“Yup, as in ‘real pisser,’ as my husband would say, if he were here,” she said. “Walk around back, I’ll go through the house and open the door for you. You can park your truck at the side, on the gravel.”

Virgil parked on a gravel strip, got his bag, flipped the switch on what he believed was the loudest car alarm in the world, locked the truck, and walked around to the back door, where Visser was waiting. Virgil got a better look at her without the screen between them: a Netherlander blonde with pale blue eyes and nearly invisible eyebrows, she might have been a workout queen on a free cable channel. She was wearing a tight mock turtleneck, black yoga pants, and flats. She was pretty, in an earnest, small-town way.

“We don’t serve food, but you’ve got a microwave, and a comfortable bed.”

“It’s fine,” Virgil said, looking around the room. A compact bathroom, straight out of Home Depot, opened off the back wall, with a toilet, sink, and shower. The room smelled of pine-scented deodorizer.

“Fifty dollars a day, and we take it any way you roll it—cash, check, or Visa. But if it’s credit card, you have to go charge it at Skinner and Holland, and it’ll be fifty-five, because the store adds a ten percent service charge.”

“Of course they do,” Virgil said. “I’ll pay cash.”

“Great. Now, about the haircut—that’ll be forty, and again, if you charge it at Skinner and Holland . . .”

“Listen, Danielle—it’s Danielle, right?—I’m not sure I need . . .”

“Virgil, you do need one,” she said. “In a position like yours, you have to look professional or people won’t respect you.”

In the end, Virgil caved. He’d never liked his Mankato barber especially, because in his heart the guy wanted to give Virgil a military buzz cut. Danielle guided him back through the house and into the front parlor, which had been set up as a hairdresser’s shop, with a chair, hair dryers, an oval mirror, and bottles of hair stuff.

She pushed him into the chair, and Virgil said, “Not too much off, right? Neaten it up, that’s all I want.”

“Correct,” she said, as she threw a nylon cape over his chest and pinned it tight around his neck. “Now, let me tell you what’s going on with these shootings, okay? We’ve got a lot of smart women in this town and they all sit right here, and we talk. I can boil down what they told me.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

She turned Virgil away from the mirror and started talking and cutting. The women of Wheatfield rejected all suspicion of outside interference. “Somebody we know is doing this. You know why?”

“If I knew why, I could break the case,” Virgil said.