There was little electric light to be seen in Wheatfield at that time of night, and the stars looked close and only a little smudged by humidity. Nobody bothered him on the way home.

What a nice Minnesota night.

There’d be fireflies soon.

16

After choking the breath out of Van Den Berg, Virgil met with Jenkins and Shrake at Skinner & Holland. Skinner was in school, but Holland was working in the store, and Virgil told him about Fischer getting beaten up again.

“Somebody needs to have a word with Larry,” Holland said. “As mayor, I’m exactly the right guy to do it.”

“I already had a word with him,” Virgil said.

Holland eye-checked him, then said, “I hope you didn’t get yourself in trouble.”

“I don’t think there’ll be a problem. Janet’s a mess. Banning is taking her to see a doc, and she’ll take some evidentiary photos in case we need them.”

—

Jenkins and Shrake had been talking about the case, and when they got in the back room, Jenkins said, “I think we’ve got to look real close at this Barry Osborne. Son of Margery.”

“I already talked to him. He was pretty screwed up,” Virgil said.

“You might be screwed up, too, if you’d shot your own mother,” Shrake said.

“Okay. I’ll buy that,” Virgil said. “Why did he shoot her?”

“Because he wanted to inherit?”

Virgil nodded, then shouted, “Hey, Wardell!”

Holland stuck his head through the curtain, and asked, “Yeah?”

“Did Margery Osborne have any money?”

Holland stepped into the room and shook his head. “Not as far as I know. She and her husband had a little farm down south of here, too small to be economic. Margery worked in town as a health care aide . . . you know, hospice care and Alzheimer’s people. She and her husband retired, moved to town, and he died a couple of years later. That must’ve been . . . jeez, ten, twelve years ago.”

“What about her house?”

“She lives with Barry. That’s actually Barry’s house, I think. I could make a call and find out.”

“Could you?”

“Probably with the Blue Earth bank,” Holland muttered. He took a phone out of his pocket, scrolled through a directory, pushed a button, and said, “Hey, this is Wardell . . . I know, I know, but I’ve been drop-dead busy. Listen, I’m calling for a state police officer. You know Barry Osborne? His mom was Margery Osborne, the lady who got shot? Okay, can you check something? I need to find out who owns the house. If he owns it, or if maybe his mom did . . . Okay?”

He smothered the phone against his shirt, and said, “I’m talking to a friend at the Blue Earth bank. They got links into the title company. She wants my body. Real bad.”

“She gonna get it?” Shrake asked.