The real problem was, cash to pay the lawyer.

Larry lay on his bunk and thought about that. They needed cash and they needed it in a hurry. He had four thousand dollars in his checking account, and something like another four in savings, but that wouldn’t cut it. If he hadn’t punched Fischer, she might have been a source of a few thousand more, but that was gone now. Couldn’t sell the house, because he’d probably need it for bail; even if he did sell it, it’d go so cheap that he’d never find a comparable place that he could afford.

He was jammed up, due to that fuckin’ Flowers.

* * *

—

The jail turned out to be a good place to think: there weren’t many customers, and so the place was fairly quiet.

And as evening shaded into night, Van Den Berg began thinking about the Wheatfield shootings. As Fischer had said, he wasn’t stupid. He knew more about Wheatfield money, and who had it, than anyone. There was only one good reason to kill somebody, he thought, and that was money. Shortly after midnight, having thought about several dozen possibilities of who the shooter might be, and with his mind going round and round, he thought he’d identified his man.

The guy was superficially mellow enough, but Van Den Berg had known him since he was a child and had always been wary of him. His own parents were heavy boozers and brawlers, and he’d been regularly whacked on the side of the head and occasionally beaten with a leather belt, but even as a child he’d recognized that the shooter was something a bit different. Not so much an active threat; but when he looked at you, he looked at you like you were a bug ready to be stepped on.

Since the Lego heist wasn’t related, and wasn’t even under Minnesota jurisdiction, giving the identity of the shooter to Flowers wouldn’t raise a nickel or buy him a break. On the other hand, the shooter had a few bucks . . .

He thought about that for the rest of the night. When the sun came up, he was sixty-seven percent sure he was correct in his identification of the killer; and thirty-three percent possibly wrong.

* * *

—

The next morning was tedious, going back and forth from the cell like a trolley car, talking to the lawyer, signing papers for the cops and finally for his release. The local prosecutor stood in for the state at the bail hearing and agreed to release the brothers if they both wore GPS ankle monitors and put up their major assets—their houses—as bond for their later appearances in court.

In Larry Van Den Berg’s case, the judge agreed that he could continue to drive his tractor-trailer cross-country if he agreed to sign a waiver of extradition processes from whatever state he tried to hide in, if he did that. “I don’t want to deprive you of your source of income before you’re found guilty of a crime, but if you abuse this agreement in any way, I can assure you that I’ll put you in jail, and leave you there,” the judge said.

Van Den Berg agreed, and after his attorney gave him a forceful nudge, thanked the judge for his consideration.

Outside, the lawyer was up-front. “If we go to trial, I’ll need twenty thousand dollars. I’ll need a down payment of ten thousand, to cover expenses and all, and I’ll need it in the next couple of weeks. We can work out a schedule on the rest, but I’ll need the ten right away. If there’s no way you can get it, well, the public defender here is . . . okay.”

“Oh, fuck that,” Ralph Van Den Berg said. “I know that guy.”

Larry Van Den Berg said, “I’ll get the money. I got some of it now.”

He had to get back to Wheatfield. He had eight thousand dollars that he could get at, but it was hard-earned, and he was loathe to spend it if there was any alternative.

Which he now thought he had.

The Lewis County sheriff released his tractor unit, and Van Den Berg said good-bye to his brother and headed home, the GPS monitor already chafing his ankle. He had an hour on the road to indulge in fantasies in which he shot that fuckin’ Flowers and that fuckin’ Skinner, and even that fuckin’ Janet, who, if she’d kept her fuckin’ mouth shut after the accident—he was now thinking of the beating as an accident that was, basically, Fischer’s fault—nothing would have happened, and he’d be a free man.

But mostly he thought about money and about the Wheatfield shooter. He might not be absolutely sure he had the right guy, but he was fairly sure. While the guy was definitely a psycho—he had to be to do what he’d done—he was also a weenie: Van Den Berg would put the guy up against the wall and squeeze him. How much? The lawyer had said he’d need twenty thousand through the course of the trial, and the shooter could get that much, for sure, with a new mortgage on his house.

Maybe. If he really was the shooter.

* * *

—

Back in Wheatfield, he parked his truck in the yard, and as he turned to get out he saw a curtain move in a side window.

What?

He got a tire iron out of a door pocket and carried it with him to the front door, used his key to get in, and pushed through . . . and found Janet Fischer, staring at him from the hallway. Her arms were full of clothes and a pillow. “I’m leaving right now. I came to get my stuff.”

Van Den Berg’s eyes narrowed. He tossed the tire iron aside, and asked, “How’d you get in? You gave back the key.”

“The back door was open.”

“Bullshit. I locked up tight before I left, and I got good locks.” He stalked toward her, pushed the pile of clothing—hard—forced her back. Pushed her again, and again, until she was in the kitchen. He looked at the back door, which had little, diamond-shaped windows set at eye height, so he could see out to the porch. One of the diamonds had been broken in, and there was glass on the floor. “You fuckin’ broke in.”

“I wanted to get my stuff while you were away . . .”

Her black eye had started to turn purple, her lip was still swollen, but Van Den Berg didn’t even think about that. What he did was, he hit her in the other eye, and she screamed and dropped the clothes and put her hands up, and he hit her again, high in the stomach, knocking the breath out of her, and she sagged against the kitchen counter, and pleaded, “Larry, don’t . . . Larry, don’t . . .”

He hit her in the mouth again, and she went down, and he kicked her in the thigh once, twice, and finally thought, now what? And, I’m out on bail . . .

He looked at her, cowering on the kitchen floor, and backed away and took his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911. When the county officer answered, he said, “I found somebody broke into my house and I’m holding her until a cop gets here. She attacked me . . .”

* * *

—