Virgil poked his fork at Jenkins. “Here’s another thing. We think Larry Van Den Berg figured out who the killer was. What did he have to go on? Money. Janet Fischer said he knew more about money than anyone in town—who has it, who wants it. Has to be money, one way or another. But, Osborne didn’t have any. So, why was she shot? Maybe she wasn’t the primary target? Did she step in front of someone?”

“Or, maybe the shooter is a random sniper, and is nuts,” Jenkins said. “I mean, they’re out there. Something like this religious apparition thing might be the kind of spark you need to set somebody off.”

“Which is completely backwards from what you were saying. You were saying we have to devote time to finding a motive; now you’re saying that there might not be one.”

“Being nuts is like a motive,” Jenkins said. “Have you thought about asking around town about who might be nuts? If somebody was treated? In a town this size, people would know.”

Virgil thought about that, then shouted, “Skinner!”

Skinner pushed through the curtain, and Virgil asked him if he had somebody to take over the cash register. “For a minute anyway,” Skinner said.

“So, who in town is certifiably nuts?” Virgil asked. “Not a little eccentric, but, you know . . . insane.”

Skinner shook his head. “Nobody I know of. There have been some . . . unsettled people here, but they usually get out. If people start avoiding you in a small town, all you get is silence all day long. So they move to Rochester, or up to the Cities.”

“Can you think of a crazy person who might be carrying a grudge, resenting Wheatfield ever since things started getting better for the town, so they would come back and try to upset the apple cart?” Virgil asked.

“No . . . And if there were, we would have seen him around town,” Skinner said. “Not much way you wouldn’t get seen.”

“Then the whole town is, mentally, above average?” Jenkins asked.

“I didn’t say that. We’ve got some unusual people. Daria McCain is eighty years old now, and when she was in her seventies, she decided she’d spent her whole life as a man when, in fact, she was really a woman in a man’s body. She got people to start calling her Daria—she used to be Darrell—and she wears a dress and everything. Other than that, though, she seems normal enough. Holland appointed her to the fire commission. I can promise you, Daria didn’t go running through any backyards. After the big change of mind, she didn’t bother to stay in shape. She’s really . . . soft and willowy.”

Jenkins said, “Did she . . .” He made a scissors-cutting motion with his fingers.

“No, she never got anything cut off, far as I know.”

“And that would be the . . . oddest . . . of the Wheatfield residents?” Virgil asked.