“I’ve only been on a pig farm once, and not for that,” Virgil said. “But I gotta admit, you just gave me the theme for another novel.”
“You know what I’m saying.”
“I’ll take you home now.”
—
After dropping Lucas,Virgil went back to the hotel, set up his laptop, and started working on the novel. His first three books had been praised for the realism of the murder scenes. That was because the murder scenes were real, or mostly real scenes he’d seen and worked himself.
Building a story around the scenes was an entirely different process—creation rather than recall. The problems with creating the stories ate at him—kept him up at night, as his law enforcement chores no longer did.
He was still at work on the book, at eleven o’clock, when Carroll Bayes called. “I knew you stayed up late. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“I’m up for another hour,” Virgil said. “What’s going on?”
Bayes was still the lead BCA agent on the Charles Light murder. “People were screaming their heads off about the Bud Light murder. All those true crime sites, the TV stations. The ME, you know, wanted to look good, so he got right on it. He called me about half an hour ago. One of his assistants had looked at some blood tests and called him with the results. Richardson suggests that we not talk so much about murder. It might not have been one.”
Darrell Richardson was the county medical examiner.
“What’s that? He’s saying it’s not murder?” Made Virgil stand up.
“Well, mmm…Look, do you know how to make crappy chili taste better?”
“Chili? What are you talking about, C?” Virgil asked.
“It turns out that you can make cheap, crappy chili, the only kind you can get at the Wee Blue Inn, taste better by dumping in a scoop of peanut butter. Light had a plastic bowl and a plastic spoon sitting on the room table, mostly empty, but with some of the motel chili still left,” Bayes said. “One of the blood tests suggests that Light was suffering from a massive anaphylactic shock, and it killed him. He apparently had a serious peanut allergy. He carried a card saying so and had a box of EpiPens in his suitcase.”
“He was hit. His skull was cracked…” Virgil started.
“His head was cracked, and he bled some, but he probably wasn’t hit,” Bayes said. “When the tests results started coming in, the doc sent an investigator back over to the Wee Blue Inn, to look around. She found that the bed had one of those cheap steel bed frames, and a corner of the frame was sticking out an inch or so at the foot of the bed. There was a dark sheet over it, so no blood was visible, but the corner of the frame fits the wound on Light’s head. They missed it the first time around. The thinking now is, he gobbled down the chili, laid down, felt the allergic reaction coming on, panicked, got out of bed, staggered, fell, and hit his head. He didn’t actually crack his skull. Didn’t die immediately. He probably knocked himself out, at least for a few seconds, and the anaphylactic reaction killed him. The blood trail to the door could have been an attempt to call for help.”
“Why didn’t he inject himself with the EpiPen?”
“I dunno,” Bayes said. “Maybe because he was messed up. Concussed, not thinking straight. His suitcase with the pens was on the other side of the bed, so…”
“Wow!”
“It’s not for sure, yet. Richardson has some more chemistry to do, but that’s the way they’re headed.”
“Thanks, man. Jeez—that’s something. I’ll tell Lucas.”
—
As long ashe’d been disturbed, Virgil didn’t see any reason why Lucas shouldn’t be, and he knew Lucas was a night owl anyway. He called, and Lucas picked up on the first ring.
“What are you doing?” Virgil asked.
“I was watching West Coast baseball. You think of something?”
“Not exactly. I did get some interesting news…”
—
The next morning,Lucas walked out to Virgil’s truck and got in, shaking his head: “Peanut butter allergy?”
“I’d laugh if I didn’t feel so sorry for the guy,” Virgil said, as they rolled out the driveway.
“The weird thing is, his getting killed got us some breaks,” Lucas said. “Where’d we be if he hadn’t got killed?”
