Shock Wave

she listened, and then said, “That would be best. We’ll see you in ten minutes.”
    She hung up and said, “She can leave the kid with a sister, but has to take her over there. Her sister lives south of the highway, less than a mile. She said she’ll be back in five minutes.”
    “Good enough,” Virgil said. They sat at the end of the block and watched Shepard, in sunglasses, a short-sleeved shirt and slacks, usher her daughter into the van and take off. She was too far away for Virgil to tell for sure, but he thought Thor, the desk clerk, might have been right: she did look fairly hot.
    “What? Did you say something?” Good Thunder asked.
    “I said, it’s gonna be hot out.”
    She laughed. “Oh, jeez. I thought you were looking at her ass, and said, ‘hot.’”
    “Hey, c’mon,” Virgil said.

    SHE WAS GONE not five minutes, but twenty, and Virgil and Good Thunder were getting a little itchy before she showed up. They were still sitting down the block, and after Shepard had parked, and had gone inside, Virgil started the truck and pulled into the driveway behind the minivan.
    The front door was open, and they could hear Shepard inside. Virgil rang the doorbell and Shepard called, “Come in.” They went in, and found her dragging a second suitcase into the living room. The first one lay open on the couch.
    Virgil asked, “Are you, uh . . .”
    “Going over to my sister’s,” Shepard said. She was a tall, busty blonde with a narrow waist and a slender, foxy face, with down-slanting eyebrows. No makeup; she didn’t need any, with a face as smooth as a peach, and gray-green eyes. She said, “I need to get out of here before Pat gets back.”
    Virgil introduced Good Thunder, and then himself, and asked, “You know why we’re here?”
    “I think so. I’m going to need a lawyer before I talk to you,” Shepard said.
    “That might not be a bad idea,” Good Thunder said. “I would want to get that going as quickly as possible. If you don’t have a lawyer of your own, I can recommend one, and I can get you a public defender if you can’t afford one—”
    “Tom LaRouche,” Shepard said. “He’s over in the Lakeside Center.”
    “Okay, good, I know him,” Good Thunder said. And, “We basically have hard information that you know about your husband’s taking a bribe from PyeMart Corporation, in exchange for his vote on the zoning. We are willing to offer you immunity from prosecution on the basis of your providing us that information. Do you think you will have something to discuss? I’m not asking you to commit yourself, but just to tell me whether we’re wasting our time.”
    “If you give me immunity, we’ve got something to talk about,” Shepard said, blowing a hank of blond hair away from her eyes. “When I found out about what Pat had done, I felt terrible. So many people are getting hurt. I felt even more terrible when I found out he was having an affair.”
    “You know about the affair?” Virgil asked.
    She stopped, looked at him: “ You know about it?”
    Virgil said, “Yeah . . . I guess, our source . . .”
    She shook her head and said to Good Thunder. “Carol Anne Moore? You know her? She works for the county, in the license office. I couldn’t believe it. . . .”
    Virgil thought, Oh, boy.
     
     
    SHEPARD CALLED HER ATTORNEY, explained the situation to him. He told her to stop talking to Virgil and Good Thunder, and said that he could see her that afternoon, and Virgil and Good Thunder immediately afterward.
    She hung up, made a hand-dusting slap, and said, “Finally. Something is getting done. But he says I shouldn’t talk to you again until I speak to him.”
    “Well, we’ll see you this afternoon, then,” Good Thunder said.

    BACK IN THE TRUCK, Good Thunder said, “So Pat Shepard tells his pal that he’s having an affair with Marilyn Oaks, but Pat’s wife thinks he’s having an affair with Carol Anne Moore.”
    Virgil said, “I feel bad about myself for saying this, but if the lawyer tells her that she might not want to talk to us . . . I bet Marilyn Oaks could change her mind.”
    “I’ve got to go talk to the boss,” she said. “This is going to get ugly, on a lot of levels.”
     
     
    VIRGIL DROPPED HER at the courthouse and drove back to look at his boat. It was still blown up. The crime-scene tech had finished, and had thrown a blue plastic tarp over the hulk, like pulling a sheet over the face of a dead man.
    He left it that way, and