Rough Country

light: she was a square-built dishwater blonde, busty, like Wendy, attractive in a country way. Slibe was blond. Virgil had noticed that he was blond ish, behind the bald dome, but his hair was cut so short that it hadn’t registered. In this old photo, blond hair covered his ears, as long as Virgil’s was. Really blond. Rocker blond . . .
     
     
     
    THE CRIME-SCENE GUY SAID, “Might have something here.”
    Virgil turned and saw him sitting on the floor next to the hamper, looking at a pair of denim coveralls, looking at the end of one sleeve.
    “What?”
    “Can’t swear to it, but it looks like blood. Significant blood.”
    “Wouldn’t he have seen it?” Virgil asked. He went over and peered at the stain, which was about the size of a half-dollar. The stain didn’t appear to soak through; it was superficial.
    “He picked it up from the outside, so it’s probably not his.” The guy held up the coveralls, and the sleeves fell to the side. “See, it’s on the bottom of the sleeve . . . you know, like when you stick your sleeve in jelly, or something.”
    “Get it back to the lab, right now,” Virgil said. This was something. This was good. “We’ll eventually need DNA, but what I really need is to get a blood type, like, this afternoon. Gotta try to get Windrow’s blood type. Like now . . .”
    “Let’s show it to Ron first. He knows blood.”
     
     
     
    THE CRIME-SCENE GUY bagged the coveralls and they carried them down the stairs and back to the house. Sanders saw them coming, asked, “What?” and Virgil said, “We might have some blood.”
    Mapes came out to take a look, said, “It’s blood,” and the word blood stuttered through the group of deputies.
    Virgil got Sanders to send the coveralls to Bemidji with one of the deputies, and Virgil told the deputy, “Don’t kill anybody, but use your lights and get your ass up there, quick as you can. They’ll be expecting you.”
    “Abso-fucking-lutely,” the deputy said.
    Virgil called Bemidji on Slibe’s landline phone, and told them what he needed, then called Sandy, the researcher, who was still a little stiff, but agreed to find out what Windrow’s blood type was.
    Wendy came over, attracted by the buzz. “What?” she asked.
    Virgil: “Where’s your brother?”

22
    TWO PEOPLE ARRIVED in the next ten minutes. The first came slouching through the police lines, a redheaded man wearing a rumpled black sport coat over jeans and long sharp-toed black city shoes that he called Jersey Pointers. He and his girlfriend had taught Virgil how to jitterbug—Ruffe Ignace, a reporter for the recently bankrupt Minneapolis Star Tribune .
    Virgil waited arms akimbo, and Ignace came up, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, and said, “That fuckin’ Flowers. When I saw your happy face, I went ahead and told the cops that I was here to consult with you.”
    “I oughta throw your ass out,” Virgil said.
    “That’s right. I’m trying to save a bankrupt newspaper and you’re piling on,” Ignace said. “Thanks a lot, old pal. Forget everything you owe me.”
    “How you been?” Virgil asked.
    “Tired of driving a hundred and fifty miles at the crack of dawn because some asshole twenty-three-year-old editor thinks I should,” Ignace said. “I’m writing a crime novel.”
    “You and every other reporter in the state,” Virgil said.
    “Ah, they’re writing screenplays. I’m writing a novel. I even got an agent.” Ignace looked around, at the cops coming and going. “Catch anybody?”
    “Just got a break. We’re looking at a kid named Slibe Ashbach Junior, also known as the Deuce, son of Slibe Ashbach Senior, who runs this septic construction company, and brother to Wendy Ashbach, a singer in a local country band. We found some blood: it’s on its way to Bemidji.”
    Ignace asked, “Blood from McDill?”
    “No. She was killed at long range. . . . This was from yet another guy. We think there may be three connected murders and one non-fatal shooting. . . .” He took a minute to explain; he’d learned that Ignace had an eidetic memory for conversation, and would be able to write it all down later. The memory, Ignace had told him, was good for two or three hours before starting to fade. “Listen, I’m gonna have to introduce you to the sheriff. I don’t know if he’ll want you in here. Be nice, okay? We’re also looking for the father, Slibe Senior. I’m gonna hang around here until he shows up, or until somebody says