Rough Country

mushy feel about it.”
    “Stay with it, let me know what happens,” Davenport said. “A state senator, Marsha Williams, called about the McDill case. She’s a friend of McDill’s father, wanted to see what was up.”
    “You’re taking pressure?”
    “No, not really, she was doing a favor and she asked to be kept up-to-date,” Davenport said. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll give her a ring, tell her where we’re at.”
    “You can, but, uh . . . leave a little wiggle room.”

    HE WAS WALKING back toward the emergency entrance when Wendy Ashbach ran through the doors. She was dressed in a loose white blouse, jeans, and flip-flops, her hair uncombed; she stopped, looked around, saw Virgil, and cried, “Is he dead? Where’s my brother?”
    Virgil came up and said, “He’s in the operating room. He was shot.”
    She began to weep, and pleaded with him: “He’ll be all right? He’ll be all right?”
    “He was mostly hit in the legs, but he’s hurt,” Virgil said. “He lost a lot of blood before they got him here, but they’re putting more into him. They’ve got two docs working on him.”
    “Where is he?”
    He led her along to the emergency room, where Sanders was waiting with two more deputies, and Sanders saw her and came striding over and took her hand and said, “They’re working on him. I can’t tell you how he is, yet, but as soon as I know, I’ll let you know.”
    She began getting angry, wanted to know what had happened, and Sanders put an arm around her shoulder and walked her down the hall. Virgil thought that he wasn’t bad at that—at taking care of a relative.
     
     
     
    THEY WAITED ANOTHER HOUR. Virgil took a call from Ignace, and asked, “When did you start carrying a camera?”
    “Pretty neat, huh? It’s about the size of your dick, so it’s easily concealed. Fully automatic, point-and-shoot. How’d you like the picture?”
    “Okay, I guess.”
    “I’ll make you a print,” Ignace said. “So, anything happen this morning?”
     
     
     
    TWO HOURS AFTER the Deuce went in the operating room, a stocky dark-bearded surgeon came out and said, “We’ve stabilized things, but he’s pretty messed up. We’ve stopped the worst of the bleeding, but he has multiple shattered bones in his leg and pelvis. He’s taken four units of blood. We’ve got a helicopter coming from Regions Hospital in St. Paul, we’re going to lift him out.”
    “Will he be okay?” Wendy asked.
    “He’ll need a lot of rehab,” the surgeon said. “And, uh, he’s not totally out of the woods, yet. He’s still in trouble, but we can move him.”
     
     
     
    THEY GOT MORE DETAILS, and Zoe came through the door, wrapped up Wendy. Half an hour later, the Deuce was rolled out to a waiting helicopter, saline and painkillers flowing into one arm, was loaded aboard, and was gone.

24
    VIRGIL, SANDERS, AND JOHN PHILLIPS , the county attorney, met for a few minutes at Phillips’s office. “If the blood works out, and with the credit card, and if his old man goes along, we’re probably good,” Phillips told Virgil. “But we could use a statement from Ashbach, when he recovers enough to give one. You should be right there. Get in there and read him his rights, and then see what he has to say. No big rush to get a public defender with him . . . wait until he asks.”
    “I wish I could find that damn .223,” Virgil said. “He must have it hidden somewhere around the farm. I’m going to push Wendy and Slibe about it, see if he has a special place out there, in the woods.”
    “The gun would be the icing on the cake, if we could take a couple of prints off it,” Phillips agreed.
     
     
     
    VIRGIL CALLED DAVENPORT AGAIN, to fill him in on the meeting, and to impress on him the thinness of the case against the Deuce. “Gotta push that DNA, man. I know we’re stacked up, but we need it.”
    Zoe called and said, “I’m at my house, with Wendy. You better come over here.”
     
     
     
    WENDY AND ZOE WERE sitting in Zoe’s living room, both looking a little apprehensive, when Virgil arrived. The odor of marijuana floated softly through the room, and Virgil said, “Mellowing out, huh?” and Zoe said, “Not exactly,” and Wendy said, “You’re an asshole.”
    “I didn’t like seeing your brother get shot,” Virgil said. The two women were on the couch, side by side, and he sat down opposite, in an armchair. “I don’t like seeing anybody get shot. The deputies were worried that