Rough Country

the state of Minnesota,” Virgil said. “You think a murder is fuckin’ funny, you should have come down and looked into McDill’s dead empty eyes, the back of her head all blown out. She wasn’t laughing. You want a couple of years in prison to think about that, bring it on.”
    That turned them off, quick as a light switch. The woman who’d been playing the violin said, “This is nuts. I’ve got nothing to do with this. I don’t want to fight a cop. My dad’s a cop.”
    “Pussy,” Wendy said.
    “Hey, you wanna come out in the live room and say that?” the woman snarled at Wendy.
    The engineer, a burly guy with heavy-rimmed black-plastic Hollywood hipster glasses, pushed into the woman and said, “Get out of here. You’re gonna start breakin’ stuff, goddamnit. Wendy, that board’s a hundred and fifty thousand and if you bust it, you pay for it; or your old man does.”
    “I’m outa here,” said the violinist.
    “Nobody’s out of here,” Virgil said. “I came here to interview you, one at a time. Take five minutes each.”
    “Outside,” the engineer said. “Do it outside.”
     
     
     
    THEY WOUND UP doing it in the drum booth, Virgil sitting on the drummer’s stool, the women, Wendy last, moving in and out of a metal folding chair.
    Berni Kelly, who called herself Raven, drummer: “Like I told you the other night, I was by myself, but I didn’t do it. I was home, waiting for Wendy. Her dad was there, over at his place, part of the time, anyway. I didn’t see him—I saw his truck and I’m sure he must’ve seen mine. I didn’t know about Wendy and McDill. I guess I was the last to find out.”
    “You’re pretty upset?”
    “Well, she’s gone off before,” Berni said. “She always comes back. But I was pretty upset. I mean, last night, I hit her as hard as I could.”
    “Pretty good shot, too,” Virgil said with a grin.
    “Thank you.”
    “You’re back together?” Virgil asked.
    “We are. Yes. Listen, I really don’t have anything against you. I hope you find out who killed Erica, even though I didn’t like her. Us guys got this rock ’n’ roll attitude about cops, but it’s a TV thing, it’s not real. I’m on your side, really.”
    “What do you think about Zoe Tull?”
    “I don’t think about her,” Berni said. “She and Wendy had a thing, but Zoe’s so straight, Wendy couldn’t stand it anymore. I mean, Zoe wanted to exchange Valentine’s Day candy-heart boxes, for God’s sakes.”
     
     
     
    CATHY (CAT) MATHIS, KEYBOARDS: “We could have taken you.”
    “Maybe—you had total weight on your side and you might have taken me down, but I would have hurt a few of you, and the more I hurt, the more room I’d have to go after the rest,” Virgil said with a smile. “It’d be an interesting thing to try out, except that we’d have to hurt people to do it. If I didn’t have the job I have, I’d be willing to try it out.”
    Her head bobbed up and down a couple of times, and then she said, “Really?”—a genuine question.
    “Yeah. Really,” Virgil said.
    “You like to fight?” she asked.
    “ Like is the wrong word,” Virgil said. “I find it intense. My life lacks intensity.”
    “You killed all those Vietnamese. Was that intense?”
    “I didn’t personally kill anybody—but yeah: it was intense,” Virgil said. Before she could ask another question, he asked, “Where were you when McDill was killed?”
    “I don’t know exactly when she was killed, but I heard it was late afternoon. I have a karate class at six o’clock, and I was in class.”
    “Karate. You like to fight?” Virgil asked.
    “My life lacks intensity,” she said.
    “How many people in the class?” Virgil asked.
    “Probably eight or nine people, plus the sensei,” Mathis said. “Then, another class came in while we were finishing. If you want to check the alibi, you should do it quick—today—before people start to forget. I sparred with a guy named Larry Busch.”
    “If you had to pick out one person that you know who might have killed Erica McDill, who would you pick?”
    But she was already shaking her head: “Not a fair question. I have no idea who might have wanted to hurt McDill. I knew that she and Wendy were fooling around, but I figured that was their business.”
    “Have you had a relationship with Wendy yourself ?”
    “Yeah. She pays me to play keyboards. I’m an employee,” Mathis said.
    “But . . .”
    “I’m straight.”
    “All