“The policeman’s friend,” Virgil said.
At the Fairmont medical center, they found Shrake awake and in a bad mood—but a groggy bad mood, more pissy than violent:“They say I’m staying here for three or four days. If I keep running my mouth, they’ll keep me for a week.”
“Must have some smart people running the place to shut you up like that,” Jenkins said. “So, you gonna live?”
“I don’t feel like it right now, but they don’t seem to be concerned about how I feel,” Shrake grumbled.
“Still hurt?” Jenkins asked.
“It’s more annoying, than anything, and I expect I’ll be annoyed for several more weeks, from what they tell me.”
“Any good-looking nurses?”
“Yes. They already worship me.”
Jenkins suggested that the scar would tighten up Shrake’s wild golf drive, and Shrake advised him to go fuck himself. “Attaboy,” Virgil said. “You’re on the way back.”
Virgil apologized again for setting up the trap to catch the shooter, but Shrake waved him off. “We had nothing, and it coulda worked, shoulda worked. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, though, standing around in the night with a flashlight, looking for a guy in camo and carrying a bow. What’d I think was gonna happen if I found him?”
—
They talked for a few more minutes, said good-bye, and Virgil and Jenkins headed back to Wheatfield. When they got there, they found Zimmer and five deputies working the neighborhood where the shooter had been seen, going door-to-door. Virgil told Zimmer about Shrake’s condition, and Zimmer nodded, and said, “This guy’s local, and he’s a bow hunter and a shooter. There are going to be several dozen guys in town who fit that description, and a few hundred around the county.”
“What about Osborne?” Virgil asked. “Margery’s son. Is he a bow hunter?”
“I don’t know—I could ask. What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that he lives up in that corner of town, where we last saw the shooter. And he’s directly connected to Margery.”
Zimmer said, “I’m not doing anything. Why don’t we go ask him?”
“I’ll come along, in case I have to kill him,” Jenkins said.
Zimmer looked at him strangely, then said, “If you do, don’t hit me with the ricochet.”
“It’ll be one of those bare hands deals,” Jenkins said. “If he’s the guy, I plan to yank his lungs out.”
“Okay, then,” Zimmer said. “Meet you there.”
—
At Osborne’s house, Zimmer was leading the way to his front door when Virgil glanced at the van in the driveway, noted the logo on the side, hooked Zimmer’s arm, and asked, “‘Steam Punk’—that’s a rug-cleaning company?”
“That’s what it is.”
“When we went into Andorra’s house, there were two rolled-up rugs in the kitchen. You think he could have been waiting for... Osborne? Or maybe Osborne delivered them, and Andorra never had the chance to unroll them?”
They all looked at one another, and then Zimmer said, “Damn,” and Jenkins said, “I’ll rip his lungs out.”
Virgil said, “Wait, wait, wait... it’s not a sure thing. We need to look at Andorra’s checkbook, or his bank records, or his credit cards, and see if he paid Osborne and when...”
Osborne’s door popped open, and Osborne, dressed in jeansand a “Steam Punk” T-shirt, looked out at them, and called, “Are you coming here?”
Virgil said, “Yeah... we’re working our way through the neighborhood. We’re trying to figure out who’s a bow hunter and who isn’t.”
“Well, I’m not,” Osborne said. “I don’t hunt anything. Guns, bows, spears—nothing.”
Virgil was momentarily nonplussed. “Really?”
