and kicked his ass three years running.”
    “You were seven and two, and three of those wins were pure luck,” Stryker said. “People still talk about it. Haven’t ever seen a run of luck like it, not after all these years.”
    “Bite me,” Virgil said.
    “You’ve been talking to Joan,” Stryker said.
     
    V IRGIL TIPPED his head toward the burn pit, and asked, “That’s Judd, right?”
    Stryker said, “Yup. I gave him a call, he came right up.”
    Big Curly said, “Probably been down at the bank, reading the old man’s will.”
    Williamson said quietly, “He’s about to inherit my newspaper. That won’t be good. I’m job hunting, if any of you guys own a printing press.”
     
    T HEY ALL LOOKED at Judd for a few seconds, then Virgil asked Big Curly, “What’s this about a will?”
    Big Curly shrugged: “I don’t know. I was jokin’.”
    Virgil to Stryker: “The will’s an idea, though. Have you looked for a will?”
    Stryker shook his head: “I imagine it’s in the bank. Or Bob Turner’s got it. Turner was the old man’s attorney.”
    “We ought to take a look at it,” Virgil said. “Get a writ to open his safe-deposit box, get his attorney and his kid to go with us. Could be something in it.”
    Williamson said, “What if he left all of his money to George Feur?”
    Stryker cracked a smile. “That’d give old Junior a major case of the red ass, you betcha.”
    Virgil: “Who’s George Feur?”
    “Nutcase preacher, found Jesus in prison,” Stryker said. “He’s got a so-called religious compound over by the Dakota line. He was trying his best to save Bill Judd’s soul, according to the local gossip.”
    “He’s nuts?”
    Williamson said, “He believes in the purity of the white race and that Jesus was a Roman, and thinks blacks were stuck in Africa because of the curse of Cain, and they should all be shipped back there so they can properly suffer the righteous wrath of God, instead of polluting white women and gettin’ all the good jobs at Target. Once a month or so, he and a bunch of people get some signs and go march somewhere, and say all of that. Here, Worthington, Sioux Falls.”
    Little Curly: “He says Indians are the Lost Tribes of Israel, and they’re Jews, and they should all go back to Israel so we can get the Second Coming. Had a few fights with Indians.”
    Virgil: “And he was converting Judd?” He was thinking of the book of Revelation on the Gleasons’ end table.
    “He needs rich recruits,” Williamson said. “How else is he gonna get the money to buy guns to overthrow the godless Democrats and ship the blacks back to Africa?”
    “Ah.”
    “And the Mexicans back to Mexico, and the Chinese back to China, and the Indians to Israel, and so on and so forth,” Williamson said. “I wrote a long feature on him, got picked up by the Associated Press.”
     
    “H ERE COMES TROUBLE, ” Big Curly muttered.
    Virgil looked and Bill Judd Jr. was headed toward them. Judd was a heavy man, with a turkey-wattle neck under a fat face, thinning hair, and small black eyes. He must have been close to sixty, Virgil thought.
    Judd nodded at Williamson, glanced at Virgil, and asked Stryker, “What’re you going to do about this, Jim? If that’s Dad down there, and if that boy from the state fire marshal was right, then it’s murder. What’re you going to do?”
    “Investigate it,” Stryker said.
    “Like you’re investigating the Gleasons?” Judd shook his head, his wattles swinging under his chin. “Give me a break, Jim. You bring in the BCA or…Goddamnit, you bring in the BCA.”
    Stryker tipped his head toward Virgil. “Meet Virgil Flowers, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.”
    Judd’s face snapped toward Virgil. He examined him for a moment, checked the T-shirt, then said, “You don’t look like much.”
    Virgil smiled. “I’m not easily insulted by suspects,” he said. “There been too many of them over the years.”
    “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Judd asked.
    “Well, you’re pretty much the only suspect we’ve got at the moment,” Virgil said. “In a situation like this, you always ask, ‘Who inherits?’ The answer, as I understand it, is you. ”
    Judd looked at Virgil for a long three seconds, then turned to Williamson. “You keep that out of the