Heat Lightning

pain pills and alcohol.”
    “Ah. A suicide,” Virgil said. “Nobody told me that on this end.”
    “There was no official finding of suicide,” Chen said. “The cause was recorded as ‘unknown.’ However, the pathologist, who is quite competent, told me privately that Mr. Utecht had some bruises on his arms above his elbows, and around his ankles, that would be consistent with restraint.”
    “Restraint.”
    “Yes. But restraint by who, or what—or even if there was any restraint—is unknown. We looked for something, but couldn’t find anything at all. The fact is, he was elderly, alone, sick, probably dying, and running out of money. The easiest answer is suicide or accident; however, I wasn’t entirely satisfied by that. I looked for anyone who might have had any animus toward him. Anyone who could have carried out such a sophisticated murder, or would have any reason to. I found nothing; and frankly, Utecht was not important enough to be the object of such a murder. Now you say there was a murder in Vietnam, that he was involved, and that others who were involved are also being killed.”
    “Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” Virgil said.
    “That may give me a few more questions to ask. But I can also tell you this: we are quite certain that Mr. Utecht had connections with your CIA in his past. He didn’t work for them, he wasn’t paid, but he had . . . connections, if you see what I’m saying. He helped them when he could, and they helped him when they wished.”
    “You don’t think the CIA is killing these people?”
    “I think nothing in particular,” Chen said. “But who really knows what happened in the last minutes before the victory? The whole business of the ship, this sounds like too complicated an operation for one man. If it were a CIA operation that had gone bad, if, as you say, you have photographs of a man raping a dead woman, if babies were killed . . . Well, this is an ugly thing. With the controversy about the CIA, perhaps they wouldn’t like to have this float up from the past. Especially if the men were willing to talk about it.”
    They let the satellite idle for a moment, then Virgil said, “Mr. Chen, if you’re curious, I will call you and tell you how this works out. I would deeply appreciate it if you would ask your questions and let me know the answers. I don’t like the sound of this CIA connection. I don’t like that.”
    “Yes, because what could you do? Your hands would be tied.”
    They talked for a few more minutes, details and phone numbers, then Virgil rang off, and as he walked back to the cabin, he could hear Mai talking. He stepped inside, and she smiled and said, “Daddy . . . I will be home when I will be home. We’re just going out fishing. I will see you when I see you. Good-bye.”
     
 
THEY DROPPED the boat in the water and headed out, a good blue day without wind, the water like green-black Jell-O, not quite still, but jiggling from the distant passings of small motorboats. Virgil found a weed bed, and explained about musky fishing. “There’s a cliché about musky—that they’re the fish of ten thousand casts. Hard to catch. Which means, when you go musky fishing, you probably won’t actually have to deal with catching one.”
    He tied a black-and-orange-rubber Bull Dawg lure onto one of the rods, flipped it out, retrieved it, showed her how the tail rippled at a certain speed, showed her how to cast with her arms and her back instead of her wrists, steadied her in the boat with a hand on her waist and back and occasionally her butt. Twenty or so casts out, the lure was hit by a small northern pike, two feet long, which hooked itself and then flipped once out of the water and gave up, and she reeled it in. Virgil wet a hand in the lake, grabbed the fish at the back of its head, unhooked it, and dropped it back in, looked up to see her watching in fascination.
    “You threw it back! That’s the biggest fish I ever caught!” she said.
    “Shoot . . . hmm, I didn’t think you’d want it. Besides, if you want one, we’ll catch more.”
    “Well, I guess I don’t really want one. I like fish . . . but . . .”
    So they went on around, and she caught two more northerns, which were easy, and lost a fish that Virgil thought might have been a small musky.
    “You fish for a while; I’m going to drink a Coke,” she said.
    So he fished as she sat in the boat, and then she said, “Is that a thunderstorm?”
    He looked off to the