{"product_id":"deadline-isbn-9780425275184","title":"Deadline","description":"In southeast Minnesota, a school board meeting is coming to an end. The chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed to only a few—for personal issues. The remaining members vote on the fate of a local reporter.  And it’s unanimous…\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKill him.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMeanwhile, Virgil Flowers is investigating a dognapping crime wave in a Mississippi River town when he gets a call from Lucas Davenport. A corpse has been found, and the victim is local reporter Clancy Conley. Virgil has no idea where this is all headed. All he knows for sure is that things are getting nasty in Buchanan County. | \u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eDeadline\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Sandford keeps one last surprise up his sleeve for the denouement of the dognapping case, and it's a doozy. Exhilaratingly professional work by both Virgil and his creator that breaks no new ground but will keep the fans happy and add to their number.”—Kirkus Reviews“Stellar . . . Sandford is an accomplished and amusing storyteller, and he nails both the rural characters and terrain as well as he has skewered urban life in past installments.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Sanford balances straight-talking Virgil Flowers’ often hilariously folksy tone and Trippton’s dark core of methamphetamine manufacturers and sociopaths; the result is pure reading pleasure for thriller fans.”—Booklist | \u003cb\u003eJohn Sandford \u003c\/b\u003eis the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of twenty-six Prey novels, most recently \u003ci\u003eExtreme Prey\u003c\/i\u003e; four Kidd novels; nine Virgil Flowers novels; three YA novels coauthored with his wife, Michele Cook; and three stand-alones, most recently \u003ci\u003eSaturn Run\u003c\/i\u003e. | 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDark, moonless night, in the dog days of early August.\u003cbr\u003eA funky warm drizzle kept the world quiet and wet and close.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eD. Wayne Sharf slid across Winky Butterfield’s pasture like a\u003cbr\u003egreased weasel headed for a chicken house. He carried two heavy\u003cbr\u003enylon leashes with choke-chain collars, two nylon muzzles with\u003cbr\u003eVelcro straps, and a center-cut pork chop.\u003cbr\u003eThe target was Butterfield’s kennel, a chain-link enclosure in the\u003cbr\u003ebackyard, where Butterfield kept his two black Labs, one young,\u003cbr\u003eone older. The pork chop would be used to make friends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eD. Wayne was wearing camo, head to foot, which was no change:\u003cbr\u003ehe always wore camo, head to foot. So did his children.\u003cbr\u003eHis ex-wife, Truly, whom he still occasionally visited, wore various\u003cbr\u003epieces of camo, depending on daily fashion demands—more at\u003cbr\u003eWalmart, less at Target. She also had eight pairs of camo under\u003cbr\u003epants, size 4XL and 5XL, which she wore on a rotating basis: two\u003cbr\u003eeach of Mossy Oak, Realtree, Legend, and God’s Country, which\u003cbr\u003eprompted D. Wayne to tell her one night, as he peeled them off,\u003cbr\u003e“This really is God’s country, know what I’m sayin’, honeybunch?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis new, alternative honeybunch wore black cotton, which she\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ecalled “panties,” and which didn’t do much for D. Wayne. Just some\u003cbr\u003ething hot about camo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few thousand cells in the back of his brain were sifting through\u003cbr\u003eall of that as D. Wayne crossed a split-rail fence into Butterfield’s\u003cbr\u003eyard, and one of the dogs, the young one, barked twice. There were\u003cbr\u003eno lights in the house, and none came on. D. Wayne paused in his\u003cbr\u003eapproach, watching, then slipped the pork chop out of its plastic\u003cbr\u003ebag. He sat for a couple of minutes, giving the dogs a chance to smell\u003cbr\u003ethe meat; while he waited, his own odor caught up with him, a combination\u003cbr\u003eof sweat and whiskey-blend Copenhagen. If Butterfield\u003cbr\u003ehad the nose of a deer or a wolf, he would have been worried.