I’m too young to be such a sexist pig,” Skinner said. To Virgil: “You kept asking me who the crazies in town might be, and all I ever thought about were male crazies. If I’d included women, I might have put Ann in there.”

“She’s not totally crazy,” Apel said. “She can be, you know, really nice . . .”

Holland said, “Davy, if you’re right, she’s killed four people in cold blood and hurt three more.”

Davy sat down, looked around, and asked, “You got a beer?”

Virgil ignored the request. “Do you have any idea of what she might have done with the gun?”

Apel shook his head. “She’s not slow. Since the place got raided, and you didn’t find anything, I’d think she got rid of it. Or, she’s innocent and never had it. There’s no one in line to get shot after Barry, and I think I probably caused that . . .”

He told them about his conversation with Osborne shortly before Osborne was killed. “I went back to the house and told Ann about it . . . about how Barry kind of thought I might have been involved somehow. That probably set her off. She was still home when I left to go back to work.”

Virgil asked the key question: “Will you help us get her, arrest her?”

“That’s why I came here to talk,” Apel said. “I don’t think I can trust her. If she figures out that I knew she was the killer, she might stick a knife in me. Or we’d have a hunting accident or something. She’s smart, but she’s rough. And, like Skinner says, maybe a little crazy. She goes out there with the excavator and holds her own with construction crews. So . . . if you can think of a way to do it, I’d help out.”

Virgil looked around the room. “Well, we have the brain trust right here. Let’s figure something out.”

“She thinks I’m on my way to the supermarket in Fairmont, so I gotta go,” Apel said. “I’ll call her from there and then I’ll stop here on my way back. You can tell me what I should do.”

“Go, then,” Virgil said. “We’ll see you back here in an hour or so.”

—

He left, with Virgil staring after him, checking out his hair. Nicely trimmed, Virgil thought. He said to the others, “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll be back.”

“Where’re you going?”

“Up the street. Be right back.”

Virgil drove up Main, took a left, and pulled into the Vissers’ house. Danny and Roy were watching television, and when he knocked on the door connecting his room with the house, Roy opened it, and asked, “Trouble?”

“I need to talk to Danny about a haircut,” Virgil said.