Rough Country

gotta fall in every life,” she said.
    “You’ve got such a soft heart,” he said.
    “Lucas is just leaving. Do you want to talk to him?”
    “Naw. He’d probably piss me off. Call me as soon as you get the information on Washington.”
    When he got off the phone, he went out to the truck, dug out his Nikon D3, carried it back up to the Deuce’s room. The nurse wasn’t happy about it, but Virgil got harsh, and she backed off. He stood on a chair and took several pictures of the Deuce, checking them on the LCD screen for sharpness, was satisfied and stepped down.
    The nurse showed up with the nursing supervisor, and Virgil told them, “All done—and some things gotta be done. Screw the rules, and you can quote me.”
     
     
     
    HALFWAY TO DULUTH, as it was getting dark, he pulled into a roadside diner, parked in the side lot, and went to sleep for half an hour. Sandy woke him with the phone call, and told him where Washington was, and that she was awake and waiting, and then said, “You’re right about the car. It was never registered, anywhere.”
    “Thanks, Sandy. See you in a couple of days.”
    He went into the diner and got a sticky bun, and headed north again.
     
     
     
    JAN WASHINGTON WAS SITTING up in the hospital bed. He hadn’t known her before she’d gotten shot, but she had the look of a woman who’d lost a lot of weight in the past few days.
    “James is here someplace,” she said.
    “How are you?” Virgil asked.
    “I hurt—all the time. They give me painkillers, but they’re not working very well. Either that, or they knock me out. They can’t seem to find a middle ground.”
    “I need to show you a photograph,” he said. He took his laptop out of his bag, turned it on, loaded the Adobe Lightroom program, and brought up the best of the Deuce photos, the one that focused on the boy’s face, and cut out the hospital gear. It looked almost like a driver’s license photograph.
    “Do you know this man?”
    She looked at the photo for several seconds, then her forehead wrinkled and she said, “Oh—from a long time ago. That’s Hector. What’s his last name? He only worked there for a couple of years before they went off. . . . Hector Avila. That’s it. He went off to Arizona with Maria Ashbach. They ran away together.”
     
     
     
    THEY SAT AND TALKED about it.
    Hector Avila worked for the county as a civil engineer in the public works department, while Washington worked there as a clerk, before she quit to have kids. They were friendly, and she’d been around when Avila met Ashbach.
    “Hector used to do the inspections on the septic installations out in the county. Maria handled the paperwork for Slibe’s business. She was the office manager while Slibe did the excavation. I knew something was going on. I warned Hector about it. . . .”
    “You warned him?”
    “Well, you know . . . Slibe is a country guy, and this was his wife. You go messing around . . . there are a lot of dark country roads out there. You could get . . . shot. Like me.”
    “How long was the affair going on?” Virgil asked.
    “Quite a while. A couple of years, at least,” Washington said. “They were sneaky about it—after it got going good, they’d never talk to each other. I knew, because I knew Hector . . . He’d get a motel room somewhere, usually up at Hibbing, and she’d sneak up there. I don’t know . . . it started out as pure sex, and then I think they fell in love. I hope they’re happy, wherever they are.”
     
     
     
    VIRGIL CALLED RON MAPES, the crime-scene chief, at home, and told him what he needed. Called Sanders: “That search warrant out at Ashbach’s was good for what, three days?”
    “Yup. After that, we’ve got to go back. But we weren’t required to finish the search the first day. What’s going on?”
    “If I tell you, you’re gonna make fun of me when I fall on my ass,” Virgil said.
    “No, I won’t—”
    “See you tomorrow,” Virgil said.
    “Wait, wait—what about the Deuce?” Sanders asked.
    “He was asleep. I never talked to him.”
    “John Phillips is going to be pissed. He needed that statement.”
    “Ah, the Deuce didn’t do it,” Virgil said. “You can tell John that for me.”
    “Virgil—”
    “I’m going to need a couple more of your deputies. About nine o’clock,” Virgil said.
     
     
     
    VIRGIL GOT BACK to the motel at two in the morning and dropped facedown on the bed, and was gone.
    Mapes called at eight o’clock