Virgil had been looking past Scorese’s head, and he saw the curtain between the store and the back room twitch. To Scorese he said, “Listen, one more question. Suppose somebody made a recording of a person speaking but nobody knew whether it was an actual person speaking or another recording. Could a guy like you tell which it was? A recording or a natural voice?”

Scorese said, “Maybe. If the original voice recording was good enough and there wasn’t much ambient noise between the second recorder and the first one . . . and if the acoustics were good.”

“What if none of that was good? Bad acoustics, recordings done with iPhones, people screaming?”

“Not a chance,” Scorese said.

—

Holland stuck his head through the curtain, and said, “We were out here working on inventory, but I couldn’t help overhearing some of that.”

“There’s a surprise,” Jenkins said.

“So, what are we doing?” Skinner edged through the drapes, behind Holland, and Fischer poked her head out behind Skinner.

“Who are these people?” Scorese asked.

“Store owners. All three of them. Potpie pushers,” Jenkins said.

“At the very most, you’re going to spectate,” Virgil said to Holland, Skinner, and Fischer. “We’ll get some deputies down here to help with the arrests. I don’t want you around before we actually go into the house and grab them. When we’ve got them, you could stand out on the lawn and watch.”

“How’d you figure this out?” Skinner asked.

“Jenkins kept saying the circumstantial evidence against them was too good, and he was right,” Virgil said.

“Of course I was,” Jenkins said.

“There was a case in California last year that failed because there were two possible suspects, both claimed to be innocent, both blamed the other guy, and the juries couldn’t manage to convict either one. Once they were acquitted, they couldn’t be tried again. This one felt like that. I bet they read that story when they were working this out. Anyway, if both the Apels had separate alibis and they did it, then it had to be both of them. When you look at their alibis, they never both had an alibi for the same shooting. One was always available to shoot.”

“That’s one of the coolest things I ever heard,” Holland said. “Let’s call the cops.”

—

Zimmer was in bed but said he’d be in Wheatfield in half an hour. “Hot dog! It’s about time. How many deputies do you want? I got five on the road right now.”

“Five would be good,” Virgil said.

—