Virgil’s boss, Jon Duncan, called to say that the crime scene crew was loading up, but it’d be 7:30 before they made it down. Virgil locked the doors of the house with a key he found in a kitchen cupboard, turned the scene over to the deputies, telling them that he’d be back at 8, and warned them not to go inside.

The dog was gone, loaded into one of the sheriff’s SUVs and taken to a shelter. “Hope he’s not too far gone. You let a dog go too long without water and it kills his kidneys,” Zimmer said. “That’s a good mutt. I’d take him myself if I didn’t already have three.”

—

Virgil caught Willie Nelson singing “Stardust” on the satellite radio on his way back to town; listened and thought about how far the song was from the afternoon’s death scene. He needed something to eat before what would be a long night but stopped at the Vissers’ to take a shower and change clothes to get the stink of the dead man off him. As he was parking, a battered Jeep pulled up to the front of the house, and Wardell Holland got out.

“I heard,” he said. “Must’ve been ugly.”

“Still is,” Virgil said. “You know anybody who can operate a .45?”

Holland rolled his eyes up, thinking, then said, “Nope. Haven’t had them in the Army for quite a long time, but they were always a popular gun, so I’m sure there are some around. Bob Martin—he lives over on Walnut—does some gunsmithing, he might know.”

Roy Visser came out, slapped hands with Holland, said to Virgil, “We were in the Army at the same time. He was a hero; I fixed trucks.”

“Trucks were more important than lieutenants,” Holland said.

“That’s true,” Visser said. To Virgil: “Did you talk to Glen?”

“Glen’s dead,” Virgil said.

Visser’s mouth literally dropped open, and Virgil scratched him off any possible list of suspects.

“Shot? Somebody shot him?”

Virgil nodded. “Sometime back. Probably more than a week, maybe even two.”

“Holy cow . . . What about his dog?”

Virgil shook his head. “Locked in the basement. There was a sack of dog food on the landing, he had ripped it open, but he was hurting for water. Still alive, last time I saw him. Got some water in him.”

“Oh, man. That’s Pat. Pat the dog. World’s best dog. Where is he?”

“Took him to the shelter,” Virgil said.

“I’ll go out and take a look,” Visser said. “We lost our Lucky a year ago; it’s about time we got another one.”

Virgil said, “Do that. I’ll call Zimmer and fix it. I need to get something to eat and get back out to Andorra’s place.”