Rough Country

if he got back in the trees with his rifle, he could pick them off one at a time.”
    “They could have just stayed back and waited—they didn’t have to shoot him,” Wendy said. “He was probably scared to death, with a helicopter coming down on him, and all those boats.”
    “You were out there?” Virgil asked.
    Wendy shook her head and Zoe said, “No, but it’s all over the radio. Everybody’s talking about it.”
    Virgil said, “Wendy—I’m sorry.”
    Zoe: “Wendy: tell him.”
    Wendy started to cry. “Ah, God,” she said, “this is so awful.”
    Virgil: “Tell me what?”
    Wendy looked at Zoe, who nodded, and turned back to Virgil and said, “I don’t think the Deuce did it. I think my dad did.”
    After a moment, Virgil asked, “Why do you think that?”
    She said, “The day Erica got killed . . . I left out of there early in the morning, but I was feeling really up about everything. Excited about what we might do. We were recording at the Schoolhouse that afternoon, and the night before she seemed really into it. How we did that. How it all worked. So I thought, maybe I’d run by and invite her to come down and sit in. We took a dinner break and I ran out to the Eagle Nest.”
    “What time was this?” Virgil asked.
    “Six-thirty, or so.”
    “You didn’t see her?”
    “No. She wasn’t there. Her car was, but she was out somewhere, I didn’t know where. Probably, I guess, she was already paddling down to see the eagles.”
    “Okay.”
    “Anyway, we had the session going, so I had to get back. When I came out of the lodge driveway, I thought I saw Dad’s pickup going by. On the road. I went out after him, but the truck was really going fast, and I never did catch it. But it looked like his.”
    Virgil looked at her for a minute: “That’s it?”
    She turned to Zoe again, who said, “Better tell him the rest.”
    “What?”
    Wendy was reluctant, but she said, “The next morning, I heard from Cat, who heard from a deputy, that Erica had been killed down in that pond, and that people were waiting for the state cops to come. I freaked out. I mean, I really freaked. I got in my car and I drove out there, and parked up in one of those driveways. I could see where somebody had walked back through those weeds so I went through and looked out on the lake and saw the boats . . . about a billion mosquitoes . . . so I watched them for a minute and then I snuck back to my car and took off. I was really scared.”
    Virgil rubbed his face with his hands. “Ah, man. What kind of shoes were you wearing?”
    “Mephistos. Zoe told me that night that you were looking for Mephistos. I didn’t want to throw them away, because they cost more than any shoes I ever had, so I hid them at the Schoolhouse in my equipment box.”
    “You told me I could talk about it,” Zoe said to Virgil.
    “Yes, I did,” Virgil said.
    “One more thing,” Zoe said. She glanced at Wendy, then said, “The band was working on a song on Tuesday afternoon. . . . Slibe came looking for Wendy. McDill was there. Wendy got Slibe to order some pizzas, and they all sat around and ate them.”
    “Yeah.”
    “And Erica talked about the eagles, and about going down to the pond,” Wendy said, finishing for Zoe.
    “Oh, boy.” They all sat around and Virgil thought he might’ve taken a toke or two himself, if it’d been offered. He said, finally, “You thought it was his truck. But you’re not sure.”
    “I . . . you know how you see a truck, and they’re all the same, but you know your friend’s truck, the way he drives it, something about it? I thought it was Dad’s. I was driving up to the road, and I thought, What’s he doing here? ”
     
     
     
    ANOTHER SPACE, and Virgil said, “All right, Wendy. Constance Lifry was killed, Erica was killed, Jud Windrow’s disappeared, and I think he’s probably dead. All those seem to be connected to the band. But what about Washington?”
    “I have no idea,” Wendy said.
    “Did the Deuce know Washington?”
    “Not as far as I know. He doesn’t really eat candy.”
    “How about your father?” Virgil asked.
    “Same thing, I guess. I mean, she isn’t friends with any of us.”
    “So why . . . I mean, if the Deuce is nuts, maybe he’d shoot Washington because he liked doing it. Because it was like hunting. He got a taste for it. But I don’t see your old man like that. He seems too . . . tight.”
    “I don’t know. I just don’t know,” she said. “It