Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)

by John Sandford

Birkmann shook his head. “Naw, I was out of there early. I’m not a meeting guy. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Make me run around in circles with a committee and I get this need to escape.” Moore nodded, and they talked about the possibility that Hemming’s death was an accident. There’d been rumors she’d fallen down the stairs. Even as they talked, Birkmann’s heart felt as though somebody had gripped it in his fist and squeezed. Moore remembered that he hadn’t been gone at nine o’clock, that he’d been the last to leave. Sooner or later, Flowers would hear about that.

“We live in Minnesota,” Virgil said. “We’re gonna go see David Birkmann and see if we can bullshit him into a confession.” “Birkmann?”

he was in love with Hemming forever—according to George Brown anyway—and she . . . disdained him . . . and that can lead to violence. When Corbel Cain accused him of killing Hemming, what’d Birkmann do? He grabbed a microphone stand and broke Corbel’s arm with it. If he’d hit him on the head, Corbel would be dead. So we know Birkmann’s capable of violence . . . And, like I said, he’s been lying about the whole time line.”

“Why do you think it’s me?” Birkmann asked. “Because you have yellow hats.” “What?” “Because Bobbie Cole got off at the Harvest Store at nine o’clock exactly, stopped at Piggly Wiggly, and saw your van parked outside Gina Hemming’s house on her way home after she left the Piggly Wiggly—and that was way after nine o’clock. She said the man inside was a blond, but I cleared both of your blond guys. Then I saw somebody put a blond cap on his head . . . and I remembered sitting down in the steak house and you were wearing a yellow hat that night . . . a blond hat.” “That’s it? A hat?”

We have a videotape of your first karaoke song, and you didn’t go on almost until ten o’clock that night. You’d told me it was more like nine o’clock. We found a guy who took a leak at the same time as you, back in the men’s can, and he didn’t leave work until nine o’clock, and he had time to walk down to the bar and have a beer before you arrived. And we know about the silenced .22. I suspect it was probably your father’s.”

“I think there’s some possibility that I’ll be able to shoot my way out of this.”

“But not now,” Virgil said. “I’ll shoot you in the guts, David.” Birkmann hesitated but then jerked the revolver up, and Pweters went for his gun. Before either one could pull a trigger, Virgil shot Birkmann in the guts.

“Yes, that was . . . weird. Awful,” Clarice said. “What I think is, Dave got used to killing stuff over the years,” Johnson said. “Bugs, coons, rats . . . whatever. You do it long enough, and casually enough, snuffing them out without thinking, that’d make it easier to kill a human being.” Virgil: “You really think so?” “I do,” Johnson said. “Not if a guy goes out and knocks over a deer or two during hunting season—I know a lot of hunters who jump through their asses telling themselves that it’s all right, it’s the way of the world and all that, and they feel kinda bad about the dead animal. But I think if you kill things every day, day in and day out, for years . . . you get some calluses.”