“I think he sounded real,” Virgil said, looking back at Osborne’s house. “I can tell you, the guy last night knew what he was doing. He had the gear, too—the camo. He shot Shrake in the dark at, what, twenty-five yards? If that arrow had been three inches farther forward, it would have gone through Shrake’s heart. And he hit me right in the heart.”

Jenkins chipped in. “I’m with Virgil. He sounded real to me, too.”

Zimmer asked, “Do you think he was right about recovering deer? I’ve been thinking about getting a bow.”

“I bow-hunt, and I’m eight for ten, so . . . what’s that? A twenty percent loss rate?” Virgil said. “I’m gonna have to think about it.”

“You a good shot?” Zimmer asked.

“Yeah, I am,” Virgil said. “Most bow hunters aren’t. There’s a tavern up where I hunt that has a shoot-out the night before the season opener. I’ve seen guys who couldn’t get an arrow inside a full-sized paper plate at twenty yards. These were guys who actually entered an archery contest.”

Jenkins: “So what we’re looking for is a guy who probably isn’t primarily a gun hunter, because he had to steal the gun he’s using and he killed to do it. But he’s probably an expert shot with a bow, which takes practice.”

“Lots of practice,” Virgil said. “Let’s ask around.”

—

Virgil and Jenkins drove back to Skinner & Holland, where the back room had become their unofficial headquarters. Neither one of them had eaten breakfast, so they got potpies out of the freezer, carried them back to the microwave, and nuked them.

“We still haven’t figured out a motive,” Jenkins said. “We could get the names of every bow hunter in the county, but if we can’t figure out a motive, and we can’t prove where he was at the time of the killings . . . we’re toast.”

“You’re saying we need more information,” Virgil said.

“Yeah. The best information we have is, Andorra was worth a lot of money, even if it wasn’t visible to most people. You actually have to jump through some hoops to understand it. I mean, how many people driving past some old farmhouse, with a barn out back, a subsistence garden, and a goddamn clothesline, would reckon that the place might be worth four million bucks? I mean, why would you think somebody worth four million bucks would keep riding around backwoods Minnesota on a fuckin’ tractor when he could take the cash and move to Miami and buy a fuckin’ Ferrari?”