Dark of the Moon

was a Judd heir, had also learned there might yet be a third heir? And not knowing that the third heir was already in town, had gone about eliminating any leads to him? Or might there be a conspiracy to set Jesse up with an inheritance?
    That, he thought, sounded like a TV show.
    So why are you sitting in this truck, Virgil, with a butter knife in your hands, a butter knife that you stole, showing no conscience about it at all, from the poor folks at the Holiday Inn?
    Because a butter knife was the perfect thing with which to slip the crappy lock on the Laymons’ front door.
     
    H E DIDN ’ T HIDE. He made sure Margaret was well out of town, then turned back and parked in front of her house. Put the metal wand in a jacket pocket, held the butter knife partly up his coat sleeve, in his right hand. Pushed the doorbell, heard it ring. Pushed it and held it. Dropped the butter knife into his hand. Held the doorbell, looked back toward the interstate. No headlights.
    Slipped the knife into the crack of the door, pushed, felt the lock slip, and pressed the door open with his toe. Stepped inside, into the light. Five minutes to go through the house. Checked a bedroom, found old photos, a made bed, and a framed Doors poster. Had to be Margaret’s.
    Next bedroom: an iPod on the nightstand, the bed unmade. Jesse’s. Now where…?
    Virgil looked around, turned on the wand, and began to hunt. He moved through the bedroom quickly, getting metallic pulses from almost everything. But nothing in a wrong spot…
    And finally got a strong pulse from a pair of knee-high winter boots in the closet, which was the second place he’d looked, after the chest of drawers.
    Turned the boot, and the revolver tumbled out into the lamplight.
    He didn’t touch it immediately, but he smiled. Pretty good. He took a pencil from his pocket, moved the gun around. Smith & Wesson, .357 Magnum. He slipped the pencil down the muzzle, used it to lift the gun and drop it into a Ziploc bag. He put the bag in his pocket, then sat back on his heels, working it through.
    After a minute, he moved back through the house, closed the door behind him, heard the lock latch. In the dark, he could see lightning both to the southeast and to the northwest, but could hear no thunder. Those storms would miss Bluestem. Overhead, a million stars twinkled down from the Milky Way.
     
    V IRGIL WAS PARKED on the street in front of Stryker’s house when Stryker pulled into his driveway. Virgil got out of the truck, a bad taste in his mouth. Stryker had pulled into his garage, and was standing outside waiting, the garage door rolling down, as Virgil walked up the driveway. Stryker: “Something happen?”
    “Maybe,” Virgil said. “But I’ve got a little trouble talking to you about it.”
    Stryker cocked his head: “What’s that mean?”
    “I’ve gotten a tip—won’t tell you where from—that Jesse might have been up at Judd’s place the night of the fire—that she might have walked back down the hill after it started, instead of coming in from the outside.”
    “That’s goofy,” Stryker said. “She was with a bunch of people from the bar.”
    “Then it shouldn’t be a problem,” Virgil said. “Everybody knows everybody. All we have to do is track down everybody who was up there, and find who gave her a ride up there. My tip says, she wasn’t driving her own truck.”
    “Well—let’s do that. We’ll get the guys on the gate, see who was there, see who saw who.”
    “First thing in the morning?”
    “Well—some of the guys who were on duty at the time, should be on duty right now. Let’s call Little Curly and George Merrill. They were on the gate. Let’s go do it.”
    Virgil followed him back to the courthouse, and inside. He got Curly and Merrill on the radio, told them to come in, quick. They both acknowledged, and Stryker led the way to his office, sat down, and said, “If you won’t tell me where the tip came from, it came from a deputy. I can see the guy’s problem, but goddamnit…”
    “Don’t push anything with anybody,” Virgil said. “This is tangled up enough, without you starting your reelection campaign. Just keep your mouth shut.”
     
    M ERRILL GOT BACK FIRST. He came in, thumbs hooked on his belt, looked warily at Virgil and then Stryker: “What’s up?”
    Stryker: “George, we need the names of everybody you saw down by the gate on the night of the fire…”
    Merrill said, “Well, you know, the usual