Dark of the Moon

Bluestem post office could tell you.”
    Again, she said, “Excuse me for another minute.” She went back into the kitchen, rattled around some more, and then after a moment of silence, Virgil heard a faint pop. A moment later, she returned with another bottle of the sauvignon blanc, and poured herself another glass.
    “Here’s a question for you,” she said. “What could possibly have happened back then—think of the worst possible thing—that would have brought Barry back here to kill people? And something else: How could Barry even get around town without being seen? Hundreds of people there know him by sight, and him coming back, everybody would be talking about it. He’d have to be an invisible man, if he’s doing this.”
    Virgil nodded. “That’s a point. But the main thing is, we don’t really know what it might be. What if he and Judd had done something really ugly, killed somebody…?”
    “But Bill was going to die anyway. Soon. Probably weeks. Why wait all this time and then come back and kill him?” She shook her head. “You know, it doesn’t sound to me like a cover-up. It sounds to me like revenge. And it’s revenge by somebody you don’t see, because everybody can see him. You know what I mean? He’s just an everyday guy. He’s there all the time, so nobody notices him.”
     
    S HE GAVE HIM the names of three more women involved with Judd. Two of them no longer lived in the area—one had moved to St. Paul, and the other had gone north to Fargo. The third one lived in Bluestem, but was divorced and had gone very fat. “I can’t see her managing to kill anyone. She can hardly walk a block.”
    “Huh. Let me ask this: have you ever heard of a character called the man in the moon?”
    She looked puzzled, and shook her head: “No. Who’s that?”
    “I don’t know. But I’d like to.”
    They talked a few more minutes, and then Virgil said, “Is that it?”
    She took a third glass of wine; was half drunk and wasn’t putting the bottle back in the refrigerator. “Are you working with Jim Stryker?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    She eyed him for a moment, and then said, “I heard one time…long time ago…that his mother, Laura, might have been sleeping with Bill Judd. And this would have been after she was married. Mark Stryker—Jim’s father—was one of those odd guys that you could push around, and people did. I’m not saying there’s anything to it, but when Mark killed himself, there were rumors that it was more than losing some land. That he found out that Laura was sleeping with Bill and wasn’t planning to stop.”
    “Is that right?”
    “That’s what I heard. I don’t know how the Gleasons would fit into that. Anyway…” Her eyes slid toward the bottle.
    “Thank you. You’ve been a help,” Virgil said, standing up.
    “If I could go back to those days…” Her voice trailed away.
    “Yeah?”
    “I’d do it in a minute,” she said. Virgil realized that she was seriously loaded. “I’d jump right back in the pile. That was the most fun I ever had in my whole damn life.”
     
    A BLEAK REALIZATION for a fiftyish schoolteacher, Virgil thought on his way back to Bluestem. Would it lead to something? A commune for elderly rockers on the West Coast? Hitting on a high-school jock? More alcohol?
     
    H E PICKED UP Joan Carson at her house and took her to the McDonald’s for dinner—Big Macs, fries, shakes, and fried pies, and she said, “I can feel the cholesterol coagulating in my heart. I’m gonna drop dead in the parking lot.” But she didn’t stop eating.
    “Ah, it’s good for you,” Virgil said, shoving more fries into his face. “Eat this until you’re forty and then nothing but vegetables for the rest of your life.”
    “Makes for a short evening, though,” she said.
    “I was hoping you’d take me out to the farm,” Virgil said.
    She looked at him: “What for?”
    “You know…to see what you do.”
    She shrugged. “Okay with me. You know anything about farms?”
    “Worked on one, up in Marshall,” Virgil said. “One of the big corporate places owned by Hostess. Harvest time, I’d be out picking Ding Dongs and Ho Hos—we didn’t do Twinkies; those were mostly up along the Red River. We’d box them up, ship them off to the 7-Elevens. Hard work, but honest. I used the money to buy BBs, so I could feed my family. Most of the local workers have been pushed out by illegals, now.”
    She eyed him for ten seconds and then said, “You do