Dark of the Moon

the corner of the bed, within easy reach.
    Jensen was hung up in the office. “Lot of paper,” he said, looking up from the office chair, his lap full of files. “So far, nothing about being adopted. Got job stuff; he was in the Army in Iraq in ninety, in supply…No guns at all.”
    The cop in the kitchen had come up empty, and had then gone out to the garage, gotten a stepladder, and now had his head poked through a hatch that led into a space under the roof. “Lots of insulation,” he said. “Lots of dust. Doesn’t look like it’s been opened in years…”
    Virgil was working through the living room—found another stash of porn, this on video, behind the DVD player—when he heard the deputy outside calling, “Hey, hey, Todd. Hold it, Todd.”
    Virgil drew his pistol, felt Jensen moving in the office, and then Williamson came through the screen door and the front door on the run. Virgil, from the corner of his eye, could see through the porch screen that Williamson’s car had been dumped in the street, the door still open.
    Williamson’s hands were empty but he was screaming and came straight at Virgil, and Virgil pushed the weapon back into the holster and when Williamson kept coming, hands up, he took one wrist and turned him, pushed him, and Jensen was there to push him again, and the other cop came in from the kitchen, and the outside deputy ran in the front door, his pistol drawn, and Virgil turned to Williamson and Virgil was shouting, “Hands over head, hands on the wall, on the wall.”
    Williamson shouted, “What the fuck are you doing, what the fuck is going on…” but he put his hands on the wall, and Virgil patted him down.
    “What the fuck…”
    Virgil said, “You can slow down, or we’ll have to put some handcuffs on you. Calm down; you can step away from the wall.”
    Williamson’s face was dead red, and he was breathing like a man having a heart attack. “What the hell is going on?”
    “We’re searching your house. We have a warrant.”
    Williamson’s mouth worked, but nothing came out for a minute, and then Virgil saw him relax, make the small move that meant that he’d gotten it together. Virgil stepped back. “You okay?”
    Williamson, still angry, but not uncontrolled: “What…are…you doing?”
    “We’re looking for anything that might tie you to the murders of the Gleasons, the Schmidts, and Bill Judd.”
    “What…what?”
    “We know about your adoption,” Virgil said.
    “My adoption? My adoption?” His mouth hung open for a moment, then, “What about my adoption?”
    “You were born here in Bluestem when your mother was killed in an automobile accident after a party at Bill Judd’s. You’re Bill Judd’s son.”
    Williamson actually staggered back away from Virgil. “That’s not possible. How is that possible? That’s horseshit.”
    “You didn’t know?” Virgil was skeptical.
    “No!” Williamson shouted. “I didn’t. I don’t believe it. My mother…” He reeled away. “My mother got pregnant and gave me up for adoption. Didn’t want me. That’s what my mom told me. My real mom.”
    “Your real mom…?”
    “My real parents…” Williamson’s face had gone from red to white, and now was going red again. “David and Louise Williamson. Where did you get this bullshit?” He looked around. “What have you done to my house? What have you done? You motherfuckers are gonna pay for this…”
     
    T HEY COOLED HIM OFF and Virgil told him, bluntly: “We’re going through here inch by inch. Frankly, it’s not possible that you wound up here by accident.”
    “Not by accident. Not by accident,” Williamson said. “I was working up in Edina, at the suburban papers, and Bill—it was Bill, not me. My editor met Bill at an editor-and-publisher meeting. My guy came back and said Judd had seen some of my stuff, and wondered if I’d be open to working in a small town.”
    “So you left Edina and moved to Bluestem?” Virgil’s eyebrow went up. “Not a common thing to do.”
    Williamson looked around and said, “Okay if I sit down?” Virgil nodded, and he dropped onto a couch, and wiped his sweaty forehead on the sleeve of his shirt. “Look. I was working in the Cities, I was making thirty-eight thousand a year, and it wasn’t going to get any better. I learned journalism in the Army; I don’t have a college degree. The big papers were losing staff, everything was going in the toilet. So Judd says, come on down to Bluestem,