Heat Lightning

he thought, if they were really a bunch of crooks, they probably had unregistered phones, pay-as-you-go, which were cheap at Wal-Mart. Benson, the guy who’d sealed Wigge’s house, was compiling the numbers from the Knoxes. Virgil stopped by his office: “Anything interesting?”
    He shrugged, tapped on his computer for a moment, then printed out a list of numbers. “This is what we got. Numbers. It’s a pretty big business—the numbers I’ve been able to find all go out to places that a heavy-equipment operator might call. But there are some that I couldn’t tell you who the people are . . . but none of them’s name is Knox.”
    Virgil checked the numbers against the number from Wigge’s pad: nothing matched.
    “Well, keep piling them up,” Virgil said. “I’m done at the house, if you want to take a team over.”
     
 
SANDY CALLED HIM on his cell phone as he was walking up to Davenport’s office. “Where are you?”
    “About thirty feet down the hall,” he said.
    She hung up and stuck her head out of Davenport’s office. “Carl Knox has a cabin,” she said. “What was that number you found at Wigge’s? Was it up north?”
    “Yup. You got Knox’s number?”
    “Yes, but it’s not under his name—it’s under one of his daughter’s names, Patricia Ann Knox-Miller. But the cabin is his. He deducts the taxes.”
    “What’s the number?” He opened his notebook as she read out the number for the cabin.
    “That’s weird,” he said when she’d finished.
    “What?”
    “That’s the number,” he said. He looked up at her. “We found the hideout.”
     
VIRGIL CALLED the number again, and once again failed to get an answer. Since he had the phone in his hand, he called the Sinclair number again, and this time, Mead Sinclair picked up the phone.
    “I’d like to talk to you; I’ve got a Vietnam story for you,” Virgil said.
    “Always happy to hear Vietnam stories,” Sinclair said. “Especially the ones where the American imperialist running-dogs get their comeuppance.”
    Virgil thought about that for a second, then said, “I bet you really pissed a lot of people off in your day.”
    “You have no idea,” Sinclair said. “When are you coming over?”
    “Right now.”
    “ARE YOU going north?” Sandy asked.
    “Probably—but right now, I’m going over to the Sinclairs’. Could you get some plat books and spot Knox’s place for me? Just send it to my e-mail.”
    “When are you going?”
    “Don’t know,” Virgil said.
    “I was thinking of going dancing tonight,” Sandy said. “If you’re around, we’ll be at the Horse’s Head.”
    “Sandy, you know . . .”
    “What?”
    “If I went dancing with you, I don’t think Lucas would like it,” Virgil said. “We’re in the same group.”
    “Don’t get your honey where you get your money,” she said, one fist on her hip.
    “I wouldn’t put it that way,” Virgil said. “But—think about it.”
    “I refuse to think about it,” she said. “ You think about it, when you’re driving your lonely ass up to some godforsaken cabin in the North Woods.”
    “Sandy ...”
     
 
VIRGIL WANTED to check with Davenport in person, but Carol, his secretary, said he was in his third crisis meeting at the Department of Public Safety downtown. “He’ll be completely insane by the time he gets back. I know he wants to see you. He wants to make sure there’s not a boat on the back of your truck.”
    “I’ll be back,” Virgil said.
    In the hallway, he ran into Shrake, who was coming down the hall carrying a tennis racket with a cannonball-sized hole through the face of it, the strings hanging free. Virgil didn’t ask. Instead, he said, “Hey—Shirley Knox sorta liked your looks.”
    “Yeah?” Shrake said. “I sorta liked hers, too.”
    “Gotta be careful,” Virgil said.
    “I’m cool,” Shrake said. “So, uh . . . what’d she say about me?”
     
 
THE DAY WAS getting away from him, he thought, sliding from afternoon into evening as he got to Sinclair’s apartment. Sinclair was barefoot, wearing white cotton slacks and a black silk shirt open at the throat. “Mai’s not here,” he said. “We should be able to talk in peace and quiet.”
    “She dancing?”
    “Grocery shopping. She’s running around somewhere, looking for a particular kind of food store. Some place that has seafood and weird spices.”
    “Gorgeous and a good cook.”
    Sinclair laughed. “She taught herself to cook fourteen things