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Butterfield didn’t, and D. Wayne started moving again. He\u003cbr\u003egot to the kennel, where the dogs were waiting, slobbering like\u003cbr\u003ehounds . . . because they were hounds. He turned on the hunter’s\u003cbr\u003ered, low-illumination LED lights mounted in his hat brim, ripped\u003cbr\u003ethe pork chop in half, held the pieces three feet apart, and pushed\u003cbr\u003ethem through the chain link. The dogs were all over the meat: and\u003cbr\u003ewhile they were choking it down, he flipped the latch on the kennel\u003cbr\u003egate and duckwalked inside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Here you go, boys, good boys,” he muttered. The dogs came\u003cbr\u003eover to lick his face and look for more pork chop, the young dog\u003cbr\u003eprancing around him, and he slipped the choke collars over their\u003cbr\u003eheads, one at a time. The young one took the muzzle okay—the\u003cbr\u003emuzzle was meant to prevent barking, not biting—but the older\u003cbr\u003eone resisted, growled, and then barked, twice, three times. A light\u003cbr\u003ecame on in the back of the Butterfield house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eD. Wayne said, “Uh-oh,” dropped the big dog’s muzzle, and\u003cbr\u003edragged the two dogs out of the kennel toward the fence. Again,\u003cbr\u003ethe younger one came without much resistance at first, but the\u003cbr\u003eolder one dug in. Another light came on, this one by the Butterfield\u003cbr\u003eside door, and D. Wayne said, “Shit,” and he picked up the bigger\u003cbr\u003edog, two arms under its belly, and yanking the other one along on\u003cbr\u003ethe leash, cleared the fence and headed across the pasture at an\u003cbr\u003eawkward trot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe side door opened on Butterfield’s house, and D. Wayne,\u003cbr\u003ehaving forgotten about the red LEDs on his hat brim, made the mistake\u003cbr\u003eof looking back. Butterfield was standing under the porch\u003cbr\u003elight, and saw him. Butterfield shouted, “Hey! Hey!” and “Carol,\u003cbr\u003esomebody’s took the dogs,” and then, improbably, he went back\u003cbr\u003einside the house and D. Wayne thought for seven or eight seconds\u003cbr\u003ethat he’d caught a break. His truck was only forty yards or so away\u003cbr\u003enow, and he was moving as fast as he could while carrying the\u003cbr\u003ebigger dog, which must’ve weighed eighty pounds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen Butterfield reappeared and this time he was carrying a\u003cbr\u003egun. He yelled again, “Hey! Hey!” and let off a half-dozen rounds,\u003cbr\u003eand D. Wayne said, “My gosh,” and threw the big dog through the\u003cbr\u003eback door of his truck topper and then hoisted the smaller dog up\u003cbr\u003eby his neck and threw him inside after the bigger one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother volley of bullets cracked overhead, making a truly unpleasant\u003cbr\u003ewhip-snap sound, but well off to one side. D. Wayne realized\u003cbr\u003ethat Butterfield couldn’t actually see the truck in the dark of\u003cbr\u003ethe night, and through the mist. Since D. Wayne was a semi-pro dog\u003cbr\u003esnatcher, he had the truck’s interior and taillights on a cut-off\u003cbr\u003eswitch, and when he got in and fired that mother up, none of the\u003cbr\u003elights came on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was still the rumble of the truck, though, and Butterfield\u003cbr\u003efired another volley, and then D. Wayne was gone up the nearly, but\u003cbr\u003enot quite, invisible road. A half-mile along, he turned on his lights\u003cbr\u003eand accelerated away, and at the top of the hill that overlooked the\u003cbr\u003eButterfield place, he looked back and saw headlights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eButterfield was coming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eD. Wayne dropped the hammer. The chase was short, because\u003cbr\u003eD. Wayne had made provisions. At the Paxton place, over the crest\u003cbr\u003eof the third low hill in a roller-coaster stretch of seven hills, he\u003cbr\u003eswerved off the road, down the drive, and around behind the Paxton\u003cbr\u003ekids’ bus shack, where the kids waited for the school bus on\u003cbr\u003ewintry days.Butterfield went past at a hundred miles an hour,\u003cbr\u003eand fifteen seconds later D. Wayne was going the other way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA clean getaway, but D. Wayne had about peed himself when\u003cbr\u003eButterfield started working that gun. Had to be a better way to\u003cbr\u003emake a living, he thought, as he took a left on a winding road back\u003cbr\u003etoward home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot that he could easily think of one. There was stealing dogs,\u003cbr\u003ecooking meth, and stripping copper wire and pipes out of unoccupied\u003cbr\u003esummer cabins.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was about it, in D. Wayne’s world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil Flowers nearly fell off the bed when the phone began to\u003cbr\u003evibrate. The bed was narrow and Frankie Nobles was using up the\u003cbr\u003emiddle and the other side. Virgil had to crawl over her naked body\u003cbr\u003eto get to the phone, not an entirely unpleasant process, and she\u003cbr\u003emuttered, “What? Again?