Rough Country

take a week right now, sick leave, to get my nose straight, and maybe do some fishing on the side. And we’ve got things to do up here. We haven’t found Windrow.”
    “That’s a detail best left to the people who know the countryside,” Davenport suggested. “You know where he is—he’s buried. Now they just have to find the exact spot.”
    “They don’t consider a dead man a detail up here,” Virgil said. “So. If somebody dies, feel free to call me for a funeral donation. Other than that, I’ll see you in a week or so.”
    “Seriously, Virgil, you all right?” Davenport asked.
    “My nose hurts worse that I can possibly believe,” Virgil said. “My nose hurts so bad my front teeth hurt.”
    “I know how that is,” Davenport said. “I’m on my fourth nose. If you like to fight, that’s what happens.”
    “I don’t like to fight,” Virgil said. But maybe he did, a little; he’d absolutely kicked Slibe’s ass, he thought, not counting the nose.
    “Could have shot him,” Davenport said.
    “No, I couldn’t.”
    “Then quit bitching about it,” Davenport said. “See you in a week. Take some time at night to get all the paper done. I’ll okay the overtime—you can even add a little to it. Take it easy.”
    “Okay.”
    Virgil was about to hang up when Davenport said, “Hey—wait a minute.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Weather wants to know—what happened to the ear?” Weather was Davenport’s wife, and a plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
    “I don’t know. It was all ripped up, and we didn’t treat it too well. It got stepped on, and got some dog shit smeared on it. . . .”
    “Dog shit?”
    “Yeah, this was just down from the kennel, in a field they used to train the dogs. Anyway, it was pretty messed up, and they couldn’t get it to go back on,” Virgil said.
    “So . . . what’d they do with it?” Davenport asked.
    “I don’t know. Disposed of it, I guess.”
    “How do they do that?”
    “Hell, I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Throw it in a ditch?”
     
     
     
    SLIBE WAS TAKEN UNDER the wing of his attorney, who didn’t allow him to say anything about anything; but Phillips was happy. “We’ve got him. We know it and they know it. We don’t need anything else—Lifry or Washington or McDill.”
    “We’re gonna get Washington and McDill, because of the rifle,” Virgil said.
    “We’d have to prove that he was the one that used it, and not his son,” Phillips said. “Now, we don’t really have to do it. We can pack all that information into the sentencing recommendation, to clean it up for the relatives of the dead people.”
    “What about the Deuce? He’s all shot up.”
    “Well, we’ll have to see,” Phillips said. “I anticipate further court proceedings.”
    “Yeah. I anticipate a court order that says, ‘Dear Itasca County: Please drop your shorts and bend over.’ ”
    “Maybe. We’ve got further issues with the Ashbach family that are still outstanding,” Phillips said. He seemed happy at the thought of the further issues. “Like Wendy lying to you. All those issues could go away in a proper settlement.”
    “I love talking to lawyers,” Virgil said. “It gives me a fresh, clean view of life.”
     
     
     
    VIRGIL RAN INTO SANDERS’S father, Ken Sanders, in the hall outside the sheriff’s office, and the old man said, “I missed all the excitement. I understand Slibe beat the crap out of you.”
    “Ah, I had him,” Virgil said. “I didn’t want to hurt him, when it wasn’t necessary.”
    Sanders smiled: “I guess that’s one view. And I guess I’d rather have a broken nose than one ear. Though, I gotta tell you, you look a little odd with those white things sticking out of your nose.”
    “I can take them out in an hour,” Virgil said. “I’ll be good as new.”
    “Except for the nose brace and the tape.”
    “Well, yeah.”
    Sanders stuck an index finger in Virgil’s gut, said, “Check you, cowboy,” and went on his way.
     
     
     
    VIRGIL WENT BACK to his motel and found Zoe walking down the hall, apparently having gotten no answer when she knocked on his door. She looked miserable. “Well, it’s all over for me and Wendy. I rushed out there when I heard, but she’s back with Berni. Big-time.”
    “Zoe . . . give it up,” Virgil said. “She doesn’t love you. She loves herself. I mean, you’re not going to be able to compete with that.”
    “Oh, I know it,” Zoe said. “Sig keeps saying that I ought to