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on sight, and, since the sheriff’s department ran the jail, all of the bad ones. As a politician, he’d know all about any local pissing matches over the PyeMart site.
    Mable Bunson’s Restaurant and Cheesery was on the other side of the Butternut downtown from the highway, all the way through the business district to the lake, and then a couple blocks down the waterfront. A solid brick building with a peaked roof and small windows, it looked as though it might have been a rehabbed train station; it turned out, when Virgil asked the hostess, that it was a rehabbed bank.
    Ahlquist got a booth in the back, a couple places away from the nearest other customers. Ahlquist ordered a bourbon and water, Virgil got a Leinie’s, and as they started through the menu, Virgil said, “I hear you’re still fighting over the PyeMart.”
    â€œ I’m not fighting over it,” Ahlquist said. “But there’s sure as shit some questions floating around. The mayor was against it, but then she says she saw the youth unemployment figures, and she does an about-face and now she’s all for it. We got seven city councilmen, six against and one in favor, and somehow, time passes, and four are in favor and only three against.”
    â€œYou’re saying that they might have been encouraged to change their positions.”
    â€œ I’m not saying that, but some people are. And not in private. One of the councilmen, Arnold Martin, lived here all his life, doesn’t have a pot to piss in. Never has had. He’s worked retail since he got out of high school, he’s now a stock manager out at a car-parts place. Him and his wife took a winter vacation last February, took off in their car and went to Florida, Arnold says. The Redneck Riviera. But the rumor is, they went to Tortola and took sailing lessons, and this spring they’ve got a nice little sailboat out on the lake. Not a big one, and it was used, but, it’s a sailboat.”
    â€œYou look into it?”
    â€œNot the Tortola part. But I was chatting with a guy over at Eddie’s Marine, and he said the former owner wanted fourteen grand for the boat. It’s called a Flying Scot, it’s two years old, and I’m told it’s got a high-end racing rig. I had one of my deputies, who can keep his mouth shut, talk to the former owner, and he said Arnold financed it through the Wells Fargo. I got a friend there , and I found out Arnold did finance half of it, over three years, and he’s been making regular cash payments on the deal.”
    â€œSo what does that make you think?” Virgil asked.
    â€œWhat it made me think was, Arnold got some money from somewhere, but wasn’t dumb enough to just go plop it down on a boat,” Ahlquist said. “He financed the boat, and is making payments out of the stash.”
    â€œThat’s not very charitable of you,” Virgil said. “Maybe he saved the money.”
    â€œAnd maybe the mold on my basement door will turn out to be a miracle image of Jesus Christ, but I doubt it,” Ahlquist said.
    A waitress dropped a basket of bread on the table, took their orders, and Ahlquist got another bourbon.
    Virgil said, “So there might be a little informal economic assistance going on . . . but the bombs wouldn’t be coming from those guys. The bombs would be coming from somebody who doesn’t like those guys. So who would that be?”
    â€œIf I knew, I’d be on them like lips on a chicken—but I don’t know,” Ahlquist said. “There’s always been rumors that this-or-that councilman or county commissioner took a little money under the table, for doing this-or-that. Who knows if it’s true? Impossible to prove.”
    â€œBut this is different.”
    Ahlquist nodded. “It is. See, Virgil, you know about these big-box stores all over the place. You get a bunch of them in a small town, and it can wreck the place.