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Glock?” Virgil asked, looking at the big black hole at the end of the barrel.
    “Yeah, he did,” Dunn said.
    Crocker was on his back, an entry wound under his chin, a massive exit wound at the back of his skull. The arm of the couch, covered with a plush green material, was soaked with blood, hair, and what might have been pieces of bone; a couple of small holes in the wall beside the couch looked like they might have been made by fragments of the exiting slug.
    “Maybe he knew he was gonna get caught,” Dunn said.
    “Didn’t kill himself,” Virgil said. “He was probably murdered. Let’s clear the house, just to make sure there’s nobody hurt, somewhere. We don’t want to dig around, just clear it. Two minutes.”
    The three of them moved through the place, but found it empty. Crocker had lived only on the first floor; the second floor was closed down, the door at the top of the stairs sealed with 3M insulating tape. They pushed through, and found a bunch of old dusty furniture sitting in cold, dry, dusty rooms.
    When they were sure there was nobody else in the place, Virgil said, “Let’s call the sheriff. This is really gonna make her day.”
    They stepped carefully past the body and back outside. Dunn made the call, and Schickel asked Virgil, “Why’d you think it’s murder?”
    “When Lee was telling me about B. J. Tripp, she mentioned him being hanged from the bunk. I asked her if his dick was hanging out—you know, strangled himself while masturbating.”
    “Heard of that, but never seen it,” Schickel said.
    “Yeah, well, it wasn’t. Hanging out. But if you go up there and look, you’ll see that Crocker’s fly is down, and you can see his dick sticking out. I never, ever, heard of anyone who was yanking his crank and stopped to kill himself. Or anyone who took his dick out, and left it out, and killed himself. It’s not dignified. When people kill themselves, they tend to think about how they’ll be found—they imagine it. They imagine how sad everybody’ll be. They’re going to show them . . . but they don’t stick their dick out.”
    “I didn’t pick up on that,” Schickel said. “His dick.”
    Dunn came back: “The sheriff’s on the way. What about his dick? Whose dick?”

    LEE COAKLEY LOOKED in on Crocker’s body. Her mouth was a thin line, with a twist at the end, as though she’d been sucking on a lemon. “He could be a jerk, but I’d never have wished this on him,” she said.
    “I called our crime-scene people up in the Cities. I thought you might want to go that way, given the situation, instead of using your own man,” Virgil said. “You say yes, I’ll get them on the way.”
    She nodded. “Yeah. Get them started. I’ll get Gene to set up in the driveway, keep people out. I better go down and tell Jim’s folks.”
    “You okay with that?”
    She nodded again. “Yes. My job, and I won’t dodge it. I’d feel better if I could spit, but I don’t think I can.”
    “Got a preacher you can take along?”
    “We do, but his folks belong to some kind of private religion. I think it’d be best not to try to sneak a Lutheran in the door. I’ll just have Greg ride along.”
    They went outside, and she told Schickel and two other deputies to shut the scene down and wait for the crime-scene crew from the Cities. “I don’t want anybody in or out. Anybody. ”
    “They’ll be three hours,” Virgil said. “They’re loading up.”
    “What’re you gonna do?” Coakley asked.
    “Not much to do until the crime-scene guys have a look,” Virgil said. “I think I might go get a bite to eat.”
    He walked along with Coakley to her truck, and said, “I’d like to look at the files on this whole chain of events—the Flood killing, Tripp’s death, the personnel file on Crocker.”
    “I’ll call in. You’ll want to talk to a deputy named John Kraus. I’ll have John put you in the conference room. I’ll be back in a couple hours, at the latest. I’d like to