“Just had a similar experience,” Virgil said. He felt sorry for Birkmann: as Johnson had suggested, he was a bit of a schlub. “I asked a woman if there was a place you could buy B and D stuff in Trippton and she told me no there wasn’t because anybody with any brains would order straight from Amazon, where they’ve got everything anybody would ever want.”
Birkmann made the same tired chuckle sound again, his head dropped, and he rubbed his forehead, shook his head, and said, “That’s not entirely . . . true.”
“It’s not?”
“There’s a place downtown, Bernie’s Books, Candles ’n More. Books and magazines and candles and knickknacks,” Birkmann said. “Bernie’s dead, but his son, James—Jimmy—runs it now. A friend of mine said he once took a peek in the back room while Jimmy was talking to a customer and there were porno mags back there and some rubber . . . penises and sex toys and stuff. Apparently, you’ve got to get invited to go back there.”
“You haven’t been invited?”
“I never wanted to be. I’m not very sexually . . . adventurous, I suppose you’d say. Margot suggested that’s why my old lady ran off. Maybe she’s right.”
“What time does Bernie’s close?”
“Eleven o’clock, Monday through Saturday. Closed on Sunday.”
Virgil continued to bounce questions off Birkmann and Birkmann bounced back answers. He hadn’t been that close to Hemming, he said. They didn’t socialize, they didn’t talk, except about business, although they’d stop for a word if they ran into each other on the street.
There was something not quite right about him, Virgil thought—it didn’t feel like guilt, and, after a while, he decided that it might be depression or possibly even confusion. Virgil was asking questions that implied that Birkmann might be a suspect in a murder, but Birkmann couldn’t seem to focus on that; his attention seemed to keep drifting away.
After a while, Virgil asked, “You okay?”
Birkmann seemed to slump deeper in the chair. “Huh? Why?”
“I don’t know. You seem a little off center. Bummed-out?”
Birkmann sighed and nodded. “Yeah. This whole thing about Gina got me down. You know, she’s dead, murdered, and we’re the same age. Why’s she dead? That’s what I can’t get over. Why? And I’ve made my whole life out of killing things, at least until I bought the donut shop, which doesn’t do anyone a lot of good, either. I’m forty-two years old, forty-three next month, and this is what I got? Another thirty years of killing skunks and bugs and I drop dead from eating one too many donuts? No wife, no kids? I’m not even a good drunk, so I don’t have that. What the hell am I doing, Virgil?”
“Maybe you need a minister. Or a counselor. They can help you think things through, if they’re good,” Virgil said.
Birkmann showed a spark of interest. “You think so?” He considered for a moment, said, “You must see a lot of sad stuff in your job . . . maybe you’ve even killed people, I won’t ask. What do you do with all the sad stuff? Doesn’t it get you down?”
“Of course it does, sometimes . . .” Virgil hesitated, then added, “What I do is, I talk to God before I go to sleep at night. Talking about it, and thinking that maybe there’s somebody on the other end, seems to help.”
Birkmann waved that away. “I’m not religious. Going to church—it’s a magic show, in my opinion. Don’t tell the Chamber of Commerce I said that.”
“I’m not talking about religion. I’m talking about God,” Virgil said. “I’m a Lutheran minister’s kid, and, believe me, there’s a difference between a religion and God. I sorta cut out the middleman.”
Birkmann sighed again and asked, “Are we done?”
Virgil got up. “I think so. For now. I’ll leave you a card. Call me if you think of something.”
“Yeah. Hey, thanks for the God tip, I’ll try it. Not gonna bum me out any more than I already am,” Birkmann said. “What should I do if He answers?”
Virgil grinned and shook his head. “Maybe that’s where you start to worry.” On the way out, he added, “Take care of yourself, Dave.”
Birkmann said, “You, too, Virgil.” He showed the first hesitant sign of a smile. “Don’t go fighting any more Trippton women. They’re man-eaters, I’m telling you.”
“I hear you,” Virgil said.
