Mad River

that’s not the Dick Murphy we know and love. So,
that
would make me think he didn’t fake it.”
    Virgil nodded. “I could buy that. Unless, maybe, he knew that Randy was coming back.”
    “But why would he leave the money in the chest of drawers? Why wouldn’t he have done a better job of getting out of town?”
    “I don’t know,” Virgil admitted. “Unless Randy called and said he was coming back the next day, and he had to throw something together.”
    “But . . . would he be throwing something together, and then go out and wash his car so he could ditch it an hour later?”
    Virgil said, “Hmm.”
    “But here’s something that’s sort of in favor of it being a fake: I can’t figure out what kind of a killing wound would put that blood on the car seat, where it is. If somebody pointed a gun in the window and shot him, why wouldn’t we find some evidence of a gunshot? If he was stabbed, why would he bleed backward into the seat back? Why wouldn’t there be blood anywhere else? What it looks like, tell the truth, is like he cut his arm, and smeared some blood on the seat. We won’t know for sure until your crime-scene people start taking the seat apart.”
    They walked over to Murphy’s car and looked in the window, but nothing really came to Virgil. Would the O’Learys have taken the situation into their own hands? Had Ag O’Leary had some other relationship that Virgil didn’t know about, and Murphy was killed by some unknown actor, in revenge? Could Randy White have been that relationship?
    They looked at the spot of blood on the seat, and Virgil did not get the feeling that it was obviously a fake. What it was, was odd.
    Virgil asked Price, “Am I still stinking up the place in the Bare County sheriff’s office?”
    Price grinned and said, “Barack Obama would run about forty points ahead of you, if there was an election.”
    “And Barack is not exactly in deep favor around here.”
    “Not exactly,” Price said. “But there are a few guys who’ve been willing to say, privately, when the sheriff wasn’t around, that the thing wasn’t handled right. The Becky Welsh/Jimmy Sharp thing. I think one of them might take the sheriff on, in two years.”
    “Does the sheriff know that?”
    “Oh, hell no,” Price said. “Maybe it won’t happen at all. We’ll see.”
    “Does Duke know you’re talking to me? Or do I have to be careful about mentioning it?”
    “Oh, he knows,” Price said. “When you asked the dispatcher to call me, he called Duke first. Duke told him to call me in . . . but he doesn’t want to talk to you himself.”
    They thought about that for a moment, then Price asked, “Are you gonna take this over? The Murphy thing?”
    “What can I do?” Virgil asked. “You’ve done everything I’d do. Maybe Crime Scene will turn up some DNA, and that’ll take us somewhere. Maybe we’ll find a body and that’ll tell us something. Or maybe he’ll show up.”
    Price sighed and said, “You know, if Jimmy hadn’t gone up there with that gun . . .”
    “If Murphy hadn’t paid him to . . .”
    “Yeah. Well, hell. Stay in touch,” Price said.
    •   •   •
    VIRGIL STAYED IN TOUCH for two weeks, until the DNA came back on the blood: it was almost certainly Murphy’s, because it matched hair, blood, and semen samples from Murphy’s bed. Murphy had taken no money from his bank account, never used his cell phone or credit cards in that time. Then more DNA samples came back, on the car, and they were all Murphy.
    A crime-scene tech who’d taken apart the car seat said, “I don’t know how he was killed, if he was killed, but there was more blood there than it looked like. It wasn’t just a spot. He bled through the spot for a while, and it ran down the inside of the fabric. Not a whole lot, but it wasn’t just a wipe, or a smear.”
    “So what killed him?” Virgil asked.
    “I’m thinking aliens.”
    “You mean like, Canadians?”
    •   •   •
    THEN, a day after the second set of DNA samples came back, Davenport called.
    “You’re not on the TSA’s no-fly list, are you?”
    “I hope not,” Virgil said. “Where am I flying to?”
    “Houston. By God, Texas.”
    “Why is that?”
    “I thought you’d want to talk to Randy White, who was picked up yesterday afternoon after a DUI stop.”
    “Sonofagun,” Virgil said.
    •   •   •
    VIRGIL FLEW INTO George Bush Intercontinental Airport the next morning, and two