Virgil reached deep under the bed, grabbed one of the boots, and began pulling. Garrett kicked at him, and Bakker shouted, “Okay, there’s another felony—assault on a police officer.”

The boot came off, and Virgil fell back on his butt. The boot stank, and he threw it in a corner. “Come out of there.”

“Fuck you.”

Virgil reached back under and grabbed Garrett’s sock-covered foot and pulled. He could get Garrett stretched out, but couldn’t move him. Bakker peered under the bed, and said, “He’s holding on to the inside leg, over in the corner . . . Give me some room.”

Bakker knelt and grabbed Garrett’s leg just above where Virgil had him by the foot, and they both pulled. Garrett kicked at them with his other, booted foot, hit Bakker’s forearm, and Bakker fell back, and said, “Goddamn, that hurt.”

Rose, in the doorway, said, “This is better than clowns at the circus.”

Virgil said to Bakker, “Keep him stretched out. I’ll be right back.”

Virgil got up and jogged into the kitchen, where he’d seen an aging gas stove. Sitting on a shelf above the stove was the usual box of wooden kitchen matches. He carried the box back to the bedroom, broke one of the matches in half, said to Bakker, “Hold him tight,” and then jammed the match through the sock between Garrett’s big and second toes.

“What the fuck you doing?” Garrett demanded.

“I stuck a match between two of your toes,” Virgil said. “I figure that when I fire that mother up, you’ll let go of that bed.”

“That’s gonna hurt,” Bakker contributed. “Only got a hotfoot one time, in high school. If I had a choice between getting my nose broken again or a hotfoot, I’d take the nose every time.”

“Hold him tight, here we go,” Virgil said. He scratched a match on the ignition strip on the side of the box and it fired up with a puff of smoke. Virgil blew a little of the smoke under the bed.

“Wait, wait, wait—I’m coming out,” Garrett said. He let go of the bed’s leg, and Virgil and Bakker dragged him out from under the bunk. Then Virgil tossed Garrett his boot.

“I’ll put him in my car,” Bakker said. To Button he said, “I’ll be sending somebody to tow that Camaro. Don’t go putting it on Craigslist.”

Garrett to Button: “Better not fuck with my machine . . .”

* * *

—

The group followed behind Bakker and Garrett, who now had his hands cuffed at his back, out to the driveway. Virgil said to Rose, “Your friend’s got swastikas tattooed on her earlobes.”

“Yeah, well, she thought it was the thing to do at the time,” she said. “We were up in the jug at Shakopee, and this chick offered to do it for free . . . I said no. Shirley decided to go with it.”

“Bad life choice.”

“No kiddin’. She went to one of those tattoo doctors to get it erased, but they can’t do it. The doctor suggested she get her lobes cut off. He said trying to laser them would hurt worse than getting her tit caught in a wringer.”

“Ouch. A doctor said that?”

“Yeah. Not that much of a doctor, though. We’re still not sure what he was a doctor of.”

“How come you guys were in Shakopee?”

“We borrowed some cars,” she said.

“A lot of them? They don’t usually send you to Shakopee for car theft.”

“Two or three, and the people got them back. Not a scratch on them. But, the last one we borrowed belonged to a judge. We didn’t know that. A new Corvette. Red. We drove it over to Sioux Falls and back. The judge wasn’t the one who sent us to Shakopee, but judges hang together, you know?”

Virgil nodded. “I do.”

“Sad story, huh?”

“Shouldn’t borrow cars, Rose. At least, not from judges. By the way, do you know a guy named Clay Ford? Over in Wheatfield?”

“I know who he is.”

“He kinda likes your looks,” Virgil said.

Rose stopped and turned toward him. “Where’d you hear that?”

“From Clay. He’s consulting with me—guns, these shootings. Kind of a shy guy, though. I don’t think he’d come right out and hit on you.”

“He’s a great shot . . .” She thought it over. “Not a bad-looking guy, either, I gotta say. You’re sure he was talking about me?”

“He said Rose, a dark-haired woman who won a turkey shoot up at Madelia, living out here with the Nazis.”

“That’s me, all right,” Rose said. “Huh. I’m gonna look into this. These fuckers . . .” She waved toward Button and Good. “They were lame to start with, and they’re getting lamer by the minute, but I needed a free place to stay after I got out of Shakopee.”

* * *

—

Bakker put Garrett in the back of the patrol car, and he came over to Virgil, and said, “Good bust. That’ll keep old Zimmer off my back for a couple of weeks. He’s always talking about ‘quality arrests.’ . . . Can you find your way out?”

“Right, left, right.”

“That’s correct. Take it easy, Virgil,” Bakker said, and he got in his car and rolled away.

Virgil turned back to the group, and said, “Okay. I’m willing to believe that none of you are involved in these shootings if you send me those names of people who can confirm your alibis. If any of you do know something, you better get in touch with me. If I bust you for being an accessory . . . You know, being a Nazi in front of a Minnesota jury isn’t exactly a place you want to be . . . Email me those alibis. Names and dates.”

They all nodded, and Rose followed him down to his truck, and, when they got there, Virgil said, “Get a cup of coffee with Clay. He’s a little goofy about guns, but he’s got a decent job and seems . . . calm.”

She gave him a thumbs-up, and he backed out of the driveway.

10

   As Virgil was driving to Wheatfield, Bea Sawyer called to say that she and Baldwin were on their way back to St. Paul with all the evidence collected at Andorra’s farmhouse.

“We have a curiosity,” she said. “Andorra’s prints are on file with the feds. I know that because when we were looking at the .45, I could see a partial on the trigger, and I called and got a pdf of his prints. I can’t be sure, because I was eyeballing it, but I’m fairly sure that the print is his. I can see an odd, interrupted whorl.”