Mad River

do you think about that?”
    “I think there’s a good chance that they will,” Virgil said. “I think there’s a good chance that they already have—they parked that truck in somebody’s garage, and that somebody is already dead, and they’re on their way to Los Angeles.”
    “Now what?”
    Virgil said, “Well, I’m here. I think I’ll go talk to a couple of O’Learys. The other guy who got killed . . . Emmett Williams? You know where I’d find his people?”
    “His sister lives here, he was staying with her. I’ll get her address if you want it, but that looked to us like a killing of opportunity. They were running and he just got in the way and got shot down. I don’t think there’s much in it, for you.”
    “Probably not,” Virgil agreed. “But what else am I gonna do?”
    •   •   •
    VIRGIL GOT ADDRESSES for the O’Learys and Williams’s sister, and got them spotted on a city map by the sheriff’s secretary. The O’Learys lived out from the center of town, on a ridge overlooking the river; Williams’s sister, whose name was LuAnne Rogers, lived in an apartment building on the edge of the downtown, a few blocks from the courthouse. Virgil drove over, parked in front of a hardware store, and walked back across the street. Rogers’s apartment was over a bridal and prom dress shop. Virgil climbed the stairs and knocked on the door.
    The door was opened by a small boy, maybe five. “Your mom home?” Virgil asked.
    A woman called, “Just a minute,” and Virgil heard dishes clattering, and then a lanky good-looking black woman came to the door, carrying a dish towel, and asked, “Can I help you?”
    “I’m with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Virgil said. “I want to chat with you about your brother, if you’re Miz Rogers.”
    “Yeah, I am. Come in.”
    Virgil stepped inside, and the woman said to the boy, “You go on and play your game. I’m putting you on the watch, one half hour.”
    The boy scuttled away, and the woman said, “He’s got a Wii skateboard game.”
    Virgil said he was sorry about her brother, and asked if she knew, or if any of her friends might know, if there was any connection between Williams and Sharp, Welsh, or McCall.
    “That’s the first time I ever heard those names,” she said. “You know who did it?”
    Virgil said, “Maybe. We’re looking for three young people, two men and a woman. You’ll be hearing about it on TV.”
    “I don’t allow much TV in here,” she said. “And if I don’t allow Brad to watch it, I can’t watch myself. But I guess I’ll make an exception.”
    She said again that she hadn’t heard of any of the three. “Emmett was here for two weeks, and he was going back home next week. He really didn’t have time to meet anybody up here.”
    “Where’s home?”
    “Kansas City. He’d been hassled around by his ex-wife down there, and he came up here to get away for a while. Then . . .” She teared up a bit, and wiped the tears away. “Emmett and I weren’t real close. He was seven years younger than I am, and . . . we just weren’t that close.”
    She said her husband, Bradley Senior, was a plant engineer who installed computer-assisted wood-cutting machines and designed production lines, and was doing that at a local furniture factory. They’d been in town for six months and would be there for another three, and then would move on to the next job.
    They talked about Emmett, and about growing up in Kansas City. Virgil decided after a few minutes that she had no real information. When he stood up to leave, she said, “I hate to ask you this, because this is all so terrible . . . but, our car?”
    “I’ll try to get it back to you quick as we can,” Virgil said. “I just can’t promise when that’ll be. Do you have some other way to get around?”
    “The company rented us a car, but we’d like to get our own back. It’s pretty new.”
    “I’ll see what I can do,” Virgil promised.
    •   •   •
    ROGERS HAD BEEN straightforward about her distance from her brother, and though she was saddened and depressed by the killing, she was dealing with it. The O’Learys were a different matter.
    Marsha O’Leary, Ag’s mother, was still in the hospital, suffering from exhaustion. Her husband, John, was at home when Virgil arrived, taking a break from the hospital vigil, replaced by Marsha’s mother. The surviving daughter, Mary, and four sons, Jack, James, Rob, and