Rough Country

Slibe said.
    “She was,” Virgil said, turning around to face him.
    “But you found a slug? That’s why you need the rifle?”
    “No slug, but we’ve got a cartridge. We can do some tests of the shell . . . and we’ll test fire your rifle, and then, if we ever do find a slug, we’ll have it.” Virgil shrugged. “But what we’ll probably do is some metallurgy, check metal remnants in the rifle against the metal frags in McDill’s skull.”
    It was very quiet in the house, and Virgil became aware of a buzzing sound; a bee had gotten in. Slibe was staring at him, then blinked like a gecko and said, “Well, do what you got to do. I’d like the rifle back, soon as you can get it. We might go out to Wyoming and shoot some prairie rats in October. It’s something we do.”
    “Do our best,” Virgil said. Coming out the door, he said, “I hear you run a kennel out here.”
    “Best dogs in Minnesota,” Slibe said. “English Crème Golden Retrievers. I’m the biggest breeder in the Upper Midwest; you want one of my dogs, baby-trained, gonna cost you three grand.”
    Virgil whistled. “You get three grand?”
    “And I got a waiting list long as your arm,” Slibe said. He pulled a can of Copenhagen out of his jacket pocket, stuck a pinch under his tongue. “Ask anybody.”
    “What did you think about McDill?”
    “Didn’t know her. From what Wendy said, she might have had some good ideas. Wendy’s pretty anxious to get the show on the road.”
    “What do you think about that?” Virgil asked.
    Slibe poked a finger down toward the kennels. “You see them dogs? They’re solid gold. That’s where the money is. Aren’t nobody in Nashville going to pay any attention to a poor girl from Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Maybe twenty years ago, but not now. She wants to do it, but Wendy’s a little crazy. I told her that a hundred times.”
    “So you think she should stay with dog breeding.”
    “That’s what I think. But kids get crazy ideas. I mean, it’s all right here. Everything she needs. I spent my whole life building this place up so she could take it over. And the Deuce, too, but the Deuce ain’t got what it takes to run it. She knows that, but all she thinks about is that CMTV shit,” Slibe said. “Now—you got the gun. You want anything else? I got some logs to split.”
    Virgil nodded and headed for his truck, then turned and said, “Wendy’s a little better than good. I don’t know if she’s good enough, but she’s better than good.”
    Something shifted in Slibe’s face. “Don’t go telling her that. She’ll go sliding off to Nashville or L.A. and wind up on the street, selling her ass. She ain’t a bad singer, but that’s not why she’s here.”
     
     
     
    BY THE TIME VIRGIL got back to town, it was late in the day. He called the Bemidji office and arranged for a guy to pick up Slibe’s rifle the next morning, looked at his watch, and headed out to the Eagle Nest, still dragging the boat. Margery Stanhope was sitting in her office, alone, sad, and pensive, as she had been the last time he’d seen her; the murder was working on her. Virgil went in, closed the door, and she looked up as he crossed the office and took one of the visitor chairs.
    She glanced at the closed door and asked, apprehensively, “What happened?”
    “I have some embarrassing questions to ask, Margery,” Virgil said.
    Her brow beetled: “What?”
    “Is it true that some of your waiter boys provide additional services to the guests?”
    She leaned back and said, “Oh. Damnit. Well, I’ll tell you what, Virgil, I have heard that, but I do not make any inquiries. What our guests do, as long as they don’t do it in the parking lot, is up to them. They are adults.”
    “Yeah, but Margery . . . you hire them,” Virgil said. “The boys.”
    “You ever been to a Hooters?” she asked.
    “No, I haven’t.”
    “I have. They didn’t hire those girls on the basis of their master’s theses.” She actually smiled. “Have you seen Kevin?”
    “No . . .”
    “Nineteen. Sophomore at UMD next year. Half the people in town think Kevin might be gay, because he goes around with these French haircuts. He even gets them done in a ladies’ salon down in Grand Rapids. Looks like he came out of one of those science fiction movies. The women up here eat him up like a big ice cream cone. But I don’t know anything about it.”
    “Did McDill sleep with any of the boys?” Virgil asked.
    “I have no idea.