“Well done,” Lucas said. “But what’s this?”
Carney was jogging toward them, across the softball outfields. “They found something with the metal detector,” she said, as she came up. “I told them to leave it, but I don’t think they will.”
“Where is it?” Virgil asked.
“Right on the edge of the trees.”
She pointed, they looked. The crowd of women and the three menhad gathered in a tight huddle, bent over, looking at something in the dirt.
“Damnit,” Lucas said. He led the way across the playing fields, the women turning to look at them as they got close. “Probably a bottle cap.”
—
“What is it?”Virgil asked. “You didn’t touch anything?”
“We dug it up. Right below the surface,” the metal detector man said. He held his hand out, showed them a nickel, sitting in his palm.
Lucas: “A nickel?”
“Yes. Amazed nobody found it before. It’s a 1995, so the killer could have dropped it,” said Anne Cash, the woman they’d spoken to earlier.
Virgil: “There’s a path worn in the grass from people walking along the edge of the trees. It could have been dropped by anyone, anytime.”
Another woman chipped in. “Its importance isn’t what it isin itself. Its importance is, it demonstrates the negligence of the original investigation. This should have been found by the crime scene crew.”
Lucas: “But it might have been dropped last week. Or anytime in the twenty-one years since the killing. Or the eight years before. It’s meaningless. Or maybe you could use your blog to find out who might have had a 1995 nickel.”
“No reason to get sarcastic,” Cash said.
“Yes there is,” Virgil said. “You’re standing around looking at a nickel like it’s the Kensington Runestone, and it’s a fuckin’ nickel.”
Lucas elbowed him in the rib cage, and when Virgil looked at him,Lucas nodded at the far edge of the group. Virgil turned that way and spotted a woman pointing a diminutive camera over the shoulder of the woman in front of her. “That ‘fuckin’’ will get us a few clicks,” Lucas said. “Let’s go get a Coke or something. Talk about this. You drive.”
—
In Virgil’s truck,they talked about not much, because there wasn’t yet much to talk about, until Lucas said, “I’ve got a big favor to ask.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I’m asking,” Lucas said.
“I don’t need to. If it’s a big favor, I don’t have time,” Virgil said. “I’ve got a novel to finish.”
“Look. For the next couple of weeks, you gotta dosomework,” Lucas said. “You can’t just take the month off.”
“Somework. A big favor sounds like a lot of work. But okay, spit it out.”
“There’s no point in both of us doing everything,” Lucas said. “I’ll be the liaison with the suits—Grandfelt, the lawyers, the politicians. I’ll keep them quiet and satisfied that we’re working. Daily updates. You be the main liaison with the true crime people.”
“Jesus, Lucas, I…”
“You’re a lot better at that kind of stuff than I am. You’re more social. You’ve got a better line of bullshit. Look at the way you handled the police chief,” Lucas said. “I can’t do that—I sound like I’m lying. I don’t have the patience to deal with the whack-a-doodles. You do it all the time, out there in the corn and beans. I mean, look at yourfriends. Johnson Johnson? I’m surprised he’s not up here with a Grandfelt-sniffing dog.”
Virgil shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. The comment about his friend Johnson Johnson had been true enough. “Look, I’ll tell you, I gotta finish this novel on time. I gotta. It’s gonna be my life, and to me, it’s more important than Doris Grandfelt. I no longer have my heart in chasing assholes. I’m willing to work on Grandfelt, but I can’t get all tangled up…”
“You don’t have to get tangled up,” Lucas said. “All you have to do is liaise.”
“Is that a word?”
