“Oh, I don’t think at his house,” Fischer said. “We’re talking about thirty-eight hundred cubic feet of Legos. That’s the size of the inside of a fifty-three-foot trailer. I don’t believe his house is that big.”

“Huh. You know a lot about it,” Skinner said. “Trailer sizes.”

“Well, he tells me about it, even though it’s pretty boring. His idea of pillow talk,” she said. “Something else: he knows a lot about eBay. I’m pretty sure he has, like, a bunch of different accounts there. I think he sells the Legos under fake names.”

“Huh.”

“You think you could . . . use that?” she asked.

“Blackmail might be the only way to shut him up,” Skinner said. “But first, you gotta have something to blackmail him with.”

“Are we turning into criminals, Skinner?” She was twisting her hands. She’d been worried about events in the town since the appearance of the Virgin in December; and even more since the shootings.

“No. If he stole those Legos, he’s a criminal. If we could find them, all we’d be doing is . . . Well, we’re not cops,” Skinner said. “We don’t have to investigate somebody to see if he committed a serious crime. I mean, if he knew that we knew, if he knew that we had evidence . . . then he might not want to piss us off.”

“Okay. But we’re not criminals because of the Virgin Mary thing, are we?”

“Who have we hurt?” Skinner asked. “Nobody. All we’ve done is saved a town and made a lot of people happy.”

“Okay.” She shivered. “I think we should have some more sex to take our minds off all of this.”

“Fine, but before we do that . . . do you have a key to Larry’s place?”

“Of course.”

“I need to borrow it,” Skinner said. “I need to investigate him myself. I’m probably smarter than the Iowa cops.”

“I’ll get it for you. After this, I think I’m going to stop sleeping with him.”

“Good idea,” Skinner said. “There are other fish in the sea. Larry just isn’t that much of a catch, you know? Besides, he hangs out at gentleman’s clubs.”

“That’s true,” she said. She sighed, and said, “Speaking of more sex, you think we should get the toys out?”

—

At 3 o’clock in the morning, Fischer led Skinner through Van Den Berg’s backyard, unlocked the door, and took him through the kitchen and down to the basement, where Van Den Berg had built his man cave.

Fischer hadn’t wanted to go along, but Skinner patiently explained that if neighbors saw lights and knew that Van Den Berg was on the road, they might call a deputy. If the deputy found Fischer there alone, it’d be okay, because everybody in the county knew her and Van Den Berg were engaged.