“Could figure out a way to make it look like an accident, or a suicide,” Kerns said. “Buster’s kinda old, and not in that good a shape. Two of us guys could get him out in his workshop, grab him and hang him without bruising him up.… I’d want to do some reading about it, and about DNA, before we did it. But it could be done.”
Jennifer Barns said, “You want to put that in the form of a motion?”
“So moved,” Kerns said.
Bob Owens, the senior board member, said, “Two murders are way worse than one. It makes it clear that something is going on. Right now, as far as Flowers knows, Conley was shot by some crazy, out looking to kill somebody.”
“That’s true,” said Jennifer Houser. “I think we should hold in reserve the whole idea of killing Buster. It’s too drastic a measure, for what we know right now.”
Jennifer Gedney asked, “What if something happened to Flowers?”
“Another possibility,” Kerns said. “The rumor around town is that he came here to investigate some dognappings, and the victims are telling him that the dognappers live up Orly’s Creek. If he was to get shot, the BCA would send somebody else down, and maybe a whole bunch of people, but if there was something that pointed at the dognappers…”
“Like what?” Owens asked. “I can’t think of what it would be.”
“Maybe because you only had one second to think about it,” Kerns suggested. “With a little more time, we could come up with something. He hangs out with Johnson Johnson. Maybe Johnson could get an anonymous tip about the dogs that takes them out somewhere, looking for dogs, and Flowers gets killed. That links it to the dogs, and not to Conley.”
“So moved,” said Jennifer Gedney.
“I’m sorry, but that sounds way, way too complicated. We have to have something better than that,” said Jennifer Houser. “But I’ve got a question for Jen Three. If we voted to kill Buster… would that be a problem?”
“Well, yes,” Jennifer Gedney said. “Not an emotional problem, or anything like that, it’s just that I think it would only focus attention. I’d vote against killing him because it seems too extreme right now. Later? Maybe not.”
Laughton grinned and said, “The marriage is maybe not as solid as it could be?”
“Just looking at him makes me tired,” Jennifer Gedney said. “All those wrenches. And he’s covered with oil most of the time.”
“All right,” said Henry Hetfield, the superintendent of schools, looking down over his steel-rimmed glasses. “We’ve got a lot on our plates right now. Here is what I’d suggest: we table the motions to kill Buster and Flowers, with the understanding that they could be brought back before the board if Buster gets too shaky — Jen Three, you’ll have to monitor that — or Flowers gets too close. But we also instruct Randy to do what he can to monitor Flowers, and to make plans to remove one or both of them if the situation worsens.”
Jennifer Barns said, “So moved.”
“I think we have two motions already on the floor,” Owens said.
“Oh, fuck that,” Jennifer Barns said. “Let’s have a show of hands on Henry’s proposal. All in favor, raise your hands.”
All nine hands went up.
“So that’s settled,” she said. “We watch and wait, but Randy is ready to move if we need to. My personal view is, we don’t have much to fear at the moment.”
“As long as Flowers doesn’t find out about the story that Clancy was working on,” Jennifer Gedney said.
“If we even get a sniff of that…” She looked at Kerns, who nodded.
Vike Laughton spoke up: “Flowers originally came here to investigate dogs, and he thinks they might be up Orly’s Creek. I have heard, and I’d suspect a couple more of you have, that those people are cooking some meth up there. Anybody else hear that?”
Jennifer Barns said, “Where’d you hear that?”
“Well, from Conley, actually. He was a pill-popper, as you all know,” Laughton said.
Jennifer Houser said, “I heard that. Just a rumor, but I heard it.”
Jennifer Barns asked, “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I was just wondering if there is any way we might tie Conley’s death to the Orly’s Creek people. Drug users. A drug shooting. Something going on there…”
“How’d we do that?” Owens asked.
“I don’t know. We could think of something,” Laughton said. “I don’t think it’s healthy, though, to have Flowers focused on Conley and his job, or what he might have been looking into.”
“Well, if you think of something, let us know,” Owens said.
“I will do that,” Laughton said.
Barns said, “All right. Let’s go on home, folks. And Jen Three — keep an eye on Buster.”
As they were going out the door, Laughton asked Kerns, “How difficult would it be to, mmm, take a look at one of those Orly’s Creek hillbillies?”
“You mean, shoot one? It’s pretty dark there, houses are up from the road. Lots of pullouts along the creek. It’d be ideal for an ambush, except for one thing — there’s only one way out. That could be handled…”
“One of the people up there, he’s a gangster who used to ride with the Bad Seed. Roy Zorn. You see him around town. If something should happen to him that was… consonant… with what happened to Clancy, Flowers would have to take that connection pretty seriously, I would think.”
“You don’t want to talk to the board about it?” Kerns asked.
“No. They’re too shook up right now. Making motions, calling for votes,” Laughton said. “Like Jen Three. She swings from ‘No killing’ to ‘Let’s kill Flowers.’ Killing Flowers would be insane, except for the most desperate circumstances. No — what we need is Flowers alive and well, and pointed in totally the wrong direction.”
“Let me do some research,” Kerns said.
“Things are moving fast…”
“Won’t take long.”
8
Virgil was sitting on the screened porch at Johnson’s cabin just before dark when Johnson stopped by: “Me’n Clarice are going down to Friday’s, you wanna come along?”
“Thanks anyway, Johnson. I need to do some reading.”
“Clarice said you stopped by the office to look down her cleavage, and had some photographs of a spreadsheet. You want me to take a look?”
Johnson bore a slight resemblance to a bear, but had made a lot of money in a variety of businesses, and despite the jean jackets, tattoos, and boating, automobile, truck, airplane, and motorcycle accidents, was occasionally referred to as a “prominent businessman.”
“Might as well,” Virgil said. “It’s all a bunch of gobbledygook to me.”
He dug the pack of paper out of his briefcase and handed it over. Johnson carried it inside, to the dining table, put on his reading glasses, and started paging through it.
Virgil’s phone rang, and he looked at the screen: Sandy, his hacker.
“Why are you still at work?” he asked.
“I took the afternoon off to do some apartment shopping, if you must know. Anyway, I have some information on this Clancy Conley person, and also on Laughton.”
Virgil put a legal pad on his knee, took out a pen, and said, “Give it to me.”
“Conley was a drug addict, has five arrests, all as a user, never as a seller, always for amphetamine. The arrests were in Missouri, Iowa, two in Nebraska, and one in Minnesota. I’ll put the details in an e-mail. As far as income goes, he shows a little over eighteen thousand last year, most of it from a newspaper called the Republican-River, and three thousand dollars from Minnia Marketing, which is an Internet phone-sales operation. He worked there for four months.”