“How were you doing this research? On the wife?” Virgil asked.

“On the internet. I’m not going to say any more about that,” Foster said. “I’d need to talk to a lawyer, and probably I’d need both federal and state immunity from prosecution.”

“You hacked somebody,” Virgil said. “Tell me this: does the information you hacked about his wife seem to suggest any level of guilt for the murder?”

“No. It doesn’t, other than the fact that she’d benefit,” Foster said.

“Hmm. I’ll have to take your word for it, and I will, unless I find something that tells me you’re lying. If that happens, you won’t like what follows.”

“Thanks a lot, pal. Look, I’m not even sure I broke any laws, but I’m not taking a chance,” Foster said. “Anyway, you should be thinking about what facts I found, not about what methods I used. I’ll tell you everything about what I uncovered but not how.”

“What else did you do?”

“I followed the wife around for a couple of days. I wanted to see if she had a relationship—because if she did and it was serious, then that guy might be looking at a major payday.”

“What came out of that?”

“She wasn’t exactly dating, but she went to dinner with a guy, a lawyer named Jared Miles, a couple of times. And twice to lunch,” Foster said. “They seemed friendly, but he never stayed overnight. And it’s possible that they were talking about the will. But he was age-appropriate, and they were . . . friendly.”

“Interesting. How’d you get his name?”

Foster thought for a moment, then said, “Miles picked her up at her house.”

Virgil added another moment of thought, then said, “Ah . . . You got his license tag and hacked into the DMV for his ID.”

“Virgil . . . I’ve got no comment about that.”

* * *

—

   Virgil rubbed his face, his eyes wandering around the hospital room, with its tubes, its stainless steel, its electronics, its video screens. He turned back to Foster, and asked, “Do you think that whatever you stumbled over, if that’s what happened, was so serious that the guy who attacked you might come back?”

“How would I know that? If there’s a connection to the Quill murder, and I heard or saw something that I don’t understand, maybe he will,” Foster said. “If it was a mugging, probably not. I talked to Megan Quill and a couple of her friends and didn’t see anything but nerdy college kids. I got no hint that any of the people at Cultural Science might have killed Quill, and I don’t feel any threat from them. They were mostly shocked. The only thing that jumped out at me was the difference between what Mrs. Quill would get before a divorce and what she would get after. It’s pretty dramatic.”

“I’ve talked to her,” Virgil said. “She was in Cleveland.” And, “Why did you do all this? You must’ve known that the cops would be pissed off if they found you messing around with a murder investigation.”

Foster turned away for a moment, then turned back, and said, “Honestly—and don’t take this the wrong way because later on I realized how wrong I was—but at first I was worried that Sandy might be involved. She idolizes Katherine and hated Quill for what he did, and she’s, you know, a martial artist. Then I started getting some details from the papers, and she was over at my house until two o’clock the night that the murder probably happened. I’m not bragging, but she left in a very good mood. Not in a mood to kill someone.”

“Sandy didn’t have a boyfriend who might be jealous?” Virgil asked. “Maybe one of those stick fighter martial arts guys? And met you in the alley?”

“No. Not that I know of. It’s an interesting thought, though. I’ll ask her about that.”

“Let me know what she says,” Virgil said.

“It sounds like it comes down to a Quill connection or a mugging. Either one. Don’t tell Sandy that I checked her out. Please.”

“I won’t, if I can avoid it,” Virgil said. “Do you have any idea when you’re getting out of here?”

“It’ll be a few more days anyway. When they found out I had student health insurance, with no deductible, they jumped on me like a duck on a june bug. They’re not all that anxious to cure me.”

“Let me know before you leave,” Virgil said. They talked a few more minutes about Foster’s military career. He’d been an intelligence officer, had a degree from the University of Minnesota/Duluth, and was now a grad student. “If I get a Ph.D., I could go back into the Army as a regular officer and be almost guaranteed to wind up as a full colonel or better. The Army’s big on advanced degrees right now.”

“You didn’t do cop stuff?”

“No. I ran some agents, and when I was thinking about Quill, I was thinking I was kinda cop-like. I found out I wasn’t. I’m now embarrassed about messing with your investigation,” Foster said. “I consider myself warned off.”

Virgil shrugged and stood up. “I’m not warning you off. You want to look some more, fine with me, call if you get anything. But don’t blame me if somebody beats you to death. If somebody does, try to scratch him before you die so we can get the DNA from your fingernails.”

“Look for blood on the casts,” Foster said. “Right now, I couldn’t scratch my own balls. Which I desperately need to do.”

“Can’t help you there,” Virgil said.

Virgil got a lap desk out of the back of the Tahoe, sat in the passenger seat, and made notes on his conversation with Foster.

He didn’t know it but he’d missed something.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

   When Virgil finished making his notes on Foster, he sat in the truck for a few minutes, thinking about the case, decided he didn’t think that well in an upright position, and turned back to the hotel.

In his room, he took off his boots and emptied his pockets, plugged his laptop into the WiFi, dialed up the Lucinda Williams station on Pandora, put on his headphones, lay on the bed with his notebook on his chest, closed his eyes, and thought about it some more.

An hour later, he was back on his feet, with a short list in his notebook:

          The doctor’s conspiracy as recorded on the western music CD.

       The map thief.

       Did Quill have an illicit relationship, possibly with a prostitute?