Rough Country

HOSPITAL was a sprawling flat red building south of town; Virgil found a parking space near the emergency room, and jogged across the tarmac and through the door. A nurse spotted him as he came through and he blurted, “Virgil Flowers, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension—I’m here to see Mrs. Washington.”
    “Have to hurry. She’s sort of in and out,” the nurse said.
     
     
     
    JAN WASHINGTON’S HUSBAND was an overweight balding guy who wore Wal-Mart glasses and a pathetic mask of fear, choked by the violence to his wife. He was sitting in the hospital hallway outside the intensive care unit, in a metal-and-plastic chair, while Sanders squatted beside him, one hand on Washington’s shoulder. When Virgil walked up, Sanders stood and said, “Virgil: James Washington, Jan’s husband.”
    Virgil shook Washington’s hand and said, “We’re sorry about your wife, Mr. Washington. How is she?”
    “She’s hurt bad; hurt bad,” Washington said.
    Sanders said, “We’ve got one of our investigators in there talking with her; she’s pretty drowsy.”
    Virgil said, “I’ll step in and listen. . . .” He turned to the door, then stopped and said, “Mapes told me about that .223 shell. How far was the shooter from where Mrs. Washington went down?”
    “Two hundred and forty-four yards,” Sanders said.
    “And she was riding her bike at the time?”
    “Yes . . .”
    Jenkins and Shrake had been right, Virgil thought. The shooter was showing off, or proving something . . . or maybe was just really, really good with a rifle.
     
     
     
    INSIDE THE ICU, Washington looked like everybody looked in an ICU: on her back, head propped a little forward, eyes closed, electric monitoring lines running under her hospital gown, drip lines running into her arms, a catheter draining her bladder, the urine collected in a bag visible under the sheet on one side of her bed.
    A cop sitting near her head looked up at Virgil, who said, “BCA—Virgil Flowers,” and the cop nodded and said, “She comes and goes.”
    “She have any ideas?”
    The cop shook his head. “None. No ideas at all . . .”
    Without opening her eyes, Washington said, in a rusty-sounding voice, “I’m here.”
    The cop said to Virgil, “I don’t have a lot more to ask . . . if you want to talk to her.”
    Virgil said, “Mrs. Washington, I’m from the state police. Did the deputy tell you that we think the man who shot you also shot Erica McDill, the woman who was killed at the Eagle Nest?”
    No response for a second, then a slight nod, and the slow words, “Yes . . . I don’t know . . . why.”
    As far as she knew, she had no connection with Erica McDill—had never even heard the name, she said—and not much with the Eagle Nest, though she did know Margery Stanhope somewhat, through a gardening club. She knew Wendy and other band members by sight, but not really to chat with, and had known Slibe Ashbach and his wife twenty years earlier.
    “Were they close—did you have a falling-out, or something?”
    “No, no, nothing like that. I worked for the county for a while, in permits, and Maria Ashbach would come in for permits. We weren’t friends or anything, we’d just chat when she came in. Then, she ran away, and that’s the last I know.”
    “Mrs. Washington, when you were shot, were you riding fast, or slow?”
    “I think . . . I can’t remember right when I was shot, but I think I was riding regular . . . about twelve miles an hour is my regular.”
    “Twelve miles an hour. You know that?”
    “That’s my regular. I have a speedometer on my handlebars.”
    Twelve miles an hour, two hundred and forty-four yards: heck of a shot. The shooter, Virgil thought, knew his capabilities, went for the bigger target at the longer distance, and pulled it off. There was something here, Virgil knew, but he couldn’t pin it down. Something that he knew . . .
    “Mrs. Washington, I have one more question, and you being in your condition, I hate to ask, but I have to . . .”
    She said, “I’m not having an affair. Neither is James.”
    The cop grinned at Virgil and said, “We covered that territory.”
    “Okay. I had to ask. Listen, I deal with wounded people, and you’re gonna be all right. You’ll hurt for a while, but they’ll fix you up good as new.”
    She nodded again, and a few seconds later, drifted off.
     
     
     
    OUT IN THE HALL, Virgil spoke to her husband, again with the apology for having to ask. James Washington said,