—
After the interviews with the Homecoming King and Queen, Virgil thought, “Nope.” They probably hadn’t done it. He didn’t think that about Birkmann, because Birkmann was too stunned by Hemming’s murder. People die all the time, even if they’re not murdered, and a death of somebody he wasn’t all that close to shouldn’t have brought him down quite as much as it obviously had. On the other hand, maybe it was like he said: one component of an incipient midlife crisis.
Most bothersome, though, was Birkmann’s claim that he didn’t fish—no boats, no snowmobiles for winter. Not a river rat. Those were claims easily checked. He was, he said, a former hunter. A hunter, Virgil thought, would take the body out in the woods, not out on the river, especially if he didn’t have something he could use to cut ice.
Still, Birkmann wasn’t yet a nope.
Virgil began a mental tap dance. He should be a nope because, one, he didn’t look like a guy who could carry a large woman anywhere, and because, two, he had an alibi that could be easily checked with the list of witnesses Birkmann said had seen him at Club Gold.
Virgil mulled it over for a minute. While his brain might have been ready, his gut wouldn’t yet let him stick the nope label on Birkmann. The guy was a little too emotionally wrought.
—
The snow was falling harder, the roads were turning slick. Virgil dropped back down the hill and into town, taking it slow. Johnson called and said that he and Clarice would be going out for a pizza, did he want to go?
“Give me until seven o’clock, and I’m not going to Ma and Pa’s.”
“We’re going to Tony’s Chicago Style. I’m looking at the radar, and this piece of snow will be out of here in forty-five minutes. The back end is already through Caledonia, but there’s another big chunk coming after that. We got maybe an hour or two break between them.”
“All right. I’ll see you at seven. By the way, tell Clarice she was wrong.”
“About what?”
“That’s private. Just tell her.”
—
Bernie’s Books, Candles ’n More was at the south end of Main Street. A sand-and-salt truck was making its way down the street, yellow lights flashing in the night. Virgil had to follow for two blocks before he could get around it and spent the time thinking about how much additional corrosion it’d put on his aging 4Runner.
Bernie’s was a corner store, with big windows both on Main and the side street, the windows crowded with useless crap. Beeswax candles, leftover Christmas decorations at fifty percent off, a notice for a book signing by Trippton’s favorite author, which had happened three days earlier, and a sun-browned sign that said, “Explore Your Home Scent Design . . . As seen on TV.”
Inside, it was candles and knickknacks for the first twenty feet, smelling of cinnamon and jasmine, then a candy rack and a glass-fronted refrigerator case full of soda, three rows of paperback book racks, and finally a magazine rack.
There were three other people in the place, one of whom was talking to a tall, thin gray-faced man behind the counter who was wearing a University of Minnesota hoodie; he glanced at Virgil as he went by and made Virgil think of a vulture sitting on a branch. Virgil walked all the way to the back rack, where he picked up an outdoor magazine, glanced at a feature entitled “Swamp Gobblers in Your Sights,” and checked out the store. In the back, the scent of cinnamon had faded, giving way to the pleasant odor of newsprint.
—
There wasn’t much to see—nothing unexpected—but there was a door leading farther into the back,
as Birkmann said, right next to the magazine rack. He’d read the first three badly written paragraphs of the “Swamp Gobbler” story and was exchanging it for a tattered copy of Automobile when a man dressed in a red-checked hunting parka walked through the store to the back, looked suspiciously at Virgil, reached up above the door and pushed what must have been a hidden doorbell button—Virgil heard a buzzer bleep at the front of the store.
An electronic lock snapped on the door, and the man in the red-checked coat pushed through. Virgil stuck out a foot to block the door from closing and followed the man into the back.
Through the door, he found himself in a narrow room with a magazine rack on the wall filled with pornographic magazines and DVDs. There was a third man in the room, in a tan canvas coat, deeply engrossed in a copy of Big ’Uns. Nobody looked at nobody else.
