“No, I didn’t,” Virgil said. “But it was Clancy Conley, who was found shot to death in a ditch over on Highway A. Been dead a few days.”
“Really,” she said.
“You don’t seem shocked.”
“Didn’t really know him,” she said. “But maybe I am a little shocked.”
“You said he was being sneaky. Why do you think he was being sneaky?”
“Well, if you look around the edges of these pictures, you see it was dark. He was taking pictures in the dark,” she said.
“Maybe you should have been a cop,” Virgil said.
“Nah. I couldn’t put up with the bullshit,” Clarice said.
“You’re living with Johnson Johnson, and you can’t put up with bullshit?”
“Got me there,” she said. “He is a bullshit machine. But he gets things done.”
—
VIKE LAUGHTON WAS a short, fat man with a pale, jiggly face who should have gone to Hollywood to get acting roles as corrupt Southern politicians. He sat in a wooden office chair with worn arms, in front of a rolltop desk with a laptop sitting on an under-desk shelf, and hooked into a big Canon printer. Framed photos hung on the wall behind the desk, all with a light patina of dust. Some of them were news shots, others were pictures of Vike as a younger man, getting plaques for one thing or another—Jaycees Young Businessman of 1984, Kiwanis Distinguished Service Award. None of them were recent; things must have slowed down since the turn of the century.
Possibly, Virgil thought, he was being unfair, but he doubted it.
“I was sorry to hear that he was killed,” Laughton said. “The sheriff called and told me, and I can’t say I was completely surprised. The only reason I kept him around was because he did good work when he was clean, and I paid him shit—but he was an addict, and he was buying drugs, and I suspected he’d come to a bad end. I thought he’d die of an overdose, or in a car accident. Getting shot, that’s something else. . . . I don’t know where he was buying his dope, but I knew he was doing it. If you hang around with those kinds of people . . .”
“You know any of the local dope dealers?”
“No, I don’t pay attention to that,” Laughton said. “There’s some around—marijuana, anyway. We had a kid suspended from the high school when they found a bag of weed in his locker. We’re a river port, so there’s always a few lowlifes going through. Those guys who work on tows, they’re a different breed entirely.”
Conley’s job, Laughton said, was to write about a hundred and fifty inches of copy a week, on any subject, and provide a half-dozen photos of anything. They didn’t do online. “We’ve had more mist-on-the-river shots than you could shake a stick at,” he said. “When he’d go off on a toot, I’d have to do his job, along with mine. I’ve put everything in the paper except the dictionary.”
Laughton’s main job, he said, was collecting the advertisements from local stores. “We’re one of those papers where, if the IGA goes out of business, I’ll be working as a Walmart greeter the next week. So Clancy wrote two-thirds of the copy and took all the pictures, and I wrote the other third and collected the ads.”
“I wondered about the possibility that he might have been working on a story that got him in trouble,” Virgil said. “Would you know anything about that?”
“Virgil, Conley didn’t do anything serious. He was incapable of it. He was a lost soul, trying to get through life as easy as he could. And I have to tell you, there are not many stories in the Republican-River. That’s not what we do here. We have obits, and the occasional drowning, sometimes a house burns down, and boys go off to the army and navy, and we do the county commission and the town council and the school board . . . election night is always big. But we’re not up there investigating the president.”
“You’re sure he wasn’t wandering off the reservation? Trying to redeem himself, or something?”
Laughton looked perplexed for a moment, then said, “No, no, no. Something else, Virgil, that you should know about, from the wider world of journalism. Journalists get killed in wars, and by accident, but they don’t get hunted down by people they’re investigating. Not in the USA, anyway. That’s movie stuff.”
“All right.” Virgil looked around the office and asked where Conley worked—there wasn’t much room and only one desk—and Laughton heaved himself to his feet and led the way through a curtained doorway into a wide dim room at the back, filled with piles of undistributed papers. A metal military-style desk sat in a corner, with a table next to it. Plugs for another Canon printer and a couple small speakers lay on the desk. Vike nodded at it. “Feel free.”
