“Okay. I didn’t think there was anything there. Did you ask her about the maps?”
“Yeah. She says she didn’t do it. I’m willing to let it go. I’m not interested in the maps.”
“I’m with you. What’s next?”
“Where’s the CD with the cowboy songs?”
“In the evidence locker. You need it?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“I made a recording of it. If you tell me where you’re at, we’ve got a gofer, I can send him there with the recorder and some headphones,” Trane said.
“I’m going over to Quill’s lab. I’ll meet him on the front steps in half an hour.”
Virgil stopped at a Holiday store for gas and a Diet Coke, made it to Moos Tower a few minutes later. A cop car was sitting out front, its blinkers flashing out into the afternoon. Virgil knocked on the passenger-side window, and when the window dropped, the cop asked, “You Flowers?”
“Yes.”
He handed over a compact recorder with two microphones shaped like extra-large thimbles—or extra-short condoms—and a pair of microphones. He said, “To play it, just push the green button. To rewind, push the rewind button. If you push the red button for any reason, you’ll record over it. That’s what Trane said.”
“How come you didn’t ask for ID?” Virgil said, as he took the recorder.
“Trane told me about the shirt. And the boots. I figured there couldn’t be two of you.”
“Well, you’re right. But pop the door, I need to sit down for a minute.”
In the cop car, Virgil played the recording once to get a feel forthe machine, then rewound the tape, recorded its message to his iPhone, and gave the recorder back to the cop.
—
At Quill’s lab, the same woman who’d directed him back to the lab manager’s office on his first visit was sitting at her countertop inside the door, poking at a laptop. She looked up when Virgil walked in, and said, “You’re back.”
“Yes. I want you to listen—”
She interrupted. “You know they call you ‘that fuckin’ Flowers’? It’s on the internet.”
“What? The internet?”
“Yes. After you were here, we looked you up. There was a story in a Rochester newspaper that said you were widely known as ‘that fuckin’ Flowers,’ but they put in asterisks in the ‘fuckin’.”
“I get tired of it,” Virgil said. “It started in St. Paul, when I was a cop over there, followed me over to the BCA, and it got out of hand.”
“Actually, the story was complimentary. You recovered some precious artifact from Israel.”
“A complete nightmare, believe me,” Virgil said. “My garage almost got burned down with my boat inside of it.”
“Your boat? The horror!”
“I detected a tiny bit of sarcasm there,” Virgil said. “Anyway, I want you to listen to a recording and tell me if you recognize any voices.”
“Hit me,” she said.
Virgil played the recording. She listened, gaped at Virgil, and said, “Let me hear it again.”
Virgil played it again, and when it was done she said, “Holy... shit...”
“Recognize anybody?”
