Mad River

disappear, you’d have to prove they knew that would end the case against Murphy, and that Murphy would make bail, and they did that explicitly to give themselves an opportunity to murder Murphy. Their side of the story would be, they realized that Murphy was probably innocent, and they thought they might as well end the agony for the husband of their late, much-loved daughter.”
    “They couldn’t say that with straight faces.”
    “But a lawyer could,” Davenport said. “The other thing is, you’re about to take on a clan of doctors. You know how hard it is to get doctors to practice in a place like Bigham? I bet that if you got a jury down there, even if they thought some O’Leary did it, they wouldn’t convict. They just wouldn’t do it.”
    “Lucas . . . you’re saying they’re going to get away with murder.”
    “They will, if they did it. I’m not sure that they did it, and neither are you. You know your case against Murphy? That was ten times stronger than anything you’re likely to get against the O’Learys. You don’t even have a body. A jury won’t be sure, not given all the circumstances. You have one chance: that somebody confesses. What do you think the chance of that is?”
    Virgil rubbed his forehead and admitted, “Slim and none.”
    “And Slim is out of town,” Davenport said.
    •   •   •
    THEY ATE FOR A WHILE, and then Virgil said, “So you came down here to tell me to ditch the whole thing.”
    “Nope. You have the best clearance record that anybody ever heard of, and I’d never tell you to stop,” Davenport said. “I just came down to tell you how it is. You won’t get them.”
    Virgil: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
    Davenport looked around the café with its red leatherette counter stools, big men in coveralls, waitresses with beehive hairdos, then down at his plate of sliced turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, and cranberry sauce, all covered with cream of mushroom gravy, and said, “No. It’s sure as shit not Chinatown, Virgil. It’s just life.”
    They thought about that for a bit, then Davenport asked, “What’s going on with the guys who beat you up?”
    Virgil shrugged. “Nobody’s wanted to go to trial. The state guys don’t want to resolve anything until we figure out what happened to Murphy, and McGuire and Atkins apparently think that the more confused things get, the more likely they are to get a better deal. So . . . it’s still out there.”
    “So everything’s settled except the O’Learys . . . as much as it’s going to be, anyway,” Davenport said.
    “Yeah.”
    They ate some more, then Virgil said, “I’m going to Bigham tonight. I’m going to take a shot at them. Just see if anything falls out.”
    “God bless you, man,” Davenport said.
    Davenport dropped Virgil at his house and said, “Watch the weather service. There’s some bad shit coming in from Nebraska.” Then he was gone, moving fast in the 911.
    •   •   •
    DAVENPORT WAS RIGHT. Bad shit coming down.
    Virgil saw it on his computer, the weather radars all across the northern plains. A line of thunderstorms showed up in a crimson streak from western Kansas to eastern North Dakota, and the fattest part of the bowed-out line of supercells was aimed right at southwest Minnesota.
    He called his father to tell him to keep an eye on it. “We’ve been watching it coming since yesterday,” his father said. “This is a nasty one.”
    Virgil packed his Musto sailing suit in the back of the truck, just in case, and at three o’clock took off. Fifty miles east of Bigham, the sky turned cloudy, with the downward bumps of mammatus clouds; never a good sign. The wind picked up, and the clouds overhead were churning like whipped cream in a blender, but there was no rain. That would come, Virgil thought, but not yet.
    He was dry all the way to Bigham. Beyond Bigham, though, the sky was a dark wall of cloud, and the cottonwood trees in City Park were whipping and twisting in the wind.
    •   •   •
    VIRGIL WAS EARLY. He checked into the same hotel where he’d spent his time during the hunt for Sharp and Welsh, went up to his room, and turned on the television. The Sioux Falls weather radar showed the storm plowing toward Bigham: the leading edge of the heaviest band was ten miles to the west and the weatherman was screaming about wall clouds and the hook signature.
    There’d been two confirmed tornadoes out of the system, and a third