“Nothing. No idea of where it ended up,” Holland said. “Both times, the people were waiting at the corner and they were all talking with each other and turning this way and that. We know where the slugs entered and exited, but since we don’t know their positions, exactly how they were standing, we don’t have a good idea of where the bullet came from. The deputies talked to both of the victims and they themselves don’t know where they were standing. I believe—”

From outside, Skinner shouted, “Wardell! ’Nother cop!”

“Gotta be the sheriff,” Holland said. He heaved himself out of the chair and went to the curtain, and called, “Karl. Back here.”

Karl Zimmer came through the curtain, spotted Virgil, and said, “It’s that fuckin’ Flowers. Nice to see you, Virgie.”

“Karl,” Virgil said, as they shook hands. “I heard you sank your boat.”

“That’s not a happy subject,” Zimmer said. He was a tall man with a gray crewcut and gold-rimmed glasses, wearing a tan Carhartt canvas jacket with a badge sewn on the left side. He looked around, picked a kitchen chair as Holland sank back into his easy chair. “My kid was over on the Cedar, hit a snag, ripped a hole in the hull. Instead of beaching it, he tried to run back to the ramp. Sank it with the engine running full bore, which didn’t do it a hell of a lot of good.”

“Insurance?” Virgil asked.

“Well, we’re arguing about the engine,” Zimmer said. “The Farmers guy said hitting the snag and putting a hole in the boat was an accident but wrecking the motor was negligence. We’ll get something, but I don’t think we’ll get it all. Two-year-old Yamaha V MAX 175.”

“Ouch,” Virgil said.

“Yeah. But, you know, shit happens . . . Did Wardell tell you all about the shootings?”

“He’s started to fill me in,” Virgil said.

—

The woman who’d been shot the day before was named Betty Rice and she’d been in town for two days, going to all the church services at St. Mary’s, hoping for an apparition. “She was over from Sioux Falls with her sister and a friend,” Zimmer said. “Never been here before; none of them had. Same with the fellow who got shot last week.”

“You didn’t call for a crime scene team?”

“What’d be the point?” Zimmer asked. “We don’t know where the shooter was, we don’t know where the bullet went.”

“Crime scene might’ve been able to tell where the bullet came from by looking at the blood spatter,” Virgil said.