Mad River

college, either one. You know, a firstborn, with all the firstborn traits: bossy, pushy, privileged,” Deren said. “And then, Dick wasn’t an O’Leary. They are very good people, to a fault. Ag felt like she was on a railroad train to medical school. Had to be the hardest worker in high school to get the grades to get the best slots in college. Had to be the hardest worker in college to get the grades to get into medical school. Dick was like, ‘Hey, chill out. Have a couple beers. Let’s get in the car and run down to Vegas and roll the dice and go to the shows and get drunk and make love. . . .’ So, they wound up getting married, and after a while, guess what?”
    “What?”
    She smiled ruefully. “She found out she was an O’Leary.”
    “He couldn’t be too bright if he paid Jimmy Sharp to kill her,” Virgil said.
    “Unless he planned to kill Jimmy Sharp afterward,” she said. When Virgil’s eyes went up, she hastily added, “I don’t know anything. I’m just saying . . . you know. And he could do it. And who’d ever see that connection?”
    Virgil asked, “What do you do, Miz Deren?”
    “I’m a bookkeeper, right now. I’m almost finished with my degree in accounting. I’m going to be a CPA.”
    “Can you keep this conversation quiet?” Virgil asked.
    “I can. But you have to get him. Dick, I mean.”
    “We’ll see. Right now, this is mostly conjecture.”
    “When you said he was playing pool with Jim Sharp the day before? That’s when it added up for me. He did it. Paid Jim Sharp.”
    •   •   •
    HER OPINION ABOUT that was interesting, but it’d be useless in court, Virgil thought, as he ambled back toward town. He looked in the doorway at Roseanne’s, saw that Morton was still there, leaning against a wall, his pool cue grounded while two other guys worked through a game.
    Virgil backed out, walked down to the motel, said hello to a few people, then went to his room, changed into dark slacks, a sport coat, and a collared shirt with a necktie. He saw Jenkins as he was walking toward the door, and Jenkins said, “Don’t tell me you’ve got a date.”
    “I’m talking to a guy. I was watching him a little, a couple hours ago, in a beer joint, but he wasn’t looking at me. I don’t want him to remember that I was there.”
    Jenkins nodded and said, “You need somebody to watch your back?”
    “Naw. I’m good.”
    He walked back to The Bush, still not in a hurry. When he stepped inside, the talk immediately dropped off: his dress had given him away as unusual, which he’d expected. He looked around, saw Morton looking at him, nodded at him, went that way. “Are you Don Morton?”
    Morton nodded, and unconsciously chalked his cue tip. “Yeah. Who’re you?”
    “I’m Virgil Flowers. I’m an agent with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I need to talk to you for a moment.”
    A woman on a stool next to a bowling machine said, “He is. I seen him on TV.”
    Morton asked, “What’d I do?”
    “Nothing, I hope,” Virgil said. “We’ve been talking to a lot of people, and one of them told us you were playing some pool with Jimmy Sharp down here, before all the shooting started. We’re just wondering what he had to say—what might have set him off.”
    “I don’t know nothing,” Morton said.
    “So come and answer my questions,” Virgil said. “We can just go sit in the front booth, where it’s a little quieter.”
    Morton shrugged, a nervous assent, and followed Virgil back to the front booth. The woman who’d seen Virgil on TV asked, “Can I listen?”
    Virgil grinned at her and said, “No. But I’ll talk to you next, if you want. Did you see Jimmy down here?”
    “Yup, I did,” she said.
    “Then sit right there,” Virgil said.
    •   •   •
    HE AND MORTON sat in the booth and Virgil said, “I’ll buy you another beer, if you want,” and Morton showed some broken teeth and said, “I couldn’t turn that down.”
    Virgil waved over the only waitress, and Morton ordered a Bud, and Virgil asked him, “You got anything at all that might be interesting? About Jimmy Sharp? What’d he talk about?”
    “Well, he wanted to shoot for dollars, which is pretty low-rent, but he got some games, and . . . mostly talked about being up in the Cities. ’Bout the assholes up there. Had a really good-looking chick with him, this Becky, and this other guy, the one that got caught.” He frowned, then flicked a finger at