Virgil understood “SHTF” to mean a “Shit Hits The Fan” situation.

“Interesting,” he said. He bobbed his head, and said, in his best gun nut voice, “I would have put in a couple of twelve-gauge shotguns. They’re good threat guns when you don’t want to shoot anyone but might have to. They’d also be good for pheasant, in a SHTF case.”

Ford regarded him levelly for five seconds or so, then said, “Now you’re fuckin’ with me. You think I’m goofy, too. I admit, it could turn out that way. New generation—could be all sweetness and light. That’s not the way I see it, though. A rising tide of mean little fascist rats, is what I see.”

* * *

—

Virgil swerved away from the argument: “Who do you think might have done the shooting in town?”

Ford tilted his head back, his eyes going to the ceiling. “I don’t have a candidate right now. If you’d asked me before yesterday who was the best shot in town, I wouldn’t have hesitated: me. But now you bring up some interesting points . . . If he shot them from far enough away that nobody heard the shots, and he wasn’t shooting to kill, then he’s got to be good. On the other hand, I suspect he hadn’t figured out the drop over the distance he was shooting and underestimated it. He hits that first man in the leg, then the woman up higher. Next one will get it in the heart. If that’s what happens, we’ll all know he was using live targets to sight his rifle. Seems like he might be a guy who knows how to hold on target but has only shot some other rifle before, like a little .22, and doesn’t know about ballistics. About the sound thing—nobody hearing the shot—that could mean he’s got a suppressor.”

“He’s maybe using a CZ .223 Varmint that he took from Glen Andorra,” Virgil said. “Did Andorra have a suppressor?”

“Not that I ever saw,” Ford said. “I was out there a lot, too. I even shot that particular gun a couple of times, if it’s the same one the killer is using. It’s decent; if you gave it to me, I’d want to tune it, but it’s decent as is. It wasn’t threaded for a suppressor, or, at least, it wasn’t when I fired it, which was probably a year ago or more. Didn’t have a muzzle brake, either. You need a muzzle brake if you go the quick-attach route for your suppressor. If he bought a suppressor on his own, he had to get a federal permit for it. You could check that.”

Like most hunters, Virgil liked to talk guns from time to time, but he was out of his depth with Ford. “You don’t know anybody who can shoot up to your standard?”

“Not in town. There are some good shots, by any regular standard, guys who can keep it inside a minute of angle, as long as they’ve got the time and are shooting with a support. You can see them every day out at Glen’s. I’ve never seen Wardell Holland shoot, but he was infantry in Afghanistan, or Iraq, so he’s probably an okay shot . . . I kinda asked around about him, and he was in his store, with people talking to him, when the shootings happened, so he’s out. Old Man Martin, he’s a local gunsmith; his eyes are so bad, he couldn’t hit the side of a barn from the inside. Glen was a hunter-level rifle shot, and a better pistol shot, bordering on good, with his .45, but, of course, he’s dead. No, I can’t think of anyone in town who’d be good enough to make those shots from way out on purpose. You gotta consider the possibility that the placement of the shots was accidental.”

“Where were you when those people got shot, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Surprised it took you this long to ask,” Ford said, with a thin grin. He’d taken a .223 black rifle from one of the safes and was handling it, turning it, as easily as a drum major twirling a baton. “I got my own business doing computer maintenance and WiFi installations, and also solar panel sales; I got an associate who does the installation on the solar panels. With that first shooting, I was at the Creighton house over in Fairmont. It’s new construction, big house, they want WiFi in every room and solar on the roof. George and Elizabeth Creighton—they were both there the whole time I was. The second shooting, I was sitting in Elmer’s Tap, off the Interstate, eating a hamburger and watching some guys shoot pool. I can give you names and all.”

Virgil took a card from his pocket, wrote his BCA email address on the back, and said, “I believe you, but this is murder, so I gotta check. Email me the names.”

“I’ll do that soon as you’re out the door,” Ford said.

“What about the Nazis?”

Ford made a farting sound with his mouth. “Those guys are an embarrassment to the whole county. When the SHTF, they’ll probably get eaten first.” He hesitated, then added, “I’ll tell you, though, they got one little woman out there, name of Rose, if she wanted to move in with me . . . I’d say yes in a New York minute. She’s got a sense of humor, and she’s not a bad shot, either. She’s a little wild, but maybe you need somebody like that when the SHTF.”

“Speaking of women, if you read Danny Visser’s blog today, you’ll know that we’re looking for a woman who might have been having a relationship with Glen Andorra,” Virgil said. “Any idea of who that might be?”

“Nope. But I suspected something was going on. I even kidded Glen about it. I was over there once, and there were some dirty dishes on the kitchen table, set for two. I even kinda thought the woman might still be in the house because I could smell something feminine—perfume, or deodorant, something that sure wasn’t Glen. He got kinda flustered, and pushed me right out the door. I’d stopped by to give him a check for my range dues, and he didn’t even want me to take the time to write it out. Said he’d get it later. That was not like Glen. Not a bad guy, but he did like his cash money.”

“No idea who she might have been?”

“No, because—you know what?—she wanted it kept a secret, which made me think she might be married.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“There was no car in the driveway. If she was still there, either her car was in the garage or Glen picked her up somewhere,” Ford said. “Why hide it if she wasn’t married? If she was single, nobody would care. In fact, everybody would have thought Glen getting together with a woman, that’d be great. He’d been divorced for quite a while.”

“Huh.” Virgil thought about that, then grinned at Ford, and asked, “So, you like guns a lot. If you had to give up guns or women, which would you do?”

Ford peered at Virgil, then said, “Fake question. You wouldn’t have to give up women unless they all died off, and that ain’t gonna happen. On the other hand, when the government starts kicking in the repressive measures—and that’s just a matter of time—IMHO, you’re gonna need the guns. I’d say, sure, women are important, but guns are fundamental. You know, our Constitution doesn’t even mention women, but it does mention our right to bear arms.”