Skinner was the big winner and he gloated; he was becoming seriously offensive when a man knocked on the back door. Before anyone could get up, the man pulled it open and stuck his head inside.
He was tall, thin, balding, and dressed in dark gray coveralls. There was a red-bordered oval patch on the front of the coveralls, inside which was a name: “Bob.”
“Hey, Harry, come on in,” Virgil said. To the others, “Sorry, guys, but you’ll have to go.”
Holland led Skinner and Fischer out through the drapes that separated the back room from the store, but Virgil didn’t hear the front door close. They were all listening from the other side of the curtain, but he didn’t care as long as he could testify that nobody but himself, Jenkins, and Harry Scorese were in the room, should anybody ask.
Virgil asked Scorese, “So... what?”
“I put them to bed. I guess they’re early to rise. Anyway, it’s interesting listening,” Scorese said. “We do have to get in there tomorrow and retrieve my mics.”
“Bottom line?” Jenkins said.
“You got them, cold,” Scorese said. “They were both involved.”
“You were right,” Jenkins said to Virgil.
Virgil said, “I hope you got the good stuff.”
“I did,” Scorese said.
He set his recorder on the table, along with a hand-sized speaker, and started pushing buttons.
—
Davy Apel: “What do you think?”
Ann Apel: “We’re okay, any way they cut it. No way they’re going to charge us, with our alibis stacked up like that. If they did charge us, they’d never convict. I’d like to move the rifle, but they could be watching. We should wait a few days.”
Davy Apel: “I’m still worried about the cartridge. I can’t figure out why they didn’t print us. They had that warrant.”
Ann Apel: “You know what I think? I think they were playing us. I don’t think they’ve got a fingerprint. We were awful careful.”
Davy Apel: “I thought about that, too. But they better not have a print, because I don’t know how we’d beat that.”
—
Here’s another good one,” Scorese said, looking at a digital counter on the recorder. More buttons.
—
Ann Apel: “How long before we can get our money?”
Davy Apel: “If Margery’s will is read in Florida, I don’t know how long that’ll take. But I think we submit our loan papers up here—I think the money has to be passed from Margery’sestate to Barry’s estate, and we submit to Barry’s estate. We need to get a lawyer involved, but I’m thinking six months, even a year?”
Ann Apel: “Stupid loan. I don’t know what the heck we were thinking.”
Davy Apel: “We were flush with the money from your mom, and it sounded like a great idea... lots of traffic and all. Shoulda worked.”
—
And another,” Scorese said.
—
Ann Apel: “I’m not sure it was necessary to kill Barry. That could be our biggest problem.”
Davy Apel: “Maybe I panicked. But he was looking at me weird, and... I don’t know... I think he would have said something to Flowers. If he had, then Flowers could have snuck up on us, somehow. Could have used Barry against us.”