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Phone,” Virgil said. He groaned and added, “Can’t be anything\u003cbr\u003egood.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe looked at the face of the phone and said, “Johnson Johnson.”\u003cbr\u003eAt that moment the phone stopped ringing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrankie was up on her elbows, where she could see the clock,\u003cbr\u003eand said, “At three in the morning? The dumbass has been arrested\u003cbr\u003efor something.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“He wouldn’t call for that,” Virgil said. “And he’s not dumb.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“There’s two kinds of dumb,” Frankie said. “Actual and deliberate.\u003cbr\u003eJohnson’s the most deliberate dumbass I ever met. That whole\u003cbr\u003elive-chicken-toss contest—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yeah, yeah, it was for a good cause.” Virgil touched the callback\u003cbr\u003etab, and Johnson picked up on the first ring.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Virgil, Jesus, we got big trouble, man. You remember Winky\u003cbr\u003eButterfield?” Johnson sounded wide awake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No, I don’t believe so.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter a moment of silence Johnson said, “Maybe I didn’t introduce\u003cbr\u003eyou, come to think of it. Maybe it was somebody else.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Good. Can I go back to sleep?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Virgil, this is serious shit. Somebody dognapped Winky’s black\u003cbr\u003eLabs. You gotta get your ass over here, man, while the trail is fresh.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jesus, Johnson . . . dogs? You called me at three in the morning\u003cbr\u003eabout dogs?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“They’re family, man . . . you gotta do something.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt ten o’clock the next morning, Virgil kissed Frankie good-bye\u003cbr\u003eand walked out to his truck, which was parked at the curb with the\u003cbr\u003eboat already hooked up. Virgil was recently back from New Mexico,\u003cbr\u003ewhere he’d caught and released every tiger musky in what he\u003cbr\u003esuspected was the remotest musky lake in North America. Nice\u003cbr\u003efish, too, the biggest a finger-width short of fifty inches. He could\u003cbr\u003estill smell them as he walked past the boat and climbed into the cab\u003cbr\u003eof his 4Runner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe day was warm, and promising hot. The sun was doing its\u003cbr\u003ejob out in front of the truck, but the sky had a sullen gray look\u003cbr\u003eabout it. There’d been a quarter-inch of rain over the past twenty-\u003cbr\u003efour hours, and as he rolled out of Mankato, Minnesota, the countryside\u003cbr\u003elooked notably damp. But it was August, the best time of the\u003cbr\u003eyear, and he was on the road, operating, elbow out the window,\u003cbr\u003epheasants running across the road in front of him . . . nothing to\u003cbr\u003ecomplain about.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Virgil rode along, he thought about Frankie. He’d known her\u003cbr\u003eas Ma Nobles before he’d fallen into bed with her, because she\u003cbr\u003ehad about a hundred children; or, at least, it felt that way. She was\u003cbr\u003ea compelling armful, and Virgil’s thoughts had drifted again to\u003cbr\u003emarriage, as they had three times before. The first three had been\u003cbr\u003edisasters, because, he thought, he had poor taste in women. He\u003cbr\u003ereconsidered: no, that wasn’t quite right. His three wives had all\u003cbr\u003ebeen pretty decent women, but, he thought, he was simply a poor\u003cbr\u003ejudge of the prospects for compatibility.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe and Frankie did not have that problem; they just got along.