Virgil spotted a “Novelties” sign at the end of the magazine rack, went that way, and turned a corner. The store didn’t have much, but what they had was low quality: the usual sex toys, including some for men; edible underwear; and, best of all, a box containing a whip that appeared to be exactly like the one he’d found in Hemming’s dressing table.
He took down the box, found another box behind that: two whips, so maybe a regular item. On the bottom shelf was a row of bondage magazines, fresh enough that there must actually be a regular clientele.
He put the box under his arm, poked around to see if he could turn up a modified Barbie, but didn’t. On the way out of the back room, he said to the man still studying Big ’Uns, “That’s not something you see every day, huh?” and went on out.
—
James Barker was alone at the front of the shop. He peered out from his hood, taking in Virgil and his box, and said, “I don’t know you. What were you doing back there?”
“Gathering evidence,” Virgil said.
“Say what?”
Virgil held up his ID case. “Virgil Flowers, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’m trying to trace down purchasers of this model of whip. I need to know who, exactly, bought one.”
“Hey, that ain’t right. You can’t come rockin’ in here and poke around. First Amendment, dude,” Barker said.
“The First Amendment guarantees your freedom of religion, speech, and press, that you can assemble with other people and petition the government for redress of grievances,” Virgil said. “It doesn’t mention whips, bondage and discipline, or withholding information from the police. Of course, you could take the Fifth, but that would imply that you have something to hide. Do you have something to hide?”
“Of course not,” Barker sputtered. “But . . . I’m not the only one selling stuff outa here. I might not know who bought what.”
Virgil looked around the store. “You’re telling me you have staff?”
“I have a woman who works the mornings . . .”
“Somebody bought a B and D whip from a woman in the morning?”
“It could happen,” Barker said.
“Yeah, but it didn’t, did it, Jimmy? You sold a whip to a guy, maybe more than one. I can see it in your face. And this happens to be a murder investigation.”
“Gina Hemming?”
“Yeah. Did you sell one to Hemming?” Virgil asked.
“No . . . Women don’t go back there,” Barker said. “They don’t know about it.”
“So, who bought it, Jimmy?” Virgil asked. “Or, maybe . . . you held one out for yourself?”
“No, no, no, no . . . But if I tell you, the guy’s gonna kill me.”
Virgil smiled, brought out all the teeth. “This is great, because it tells me two things: the guy is violent, and you know who he is. That means if you don’t cooperate, I can charge you with accessory after the fact in a murder.”
“Jeez, man, you don’t have to be an asshole about it,” Barker said.
“The name?”
“Fred Fitzgerald. He’s a biker guy. He’s got a tattoo shop out on Melon.”
“Thank you. Don’t go calling Fitzgerald or I’ll bust your ass. Listen, since you’re in this deep . . . does Fitzgerald buy any other stuff involved with bondage and all that? Or sex toys?”
“Yeah, from time to time. Nothing that would hurt anyone. Handcuffs, butt plugs, stuff like that.”
“Is Fitzgerald a fisherman?”
“I don’t know. A lot of people around here are . . . I know he has a snowmobile for when he can’t ride his Harley.”
—
When Virgil emerged on the street five minutes later, he’d successfully scared the shit out of Barker, who wouldn’t be talking about the interview, and Virgil believed he’d made serious progress.
Fred Fitzgerald had a primitive website that Virgil and Barker looked at on Barker’s laptop. That gave Virgil an address, and, after leaving the store, he called the duty officer at the BCA, gave him the name and address. The duty officer came back with a rap sheet.
“He’s a bad boy but a small-timer,” the duty officer said. “Couple of small burglaries, lots of fights and assaults, a DUI four years ago, charged with theft of motorcycle parts out in Sturgis, did a little time on that. Let me see . . . I’d say an assault back in 2009 is the worst of it. Went after a guy with a pool cue, broke his arms, did a year less a day in the county jail. Apparently, part of a deal where he put a tattoo on a guy and misspelled something and the guy went around bad-mouthing him.”