Virgil went through the desk, found a checkbook with a couple of unpaid utility bills tucked under the cover, a book of stamps, a few pieces of computer equipment—a dusty USB hub, some cables, a CD disk containing an obsolete copy of Photoshop—and other desk litter. No laptop.
“Couldn’t find a laptop up at his trailer,” Virgil said. “You know where it might be?”
“He carried it around in a black nylon backpack. He did half his writing down at Stone’s Coffee Shop. Should have been at his house, or in his car, anyway.”
“Wasn’t there,” Virgil said. “A Macintosh, right?”
“Yeah, one of those white ones. Older. You think that means something?”
“Yes, I do,” Virgil said. “He was out jogging when he was killed. Could have been some crazy guy, looking for somebody to kill—but not if Conley’s laptop is missing. They would have had to stop at his house, and risk breaking in to get it. Though, there was no sign of a break-in. Might want to look for somebody with a key . . .”
“Well . . . I don’t know,” Laughton said.
—
LAUGHTON HAD ONLY ONE suggestion for the direction of the investigation: “Like I said, I paid him shit, and when he wasn’t working, I didn’t pay him anything. Still, he managed to hang on, buy gas, pay the rent, and drink. I don’t know exactly how he did that. I don’t think he got enough money from me. I’m wondering if he might have been your dope dealer? He knew everybody in town, so he’d know who the local buyers would be.”
“I’ll check into that,” Virgil said. “Thank you. That’s a possibility.”
—
VIRGIL DIDN’T LIKE two things about the interview. The first was his sense that Laughton had processed Conley’s murder too thoroughly, in too short a time—didn’t ask enough questions about it, didn’t ask about the investigation, didn’t speculate about alternate explanations of what might have happened. At the same time, he seemed exactly like the kind of McDonald’s-coffee-drinking hangout guy who’d do all of that.
The second thing was, Laughton had spent a good part of the interview poor-mouthing, and judging from the paper itself, and Laughton’s shabby office, he might have had reason to do that. Which didn’t explain why there was a very new Nissan Pathfinder parked outside his office.
Virgil had been shopping for a replacement for his five-year-old 4Runner, and knew that the Pathfinder—which looked pretty optioned-out, including a navigation system—cost something north of $40,000.
But who knew? Maybe Laughton had inherited money or something. And the possession of money, or the ability to get a truck loan, didn’t seem to have much to do with a guy getting shot in the back.
—
VIRGIL HAD INTENDED to drop in on the other people on his list, but before he could get started, Johnson called and said, “We got a mutiny going on. We need to meet with some of our guys.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
“They know about the dogs on the south hill. They’re getting their guns together, they’re going in.”
“Aw, Jesus, where are they?”
“At Tom Jones’s place.”
Virgil got the location and drove over in a hurry. At Jones’s house, he found Johnson arguing with four men in
camo, including Winky Butterfield.
All of them turned to look when Virgil drove in, and when he got out of his truck, Butterfield said to Johnson, “Goddamnit, you weren’t supposed to tell him.”
“I got no choice. Virgil’s my guy and I can’t turn my back on him,” Johnson said. “He’s got his reasons for working the way he is.”
“What reasons?” one of the men asked. Virgil found out later he was Jones.
Instead of answering, Virgil asked Johnson, “Can you trust these guys? They got any relations up Orly’s Creek?”
The men all looked at each other, then Butterfield said, “No, none of us do,” and Johnson said, “Yeah, you could trust them. Are you going to tell them?”
Virgil said, “Listen, men. This is supposed to be top secret, but I’m telling you anyway. You tell anybody else, you could go to prison for a long time. Anybody not want to hear what I’m going to say, you better walk away. If you listen, and you tell anyone, including your wives, and the word gets out, we will track it down, and you will go to prison.”