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd Virgil thought about Lucas Davenport for a while—\u003cbr\u003eDavenport was his boss at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,\u003cbr\u003eand not a bad guy, though a trifle intense. There was a distinct possibility\u003cbr\u003ethat he would not be pleased with the idea of Virgil working\u003cbr\u003ea dognapping case. Especially since the shit had hit the fan up north,\u003cbr\u003ewhere a couple of high school kids had tripped over an abandoned\u003cbr\u003efarm cistern full of dead bodies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Johnson Johnson was a hard man to turn down. Virgil\u003cbr\u003ethought he might be able to sneak in a couple good working days\u003cbr\u003ebefore Davenport even found out what he was doing. A dognapping,\u003cbr\u003ehe thought, shouldn’t take too much time, one way or the\u003cbr\u003eother. The dogs might already be in Texas, chasing armadillos, or\u003cbr\u003ewhatever it was they chased in Texas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDognapping. He’d had calls on it before, though he’d never investigated\u003cbr\u003eone, and they’d always been during hunting season, or\u003cbr\u003eshortly before. Didn’t usually see one this early in the year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohnson Johnson ran a lumber mill, specializing in hardwood\u003cbr\u003etimber—three varieties of oak, bird’s-eye maple, butternut, hickory,\u003cbr\u003eand some walnut and cherry—for flooring and cabinetry, with a\u003cbr\u003eside business of providing specialty cuts for sculptors. He and Virgil\u003cbr\u003ehad met at the University of Minnesota, where they were studying\u003cbr\u003ewomen and baseball. Virgil had been a fair third baseman for a\u003cbr\u003ecouple years, while Johnson was a better-than-fair catcher. He\u003cbr\u003emight even have caught onto the bottom edge of the pros, if baseball\u003cbr\u003ehadn’t bored him so badly. Johnson’s mill was a mile outside\u003cbr\u003eTrippton, Minnesota, in Buchanan County, in the Driftless Area\u003cbr\u003ealong the Mississippi River.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Driftless Area had always interested Virgil, who had taken\u003cbr\u003ea degree in ecological science. Basically, the Driftless Area was a\u003cbr\u003echunk of territory in Minnesota, Wisconsin, northern Iowa, and Illinois\u003cbr\u003ethat had escaped the last glaciation—the glaciers had simply\u003cbr\u003eflowed around it, joining up again to the south, leaving the Driftless\u003cbr\u003eArea as an island in an ocean of ice. When the glaciers melted, they\u003cbr\u003eusually left behind loose dirt and rock, which was called drift. Not in\u003cbr\u003ethe Driftless Area . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhysically, the land was cut by steep valleys, up to six hundred feet\u003cbr\u003edeep, running down to the Mississippi River. Compared to the farm-\u003cbr\u003elands all around it, the Driftless Area was less fertile, and covered\u003cbr\u003ewith hardwood forests. Towns were small and far between, set mostly\u003cbr\u003ealong the river. The whole area was reminiscent of the Appalachians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRoad time from Virgil’s home, in Mankato, to Trippton, on the\u003cbr\u003eriver, was two and a half hours.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor most of it Virgil put both the truck and his brain on cruise\u003cbr\u003econtrol. He’d driven the route a few dozen times, and there was not\u003cbr\u003ea lot to look at that he hadn’t seen before. Trippton was at the bottom\u003cbr\u003eof a long hill, on a sandspit that stuck out into the Mississippi;\u003cbr\u003eit was a religious town, with almost as many churches as bars. Virgil\u003cbr\u003earrived at lunchtime, got caught in a minor traffic jam between the\u003cbr\u003etown’s three stoplights, and eventually wedged into a boat-sized\u003cbr\u003edouble-length parking lane behind Shanker’s Bar and Grill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohnson Johnson came rambling out the back door as Virgil\u003cbr\u003epulled in. Johnson Johnson’s father, Big Johnson, had been an\u003cbr\u003eoutboard-motor enthusiast who fairly well lived on the Mississippi.\u003cbr\u003eHe’d named his sons after outboard motors, and while Mercury\u003cbr\u003eJohnson had gotten off fairly easy, Johnson Johnson had been stuck\u003cbr\u003ewith the odd double name. He was a large man, like his father, and\u003cbr\u003ewell tattooed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I can smell them fuckin’ muskies from here,” he said, as Virgil\u003cbr\u003eclimbed out of the truck. He leaned into the boat and said, “I hope\u003cbr\u003eyou brought something besides those fuckin’ phone poles,” by\u003cbr\u003ewhich he meant musky gear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yeah, yeah, I got some of everything,” Virgil said. “What about\u003cbr\u003ethese dogs? You find them yet?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Not yet,” Johnson said. He was uncharacteristically grim.\u003cbr\u003e“Come on inside. I got a whole bunch of ol’ boys and girls for you\u003cbr\u003eto talk to.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We’re having a meeting?