Rough Country

taking longer than driving would have.”
    “Maybe I’ll see them at the airport?”
    She shook her head. “No. One of the things that took so long is that they apparently had the impression that we’re way deep in the woods. They got a floatplane out of St. Paul; they’ll be coming straight into the lake.”
    Virgil looked out at the lake, which was not an especially large one, a couple of thousand acres at most, cluttered with islands. Pretty, but not exactly a landing strip. “You land floatplanes?”
    “From time to time,” she said. “It annoys people—one cranky old man in particular, who’ll be calling me tonight and the county commissioners tomorrow.”
    “All right. Well, if I can find your accountant . . .”
    “She’s down at the shed—you get there through the parking lot.”
    “I saw it. Okay: I’ll see you later. I’ll want to talk to Miss McDill’s friends,” Virgil said.
    “You find out anything?”
    “Maybe,” Virgil said, going for the enigmatic smile.
     
     
     
    ZOE TULL WAS TALKING to a Latino man who’d been working on a gas-powered weed whip, which he’d disassembled on a workbench. She saw Virgil and waved, went back to talking to the Latino. Virgil fished McDill’s keys out of his pocket, pushed the unlock button, and saw the lights flash on a silver SL550.
    He popped the driver’s-side door, squatted, and looked inside: car stuff, Kleenex, a cell phone charger plugged into the cigarette lighter, a bottle of Off!, a box of Band-Aids, breath mints, chewing gum, two lipsticks, an ATM receipt that showed a checking account balance of $23,241 at Wells Fargo, pens, pencils, a checkbook, a utility knife, an LED flashlight, two empty Diet Pepsi bottles, a sweater, a cotton jacket, an umbrella, a dozen business cards in a leather case.
    He was thinking, What a pile of shit, when Zoe said over his shoulder, “She keeps her car pretty neat.”
    Virgil stood up, said, “I was hoping for a blackmail note. You all done?”
    “Yes. Getting more numbers.”
    Virgil glanced over at the Latino, who’d gone back to working on the weed whip. “He illegal?”
    “Would you arrest him if he was?” she asked.
    Virgil laughed. “If I started arresting illegal Mexicans, I wouldn’t have anyplace to eat.”
    “Well, he’s not—I think Margery runs a few illegals in and out, paying them off the books, but since Julio’s name was right out there, I wanted to get his green card number,” Zoe said. “That way, the feds’ll think we’re on the up-and-up.”
    “I don’t want to disillusion you, but the feds don’t think anybody is on the up-and-up.”
    “And they wouldn’t be wrong about that,” she said. “I know a judge who deducted a wife and daughter as dependents for three years after the divorce and they moved to California.”
    “He do time?” Virgil asked.
    “He never got caught,” she said, adding, “He wasn’t a client of mine. I heard about it from an accountant friend who was reviewing his returns. He was like, ‘Well, I didn’t know.’ Idiot.”
    “Seems to be the excuse du jour when you’ve committed a major crime,” Virgil said.
    “My,” she said, “he knows French.”
     
     
     
    ZOE DROVE A RED HONDA PILOT with a metal file box behind the driver’s seat, and a clutter of empty water bottles and ice cream wrappers in the passenger-side foot well. She put the file folder in the metal box, snatched up the ice cream wrappers and bottles and threw them on the backseat, and they took off.
    “So—who did it?” she asked. “Any ideas?”
    “Some,” he said. “But let’s not talk about the murder—let’s talk about you. Your life and your boyfriends, and all of that. Say, those are nice shoes. Are they Mephistos?”
    She glanced at him, puzzled, and said, “What?”
    “Just trying for a little friendly conversation,” Virgil said. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Zoe, he could smell a floral scent, light and vanilla-y.
    “Virgil, are you on drugs? Is this something I should know about?”
    “They’re not Mephistos, are they?” She glanced at him again, then lifted her left foot off the floor so he could see the Nike logo. “I wouldn’t know a Mephisto if one bit me on the ass,” she said.
    “Now there’s a war crime for you,” Virgil said.
    She smiled and said, “Bob Sanders told me that you were sort of full of it.”
    “I’m shocked,” Virgil said, the uninterest set deep in his tone. “ Shocked .”
    “You don’t