Rough Country

the sniper’s nest, which were left by a woman—”
    “I didn’t do it,” she groaned. “I never went back there.”
    “Look: we can make our case, and what we’re really looking at now is state of mind. If you feel that you were . . . upset . . . that could always be worked into a pretty good defense. If you were emotionally unstable because of McDill’s relationship with Wendy—”
    “I didn’t know about that,” she said.
    “We’ve got the tracks,” Virgil said.
    “Not mine . ”
    “But everybody else has an alibi,” Virgil said. “And you gotta admit, these killings are tied to the band.”
    “McDill’s woman, down in the Cities . . .”
    “Has an absolute watertight alibi,” Virgil said. “Look, I don’t know how familiar you are with the legal system. If you cooperate, this will count toward some leniency, if that’s the way the court wants to go. You don’t have any prior record—”
    “ But I didn’t do it. ”
    “Well . . .” Virgil threw his hands up; he was helpless, apologetic. Getting to the point. “We believe you’re involved. I mean, you say you didn’t do it, but if you didn’t, who did?”
    She looked sideways, and then said, “Oh, God, I was hoping you’d catch him yourself. Wendy’s gonna kill me.”
    “If it wasn’t you . . . I mean, if you know something, you better speak up. He seems to be shutting down everybody who knows something,” Virgil said.
    She looked up: “You think?”
    “I don’t think anybody’s safe,” Virgil said. “This person is unbalanced. He, or she, needs help. If you did it, that’s the way we’d go: get you some help.”
    “ I didn’t . . .” She turned away and began humming again, thinking, and then said, “I don’t know. I don’t know a single thing about it, but I think you need to look at the Deuce.”
    “The Deuce? Not Slibe?”
    “Slibe . . . I don’t know. I do know that the Deuce has this sex thing going for Wendy, and always has. Ever since they were little. If you get Wendy off by herself, she’ll tell you that. Deuce would never want her to go away. Never .”
    “Is the Deuce sexually active?”
    “Oh, hell yes, all the time. With himself. Him and his little Hormel.”
    “I meant, does he have a girlfriend?” Virgil asked.
    “As far as I know, he’s a virgin,” she said. “If he’s not, he paid for it. But he’s . . . really . . . different. He watches you, all the time. Pretends like he isn’t, but you can see that his eyes are on you.”
    “Maybe he’s interested in you, not in Wendy,” Virgil suggested.
    “I think he’s all slobbery interested in sex,” she said. “I mean, God, he’s seventeen, you know he wants it—but Wendy’s the center of the universe.”
    “Huh.”
    “What does that mean?” she asked.
    “Wendy seems to be the center of a lot of universes,” Virgil said.
    “Yeah. Including her own,” Berni said.
    Virgil tried to look like he was thinking it over. Then he said, “I don’t know, Berni. I admit we haven’t been looking at the Deuce. I don’t know what his alibi is, but you have to admit that there’s good reason to think you might be involved.”
    He continued to push her around, coming back for more about Wendy, Slibe, and the Deuce, whenever she gave him the opening. Cranking her up.
    Setting her up.
    She’d talk to Wendy, Wendy would talk to everybody . . .
    And the killer would hear; and might do something.
     
     
     
    HE LET HER GO at five o’clock, told her to stay around town.
    Back at the motel, he took a short nap, showered, shaved again, put on a fresh T-shirt, jeans, and a sport coat. For the T-shirt, he was torn between two of his newest, a Blood Red Shoes and an Appleseed Cast, and went with the Appleseed after deciding that in the circumstances, Blood Red Shoes might be in poor taste.
    Sig was ready when he got there; came skipping out the door, wearing a cotton dress, kissed him in the driveway, slipped a couple fingers under his belt as she did it, then said, “Steak! Burnt!”
    “Where’re we going?”
    “The Duck Inn. Back downtown. They are so cool that they’ve got little individual packets of sesame crackers on every table.”
    Virgil laughed: “Can’t pass on that.”
     
     
     
    SIG TURNED OUT to be pretty funny, when he actually talked to her. She knew almost everybody in town, and their foibles; and she told him about finding out that Zoe had been experimenting with a female friend of hers. “I was absolutely