Bad Blood

tended to believe them; tended to believe that Spooner might be the rare female serial killer.

    KELLY BAKER’S PARENT S were both arrested and jailed, and both were found in the Rouse photo collection, in sexual contact with children. If enough evidence could be found that they had known what had happened to their daughter, and had covered it up, they would both be charged with murder. But since they were both headed for lifetime prison terms, and Minnesota did not have capital punishment, a murder charge was basically moot.
    The John Baker family, from Iowa, was among those that disappeared into Canada. Iowa investigators found that he’d taken a large equity loan on his home earlier in the winter, had kept it in cash in the bank, and had cleaned it out starting on the day that Virgil and Bill Clinton had visited them. Based on information from Alma Flood and other cooperating church members, a murder warrant was issued for both Baker and his wife, in Kelly Baker’s death. There were indications that Baker had been growing marijuana out in an otherwise useless low spot in one of his fields; none of the church members seemed to know about that.
     
     
    AND FINALLY, Bob Tripp was spun out of the story as a kind of folk hero, taking out a major bad guy, in revenge for what was done to his friend Kelly Baker. Tripp’s parents had been on several national television shows, talking about his athletic accomplishments, and the sense of fair play earned on Homestead’s athletic fields. Virgil hadn’t decided what to think about that, either—Tripp might have been better going to the sheriff with his story about Kelly Baker . . . but what if he’d innocently talked to Jim Crocker, and had been killed for what he knew? The World of Spirit might have continued untouched. . . .
    He never did work it out, but that didn’t bother him too much, because he believed that a lot of the things that happened in the world couldn’t be adequately or logically settled. Bob Tripp was like a modern-day John Brown, written small: a murderer in a good cause.
     
     
    VIRGIL AND COAKLEY had been conferring fairly often, and most of the town of Homestead knew it. Bill Jacoby, owner of the Yellow Dog, made a couple of cryptic references to relationships and midlife sex, and Virgil realized he was probing for evidence. He gave him none; but neither did Jacoby quit probing.
    As for the relationship itself, Virgil could see it lasting awhile . . . but not forever. Coakley was a hell of a woman, but was looking for a little more stability than Virgil could offer. In the meantime, the conferences continued.
     
     
    “WHAT DOES ‘The Virgins’ mean?” she asked one night, sitting on the edge of the bed.
    “It’s a band,” Virgil said.
    “You look . . . odd. You know, walking around in a ‘Virgins’ T-shirt and your penis sticking straight out from under it. It’s like ‘Virgins’ is some kind of caption.”
    “Hmm. Yes, it is sticking straight out. Maybe sniffing out an opportunity.”
    “Well, what the heck better does it have to do, on a cold winter night in Minnesota?” Coakley asked. “Come over here, Virgil.”