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floor. I didn’t know it was a body, at first, but then, my eyes got adjusted, and I was pretty sure it was a body, so I ran back home and called the sheriff.”
    “You didn’t touch anything?” Virgil asked.
    She shook her head. “I never went inside. I did put my hand on the window glass, trying to see in better.”
    He talked to her a few more minutes, and finally ran out of ground; and she asked, “I suppose Crime Scene will be coming around?”
    “Pretty soon,” Virgil said.
    “They oughta be able to figure it out,” she said.
    •   •   •
    VIRGIL AND DUKE said good-bye, and they went outside and Duke asked, “You get annoyed by that? The Crime Scene thing?”
    “No. People watch TV. No way to stop that,” Virgil said.
    “It’d get under my skin, after a while,” Duke said. “So, you’re going to stick around?”
    Virgil nodded. “Sure. I’ll run over to the Ramada in Marshall. I’ll call back to the Cities tomorrow morning and see if I can get somebody to look for the daughter. I’ll give you my cell phone number, if you come up with anything overnight. Main thing is, we get the scene processed. But we won’t get much going at four o’clock on Sunday morning.”
    Duke said: “Okay. I’m heading home. I’ll have my men seal up this place. I’ll be going to church in the morning, and I’ll be back here right after.”
    “I’m planning to do that myself,” Virgil said. “The worship service starts at eight o’clock. I’ll be out here by nine-thirty or so.”
    Duke tipped his head: “Little surprised to hear you’re churchgoing, Virgil, but I certainly approve. I’ll see you at nine-thirty, unless something breaks.”

3
    VIRGIL CHECKED INTO the Ramada across the street from Southwest Minnesota State University at a little after four o’clock in the morning, set the alarm for six-thirty, and was asleep as soon as he lay down. He’d slept on the plane from Miami to Minneapolis Saturday morning, had taken a nap after he got home on Saturday afternoon, and was still young enough that he could deal with a day on two hours of sleep.
    Although, when the alarm woke him up in what seemed like an instant after he went to sleep, he would, he expected, be fairly cranky by early afternoon.
    He sat on the bed for a minute, getting oriented, then picked up his cell phone and punched the menu item for “home.” His mother never slept past six o’clock on any one day in her life, and at that moment, he thought, would be looking into the kitchen cupboard and calculating how many pancakes to make that morning.
    She answered immediately, an edge of horror in her voice. “Virgil: What happened?”
    “Nothing happened, Ma, except some people got killed over in Shinder and I’m looking at them. Right now, I’m here in town, at the Ramada, and I thought I’d run over and get some pancakes if it’s not too much goddamn trouble to expect that from your mother.”
    She was delighted: “Get over here, Virgil. Your father’s already up and raving in the study.”
    “I gotta take a shower. I’ll see you in a half hour.”
    •   •   •
    RAVING IN THE STUDY—
the old man was practicing his sermon. Feeling more awake, Virgil cleaned up and got dressed, and headed into a sunshiny morning that felt like it might even get warm later in the day. It didn’t, but it felt that way.
    Virgil’s father was the lead pastor of the largest Lutheran congregation in Marshall, a town with several species of Lutheran. Virgil had grown up in a redbrick house across the street from the church, and had gone to church services every Sunday and Wednesday of his life, until he went to the University of Minnesota. He’d since given up churchgoing, but not some fundamental belief in the Great Architect.
    When Virgil pulled into the driveway, he was ambushed by his father, who’d been waiting by the back door, and who said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between the Israelis and the