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We’re having a lynch mob,” Johnson said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil followed him in. One of the trucks he passed in the parking\u003cbr\u003elot had a bumper sticker that asked, “Got Hollow Points?” Another\u003cbr\u003esaid: “Heavily Armed . . . and easily pissed.” A third one: “Point and\u003cbr\u003eClick . . . means you’re out of ammo.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Aw, jeez,” Virgil said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil was a tall man, made taller by his cowboy boots. He wore\u003cbr\u003ehis blond hair too long for a cop—but country-long like Waylon Jennings,\u003cbr\u003enot sculptural long, like some New Jersey douche bag, so he\u003cbr\u003egot along okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe dressed in jeans and band T-shirts, in this case, a rare pirated\u003cbr\u003e“Dogs Die in Hot Cars” shirt, which he hoped the local ’necks\u003cbr\u003ewould take for a sign of solidarity. To his usual ensemble, he added\u003cbr\u003ea black sport coat when he needed to hide a gun, which wasn’t\u003cbr\u003eoften. Most times, he left the guns in the truck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe sometimes wore a straw cowboy hat, on hot days out in the\u003cbr\u003esun; at other times, a ball cap, his current favorite a black-on-black\u003cbr\u003eIowa Hawkeyes hat, given to him by a devout Iowegian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohnson led the way through the parking lot door, down a beer-\u003cbr\u003esmelling corridor past the restrooms, which had signs that said\u003cbr\u003e“Pointers” and “Setters,” to the back end of the bar, where twenty\u003cbr\u003eor so large outdoorsy-looking men and women hunched over rickety\u003cbr\u003eplastic tables, drinking beer and eating a variety of fried everything,\u003cbr\u003ewith link sausages on the side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Virgil caught up with him, Johnson said, in a loud voice,\u003cbr\u003ewithout any sign of levity, “Okay, boys and girls. This here’s the cop\u003cbr\u003eI was talking about, so put away your fuckin’ weed and methamphetamine,\u003cbr\u003ethose that has them, and pay attention. Virgil?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil said, “For those of you with meth, I’d like to speak to you\u003cbr\u003efor a minute out back. . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were a few chuckles, and Virgil said, “I mostly came to\u003cbr\u003elisten. What’s going on with these dogs? Somebody stand up so we\u003cbr\u003eall can hear you, and tell us.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA heavyset man heaved himself to his feet and said, “Well, I\u003cbr\u003ethought Johnson would have told you, but somebody’s snatching\u003cbr\u003eour dogs.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA drunk at the front of the bar, who’d turned around on his\u003cbr\u003ebarstool to watch the meeting, called, “Better’n having your snatch\u003cbr\u003edogged.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe heavyset man shouted back, “Shut up, Eddy, or we’ll kick\u003cbr\u003eyour ass out of here.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Just trying to be human,” Eddy said, but he turned back to\u003cbr\u003ethe bar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“All right,” Virgil said. “Somebody’s taking dogs. You know who\u003cbr\u003eit is?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yeah, we got our suspicions,” the big man said. “There’re some\u003cbr\u003ehillbillies up at Orly’s Crick, all along the valley, and you can hear\u003cbr\u003ethe dogs howling at night. Dogs, not coyotes. Dozens of them. But\u003cbr\u003ewhen you go up there, there’s only one dog per yard. You’d have to\u003cbr\u003esneak up on ’em, to find the ones that are howling. Problem is,\u003cbr\u003ethere’s only one little road going in, and they can see you coming,\u003cbr\u003eand they move the dogs before you can get there. I tried to come\u003cbr\u003edown from on top, but you can’t get down them bluffs without\u003cbr\u003ebreaking your neck.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“And you could get your ass killed,” somebody added. “Fuckin’\u003cbr\u003epeckerwoods are all carrying .223s. Pick you off like sittin’ ducks.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother big man stood up, and everybody turned to look; his\u003cbr\u003eface was red, and it appeared that he’d been weeping. He took off\u003cbr\u003ehis camo cap and said, “I’m Winfred Butterfield. Winky. They took\u003cbr\u003emy two Labs last night. Right out of the kennel. My dogs’re gone,\u003cbr\u003esir. Snatched right out of my yard. Knowed what they was doin’,\u003cbr\u003etoo—left behind some pork chop bone and a cloth muzzle, used to\u003cbr\u003ekeep them quiet.