“And that freaks him out,” said Jenkins, “and he doesn’t want Barry to tell us that he owes Apel a bundle. In the meantime, that greed head Van Den Berg figures it out, because he knows more about who has what than anybody else in town. He needs money himself and tries to blackmail Apel . . .”

“Who walks over and kills him,” Virgil said.

“Whew! Glad that’s settled,” Jenkins said. “I’m heading home; you go over and bust Apel.”

“We’re not there yet.”

“No kiddin’. But if we’re right . . . we can figure something out.”

The bank president came back after a while, and said, “You can come look at the checks, if you want, but I can tell you that Barry was paying Mr. Apel exactly the same amount since September of 2009. Rent, or anything else, would have gone up since then—I bet it’s a fixed interest loan.”

Virgil called a researcher/hacker at the BCA, with whom he’d had a hasty romance a few years before and was still on tenuous terms with. “Sandy, do you remember when you once found a way to look at state income tax returns?”

“I remember nothing of the kind. That’s would be illegal,” she said.

“Listen, babe, we’ve had four murders now, and three people hurt bad, including Shrake. All we need to know is whether this guy is getting interest on a loan and how much . . .”

Long silence. Then, “I heard about Shrake. And I’m not your babe. Or sweetheart. Or honeybun.”

“So . . . Shrake . . .”

More silence. Then, “Give me a name.”

She called back a half hour later, as Virgil and Jenkins were driving back to Wheatfield. “It’s an interest-only loan. I can tell that because he’s paying tax on all of it, so none of it is return of principal. I looked up loan rates on the internet. In 2009, the normal interest rate was probably between four and five percent, because the big recession had started, but if it was a loan between friends, it could have been as low as three percent. At five percent, the loan would be for $130,000 or so. At three percent, it would have been more, something around $225,000.”

“Thank you.”

When they were off their call, Jenkins said, “Even if he kills both Margery and Barry, he still gets the money. He’ll have to wait a while, but if he has a signed note, he can make a claim against the estates. That all goes on in private. If we hadn’t figured this out, we might not ever hear about it.”

“Yes.”

“Of course, if we looked further down the line, there might be more Osborne relatives who’d inherit with Barry dead.”