“Any time you need me—it’s only an hour from here,” Virgil said. “With lights and siren, fifty minutes max.”

“I’ll be out at the farm, the boys can take care of me,” she said. They were sitting in Virgil’s kitchen, the May sunlight streaming through the window over the sink, a pretty Sunday morning in Mankato.

Less than a month away from summer and the longest day of the year, the spring so far had been cool and generously wet without being offensive, and through the window they could see the pink blossoms on the neighbor’s apple tree. “It’ll be a nice drive down there. You be careful. I always worry when you’re dealing with a nut.”

“We don’t know he’s a nut,” Virgil said. “Or she. Could be a woman.”

“Not likely. When was the last time you heard of a random sniper who was female?”

“Don’t even know he’s a sniper,” Virgil said. “There might be a motive that ties the two shootings together. That would make him a shooter but not a random sniper.”

“You just said ‘he’ and ‘him,’” Frankie pointed out.

“That’s because you’re right,” Virgil said. “It’s a guy.”

—

Frankie went to shower and get dressed while Virgil got his traveling gear together, which, as usual, bummed out Honus. Honus was a dog of no specific breed, although there had to be some Labrador DNA in the mix: he loved to go out to the swimming hole. That wouldn’t happen for another few weeks, as the water coming out of the spring uphill from the hole was essentially liquid ice.

Virgil gave him a scratch, then roughed up his head. He was getting neurotic about the dog, which the dog took advantage of. Frankie never made him feel bad about going out on a case, and she loved to hear about them afterwards. Honus, on the other hand, always acted like this was it: Virgil was ditching him, never to play baseball again. The dog could chase down grounders forever.

—

Virgil was a tall man, thin, athletic, with longish blond hair and an easy smile. He was wearing a “got mule?” T-shirt, purchased in the parking lot at a Gov’t Mule show a year earlier in Des Moines, an inky-blue corduroy sport coat, and bootcut blue jeans over cordovan cowboy boots.

As an agent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, he should have been wearing a suit with a blue or white oxford cloth shirt, a dull but coordinated nylon necktie, and high-polished black wingtips. What the BCA didn’t know, he figured, couldn’t hurt him.