The men all looked at each other again, then Butterfield said, “What the hell are you talking about, Virgil?”
“Anybody walking away?” Virgil asked.
They all shook their heads, and Virgil said, “Okay. Johnson and I went up there and scouted the valley.”
“Didn’t know that,” Jones said.
“’Cause we didn’t tell you. We didn’t find the dogs, but we did find a commercial-sized meth lab. The place is under surveillance by the federal government right now. As soon as we nail the people running the lab, we’ll go looking for the dogs.”
One of the men smiled and said, “My goodness. That is a reason.”
“But what about the dogs?” Butterfield asked. “Goddamn meth labs are all over the place—the goddamned dogs are like my goddamn children.”
“Look: that’s the reason we have you guys sitting out by the river, watching people coming and going—we don’t want to let the dogs out of there,” Virgil said. “We think they’re up on the south hill, which is hard to get at, but we can hear them barking at night. So as soon as the feds move, which has to be any day now—I’m kind of surprised that they haven’t gone already—we’ll be up there after the dogs. And if somebody tries to move them before then, we should see them.”
“They could be torturing them,” Butterfield said.
“Probably not, if they’re gathering them up to sell them,” Virgil said. “Look, guys, give me a couple more days, and we’ll be all over the dogs.”
Once again, they all looked around, then Jones said, “Two days, Virgil. Then we’re gonna have to do something.”
—
JOHNSON CAME and sat in Virgil’s truck while he made a call to Gomez: “Anything happening up there at all?”
“Yeah, we saw a guy go up there yesterday in one of those Gator utility vehicles,” Gomez said. “He was dropping stuff off, it looked like. I think they’re getting ready to roll some smoke. You getting antsy?”
Virgil explained about the dog owners, and Gomez said, “Oh boy. All we need is a bunch of rednecks running through there with rifles. If it looks like you can’t hold them off, call me—I’ll come down and preach a sermon to them.”
“I’ll do that,” Virgil said. “You heard about my murder?”
“Yeah—does that have anything to do with the Orly’s Creek boys?”
“Don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about that possibility. But the victim was a pill head, according to the sheriff. His boss thought that he might have another source of income. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Well, if you’ve got a local source, and you have a pill head who might be dealing . . . that’s a pretty interesting coincidence, if it is a coincidence.”
“I’ll stay in touch,” Virgil said.
He rang off, told Johnson about Gomez’s end of the conversation, then called up Alewort, who was still at Conley’s trailer. “I’d be interested in any trace of any street drug. Deeply interested,” Virgil said.
“We’ll look,” Alewort said.
When Virgil was done with Alewort, Johnson asked what he was most thinking about—the murder, or the dogs.
“I gotta juggle them,” Virgil said. “The murder’s the main thing, but I won’t forget the dogs.”
6
VIRGIL NEEDED TO TALK to Bill Don Fuller, who owned the trailer where Conley had lived, and to the other people suggested by Purdy. He recited the list to Johnson, who said that Fuller ran a welding service down by the river port, and that he’d be driving right past Wendy McComb’s house on the way to Fuller’s place.
“Is she gonna be a problem?” Virgil asked.
“Not if she’s sober,” Johnson said. “She tends to drink a little.”
“By ‘a little,’ you mean ‘a lot,’” Virgil said.
“Well, yeah. She had a pretty hard life before she started screwing for money.”
“I suspect this isn’t news to you, Johnson, but screwing for money is a hard life,” Virgil said.
“Tell you what,” Johnson said, “she used to work as an aide down at the River View nursing home, changing old folks’ diapers and colostomy bags for the minimum wage, drinking every night, and screwing for free. Now she just drinks and screws, for ten times as much money, and that’s about a thousand percent improvement. So don’t get your feminist panties in a knot about what she does for a living.”
“You got a colorful town here, Johnson.”