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe told the story, until he got to the part where he “let off some\u003cbr\u003eshots in that direction.” He paused and then said, “Maybe I shouldn’t\u003cbr\u003ehave said that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You hit anyone?” Virgil asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Naw, I wasn’t trying. I mean, I wouldn’t mind shooting that\u003cbr\u003emiserable motherfucker, if I had a clear shot, but I was afraid I\u003cbr\u003emight hit one of the dogs.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomebody said, “You got that right.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Okay, just a note here. Let’s decide right now that we’re not\u003cbr\u003egoing to shoot anybody over a dog,” Virgil said. “Let me handle this\u003cbr\u003ethe legal way.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe men all looked around, and then one of the women said,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Kinda afraid we can’t do that, Virgil.” And they all nodded.\u003cbr\u003e“Well, goddamnit, people.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This is organized crime, Virgil,” she said. “If we don’t shut these\u003cbr\u003epeople down, no dog will be safe.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil was worried. Everyone at the meeting seemed stone-cold\u003cbr\u003esober, and they talked about shooting the dognappers with the cool\u003cbr\u003edetermination of people who might actually do that, given the\u003cbr\u003echance. They didn’t seem anxious to do it, like a bunch of goofy\u003cbr\u003egun nuts—they sounded more like farmers planning to eliminate a\u003cbr\u003evarmint that had been killing their geese.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil asked them about the hillbillies on Orly’s Creek, and a\u003cbr\u003edozen people gave him bits of information—sightings, rumors,\u003cbr\u003eincidents—that made him think they were quite possibly right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the men said, “I saw this old gray truck going by Dan\u003cbr\u003eBusch’s place, two or three times over a week. Driving slow, looking\u003cbr\u003earound . . . Couple days later, Dan’s beagles got ripped off.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Four of them,” another man said, who added, “I’m Dan.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first man said, “Anyway, a couple weeks later I was driving\u003cbr\u003eup 26, and I see this old gray truck coming out of the Orly’s Crick\u003cbr\u003eRoad. Same truck. Couldn’t prove it, but it was.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother man said, “There’s this guy called Roy, I think his last\u003cbr\u003ename is Zorn, he lives up there. Tall red-haired guy, skinny, got\u003cbr\u003eabout nine million freckles on his face. They got his picture in all\u003cbr\u003ethe animal shelters and humane societies, telling them NOT to give\u003cbr\u003ehim any dogs or cats, because he was going around, getting them,\u003cbr\u003eand then he’d sell them off to animal bunchers.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil said, “Excuse me? What’s a buncher?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s guys who collect animals for the laboratories, for experiments.\u003cbr\u003eHe’d go around and get these free animals, saying he was\u003cbr\u003elooking for a pet, and then he’d sell them off to the bunchers,” the\u003cbr\u003ebig man said. “We know damn well, he’d get kittens that way, too.\u003cbr\u003eYou know, somebody’d put an ad in the paper, saying, ‘Free Kittens,’\u003cbr\u003eand he’d take as many as they’d give him, sayin’ he needed mousers\u003cbr\u003efor his barn. The animal people caught on, and somebody took his\u003cbr\u003epicture, and now he can’t go into those places.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’ll go talk to him,” Virgil said. He turned to Butterfield and\u003cbr\u003easked, “Winky—how much did you pay for those Labs?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“These were top dogs, partially trained. I paid fifteen hundred\u003cbr\u003efor one, twelve hundred for the other,” Butterfield said. “But I don’t\u003cbr\u003egive a damn about the money—they’re my best friends.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The money makes stealing them a felony,” Virgil said. “It always\u003cbr\u003ehelps to have a felony backing you up, when you talk to people.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’ll tell you what,” said one of the women. “Most everybody\u003cbr\u003ehere has had dogs stolen, which is why they are here. The rest of us\u003cbr\u003eare worried. If you took all the dogs stolen, they’d be worth twenty\u003cbr\u003eor thirty thousand dollars, easy. Maybe even more.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil said he’d look into it: “I’ll be honest with you, this is not\u003cbr\u003ewhat I usually do. In fact, I’ve never done it before. I can see you’re\u003cbr\u003eserious folks, so I’ll take it on. No promises. I could get called off . . .