“During the search today, I mentioned that Mr. Andorra may have had a girlfriend,” Virgil said. “Is there any possibility that he knew about Mr. Andorra before I mentioned it?”
She hesitated, then said, “I used to go out to Glen’s to shoot my bow. So did Davy, but we usually went separately, after work. That’s how me and Glen got together. He’d laid out this 3D range along the creek, and I’d walk up the creek toward his house. I was coming back one day when Davy rolled in and he saw me coming down the creek. I told him I’d been shooting on the 3D range, and he said, ‘Then how come you’re on this side of the creek?’—I was on the wrong side for shooting—and I told him something. But, I don’t know, he might have suspected.”
“If your husband shot these people, you could be in danger yourself,” Virgil said. “Somebody murdered four people in cold blood, and there’s a lot of evidence against Davy. We were hoping you might help us out by wearing a wire . . . A wire is . . .”
“I know what a wire is,” Apel said. “It seems like I’d be a traitor. We’re still married.”
“It’s for your own safety,” Jenkins said.
She gave him the stink eye again and turned back to Virgil. “But if he’s innocent, it could help get him off the hook, right? I mean, other people do have the keys to the Quonset.”
“If he’s innocent, he’s innocent,” Virgil said. “We don’t want to send an innocent man to jail.”
She looked at Virgil and nibbled on her lower lip, then said, “Okay. I’ll do it . . . When?”
“When do you think he’ll be back?”
“I imagine sometime tomorrow. He took work clothes with him only for tomorrow, and he’s too cheap to buy new.”
“Then when he gets home, make an excuse to leave, call us, and we’ll wire you up. It takes two minutes.”
“We can meet at Trudy’s Hi-Life,” Apel said. “I’ve got a few things I want to say to Trudy anyway.”
* * *
—
Though the afternoon was shading into evening, Virgil got on the phone to his nominal boss, Jon Duncan, at home. “I need some more support. I need another warrant and I need another guy,” he said. “Get them to me, and we could finish this tomorrow.”
He explained further, and Duncan said, “I’ll have him down there by noon, no later than. He’ll bring the warrant with him.”
Virgil hung up and smiled. “All right,” he said. “We’re operating.”
* * *
—
Virgil slept late the next morning, and he and Jenkins went over to Fairmont to check on Shrake and deliver another Subway. Shrake was healing, with no sign of infection, and he was anxious to get out. “They say maybe tomorrow,” he said, as he munched through the BMT. “What have you guys been up to? I know you’re handicapped with me being in here . . .”
“We can barely function,” Virgil said.
“He’s lying,” Jenkins said. “We could wrap this up today. You want to know why?”
Shrake paused in his chewing, looked from Jenkins to Virgil and back to Jenkins, and said, “Because Flowers is a sneaky little shit?”
“Exactly,” Jenkins said. He looked at his cell phone, and said, “Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s almost noon. Let’s go check on Ann.”
* * *
—
The night before, Ann Apel told them that she’d be working all day on the farm ditch job. They’d had Zimmer’s patrol deputies looking for the site, and Zimmer had called before they left for Fairmont and told them where she was working. They drove cross-country to a hilltop a half mile away, and Virgil took a pair of binoculars up on top of the road cut and looked down at her. She was on her Bob-Cat but clearly visible.
He watched her working, then went back to the Tahoe, got on the phone, and said, “Harry?”
“Yo.”
“Go.”
* * *
—
They took the afternoon off. At Jenkins’s suggestion, they drove over to Albert Lea and played nine holes at the Green Lea Golf Course; Jenkins traveled with his clubs as religiously as Virgil traveled with his boat and so had them in the trunk of his car. They had to share the clubs, Jenkins shot a 37 and Virgil shot a 51, but Virgil had insisted on an 18-stroke handicap—“A course I’ve never played, and playing with your clubs? And you with a two handicap? Are you kidding? I ought to get twenty-four strokes”—and won four dollars. As the winner, he had to pay for drinks, which cost him eight dollars and change, so Jenkins walked away happy.
They’d been waiting in Wheatfield for two hours when Ann Apel called. “He pulled in a minute ago,” she stage-whispered. “I’m going to start a fight. I’ll be down to Trudy’s in ten minutes.”
“See you there,” Virgil said.
They waited a block from Apel’s house, saw Davy Apel’s car in the street, saw Ann back out of the garage. They waited a couple of more minutes to see if Davy would follow, but he didn’t move, and then they drove over to Trudy’s.
Ann was already inside, shouting at Trudy, who cowered behind a used-brassieres table.
Jenkins said, “All right, ladies, time out, you can have your fight later. We’ve got business to conduct.”
“We’re not done,” Ann told Trudy.
As they’d done with Davy, they taped the transmitter to Ann’s back, above the waist of her skirt. She was wearing a loosely woven peasant blouse that completely concealed the transmitter and the microphone.
Virgil rehearsed her, as he had Davy Apel, and said, “If you see a weapon, yell for help. If he gets physical in any way, yell for help. We want him angry, but if he goes over the top . . .”
“I know: yell for help.”
“We’ll be one minute away,” Virgil said. “Leave the side door unlocked when you go in.”
* * *
—
They slid into position a few seconds before Ann Apel drove into the driveway and parked outside the garage. She inserted her key in the side door’s lock, opened the door, and disappeared inside. On the receiver/recorder, they heard the door close, then heard her walk up a couple of steps and shout, “I’m not talking to you!”
Davy Apel: “We gotta talk. No matter what happens between us, we’re in deep trouble with Flowers. I don’t think he believes us.”