“This one’s locked,” a deputy called from the back.

“Yeah, so’s this one,” another deputy called from the side of the house.

“Then where did she go?” Virgil asked Jenkins. “You sure she didn’t get past you?”

“Positive. I saw her running across the yard and I cut around the house the other way, thinking I’d catch her, but I never saw her.”

Virgil was looking at the house, and said, “I bet she went under the porch.”

Jenkins looked at the porch: its floor was four feet off the ground, with a railing around it; the lattice that skirted it to the ground looked shaky, at best.

“That’d tell us why she disappeared so quick,” Jenkins said. “We need more flashlights here. You got your thermonuclear?”

Virgil said, “Yeah, but . . . that could be where she stashed the rifle. Out of the house but right there, if she needed it.”

* * *

—

Banning and Zimmer were on the street with Davy Apel, who had his hands cuffed behind him. Apel said, “I’d be careful. Ann can be violent. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the one who killed those people . . .”

“Ah, shut up,” Virgil said. “Your house is wired for sound: we’ve heard everything you’ve said to each other since noon, you’re toast. But if Ann’s got a gun, and if she shoots somebody . . . whatever bad is going to happen to you will get a lot worse. So you better tell me: does she have a gun?”

Apel put his head down, muttering to himself, looked sideways at Banning, then looked at Virgil, and said, “Maybe. I mean, it’s her gun, she said Glen Andorra gave it to her. I told her I didn’t want it in the house, and I think she might have put it over there, under the porch.”

“We got eight cops here. If she starts shooting, we’ll kill her. You want to go over to the porch and tell her that?”

* * *

—

He would, Apel said. “This whole thing, start to finish, was her idea. I have alibis, man. I mean, I didn’t know what she was doing until this morning . . .”

“Bull,” Virgil said. “C’mon, we’re gonna talk to her.”

* * *

—

They went to the far side of the porch, and Apel pointed to a section of the lattice skirt, and said, “I noticed one time that the skirt is loose there . . .”

Virgil said, “Then talk to her.”

Jenkins, Zimmer, and the deputies all had high-powered flashlights illuminating the latticework. Virgil and Apel approached from the side of the house, and Virgil said, “Stay behind the house . . . Call her.”

Apel called, “Honey? Babe? You better come out of there. Flowers is saying they’ll kill you if you shoot the gun that Glen gave you.”

Silence. “Sweetie, come out of there. They know you’re in there . . . Just say something. They won’t hurt you if you come out.”

Even deeper silence.

“Listen, Annie, honeybun, Flowers says they put bugs in the house and heard us talking today. It’s over with. Please come out.”

Nothing, not even a rat rustling under the porch.

Virgil said, “Goddamnit, let’s back up.” He led Apel away from the side of the house and circled around until they were behind the cop cars in the street, where he passed Apel to Zimmer, who passed Apel to Banning, and said, “Put him in your car.”

Virgil looked at his watch: 12:30.

Jenkins came up. “What are we doing?”

“Need to talk to the mayor.” Virgil, Jenkins, and Zimmer walked over to Holland’s pickup. Skinner and Holland were standing behind it, and Virgil asked, “You know anything about the house?”

“Belongs to the county; they took it for taxes,” Holland said.

“I suppose the electricity’s been turned off?”

“Long ago. All the utilities are shut down,” Holland said. “Some Mexican folks took a look at it, but it wasn’t well maintained when the Boks lived there—they let it go to seed—so the Mexicans went somewhere else. The place is a wreck, from what I hear.”

Virgil looked at his watch again, and said to Zimmer, “It starts getting light around five o’clock, the sun’s up at five-thirty. Since we’re pretty sure that she’s either under the porch, or in the house, I think we ought to wait until daylight. Trying to the clear the house in the dark, with flashlights, is a good way to get shot, if she’s inclined to shoot.”

“Four and a half hours,” Zimmer said. “If it keeps somebody from getting hurt, I’d say the wait is worth it. Hope she’s in there.”

28

   They walked Davy Apel to the house twice during the night, thinking that as time passed, and Ann had more time to think, she might call it quits. She never answered him. Quite a few of the deputies thought she’d gotten past Jenkins’s group and they started poking around the neighborhood.

Another deputy came out of the Apels’ house with a piece of white typing paper that had been crunched into a ball and thrown in the wastebasket. He’d flattened it out and showed it to Virgil. Virgil read “I’m wearing a wire,” written with something like a broad Sharpie pen.

He showed it to Apel. “Were you tipping Ann or was she tipping you?” Virgil asked.

Apel shook his head.

Later, outside the house again: “She told me once that she’d never go to prison,” Apel told Virgil. “She’s an outdoor girl. The idea of being locked up scares her to death.”

“She should have thought longer about killing people,” Virgil said.

“When I began to suspect she was doing that, I told her . . .”

“Don’t even start,” Virgil said. “You were in this up to your neck.”

* * *

—

Dawn finally arrived an hour after people began asking “Is it getting lighter in the east?” which it hadn’t been, but by 5 o’clock it had. A crowd of Wheatfieldians had gathered across the street, and an ambulance from Fairmont had joined the cop cars, as a precaution.

“We’ll wait until the sun’s up,” Virgil said. “Jenkins and I will clear the place . . . and”—he looked at Bakker, who was leaning against the fender of his patrol car, the combat shotgun resting behind him—“we’ll take Darren as backup.”