\u003cbr\u003ebut if I do, I’ll be back. You all take care, though. Don’t go out there\u003cbr\u003ewith guns, I don’t want anybody to get hurt.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the meeting broke up, he and Johnson drove over to the\u003cbr\u003elaw enforcement center, which housed the Buchanan County Sheriff\u003cbr\u003eand the Trippton Police Department, which were one and the\u003cbr\u003esame, and a few holding cells. In the parking lot Johnson said, “I’ll\u003cbr\u003ehang out here. Jeff don’t appreciate my good qualities,” and Virgil\u003cbr\u003ewent in alone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEntry to the sheriff ’s office was through a locked black-steel\u003cbr\u003edoor, with a bulletproof window next to it; there was nobody behind\u003cbr\u003ethe window, so Virgil rang the bell, and a moment later a deputy\u003cbr\u003estuck his head around the window and said, “Virgil Flowers, as\u003cbr\u003eI live and die.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s me,” Virgil agreed. The deputy buzzed him in, and Virgil\u003cbr\u003efollowed him down the hall to the sheriff ’s office. The sheriff, Jeff\u003cbr\u003ePurdy, was a small, round man who wore fifties-style gray hats, the\u003cbr\u003enarrow-brimmed Stetson “Open Road” style; he had his feet up on\u003cbr\u003ehis desk and was reading a New Yorker magazine. When he heard the\u003cbr\u003efootsteps in the hallway, he looked over the magazine and saw Virgil\u003cbr\u003ecoming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I hope you’re here to fish,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Not exactly, though it’d be nice to get out for a couple hours,”\u003cbr\u003eVirgil said. “I just came from a meeting down at Shanker’s. . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil told him the story, and the sheriff sighed and said, “You’re\u003cbr\u003ewelcome to it, Virgil. I know those people have a complaint, but\u003cbr\u003ewhat the hell am I supposed to do? We patrol up Orly’s Crick,\u003cbr\u003ebut we never see a thing.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You know a guy named Roy Zorn?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yeah, yeah, we’ve been told he cooks some meth up there, but\u003cbr\u003ewe never caught him at it. Basically, he’s a small-time motorcycle\u003cbr\u003ehood, rode with the Seed for a while, over in Green Bay, before he\u003cbr\u003ecame here. And I know all about that thing he used to do with cats\u003cbr\u003eand dogs, him getting banned from the Humane Society. But we\u003cbr\u003egot nothing on him. Can’t get anything, either. If I had ten more\u003cbr\u003emen . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You don’t mind if I take a look?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Go on ahead. Keep me up on what you’re doing,” Purdy said.\u003cbr\u003e“If you find something specific, I could spring a couple guys to help\u003cbr\u003eout on a short-term basis. Very short-term, like a raid, something\u003cbr\u003elike that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s all I wanted,” Virgil said. “There’s a good chance I won’t\u003cbr\u003efind a thing, but if I do, I might call for backup.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Deal,” Purdy said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe deputy who’d taken Virgil back to the sheriff ’s office returned\u003cbr\u003eand said, “Sheriff, Sidney Migg’s walking around naked in\u003cbr\u003eher backyard, again.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sheriff grunted and boosted himself out of his chair. “I better\u003cbr\u003ehandle this myself.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBack outside, Virgil took a minute to call Davenport’s office. He\u003cbr\u003edidn’t actually want to talk to him, which was why he called the office:\u003cbr\u003eDavenport was out working a multiple murder that everybody\u003cbr\u003ewas calling the Black Hole case, in which a BCA agent had been\u003cbr\u003emurdered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil hadn’t worked the case, and was happy about that, because\u003cbr\u003ethe killing of Bob Shaffer would have preyed on his mind for\u003cbr\u003eweeks, or years, whether or not the killer was caught. He left a message\u003cbr\u003efor Davenport, which might possibly cover his ass, if worse\u003cbr\u003ecame to worst.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen he and Johnson drove out to Johnson’s river cabin and\u003cbr\u003erolled Virgil’s boat into the water and tied it to Johnson’s dock.