“Could get more colorful in two days,” Johnson said. “Two days and there’ll be a bunch of boys going up to Orly’s Creek with guns.”
—
VIRGIL LEFT JOHNSON at Jones’s place and drove back toward town. Just short of the city limits, Thunderbolt Road veered off toward the river. A dirt track with a scattering of gravel snaked through a swampy swale and across a short concrete-slab bridge to the levee, then along the land side of the levee toward town, eventually winding past a weathered white cottage with green shutters and a floodwater stain just below the first-floor windows.
Virgil pulled into a dirt parking area and walked around to the front porch. He could hear a TV inside as he knocked on the screen door.
A woman called, “Who is that?”
“Police, state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Virgil said.
McComb was a completely ordinary-looking woman, a bit heavy, wearing a white blouse buttoned to the neckline, and black Capri pants and flip-flops. She had dishwater-blond hair, pale green eyes, and a few freckles. She had a white plastic bowl of cornflakes in her hand, and a spoon in the other.
“What have I done?” she asked through the screen door.
“Nothing, as far as I know,” Virgil said. “But I understand you’re a friend of Clancy Conley.”
“Who? I’m not sure I know that name—”
“Conley was found dead today. He was shot to death.”
“Oh, Jesus!” she said, taking a step back. She sputtered a few soggy cornflakes onto the screen. “What happened? Where was this? Are you sure it’s Clancy?”
She asked all the questions that Laughton should have, Virgil noticed; and she’d popped the hook on the door, almost unconsciously, to let him in. She backed across the living room and dropped into a chair, pointing him at a couch. The house was furnished like any middle-class suburban home, except the television was smaller.
“What happened?” She seemed to notice the bowl in her hand and set it on an end table.
Virgil told her about Conley, and as he did, the blood drained out of her face and she put both hands on her cheeks; no tears. When he finished, she asked, “How can I help?”
“Do you know . . . Everybody who knows him says he didn’t have much going for himself. Drank too much, probably did some dope. Maybe dealt a little? Sound right?”
&nb
sp; “No. He quit drinking. Quite a while ago, and he said he wasn’t going back. He was working out, he was running, he was getting in shape. He was working on a story, he was all excited about it. In fact . . . Okay, he might have known he was in trouble. He once told me, we were in bed, and he said if a cop comes asking about me, tell him to look up the songs of some singer.”
“Some singer?”
“Yeah, but this was like a month ago. I can’t remember her name, but . . . Wait, I think she was the chick singer for the Mouldy Figs.”
“The Mouldy Figs?” The Figs were a local jazz band in the Twin Cities. “The Mouldy Figs don’t have a chick singer—they’re a jazz band.”
“Well, that’s what he said. And he said, their chick singer,” McComb said.
“Huh. Do you know what his story was about?” Virgil asked.
“No, I don’t—but he said he had a great story, he was working on it, but then he shut up and said he didn’t want to talk about it, really.”
“Did he say when he was going to publish it?”
“No, nothing like that, but I feel like it was pretty soon,” McComb said. She got up, took two or three quick steps around the living room, and sat down again. “He was as happy as I’d ever known him to be.”
“How about the drugs?” Virgil asked.
“He used some. He had one of those orange pill bottles, and it never changed. It said Prozac on it, but it wasn’t Prozac. But it wasn’t powder, it was pills, and I believe it was some kind of speed. I don’t think he was dealing, though—never tried to sell me anything, anyway. I never heard from anybody else that he was a dealer. We do have a few dealers around town. I don’t use myself, except a little pot on Saturday night.”
“Vike Laughton kinda hinted to me—”
“There’s a snake in the grass. I wouldn’t trust him any further than I could spit a brick,” she said.
Virgil said, “Hmm.”
“What did he hint to you?” she asked.
“That Conley was dealing. He said he’d started drinking again.”
“I bet Vike did it. Killed him,” McComb said. “He was trying to direct you away, to make you think Clancy got killed in a dope deal.”