Virgil could see one of Apel’s lower legs. He grabbed her foot and pulled, and she slid slowly out of the duct and into the main chamber of the furnace. She was covered with soot and blood, and Virgil twisted her into a semifetal position, her feet toward the furnace door.
“Help me,” he said to Bakker. Virgil’s hands were now slick with blood, and he and Bakker eased Apel out of the furnace. She was trying to speak but failing, making anug-ug-ugsound, maybe swallowing blood or bits of her tongue.
Zimmer looked over Virgil’s shoulder as they lowered her to the basement floor and he turned and shouted up the stairs, “Get those ambulance guys down here. Get them. Bring a stretcher.”
Jenkins was looking at Apel with an experienced eye. “Put the muzzle under her chin and pulled the trigger. Kinda fucked it up, huh?”
To Virgil’s somewhat less experienced eye, it appeared that she’d managed to shoot off the end of her jaw, chunks of her lips, and the end of her tongue and the end of her nose. Blood was bubbling from her mouth. Her eyes were open and aware but dimming with shock.
Virgil shouted, “Hurry it up. Goddamnit!”
—
After that, it was all medical and forensics—getting Apel up the stairs, bagging the rifle, calling for the crime scene team again; the process of taking statements from the witnesses would start later in the day. Virgil and Bakker went next door to wash off Apel’s blood and some of the soot, and Virgil said, “You did good, Darren. I never would have thought of that, that she might be hiding in the duct.”
“My dad’s an HVAC guy, I saw him rip out a lot of those old furnaces when I was young,” Bakker said. “I knew you could get somebody inside one of those ducts because, when I was a kid, I made a fort out of them and I got inside myself.”
Banning took Davy Apel to the lockup, and Jenkins called Shrake to tell him what had happened.
Shrake said, “Wait, she shot herself? If she shot herself, man, that doesn’t count.”
—
Virgil called his boss, who wasn’t yet at work, and left a message, telling him about the arrests. When he was done with the immediate routine, the sun was starting its climb up from the horizon, still orange but now tending toward yellow-white. Theold house had lilacs growing down one side, and he wandered over to give them a sniff.
The flowers’ perfume was heavy, and redolent of simpler times.
Jenkins came over, and said, “You are a sneaky little shit. I gotta say, I admire that in a cop.”
29
Zimmer’s deputies took care of most of the paperwork, although Virgil’s share took three hours the next morning. Jenkins said, “Didn’t I hear you say a couple of times—and I quote—‘It’s a guy, and he’s a loner. There aren’t two people involved’—unquote?”
“I never said anything remotely like that,” Virgil said. “You gotta stop messing with the weed, Jenkins. It’s a lot stronger than the stuff you smoked in school. It’s ruining your memory.”
“That must be it,” Jenkins said.
—
They were crouched over laptops in the back room of Skinner & Holland when Shrake wandered in. He was eating a Zinger, and said, “Hey, guys, I hurt too much to do paperwork.”
“Fuck you, then,” Jenkins said.
“Where’s my car?” Shrake asked.
“Back in the alley,” Virgil said. “I got your keys in my Tahoe. I’ll get them.”
Shrake stepped toward the back door. He was wearing a beige cotton golf jacket and a pale yellow golf shirt. Virgil stepped up behind him, to follow him out, frowned, and said, “Hey, Shrake, take off your jacket.”
“What?”
“Take the jacket off. Here, let me help.”
Shrake shook his head, said, “Stiff,” and let Virgil help him with the jacket. “What’re you doing?”
Virgil pivoted him toward Jenkins, who stood up, and said, “Goddamnit.”
Shrake: “What?”