“Smells like a loser,” Virgil said.
“Maybe. But I’ll tell you what, Virgie. The guy’s got a bad temper and a violent streak. You want to have somebody with you when you go to see him.”
“Gotcha. Talk to you later.”
—
Virgil met Johnson Johnson and Clarice at Tony’s Chicago Style, and Johnson said Fitzgerald was not a bad guy. “He’s made some mistakes.”
“Busted up a guy with a pool cue,” Virgil said.
“Well, who hasn’t?” Johnson asked.
“You and Virgil,” Clarice said, “for two. Don’t give me any of that tough-guy bullshit, Johnson, you’ve never busted anyone up with anything, except maybe you punched a couple of guys in the nose.”
“You’re harshing my buzz, man,” Johnson said to Clarice.
“He do your ink?” Virgil asked.
Johnson had full sleeves. “No way. I got primo work by one of the godfathers of art tattoos. Fred’s not a bad guy, but he’s second tier.”
The pizza came, a lot of pepperoni swimming in a lake of extra-sharp cheddar, all of it scooped out on top of a sugar-free piecrust. Nothing like it had ever been served within a hundred miles of Chicago.
“To get back to Fitzgerald . . . He is a bad guy, Johnson,” Virgil said. “The question is, would he have killed Hemming if he felt the need?”
Johnson considered and then said, “No. It would have been an accident. He wouldn’t have thought about it.”
“I can buy that,” Virgil said. “She was probably hit only once, in the head. Like somebody got mad, swatted her with a bottle.”
“You know, I can’t even see him doing that,” Johnson said. “He’s been in enough fights that he’d know that he’d hurt her bad. I can see him twisting her arm, maybe choking her a little, slapping her . . . Not hitting her with a bottle. Not cracking her skull.”
“You’re not helping here,” Virgil said.
“I’m telling you the truth, though.”
They gnawed through a few slices of the pizza, which turned out to be tougher than it looked. Clarice asked Virgil, “So . . . you found a place that sells sex stuff?”
“Back room at Bernie’s Books.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Really? I didn’t know that—but I guess I’m not surprised. Jimmy’s always been a sleaze dog. A friend of mine told me he was coming on to her daughter when the daughter was fifteen. He was thirty-four.”
“That’s c
alled statutory rape in Minnesota,” Virgil said.
Johnson: “You can’t rape statues anymore?”
Clarice ignored him. “They hadn’t slept together before the mom found out. He might have introduced the daughter to reefer madness, though. My friend went down to the sheriff’s office and talked to Jeff Purdy and Jeff had a word with Jimmy. That ended that.”
Johnson asked, “When are you going to talk to Fred?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Virgil said, “if I can get out of your driveway.”
“Well, if you can’t, Fred’s place is on Melon, right where it comes down to the highway. You could ride one of the sleds down there, if you aren’t ascared to walk across the railroad tracks.”
“We’ll see what happens,” Virgil said.
Johnson looked at Clarice. “What do you think?”
“Don’t know him that well,” she said. “From a woman’s perspective, though, I can put him with Gina if she was sleeping with Corbel. Fred’s good-looking, has got the same kind of rough-trade vibe that Corbel has. If bad boys did it for her, Fred would fit the bill.”
“The duty officer at the BCA called him that,” Virgil said. “Bad boy.”
FIFTEEN Corbel Cain didn’t drink every day, or even every week; but once in a while, when the weight of the world grew too heavy, he’d go off on what he called a run and what his doctor called a binge. During the run, Corbel told the doc, he’d likely get screwed, stewed, and tattooed—and, more than likely, correct some grievous wrongs.
He didn’t win all the fights, because he tended to pick on even larger brawlers, but he won most of them.
“The problem with that is,” his doc said after the last run, “somebody will eventually kick you to death. Or cripple you. Or you’ll forget to stop sometime and you’ll hurt somebody bad and wind up in prison. You got to cut this shit out, Corbel.”