Rough Country

their gates, park behind a cabin. Or up the driveway. They’re pretty overgrown, so you wouldn’t see a car from the road.”
    “We looked up there, but didn’t see much,” Virgil said. “But the shooter would be taking a big risk. What if somebody was up there when he pulled in . . . ?”
    Stanhope was shaking her head. “It’s easy to tell. There’s nothing much in the cabins—some beds, electric stoves, a pump, tables and chairs. Not much worth stealing. So the gates are closed at the road, but they’re not locked up. You drive down there, and if the gate is closed, nobody’s home. If somebody’s up there for a couple days, getting ready for hunting season or something, they leave the gates open.”
    “So you could drive down there, open a gate, drive up the driveway, close the gate, and you’d be out of sight.”
    “Yes.”
    Virgil asked Zoe, “Do you do taxes for anybody up there?”
    She shook her head: “They’re out-of-towners. From the Cities, I think. Maybe one from Alex . . .”
     
     
     
    BACK OUT TO THE CAR . “Now where?” she asked.
    “Down to your office. You must have a calendar.”
    “I do,” she said.
    They rode in silence, and not a particularly companionable one, back into town. On the way, Virgil called the sheriff’s department, talked to the duty guy: no Windrow.
    “You think he’s dead?” Zoe asked in a small voice.
    “I don’t know. But I’m not sure he’s alive,” Virgil said. He pounded on the steering wheel. “I need to do something. I need to do something. I’m not doing anything.”
     
     
     
    IN TOWN, at her office, Zoe brought up her computer calendar, found two names, recalled both of them, and said, “That would have taken me up past five o’clock, for sure.”
    “But that’s not far enough, Zoe,” Virgil said. “You could make it out there with no trouble, leaving here at five o’clock. Think! What’d you do afterwards?”
    “I walked over to Donaldson’s and ate—I don’t cook very much, neither does Sig—uh, then, let me see.” She sat back and closed her eyes. “I ate . . . but first I went over to Gables and bought a magazine and looked in some windows, because I like to read while I eat. Then, I got gas.”
    “Did you pay for it with a credit card?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And that would have been around . . . six?”
    She thought about it. “Just about six. Maybe a little later, because I might not have gotten out of here right at five o’clock. I usually don’t. Let me think. . . .”
    Back to the closed eyes. After a minute, she said, “You know, I remember saying good-bye to Mabel that night. She came in to tell me something . . . mmm . . . I can’t remember what, it was casual, but she would remember seeing me. Then I did work for a little bit. Mabel leaves at five o’clock—she acts as a receptionist as well as an accountant, so she’s in charge of closing up at five. You know, I bet I didn’t get out of here until five-twenty or so. So it might have been six-fifteen or even six-thirty when I bought gas.”
    She shook a finger at him. “Credit cards. I pay for everything with credit cards, because then I have a record. Most accountants do that. C’mon, let’s go back to my place.”
    They got back at three o’clock, and she took Virgil inside, past a little niche office with a filing cabinet, to a closet. Opening the closet, she revealed a stack of plastic file boxes with the years noted on them, going back to 2005.
    She said, “Constance Lifry was killed two years ago . . . you have the date and time?”
    “Yeah. Let me get it from the truck.”
    He came back with his notebook, and they found the relevant box. She found her American Express and Visa bills, and they ticked off the charges.
    “Here,” she said. “I went to Nordstrom’s that day, too. They don’t open until eleven o’clock. They know me—they wouldn’t take my credit card from somebody else. Look, I went to Target, too, and I bought a bunch of stuff. . . . And the next day, I’m back . . .”
    “You could have driven back by the next day,” Virgil said. “But . . . these don’t have exact time stamps on them.”
    “But they will have,” Zoe said. “You can get them from Amex and Visa.”
    “I’m going to do that, Zoe,” Virgil said. “Don’t be bullshittin’ me about this.”
    “Do it,” she said. “Let’s get it over with.” And, she said, “You know I didn’t do it.”
     
     
     
    THEY’D GOTTEN DOWN on their