—
VIRGIL’S HEAD WAS beginning to hurt again, and they all went off to their various beds, leaving Virgil and Frankie alone in the cabin. Frankie said Virgil was too injured and tired for sex, but that a little bodily warmth never hurt anyone, so they wound up huddled together on an old-fashioned double bed, which was almost large enough for them, Frankie being a small woman.
They’d agreed to meet Jenkins and Shrake at nine-thirty at Ma and Pa’s Kettle for pancakes; they’d gone to bed late, and there was little point in killing themselves by getting up too early. Winona was an hour or so away, straight up the river, so if they left a little after ten, they’d catch Fred Masilla, of Masilla, Oder, Decker and Klandorst, Certified Public Accountants, Auditors and Consultants, shortly before lunch.
If he was available.
—
VIRGIL WAS AWAKENED at eight-thirty by an unexpected stimulus, and he groaned and said, “I thought I was too injured for sex,” and Frankie said, “I wouldn’t want to give you a pounding, but this is okay.”
Virgil agreed that it was okay, and she went back to what she was doing, and after a minute he picked up his cell phone and called Fred Masilla’s office, and when a secretary asked, “Who shall I say is calling?” he hung up.
Frankie asked from under the sheet, “He there?”
“Yup.”
“Don’t think this should take much longer.”
“Nope.”
But then it did, because they wound up in the shower, and he wrestled her back to the bed for Dr. Flowers’s Female Cure, and then they had to get back in the shower again, and they were still damp when they got to the Kettle, running late.
Jenkins and Shrake were in a booth when they arrived, and Shrake patted the seat next to himself for Frankie, and said to Virgil, “You don’t look all that injured anymore.”
“I’ll tell you what I am,” Virgil said, deflecting the insinuation and picking up a menu, “I’m as angry as I’ve ever been in my life. I never in my life really wanted to kill anyone. That has changed. If I had the money, I’d put a bounty on Kerns.”
“Then you should stay away from him, wherever he pops up,” Jenkins said. “Leave it to the unbiased professionals.”
Shrake said, “Kerns is safe as long as Flowers is carrying a pistol.”
Virgil: “Fuck you. No wait: fuck you both.”
Shrake said, “No sign of Kerns, anywhere. Crime Scene is here. They’re working the school. You gotta go over there, pretty quick.”
—
JENKINS AND SHRAKE gave him a rundown of everything that had happened overnight, and when they finished eating, Virgil told Frankie to stay away from the cabin, because Kerns could show up there. She said, “I’m gonna stay away from Trippton—I got hay to put up, and small children to oversee. Besides, I been cured, so I’m going home.”
She’d drive Virgil’s truck back to the cabin and leave it there, and take her own truck home. Virgil would ride with Jenkins and Shrake until he could get back to the cabin.
Virgil kissed Frankie good-bye in the parking lot, and then he, Jenkins, and Shrake drove over to the high school. The state crime-scene truck was parked at the back door closest to the auditorium, along with a couple of sheriff’s cars.
Inside, the crime-scene crew, Beatrice Sawyer and Don Baldwin, were working around the pit where Bacon’s body had been found.
“We’re getting stuff, but we won’t know what it is until we get to a lab,” Sawyer said. She was a middle-aged woman who carried a few extra pounds, with carefully coiffed hair that changed color weekly.