"It'd be good if we could get her bodyguarded until this evening," Virgil suggested.
"I'd guard her body as long as she wants," Jacobs said.
"Me, too," Clark said.
Jesse said, "Ha-ha," but she liked the attention.
Virgiclass="underline" "I'm a little serious, here, Jesse. I don't want you running around outside. Todd's a smart guy and until we figure out how to drag him down, you've got to be careful."
"Mom and I were planning to go shopping, and then come back here and watch some movies," she said.
"Don't get alone," Virgil said. "You should be okay-but just don't get alone. I'll be back by eight o'clock to get you wired up. If you get the smallest little crinkle of thought that something's wrong, find Steve here, or Roger, or one of these other cops, and tell them."
"I'll be okay," she said Jacobs said, "We'll keep an eye on her."
"Where are you going?" Jesse asked Virgil.
"I've got an appointment at the fire department to learn CPR, and then I'll poke around, see if I can spot Todd without being too obvious about it."
"CPR?"
"It's a lifesaving technique," Virgil said.
She frowned, then shook her head. "Whatever. Don't get alone."
Virgil left her with Jacobs and Clark, headed back to Bluestem, stopped at the fire department. A big man with a handlebar mustache met him, took him back to an equipment locker, opened a door: "There you go," he said.
ON THE WAY back to Bluestem, Virgil called Joan: "Where are you?"
"At the post office," she said.
"Then where're you going?"
"Mmmm. Might go home and watch television," she said. "What're you doing?"
"Trying to contain my animal spirits."
THE GREAT THING about daytime sex, Virgil thought privately, is that you got to watch. Women didn't like to watch so much, which was understandable, because they were watching men, and men having sex wasn't that interesting. At least, not to Virgil. Women having sex was. Which was why he liked daytime sex.
And Joan said, "I gotta give this up and get something regular."
"You had something regular," Virgil said.
"You're right," she said. "Once a year is regular. Just not frequent. I need something regular and frequent. Not all over the goddamn place, morning, noon, and night."
"That would be 'nooner.'"
"You know, people haven't used that term in fifty years," she said. "You are such a small-town guy."
"I've heard it four times since I've been here," he said. "Tends to stick in your mind."
"I'm not positive that you've got enough extra space, to collect small-town sayings," Joan said.
Virgil said, "Bite me."
SHE ROLLED OVER on her stomach: "So what's the big mystery?"
"I've got it worked out that Todd Williamson is going to hang himself tonight. Or, clear himself. I'll take either one."
Her eyebrows went up. "How're you gonna do that?"
"That's complicated and confidential. However, I will take either one. If I clear him…Hmm. Never mind."
On the way out to the truck, Virgil noticed a clump of multicolored paper sheets stacked on the kitchen table. "Crop insurance," Joan said. "Everything the federal government touches, turns into quadruplicate or quintuplicate or something, and it takes days to fill it all out. And then, they do it all over next time."
Virgil looked over the forms: "Christ, I don't even understand the words."
"I'm the party of the foreplay," she said. "The government's the party of the gang bang. See, it's right there…"
VIRGIL LEFT JOAN'S and cruised the back of the newspaper building, in a mood, now.
A mood going sour.
He saw Williamson's truck; so he was probably in. He parked in the Ace Hardware lot for twenty minutes, watched the front of the newspaper, two blocks away, saw nothing. Moved to the McDonald's lot, parked behind the restaurant, and watched the newspaper by looking straight through the building's windows, feeling somewhat invisible.
Forty-five minutes after he began watching, Williamson came out of the newspaper, walking fast, crossed the street in the middle of the block, and went into Johnnie's Pizza. Five minutes later he came out with a pizza box and soft-drink cup, crossed the street back to his office.
So Williamson was working. Virgil called Stryker: "I need to get you and five deputies to work tonight. I'd like to get the Curlys, Jensen, Carr, couple more guys. Hook up tonight at eight o'clock. To whenever."
"What are we doing?"
"Surveillance and maybe an arrest. I'll brief everybody at eight, at the courthouse. Tell everybody to be on time and to keep their mouths shut-I don't want any of the other deputies to know about it."
"You think…"
"Something could happen. Or maybe not. Can't take a chance."
WHEN HE GOT OFF the phone, Virgil spent another ten minutes watching the news. Five o'clock. The rest of the day would drag. He'd deliberately set the meeting between Williamson and Jesse Laymon for after dark, because he thought the killer would feel safer. Fewer people around; and if he trailed Jesse afterward, he'd be easier to tag.
Stilclass="underline" a long time to wait. Maybe go back to Joan's? Maybe not. He thought about it, fired up the truck, and headed back to Worthington.
MARGARET AND JESSE were in their room, watching a movie about languid Englishmen and-women who lived in London at the beginning of the twentieth century.
"We're kinda into this movie. Could we do the planning thing afterward? There's only twenty minutes left."
"We got time," Virgil said. He left his sound kit next to the bed, and went out to the lounge. Had a beer, watched the end of a Twins-White Sox game, and walked back to the room at seven o'clock.
TO JESSE: "There is some small risk for you, but not as much as letting him go on. I don't believe there's any chance that he'll attack you at the Dairy Queen. Just in case, we're gonna have a deputy sitting outside eating an ice-cream cone. I'm thinking Margo Carr, with a gun."
Margaret said, "If Todd is a lunatic, how do we know he won't just explode and start killing people?"
"Because if he is a lunatic, he's a special kind," Virgil said. "He's a planner. He's meticulous. He'll do it, but he'll lower his odds of getting caught, however he can. He won't just start blasting away."
Jesse asked, "Then what do you think he'll do?"
"He'll meet you. He'll bullshit you. He'll find out what you're planning to do. Then he'll come after you. Might have a long gun, pull up beside you on the road home, after you get off the highway, take a shot. Might dump his car and walk to your house, and then come in after both of you. That's what we're hoping he'll do…"
"You're hoping he'll do that?" Margaret asked.
"Jim Stryker and I and the Curlys and Larry Jensen will be staking him out. Margo will be at the Dairy Queen. Two more will actually be inside your house-we'll drop them off early. I'll need a key from you. So Jesse goes and talks to Todd, then she gets in her truck and she takes off-and when she gets out on the highway, she really rolls." He looked at Jesse. "You move just as fast as you're comfortable with."
"I'm pretty comfortable with ninety," she said.
"That's good. You've only got a few miles down to your exit, if you get even a small jump on him, he won't be able to catch you before you get home. We'll have two guys on the highway in front of you. When you get home, you go in the back door and right down the basement. The two guys who are in front of you will keep going, two blocks down the way, and then out on their feet. Then we've got two guys inside if he goes in after Jesse, and two outside, and two more right behind him."
"WHAT AM I doing during all this?" Margaret asked.