Mad River

night, and he and the old lady—or somebody—drank five cans of it, and maybe three more Buds. He’s wearing a T-shirt, and it’s been pretty cold out. He shaves, because I can see a little shaving nick under his ear, healing up, day or two old, but he’s not shaven here. Ann is wearing slippers. That all makes me think they’d been up late drinking Friday night, probably watching TV, got up Saturday morning and hadn’t been up long. They were killed early in the morning, while they were having coffee, before George had a chance to shave or Ann got completely dressed. No sign of a break-in, or anything. And if you were a robber, would you pick this place?”
    Duke looked around and shook his head. “I guess not.”
    “Whoever did it, took George’s wallet, I think. We’ll have the crime-scene guys check around for Ann’s purse, but I’ll bet it’s either gone, or the money’s gone. It looks to me like somebody came here, somebody they knew, but who might have been unwelcome. They have an argument, and boom. Whoever it was needed money, because they took the time to rob the bodies, even though they couldn’t have had much cash—I mean, George charged a twelve-pack on his Visa card.”
    “So . . . an argument about money, with somebody that they knew,” Duke said.
    “Feels that way to me,” Virgil said. “Somebody who might have expected to get some money. I think we’ve got to take a real quick look at this daughter . . . though, mmm, I’m not sure a daughter would have brought a gun in, to kill her parents. That doesn’t feel quite right.”
    “We’ve got the names of a couple of her friends. We can find out where she is,” the deputy said.
    “If she’s in the Cities, I’ll have somebody run over and talk to her,” Virgil said. “At the same time, we need to look at other possibilities. Friends, other relatives. People George has been hanging out with.”
    “We can do that,” Duke said.
    “I talked to the neighbors,” Darrell said. “I don’t think he had much in the way of friends. I can check out Ann, down at the nursing home.”
    “Not much more we can do tonight, though,” Virgil said to Duke. “I’ll want to talk to the woman who found them. Have some of your people close the place up until Crime Scene gets here. They’re on the way, should be here in a couple of hours.”
    Duke nodded and said, “I’ll take you over to the neighbor lady’s. The one who found them.”
    •   •   •
    THE NEIGHBOR LADY was named Margery Garfield, and she didn’t know anything. She’d wanted to talk to Ann Welsh about trading shifts at the nursing home the next Monday night, so she could go to parent-teacher night at the school, and had been trying to find Welsh all day. “I seen their car was still in the garage, but I never did see them. I was knocking on the front door, and I felt something funny might be going on, so I went around to the back, and peeked through the glass, and I could see Ann on the floor. I didn’t know it was a body, at first, but then, my eyes got adjusted, and I was pretty sure it was a body, so I ran back home and called the sheriff.”
    “You didn’t touch anything?” Virgil asked.
    She shook her head. “I never went inside. I did put my hand on the window glass, trying to see in better.”
    He talked to her a few more minutes, and finally ran out of ground; and she asked, “I suppose Crime Scene will be coming around?”
    “Pretty soon,” Virgil said.
    “They oughta be able to figure it out,” she said.
    •   •   •
    VIRGIL AND DUKE said good-bye, and they went outside and Duke asked, “You get annoyed by that? The Crime Scene thing?”
    “No. People watch TV. No way to stop that,” Virgil said.
    “It’d get under my skin, after a while,” Duke said. “So, you’re going to stick around?”
    Virgil nodded. “Sure. I’ll run over to the Ramada in Marshall. I’ll call back to the Cities tomorrow morning and see if I can get somebody to look for the daughter. I’ll give you my cell phone number, if you come up with anything overnight. Main thing is, we get the scene processed. But we won’t get much going at four o’clock on Sunday morning.”
    Duke said: “Okay. I’m heading home. I’ll have my men seal up this place. I’ll be going to church in the morning, and I’ll be back here right after.”
    “I’m planning to do that myself,” Virgil said. “The worship service starts at eight o’clock. I’ll