Rhodes was currently experimenting with the name Justine. He and Hemming had separated a year earlier but hadn’t yet divorced.
“I knew most of that from Johnson,” Virgil complained. “I came to you for the good stuff.” The cocoa was now perfect. He added, “This is the best cocoa I’ve ever had in my life.”
She nodded and took them back to the topic of Gina Hemming. “Here’s some of the good stuff: before she and Justin separated, Gina had an on-and-off affair with a brute named Corbel Cain.”
Virgil nodded. “Really. C-o-r-b-e-l C-a-i-n?” He wrote it down.
“That’s correct. Corbel is a tough guy. Though not dim. He’s smart enough. I believe I gave him a B-plus in English. He’s a heavy-equipment operator, not somebody that you’d think would be in Gina’s wheelhouse. Corbel and his wife are one of those high school couples that didn’t break up. He married his sweetheart right after graduation, and they’re still married, though he’s beaten her up a few times—enough that his wife’s father once put a shotgun to Corbel’s ear and said if he did it again, he’d blow his head off.”
“You think he would?”
“Yes. Janey Cain is the apple of her father’s eye. Her father is a farmer down south of town, and a man who means what he says,” Anderson said.
Virgil picked up a vibration in her voice, looked at her forseveral seconds, not responding, sipping on his cocoa. She suddenly blushed and said, “Goddamn you, Flowers.”
“You got this information from your farmer friend, right? Might have had a couple of interesting reunions yourself?”
“Shut up. Anyway, I happen to know that Corbel and Gina had an off-and-on affair for years. I know Corbel drinks and I know that he has a violent streak,” Anderson said. “If you asked me if I thought he did it... I would have said yes, before you told me a few minutes ago how she died. To tell you the truth, I can’t see him hitting her with a heavy object. He’d use his fists. He’s been in enough fights over the years that he knows how to channel his anger.”
“When was the last time you think they were... seeing each other?”
“It’s probably been a couple of years now. They started and stopped a few times, I believe. They could have started again. Corbel is quite a... vigorous type, somewhat attractive in a rough way, and he’s not a braggart. He wouldn’t have talked about their relationship. I suspect that when Gina needed a sexual outlet, she turned to Corbel.”
“If he didn’t talk, and she didn’t talk, how do you know about it?”
“Because us old people talk to each other even if nobody else pays attention to us. People think when you pass sixty-five, you suddenly turn stupid. Anyway, we see things, and we used to see Corbel sneaking into Gina’s house. And people have seen them sneaking into the Days Inn over in La Crosse. This was two or three years ago, though. Maybe even longer.”
“Got it,” Virgil said. “Where can I find Corbel?”
“He’s got an equipment yard down on the river, on the south end of the marina. You know where the marina is?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t hear it from me,” she said.
“Of course not.”
“And you don’t know I might have had a farmer friend,” she said.
“I’ve already forgotten about it,” Virgil said. He drank the last of the hot cocoa. “Though, to tell you the truth, Janice, when you’ve had a serious relationship with a person, and at your age... why not put everything else aside and go for it?”
“His wife is still alive,” Anderson said.
“A lot of people...”
“His wife is my sister,” she said.
“Ah,” Virgil said. “The twists in the social fabric of Trippton never fail to astonish me.”
“Let it go.”
—
One other thing,” Virgil said. “Do you know where I could find Jesse McGovern?”
A wrinkle appeared in her forehead. “I don’t... I don’t believe I know that name.”
“Liar.”
