“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 andBirkmann 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 ifthey’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?
