“I don’t know . . . If she left something that might indicate that she thought she might be in danger . . .”

“She was scared about the shootings. She was there when that guy got shot. What’s-his-name, from Iowa. She talked about it all the time, but she didn’t think anyone would ever shoot her. She still kept going to church. I told her maybe she shouldn’t, but she wasn’t going to miss it, the Virgin appearing again.”

“Did she do emails or Facebook, or that kind of thing?” Virgil asked.

“Oh, sure. I can show you,” Osborne said. “You gotta get this guy. You gotta get him.”

—

Margery Osborne had her own Facebook page, and Barry Osborne had her sign-on information. She had written a hundred posts, at least, about the Marian apparitions, and had saved reactions from her forty-six hundred followers. Zimmer, looking over Virgil’s shoulders, asked, “You think one of them . . . I mean, Facebook is sort of known for crazies . . .”

“I don’t know, but I’ll scan it all tonight,” Virgil said. “It’s hard to believe that somebody from Idaho or Ohio would drive out here to shoot her.”

Zimmer turned to Osborne, and asked, “When the Iowa guy was shot . . . how close did the shot come to your mom? Did she say where she was in the crowd?”

Osborne scratched his cheekbone, and then, “Well, I know she was close. Right there. But if you’re asking six feet or ten feet or one foot, I don’t know. Maybe some of the other people who were there could tell you.”

Zimmer to Virgil: “What if this guy wasn’t all that good a shot at all, that the first two tries were accidents? What if he was going for Marge and missed her and hit that Coates fellow?”

“It’s a thought,” Virgil said. “But what about the second shot?”

“Mrs. Rice . . . she sort of looked like Margery,” Zimmer said. “I mean, not her face so much, but her general build. They were both pretty average height and a little heavy.”

“Mom kept trying to lose weight,” Osborne said. “I think maybe she . . . fantasized about finding another man. My dad died years ago, so it’s been a while since she had a real companion.”

Virgil asked Osborne, “We’d like to look through your mom’s bedroom a bit, and around where she worked.”

“Sure. The whole first floor. I’ve got the second floor. She spent most of her time on Facebook and doing emails, and then she watched television. She did cook, but, lately, mostly microwave stuff. She was down at the church every evening.”