Heat Lightning

places over on the riverfront, in Minneapolis, you could punch your fist through the walls.”
    “That’s a long way from being a killer, though,” Davenport said.
    “But he is a killer,” Virgil said. “We know that for sure. I got it from Ray, who knew there’d been killing, and I got it specifically from Knox, and I don’t think Knox was lying. That isn’t Knox in those pictures.”
    ELLE SAID,“Virgil, I’m very interested in the older Utecht. Chester. Am I wrong to think that he’s actually the beginning of the sequence of deaths?”
    “Well—that’d be one way to look at it,” Virgil said. He hadn’t looked at it that way. “I didn’t ask, but I get the impression that he was an old guy who died, you know, a while back. Like a year or so. Nobody ever said it wasn’t a natural death, so I assumed that it was.”
    She had cool, level eyes. “The circumstances of his death—they would be interesting to know.”
    “Yeah. Now that you mention it, they would. I’ll check. Anybody know what time it is in Hong Kong?”
    “Early morning, I’d guess,” Davenport said.
    “I’ll try to call somebody before I go to bed,” Virgil said. “The embassy maybe? There must be some kind of police liaison in the embassy.”
    Elle said, “I have another . . . interest. This man Sinclair. If I understand you correctly, he would be almost exactly as old as the murder victims. And we know he was in Vietnam at that time, or around that time. Where was he when these murders took place in Vietnam?”
    Virgil pulled on his lip, shook his head. “All right. That’s another thing I can check. I’m friendly with his daughter; maybe I can start with her.”
     
 
THEY WORKED through it, and Davenport asked, “How’d they get to Bunton? There’s a mystery for you. An Indian hitter? An Apache?”
    “Geronimo returns,” Del said.
    So they sat and ate hamburgers and hashed it all over, and drank some beer, and Virgil lay back in a wooden recliner, looking at the stars that peeked out from behind the shine of city lights, and Letty came over and perched on the end of the recliner and was very cute and tried to wheedle the photos from him. He told her that she was too young, and she went steaming off.
    Davenport had been watching from the corner of his eye and gave Virgil the thumbs-up. Virgil stood up and stretched and said, “Think I’ll go call China,” which was something that he’d never done.
     
 
BACK AT the motel, he sprawled on the bed and started by calling the phone company to find out how he called Hong Kong, and whom to call.
    What he needed, it turned out, was the American consulate. After some switching around, he was told that the man he needed to talk to had gone to lunch and would be back in an hour. Virgil asked the woman how hot it was there, because he had the impression that Hong Kong was a hot place, and she said that it was eighty-four, and Virgil said that Minneapolis had been ninety that day, and the woman didn’t have a comment about that, so Virgil said he’d call back in an hour.
    He gave it an hour and a half, twelve-thirty in Minnesota, then talked to a man named Howard Hawn, who actually seemed interested in Virgil’s question, and explained that he spent quite a bit of time getting puke-covered American tourists out of the drunk tank. Hawn said that he had some contacts who would know about Utecht’s death, and he would find one and get a name back to Virgil.
    “But it probably won’t be until late in the afternoon—it’s hard to get people at this time of day. Lot of people take a break.”
    “Leave a name and number on my phone,” Virgil said, and Hawn said he would.
    “Pretty cool in Minneapolis today?” Hawn asked.
    “No, it was ninety—but I was up north yesterday, and it was cool at night, probably forty.”
    “Good sleeping weather,” Hawn said. “It was about eighty-seven here when I came in.” After that, there wasn’t much more to say, and Hawn said he’d leave a name and number when he got them, or have somebody call him directly.
    Virgil set his alarm clock for 7 A.M. and thought about Mead Sinclair, talking to two of the victims that night at the vet center, who spent all that time in Vietnam. Sinclair caused an itch, and had since Virgil first met him.
    And the nun, Elle, who knew a lot about crime and criminals, had picked him out of the whole circus to ask about . . . and she’d asked about Chester Utecht, and now that Virgil thought