Free Rough Country by John Sandford Page A

attach myself more firmly.”
    “You must at least suspect a person, a name . . .”
    She said, “Look. I only suspect a relationship. I’m not even sure there was one. It could have been a bad time at work. We didn’t talk about her work. She didn’t want to. Our relationship was her way of getting away from work. So it’s possible that what I thought was a distracting relationship was actually something else. So, no. I don’t have a name. Or a suspect.”
     
     
     
    SHE LOOKED SO TIRED and beat-up that Virgil let her go. Mann and Harcourt had gone with Margery Stanhope to call the funeral home, to see if the body had already been shipped to the medical examiner at Ramsey County, or if further arrangements had to be made. Virgil lingered down the hall from Stanhope’s office until he saw Mann emerge, turn away, and head toward the front of the lodge. He caught him just as Mann stepped into the bar.
    “Mr. Mann . . .”
    Mann looked back over his shoulder, then nodded to the bar. “I need a drink.”
    At the bar, the bartender looked at him and said, “Sir, this bar is basically ladies only—”
    “Just give me a goddamn drink, honey,” Mann said.
    “Sir—” Still apologetic.
    Mann cut her off: “I came up here to take care of Erica McDill. If you don’t give me a drink, I’ll sue you for discrimination in so many different directions that you’ll be an old woman before you get out of court. A martini, a double, two olives, and I want to see you make it and I don’t want to see you spit in it, because then I’d have to throw you out the fuckin’ window.”
    “Relax,” Virgil said. The bartender, anger on her face, stepped away, picked up a shaker, and scooped up some ice.
    “Relax, my ass. As soon as I get a couple drinks under my belt, I’m gonna go rent a car, and me and Harcourt are headed back to the Cities,” Mann said. “What a waste of time. What are we doing up here? We need to be down there .”
    “You’ll take Miss Davies with you?”
    “Yeah, I guess, if she wants to go,” Mann said. He watched as the bartender finished making the drink. “But she’s sort of a prune.”
    The bartender pushed the martini across the bar and said, “Choke on it, motherfucker.”
    Mann grinned at her, then at Virgil, said, “They got a tough brand of bartender up here.” He sipped the drink. “Make a pretty good martini, though.” He’d put a ten on the bar, and the bartender slapped five dollars back in change. He pushed it into the bar gutter as a tip.
    The bartender, a bottle-redhead with dark-penciled eyebrows, with a name tag that said Kara , looked at the money, then at Virgil, and said, “You’re the police officer. People said it was the surfer-looking guy.”
    “Yes,” Virgil said.
    Mann looked him over and said, “You are sort of surfer-looking.”
    “Cute, for a cop,” the bartender said, softening a bit on Mann.
    “He is cute,” Mann said. “I’d fuck him myself, if I were gay.”
    “Guys,” Virgil said. “Shut up.”
    The bartender looked at him for a beat, then another, then made a tiny dip of her head toward the back of the bar, and wandered away. Mann had been concentrating on his drink, said, “What a day.”
    “When you’re on the way back, and I expect either Miss Davies or Mr. Harcourt will be driving, because you’ll have done this drinking . . .”
    Mann grinned again and said, “You’re an optimist, son.”
    “. . . so when you’re on the way back, make up a list of the people who would have been fired. Especially the ones who’d be most bitter, and the women.”
    “You really think a woman did it?”
    “At this point, it’s the best bet,” Virgil said. “Though I take you seriously about those people down at the agency. I’ve been thinking about it, and looking at Google Earth, and the maps, and the fact that people down at the agency knew where Erica was going, and when, and she probably talked about what she did up here. I’ve