She said, "I've got to think about it."
"Think quick," Virgil said.
Zoe said to Wendy, "We could talk about it. Kick Virgil out, work through it together."
VIRGIL THOUGHT it might be a while. He called the sheriff and asked him for a couple of deputies. "I'm going out to talk to Slibe and I'd just as soon not be alone."
"I can understand that, what with his son being all shot up," Sanders said. "I'm up in Bigfork again. Swing on by the office; I'll have a couple guys waiting."
VIRGIL AND TWO DEPUTIES went out to talk to Slibe; but Slibe wasn't home. The dogs were fed and watered and happy, but the house, the loft, and the trailer were all empty, and Slibe's truck was gone.
When Virgil called Zoe, to get a verdict on the idea of bugging Wendy and having her talk to Slibe, Zoe said, "Bad news on that. Slibe called and she went out to meet him."
"Meet him? Zoe, if he's the killer, and they get alone-"
"They were meeting at Dick Raab's office," Zoe said.
"Who's he?"
"An attorney," Zoe said. "Probably the best one in town. Slibe told her it's time to shut up and save the family."
"Aw, that really makes my day," Virgil said.
"You want to know something?" Zoe said. "I think Wendy likes me again."
"Aww…"
VIRGIL CALLED SANDERS and told him they needed to get together with Phillips, the county attorney. "Trouble?" Sanders asked.
"Maybe," Virgil said.
THEY MET IN SANDERS'S OFFICE. Phillips looked unhappy; an older man sat in a corner with a carefully neutral expression on his face.
"Bob said there might be trouble," Phillips said, as soon as Virgil walked in.
Sanders nodded at Virgil, then gestured at the older man: "This is my dad, Ken Sanders. He was the sheriff here before me. Half the people in the county still think they're voting for him."
Virgil and Ken Sanders shook hands, and Virgil sat down and said, "I talked to Wendy Ashbach. She doesn't think the Deuce did it; she thinks her old man did."
He told them about the discussion with Zoe and Wendy, and about Slibe calling, and about the meeting with Dick Raab, the attorney. Ken Sanders looked skeptical, while his son and Phillips tended toward apoplexy.
"She's telling us now?" Phillips exploded. "After another woman is shot, and another guy disappears, and her brother gets shot up?"
"Slibe's her old man," Ken Sanders said. "He's the only one she's got, except for her brother. She was protecting him."
"If she's telling the truth, her old man's gotta be the biggest asshole in northern Minnesota," Virgil said. "He'd be framing his own kid."
Then Bob Sanders asked, "What if she's lying? What if she's protecting her brother? What if she's protecting herself? Have you talked to her father since the shooting?"
"No-no-no. I'll tell you what's happening. Jesus Christ, it's so clear," Phillips said. He got up and did a turn around the office, his hands pressed to his temples. "Wendy tells us her old man did it. We've already got a pile of evidence against her brother. Blood on the coveralls, he ran for it… So we put him on trial, and Wendy gets up on the witness stand and says she saw her old man at the lake. Not only that, it's his credit card on the way to Iowa. He could have hung the coveralls up in Junior's loft. The defense attorney puts Slibe on trial, and the evidence is as strong against him as it is against his son. The Deuce is acquitted, because, shit, let's face it, there's more than reasonable doubt. So then what? We arrest Slibe? His daughter gets all shaky on the stand, and we've got blood on the Deuce's coveralls… Slibe's attorney puts the Deuce on trial, and… Wait a minute! Wait for it! They also put Wendy on trial, because Virgil has proof that she was down there. Those shoes. So Slibe gets acquitted. Ah, fuck me. Fuck me!"
Bob Sanders asked, "Are you serious?"
"Serious as a heart attack," Phillips said. "Dick Raab is going to take that girl and jam her straight up my ass. Ah, Jesus." He jabbed a finger at Virgiclass="underline" "You get down to the Cities. You be sitting right next to the bed when the Deuce wakes up, and you suck a statement out of him. If he admits it, we're good. If he says his old man did it… well, we're not good, but it's something."
"And if he's already lawyered up?"
"Then we're fucked," Phillips said. "Wait a minute-you're not fucked. You caught everybody. It's me that can't get the conviction. I'm fucked. You're okay."
"That's a relief," Bob Sanders said to his father, who cracked a smile.
"Pretty fuckin' funny, Bob," Phillips said.
"I'll tell you what," Bob Sanders said. "Between the four of us… if the Deuce died, that'd settle things. We could let it go."
Virgil shook his head: "No. The killer is nuts. If it's Slibe-or even if it's Wendy-somebody else could get murdered. This is now the way he settles his problems. Because the guy is nuts."
THEY SAT IN SILENCE for a minute. Ken Sanders said, "Or the gal. Or the gal is nuts. I've seen that Wendy. She's a dead ringer for her mother." He chuckled. "I'll tell you what, everybody in town was watching that little romance, Maria Ashbach and Hector."
"You knew about it? I mean, did a lot of people know about it?"
"I don't know if a lot of people did, but Hector used to do the septic inspections for the county, and Maria Ashbach handled the inspection paperwork for Slibe-and pretty soon, you know, old Hector was inspecting more than the paperwork. Slibe Ashbach's wife with a Latino. Bound to blow up. And it did: Maria and Hector went and doomed the whole clan. They're all messed up out there. I wouldn't be surprised if Slibe had gone and diddled his little girl a time or two or three. That'd be why she's a homosexual."
"I asked," Virgil said. "She says no."
Ken Sanders sat up. "You asked? Must have more sand in you than you look like."
"He's the guy who massacred all those Vietnamese up in International Falls," Sanders said to his father.
Virgil got hot: "Look, I didn't massacre…"
Sanders laughed and waved him off. "Zoe told me that if I wanted to pull your weenie…"
Virgil relaxed. "I might have to spank her little ass."
"Could I watch that?" Ken Sanders asked.
"What is this? The comedy club?" Phillips asked. "Why are we all sitting around laughing? I'm telling you, they're all gonna walk."
Ken Sanders shook his head: "They're not going to walk. For one thing, we've probably got Wendy as an accessory, for withholding information. We've got those shoes, and if she's going to mess with you, she's got to admit that she saw her father out there, that she wore those shoes, and lied to Virgil about it. So we got her: you just have to figure out how to use her as a can opener."
Phillips considered the old man for a while, then said, "I knew there was a reason you got elected eight times."
"Damn right," Ken Sanders said. Then, to Virgil, "I read about that thing up in International Falls. You taking it hard?"
So they talked about it for a while, the old man listening attentively, asking a few intelligent questions. He said, finally, "I don't see that you had any better options, Virgil."
"I can't think of any," Virgil said. "I could have let it go, but… people get trials, you know? You don't make a deal with a bunch of foreign killers to come here and execute people."
Ken Sanders said, "I worry about cops with machine guns, though. We're turning ourselves into the military. Got machine guns, got squad cars that are like tanks, full of munitions and guys with armor. You get a situation like this morning, it's going to come to a bad end, all those guys running around with heavy-duty weapons. Hell, you get an ordinary car chase, and half the time somebody winds up dead. And half the time it's somebody who's completely innocent. Trying to cross the street…"
"I hear you," Virgil said.
"You know, old home week is fine, and all that-but we've got some shit to do," Phillips said.