Mad River

mile.”
    The argument started and flowed around the group, and they started voting with shows of hands, at each intersection. But at each intersection, the possibilities multiplied, and it became apparent that there was no one solution—but there were other solutions that seemed, to the inmates, impossible. “You just can’t go there,” one of them said about a particular route. “You just run into too many people.”
    They asked questions about Sharp, Welsh, and McCall, to get an idea of what kind of people they were, and one man said, “I was kind of like them, up to the time I got caught. I’ll tell you what, they won’t go too far from home. They won’t get down into no strange country, where they don’t know how things work. They might try to go up to the Cities, since they been there, but too many people would see them. . . . I’d say, they might go over into the next county, but not too much farther.”
    “I bet they go someplace down around I-90, thinking that maybe if things quiet down, they could make a break for it some night. Get a long way down the road, east or west.”
    A couple of other inmates, who’d been silent up to that point, chipped in to disagree: people like Sharp and Welsh, they thought, might talk about LA, but they’d never go there, not when push came to shove. They might go to Worthington, or Windom, but it’d be unlikely that they’d go much farther than that, especially since Sharp had been wounded.
    Eventually, after two hours, Virgil had three relatively small circles on the map of south-central Minnesota. Most of the inmates—there were always a few holdouts—thought they’d be in one or the other, and most thought that the middle one, one that bent to the southeast, would be the most likely.
    The circle took in the southeastern corner of Bare County.
    “I think we’re done,” Virgil said, looking at the map. “I appreciate the help, and I’ll tell the warden that, and anybody else who’ll listen.”
    They all seemed pleased with that, and then the hulking blond man raised his hand and Virgil nodded at him.
    “I’ll tell you something. Jimmy and Becky were partners, and Jimmy got shot. Tom McCall said they went to this house to get medicine, and she fucked him on the bed there. He’s lying. She wouldn’t fuck him like that. A woman wouldn’t do that. They’ll put out almost anytime, but they wouldn’t if somebody got shot in a bank robbery. That kind of thing don’t get women hot. It pushes some other button.”
    “There is some evidence that they had a sexual encounter on the bed in the back,” Virgil said.
    “I didn’t say they didn’t fuck, I said she didn’t fuck him,” the blond man said. “What happened was, he raped her. The thing is, a bank robbery, and a bunch of shooting, could get a guy all hot. Wouldn’t get a woman hot, not if somebody was hurt. Not if it was a friend.”
    Half the crowd looked skeptical, and half looked like they might agree. The blond said, “Think it over. You’re McCall, you’re hot for this chick, but you’ve never been able to get to her. Here’s your last chance, ’cause you’re going to turn them in. What have you got to lose? They’re already gonna get you for a bunch of murders, what’s a little rape, even if they believe her? So, you fuck her. But she’s still trying to get away—get medicine, get back to Jimmy. She’s gonna take out fifteen minutes to fuck somebody after they just killed this farm lady, and somebody else might come at any minute? I don’t believe it. I believe McCall fucked her, but I think it was a straight-out rape.”
    Again, the crowd was divided, but Virgil said to the man, “I know Tom McCall just a little bit, from having talked to him. I believe you might be right. He’s a fuckin’ weasel.”
    “I am right,” he said.
    “And I’ll follow it up,” Virgil said. To the rest of the group: “I want to thank everybody for your help. I’ll do whatever I can to see you get credit for it. And keep an eye on the TV. You’ll see how the story comes out, and whether or not you were right.”
    •   •   •
    VIRGIL, back on the street, called Davenport and told him that he was coming through St. Paul before heading back west. “Meet you at Cecil’s,” Davenport said. “I’ll buy you lunch and you can tell me about it.”

14
    BECKY WELSH HAD SPENT a lot of time around rough guys, and had slept with a few, but had never before experienced anything