Rough Country

the hall. “I gotta go . . .”
    “Listen, Kara . . . don’t tell anybody about this. There’s a crazy woman around here and you don’t want to attract her attention.”
    “No shit, Sherlock,” she said. “My last name’s Larsen. I’m in the Grand Rapids phone book. If you need to ask me any more questions, call me. Don’t talk to me here.”
     
     
     
    VIRGIL FOUND MARGERY STANHOPE in the main office, alone, staring out the window at the darkening lake. She turned in the chair when Virgil stepped in and asked, “Figured it out?”
    “Not yet. Margery: if you knew anything at all that might put some light on this thing—or even if something unusual happened with Miss McDill in the last day or two, behavior-wise, you’d be sure and tell me, right?”
    She said, “Something happened. What happened? Why did you ask that?”
    “I’m wondering who spent the night in McDill’s cabin, night before last, and why nobody’s telling me about it,” Virgil said.
    Stanhope sat up straight: “Night before last? I know nothing about that. I don’t spy on people—but I should have heard. I would have heard, if it were true.”
    “You don’t think it’s true? I’ve got it on pretty good authority.”
    She said, “Let me go talk to people. I’ll find out.”
    “Do that,” Virgil said. “Let me give you my cell phone number. Call me anytime.”

5
    NINE O’CLOCK, and Virgil rolled out of the resort into the dark, called Zoe Tull. She answered, and he picked up a soft Norah Jones-style sound behind her. “You going to the Wild Goose tonight?” he asked.
    “I could, but . . . I usually stay away on nights when Wendy is singing. She likes to come over and pull on my tits. If you know the expression.”
    “I don’t, actually. I mean, I’ve pulled on a few tits, both human and bovine, but I’ve—”
    “She comes over and chats, like she thinks there’s no problem and we’re still good friends, and she pushes Berni in my face,” Zoe said.
    “Berni’s the drummer? The one with the cowboy boots and the nice whachacallums.”
    “Yeah. She calls herself Raven. Like the Edge, or Slash.”
    “Well, if they come over, you could come slide in the booth next to me and put your hand on my thigh,” Virgil said.
    “I don’t think that’d mean anything to her,” Zoe said.
    “Mean a lot to me, though,” Virgil said. “I miss the woman’s touch.”
    After a moment of silence, she laughed long, and said, “I really like that crude shitkicker side of you. All right. I’ll take you to the Goose.”
    “Good. I’ve got a question I need to ask you,” Virgil said.
    “Can’t ask on the telephone?”
    “Cell phones are radios,” Virgil said. “You never know who’s listening.”
    “That’s paranoid,” she said. “But . . . I wouldn’t mind going. Pick me up at the house, or meet me there?”
    “Since there’s no chance I can get you drunk and take advantage of you, I’ll meet you there,” Virgil said. “Be quicker, and I’m going south tonight.”
    “The Cities?”
    Virgil nodded at his reflection in the windshield. “Yeah.”
    “I thought you’d be up here for the duration,” Zoe said.
    “I need to get some stuff—I’ll be back tomorrow.”
    “Fifteen minutes,” she said. “Wait for me in the parking lot if you get there first. We can go in together.”
    He stuck the phone back in his pocket, caught the yellow-white-diamond eyeblink in the ditch at the last possible moment, and stood on the brakes. A doe wandered into the headlights, stopped directly in front of the truck, fifteen feet away, and looked at him, then hopped off toward the other side of the road.
    He waited, and another doe, and then a third, crossed in front of him, like ladies going first through the supermarket door. When he thought the last of them had crossed, he eased forward again, keeping watch: saw a half-dozen more deer in the ditches, but had no more close calls.
     
     
     
    HE WAITED FIVE MINUTES for Zoe. She pulled in, hopped out of her Pilot, came across the parking lot wearing a frilly white low-cut blouse that showed her figure, tight jeans that showed the rest of her figure, and fancy dress cowboy boots made out of the skins of chicken testicles, or some such, with embossed red roses.
    “Nice boots,” Virgil said into her cleavage.
    “My eyes are up here,” she said.
    “Yeah, yeah,” he said, as they crossed the parking lot to the door. “I’ve only heard that line in about eight