\u003cbr\u003eJohnson’s jon boat had been pulled up on shore, and a long orange\u003cbr\u003eextension cord snaked out of the cabin to a power drill that lay in\u003cbr\u003ethe bottom of the boat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You break something?” Virgil asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Changing the oarlocks,” Johnson said. “They were getting too\u003cbr\u003ewore down.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You never rowed six feet in your entire sorry life,” Virgil said.\u003cbr\u003e“How’d they get wore down? I mean, worn down?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Pedant,” Johnson said. “Anyway, I use them to steer my drifts.\u003cbr\u003eSaves gas.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey unhooked the trailer, parked it behind the house, stuck a\u003cbr\u003etongue lock on it, and went inside for coffee and to continue the\u003cbr\u003econversation about dogs and hillbilly dognappers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVirgil said, “Since the sheriff couldn’t handle it, you call the high-\u003cbr\u003epriced BCA guy down to figure it out?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Actually, I was calling my old fishin’ buddy Virgil to figure it\u003cbr\u003eout,” Johnson said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Well, fuck you, Johnson, that puts a kind of unnecessary obligation\u003cbr\u003eon it. I mean, would you do that for me?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You don’t have a dog.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Well, something like this . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Suppose you were going away for a couple of weeks,” Johnson\u003cbr\u003esaid, “and you needed somebody to keep Frankie warmed up. I’d\u003cbr\u003ejump in my truck—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“All right, okay.” Virgil waved him off. “Where’s this Orly’s\u003cbr\u003eCrick?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn southern Minnesota, the Mississippi flowed through a deep,\u003cbr\u003ewide valley. The main channel of the river was rarely down the middle\u003cbr\u003eof the valley. Instead, it usually flowed down one side or the\u003cbr\u003eother, snaking between steep valley walls. The other side of the valley\u003cbr\u003ewas often occupied by sloughs or marshes, before they ran into\u003cbr\u003eequally steep bluffs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe bluffs were dissected by free-flowing streams, ranging from\u003cbr\u003eseasonal creeks to full-sized rivers. Johnson’s place was tucked into\u003cbr\u003ethe north end of a slough, where the river began to bend away from\u003cbr\u003ethe Minnesota side, toward Wisconsin; so his cabin was protected\u003cbr\u003efrom the waves generated by the towboats and their barges, but he\u003cbr\u003estill had fast access to the river itself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen he and Virgil left Johnson’s cabin, they drove a few hundred\u003cbr\u003eyards west to Highway 26, and then north for fifteen miles. By\u003cbr\u003ethe time they got to Orly’s Creek Road, the river was running right\u003cbr\u003ebeside the highway. Orly’s Creek ran below a fifty-foot-long bridge,\u003cbr\u003einto the river, with the road going into the valley on the north side\u003cbr\u003eof the bridge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Goes back here about a mile, or a little more,” Johnson said.\u003cbr\u003e“The crick comes out of Orly’s Spring, which gathers up a lot of\u003cbr\u003ewater from west of here, then runs underground to the spring. The\u003cbr\u003egood thing about that is, it hardly ever floods at all. Don’t believe\u003cbr\u003eI’ve ever seen water over the road.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Any trout in there?” The creek was maybe twenty feet wide,\u003cbr\u003etumbling over limestone blocks, with an occasional pool.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yup. I’d be a little nervous about eating them, down at this end,\u003cbr\u003eanyway. Lots of old septic systems, don’t work so good, anymore.\u003cbr\u003eUp on top, by the spring, the crick would be cleaner than Fiji Water.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You know about Fiji Water?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fuck you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first habitation in the valley was a single-wide trailer,\u003cbr\u003ecrunched on one end, as though a tree had fallen on it. Two nineties\u003cbr\u003ecars were parked in a hard-dirt yard, with a mottled-gray pit bull\u003cbr\u003etied to a stake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s the lookout,” Johnson said. “There are more places further\u003cbr\u003ein.” Johnson tried to scrunch down in his seat, and pulled his\u003cbr\u003ehat down over his eyes. “They might kinda recognize me up","brand":"G.P. 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