Storm Front

lilacs I’m afraid will have to stay. They’re just gonna get plowed under, but they’re so senile that they’re not worth moving. Ma says she’ll take down the apple trees—people like the wood to burn in their fireplaces.”
    “Sad,” Virgil said. “It’s happened all over, though, old farms going under.”
    She wiped a sleeve across her forehead and asked, “How come you look so cool?”
    “I haven’t been cutting rhubarb in the sunshine,” he said. “Listen, I need to talk to you. Seriously. Let’s find some shade.”
    “I know about Dad, but I don’t know where he is,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it when the Mankato police called me.”
    They wound up sitting on the porch steps. Several planks had been removed from the porch floor, and Virgil said, “I hope you’re getting some money from Ma.”
    “We will get some,” she said. “I checked on the Internet, and we’re getting an okay price from her. Better than burning it, anyway. I like her. She’s an interesting woman.”
    Virgil said, “Whatever. The crime-scene crew went over the cabin where your father was shot. When the shooting was still going on, but apparently after he was shot, he began writing a note. When we got there, and he realized he wasn’t going to die, he wadded it all up and threw it in a corner, behind some firewood, and hoped we wouldn’t find it. The note was to you.”
    “To me? What did it say?”
    “I’ll tell you in a minute. First, I’d like to ask you to stop all of this. You
can
stop it. I think he calls you, I think you talk to him, I think you know what’s going on here,” Virgil said. “I need to know that. What in the heck is he doing? He’s a lifelong minister, never broke a law in his life, and now people may die because of what he’s doing? Ellen: tell me.”
    She turned away from him, staring off across the summer fields. Then, “I don’t know the details. I had no idea about this stone. But it has to do with Mom. I think he’s trying to get enough money together to make sure she’ll have a place in an extended care facility, when he’s gone. She’s sixty-five. She has early-onset Alzheimer’s, but other than that, she’s healthy enough. She could live for years yet.”
    The extended care facility, she said, cost seven thousand dollars a month. She couldn’t afford that, nor could her brother, even if they pooled their resources. “Dad tried keeping her at home, with a babysitter, but she needed professional watching. The thing is, she’s healthy, and strong, but something happens, and she panics and tries to fight her way out of the house, or she sneaks out, and then . . . she’s lost. When Dad got sick and had to go to the hospital, I tried to keep her at my place. It was impossible. I would have needed professional nurses sixteen hours a day, and there was just no way to pay for that. I couldn’t stay home myself—somebody had to work.”
    “I’m sorry,” Virgil said, and meant it.
    “Dad’s frantic about it. He knows he’s going to die. There’ll be some Social Security survivor’s benefits for Mom, and we’ll sell his house and put that in a fund, but it’s not nearly enough. She’ll wind up in a warehouse, minimal care, minimal conditions, unless we can come up with a solution. That’s what this auction is—a solution. I don’t know how he can set up the payments, but he’s a smart man, and apparently thought of something.”
    “But . . .” Virgil took off his hat and smoothed his hair back. “But it came down to finding this stone? That’s the solution? That’s less likely than winning the lottery.”
    “I don’t think he
had
a solution,” she said. “He went to Israel to say good-bye to friends. He just saw his chance and took it.”
    “A miserable situation,” Virgil said. He made a sneaky mental note to check on Jones’s wife’s location. Jones was probably looking in on her, he thought; but he couldn’t ask Ellen where her mother was, because she might warn Jones away.
    “Anyway,” she said after a moment, “what did Dad put in that note?”
    “He said he loved you kids, and the worst pain was thinking that he wouldn’t see you again. He said he’d hidden the stone. Obviously, he hid it where you could find it. He was depending on you to sell it, apparently.”
    “Where did he put it?” she asked.
    “You’ll know where it is, and you have to tell me,” Virgil said. “Ellen—three people have been shot. It’s