Heat Lightning

mother’s house. . . .
     
 
VIRGIL WALKED OVER, looked in the car. A white guy was working with gloves and a UV light on the far side; on the street side, Grey sat slumped in his seat, his safety belt still looped around his chest. He turned back to Bunch: “If an Indian man did the shooting—Louis told me somebody saw a guy who might be the shooter—that’d mean, what? That it’s somebody with connections up here?”
    Bunch shrugged. “That was Cliff Bear who saw him—but he didn’t recognize him, and he would have recognized him if the guy was from up here. He could be from the Cities. . . .”
    “There are some drug connections between here and some Indian people down in the Cities, the way I understand it,” Virgil said. “Was Ray tied into that?”
    “Not as far as I know. Ray used to do a little reefer, but you know—nothing serious,” Bunch said. “He wasn’t dealing or anything. Not up here, anyway.”
    “It seems like Ray had to be fingered somehow,” Virgil said. “How would a guy who doesn’t know this place find his way back to Ray’s mom’s house, then shoot a cop who never even took his pistol out?”
    Another Indian cop had edged over to listen, and now he chipped in: “You’re thinking what I’m thinking?”
    “What are you thinking?” asked Virgil.
    “That Olen recognized the guy who flagged him down? Didn’t think it was a big deal because it was another Indian guy?”
    Virgil nodded at him. “Actually, I wasn’t thinking that, but it’s a good thought.”
    Bunch said, “We got some assholes up here, and I’m not saying there aren’t people up here who wouldn’t shoot a man, because there are. So if Ray turned up dead, and you say, okay, Red Lake did it, I’d think about it. It’s possible. But this lemon deal? What about all these other people killed with lemons? You think Indian people did all of them?”
    Virgil said, “No. I don’t. What I’m thinking is, they were killed by somebody who had the connections to get a killing done up here.”
    The second Indian cop said, “Have to be drugs, then. That’s the only kind of organized crime we’ve got. Everything else is disorganized.”
     
 
THE GUY who’d been working in the car stood up, walked around the car, and asked Virgil, “You’re Virgil?”
    “Yes.”
    “Ron Mapes. I’m with the Bemidji office.” He was a balding, ginger-haired man wearing surgical gloves. “I just talked to our guys in Bemidji at the veterans’ memorial. They say that Bunton may have slashed him with his fingernails. Got some blood and a little skin.”
    “That’s terrific. Get it to the lab quick as you can.”
    Mapes nodded. “Of course. Not much up here, so far, except footprints.”
    “Yeah?”
    Mapes led the way back down the road, pointed out two footprints marked with little orange plastic flags.
    “Can you tell anything from them?” Virgil asked.
    “Couple things—he’s got a small foot. Size eight or nine, I’d guess,” Mapes said. “The shoes had no cleats or even ripples—they were flat leather bottoms with low heels. Like loafers. They weren’t boots of any kind, or sneakers. More like dress shoes.”
    “So a small guy,” Virgil said.
    “Yeah. The ground is damp and he didn’t sink in too deep. Put that with the small foot, and I’d say a small guy with small feet. We figure—the officers here figure—that he had the Bunton house under surveillance somehow, which means that he had to be parked back in the woods somewhere. There’s a boat landing road a hundred yards or so from the Bunton place; it’s possible he was back in there. We’ll check in the morning when it gets light—can’t see much with just a flash.”
    “What do you think you’d find?”
    Mapes shrugged. “Well, I’m hoping for a matchbook that says ‘Moonlight Café, St. Paul, Minnesota,’ and inside is written, ‘Call Sonia.’”
    “That’d be good,” Bunch said.
    Virgil was patient. “What,” he asked, “do you think you’ll find?”
    “Best case? More blood. If he was doing surveillance from up close, he was walking through heavy brush in the dark. If he scratched himself . . . But that’d be best case. More likely, a little fabric, which we might be able to match with some of his clothing, if we find him. If he fell, maybe a handprint. Or maybe he did drop something—who knows?”
    “Find any .22 shells on the street?” Virgil asked.
    “Nope.”
    “So if he’s using a silencer—we think