Johnson had been making inquiries, having noticed that Margot Moore had no living relatives to sue Birkmann for her murder. “I talked to Hemming’s sister... she’s not going to sue, either. She said all she wants is to be done with it all. So Birkmann’s got some assets...”
“How does this affect you?”
“Dave’s gonna need some money for his defense,” Johnson said. “His extermination techs are already talking about getting together to buy the business from him.”
Clarice rolled her eyes, turned to Virgil, and said, “Johnson thinks he can pick up the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise. Cheap.”
Virgil pointed his fork at Johnson and said, “Johnson, you don’t know a fuckin’ thing about running a donut shop.”
“Neither did Dave,” Johnson said. “All the employees transferred over to Dave from his wife’s lover. They’d be transferred over to me—everybody needs jobs. I’m thinking, ‘Donut King of Trippton, Minnesota.’”
Virgil said, “Hail to the chief.”
The deal closed in May. Johnson FedExed a dozen Bavarian Kremes to Virgil, and they were only a little squashed when they got to the farm.
—
Virgil left on the third day after the shooting. He stopped at a Kwik Trip in La Crescent to get cheese-and-peanut-butter crackers and a Diet Coke and was backing away from the coolerwhen he bumped into a woman coming down the aisle behind him.
He said, “Excuse me,” and noticed the gold-flecked green eyes, and the woman smiled at him and said, “That’s okay.”
The voice sounded familiar. He took another look at the auburn hair and the freckles and the foxy face, now some fifteen years older than when he saw it in the yearbook: “Jesse?”
“Do I know you?” she asked, turning back to him. She was nearly as tall as he was.
“We’ve spoken.”
She took only a second. “Virgil?”
Virgil nodded. “I hope you’re not going ahead with the i-Phone-eeeO. I don’t want to come down here again.”
“You couldn’t catch methistime... unless you’re doing it now.”
Virgil put up both hands. “No. Nope. No way. I’m going home, and Margaret S. Griffin should be back in L.A. by now. The thing is, if you go with the iPhone-eeeO, Apple will probably put out a hit on you. Those guys won’t be messing around with some low-rent PI with court papers. They’ll send out some guys with thick necks and they’ll cut your head off, and I’ll be down here on another murder.”
“How long do you think those two guys would last in Trippton? With my girls?”
“Okay... you got me. But I’m begging you, wait until I’m on vacation or something.”
She laughed, a happy sound, then cut it off and said in a hushed voice, “David Birkmann? I can’t believe it. It’s like saying a duck did it.”
“He has... issues,” Virgil said. “The whole thing would be a tragedy, if it weren’t basically so slipshod and stupid.”
They walked up to the counter together and checked out, McGovern with a Ding Dong and a Pepsi, Virgil with a Diet Coke and his crackers.
In the parking lot, she said, “I’d give you my new phone number and tell you to call me up the next time you’re in town, except you’d use the number to trace my call.”
“Well...”
His parka was open, and she caught the placket of his shirt with a forefinger, gave it a tug. “You take it easy, cowboy.”
“You, too,” Virgil said. Being the enlightened, feminist that he was, he would have denied checking out her ass as she climbed in the truck, but he did and found it seriously acceptable. When she backed out, he read off her truck license plate and wrote it down when he got in his rented 4Runner. Not as good as a phone number but useful nevertheless.
—
Frankie, of course, freaked out when she saw him.“What happened to you? You didn’t tell me...”
“Got beat up by some women; they moved around some cartilage,” Virgil said. “I’m basically okay. I know I look a little funny.”
