Dark of the Moon

to wash my back?”
     
    W HEN J OAN had gone, Virgil went online, checked his mail. Sandy, Davenport’s researcher, had shipped him what she could find on Williamson, and it was all fairly routine. No arrests, three speeding tickets over two decades, three years in the Army, including Iraq in ’90. Never married. Adoptive parents not listed in Minnesota directories, hadn’t filed income taxes with Minnesota in at least ten years.
    He didn’t bother checking Jesse: he had Jesse’s story.
    Judd: he spent an hour crawling through the paper he had on Judd. The accountant, Olafson, had done the numbers, but he was hoping for a name, an event, an association…
    And did no better than he had with Jesse.
    He thought about the .357. Wondered how long he should wait. Sooner or later, he thought, there was a good chance that somebody would suggest searching Jesse’s house. He wanted to see where the suggestion came from, but didn’t want to wait too long.
     
    V IRGIL CAUGHT S TRYKER at ten o’clock, as he was talking to a slightly hungover carpenter with a bandage on his nail hand. The carpenter said that he’d ridden up to the fire with a friend named Dick Quinn. Stryker skated around a direct question of whether the carpenter knew how Jesse Laymon got there, but instead showed him a list of the names he had, and checked off who rode with whom, and who drove.
    The carpenter had seen Jesse, but didn’t know how she got there. When they walked back out to Stryker’s truck, Virgil asked, “Anybody see her truck? Or give her a ride?”
    Stryker said, “One guy saw her and thought her truck was at the end of the line. But nobody was looking at trucks, they were looking at the fire.”
    “Want to know what I would do?” Virgil asked.
    Stryker shook his head: “After yesterday, I’m not sure.”
    “I’d have one of your deputies watch Williamson, get one to track Bill Judd, and one to watch Jesse. If two of them look like they’re about to collide…”
    “If I stake them out, everybody in the county will know in fifteen minutes,” Stryker said. “Including them.”
    “Better than piling up more dead people,” Virgil said.
    “Virgil…let me finish this. I only have to find a couple more people. Then we’ll talk about a stakeout. Now—what’re you doing today?”
    “Maybe push Williamson,” Virgil said. “Maybe push Jesse. Maybe talk to Judd some more. Somewhere in that triangle, there’s an answer.”
    “You do that, and I’ll nail down this list. Then let’s talk.”
     
    V IRGIL HAD JUST GOTTEN in his truck when his phone rang. He opened it: Pirelli.
    “We’re getting together at the Holiday Inn, in Worthington,” Pirelli said. “There’s a rumor going around that we’re about to raid the meatpacking plant, looking for illegals. If you and Stryker want in, you need to be here.”
    “When are you moving?” Virgil tapped his horn at Stryker, who looked back. Virgil waved him over.
    “Around noon,” Pirelli said. “Feur is on his way back to his farm from Omaha. We’ve got a guy just loaded fifty gallons of gas into the back of his truck, up at the ethanol plant. He should be getting to the farm a little after Feur, unless one of them stops along the way.”
    Virgil rolled down his truck window, put his finger over the mouthpiece, and said to Stryker, “Pirelli.”
    Pirelli was saying, “…you need to get briefed, if you want to be in on it.”
    “We’ll be there by eleven,” Virgil said. “You need more troops?”
    “No. And we want to keep this off the air. We don’t want any curious deputies sticking their noses in. We don’t need strange guys with guns.”
    “Give us an hour,” Virgil said. He closed the phone.
    Stryker: “Today?”
    “We’re leaving right now for Worthington,” Virgil said. “Pirelli wants to keep it off the air. You ought to check out, make up some kind of excuse, and we’re rolling.”
    “Hot dog,” Stryker said.
     
    T HEY SLAMMED Virgil’s gear in the back of Stryker’s Ford, and Stryker called dispatch and told them he’d be out of touch for a while. The dispatcher said, after a pause, “Okay, there.” Stryker said to Virgil, “He thinks I’m going to Jesse’s for a nooner,” and he threw back his head and laughed.
    Virgil said, “Not a bad idea.”
    “Tough choice, fuckin’ or fightin’,” Stryker said. “In the long run, I prefer fuckin’, but at any given moment, fightin’ can while away the hours.”
     
    T HEY MADE