Virgil nodded, more of a body-humping than a real nod, and said, “I am kinda fucked up. I killed that guy, and he was a good guy. Jesus. I just—”
“We got shit to do, so pucker up,” Jenkins said. “The sheriff’s department has a deal with the medical examiner over in Rochester. We’re thinking that might be the way to go—”
“Whatever. We gotta find Kerns.”
“The whole sheriff’s department is looking for him. We’ve got the highway patrol looking for his truck. They been over to his house, but it’s dark. Don’t know if we have enough to get a warrant, since you never saw him.”
“I gotta think,” Virgil said. “I gotta go somewhere and think.”
“The cabin,” Jenkins said. “Shrake went over there with a couple of deputies. We thought that crazy as he is, he might have been making a last run at you, but there’s nobody there. We’re going to keep a couple of cops there overnight, just to make sure. And we’re putting a couple cars on Kerns’s place until we get a warrant figured out, and I’ve called back to St. Paul for a crime-scene crew. They can be here in three hours, but that’s about as good as they can do.”
—
WHEN THEY WERE SURE that the sheriff had everything handled, Virgil and Jenkins drove over to the cabin in Virgil’s truck. A cop car was sitting on the entrance road, Jenkins’s Crown Vic was parked beside the house, blocking the driveway, and Johnson’s travel vehicle, an enormous GMC Tahoe XL, was parked on the front lawn, between the water and the porch. Virgil parked behind the Crown Vic, and he and Jenkins walked around the collection of vehicles and up on the porch, where Shrake and Johnson were waiting.
“You’re better protected than the fuckin’ president,” Johnson said. He gestured at his truck and said, “We thought he might come up by boat and take a potshot from the water, so we’re blocking out the door with the truck.”
Virgil nodded and said, “Thanks,” and they all went inside and sat on a long couch and a couple of chairs and Shrake asked, “You okay?”
“Pretty unhappy,” Virgil said. “But I’m not gonna start chewing on the rug.”
“Good thing, too, when you think about what’s been on that rug,” Johnson said. “We’d like to know that you’re functioning again.”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
The side window lit up, with headlights bouncing down the rough road, and Johnson asked, “Who’re we expecting?”
“Don’t know,” Jenkins said.
The approaching car stopped, and a second later the door slammed, and Virgil said, “That sounds like Frankie’s truck door.”
Shrake and Jenkins both had weapons in their hands when Frankie came through the front door carrying a backpack and a well-used Remington pump shotgun. She looked at them and said, “I give up.”
Everybody had something to say, but Frankie ignored them and came to Virgil and said, “Sit down and let me look at your head.”
“Ah, my head’s okay,” Virgil said.
“Sit the fuck down, and let me look at your head. What’d they do, take a bullet out?”
“Splinter,” Virgil said. “Not too bad. Besides, I got a lot bigger problem.”
—
VIRGIL HADN’T HAD a chance since the shooting to tell everything that had happened in one coherent story. He did it now, starting with his talk with the bus driver, the connection with Will Bacon and the secret apartment, the delivery of the camera and microphone, and finally, the call from Bacon before he was killed.