Rough Country

happen.
    And she was pretty enough to cause Virgil’s heart to hum, if not yet actually sing, until she asked, “Are you the Virgil Flowers who was involved in that massacre up in International Falls?”
    His heart stopped humming. “Wasn’t exactly a massacre,” Virgil said.
    “Sounded like a massacre,” she said.
    Stanhope said, “Zoe, shut up.”
    “I feel that we have to take a stance,” Zoe said to her.
    “Take it someplace else,” Stanhope said. She looked past Virgil at Johnson: “You’re also a police officer?”
    Virgil jumped in: “Actually, he’s my friend, Johnson. We were in the fishing tournament up at Vermilion and I got pulled to look at this case. The guys who’d normally do it are on that Little Linda thing. Johnson’s not a police officer.”
    “Pleased to meet you,” Stanhope said, and shook with Johnson. “What’s your first name, again?”
    “Johnson,” Johnson said.
    She said, “Oh.” Not sure if her leg was being pulled. “What’s your last name?”
    “Johnson,” Virgil said. When Stanhope looked skeptical, he said, “Really. Johnson Johnson. His old man named him after an outboard. Everybody calls him Johnson.”
    Zoe was pleased, either with the double name, or the concept of a name based on an outboard motor. “You get teased when you were a kid?” she asked.
    “Not as much as my brother, Mercury,” Johnson said.
    Stanhope said, “Now I know you’re lying.”
    “Believe it,” Virgil said. “Mercury Johnson. He suffers from clinical depression.”
    “Thank God Mom decided to quit after two,” Johnson said. “Dad wanted to go for a daughter and he’d just bought a twenty-five-horse Evinrude.”
    “I don’t know,” Zoe said. “Evvie’s kind of a nice name.”
    That made Johnson laugh, and, since she was pretty, laugh too hard; Virgil said, “I’ll talk to you ladies later. I gotta go see the deputies.”
    Stanhope said, blank-faced, to Johnson, “This isn’t a laughing matter. This is a terrible tragedy.”
    Virgil nodded and said, “Of course it is.”
    Virgil and Johnson turned toward the dock, and Zoe asked, “She’s dead, isn’t she? Little Linda?”
    “I don’t know,” Virgil said, over his shoulder, still miffed about the massacre question. “I don’t know anything about it.”
    “I wonder if it’s connected to this death?”
    Virgil paused. “Do you have any reason to think so?”
    “Nope. Except that they happened only two days apart,” Zoe said.
    “And about forty miles,” Virgil said.
    “Don’t you suspect it, though?” She had warm brown eyes, almost gold, and he forgave her.
    “No. I don’t. Too many other possibilities,” he said.
    She nodded. “Okay. I see that. Kind of a stupid question, wasn’t it?”
    Stanhope answered for Virgil. “Yes. It was.”
     
     
     
    WALKING OUT TO THE DOCK , Johnson said, “The old bag kinda climbed my tree.”
    “One rule when you’re dealing with people close to a murder victim,” Virgil said. “Try not to laugh.”
     
     
     
    VIRGIL INTRODUCED HIMSELF and Johnson to the deputies and one of them said, “You’re the guy who was in that shoot-out in International Falls.”
    Virgil bobbed his head and said, “Yeah, I was there. I understand that the body is at a place called the pond?”
    “Boy, I wish I coulda been there,” the cop said, ignoring Virgil’s question. “That must’ve been something. My dad was in Vietnam, and he must’ve read that story about a hundred times, about the shoot-out. I bet he’d like to meet you.”
    The other cop said, “Sheriff’s been looking for you. He’s out at the pond now. They haven’t done anything but look at the body, try to keep it from floating away. Don’t want to mess with the scene. One of your crime-scene crews from Bemidji is on the way. . . . I could run you out there.”
    “Floating away? She’s in the water?” Virgil asked.
    “Yeah. She got shot right in the forehead, bullet exited the back of her head.” The cop touched himself in the middle of the forehead, two inches above the top of his nose. “Really made a mess. She fell backwards out of the boat—it’s kinda like a kayak—but her foot got twisted under the seat and that held her up on the surface. She was still floating there, last time I was out.”
    “Doesn’t sound like there’ll be much of a crime scene,” Virgil said.
    “Not much,” the cop said.
    “Who found her?” Johnson asked.
    “Guide. From the lodge. George Rainy,