Cole averaged over one hundred miles per hour on the four-lane from Madison to Dodgeville, where he roared past the huge buildings of retailing giant Lands’ End. He would have pushed the pace more, but in spots, the wind blew snow onto the road and it got dicey on corners. Orange plastic, hip-high webbed snow fencing strung along vast open stretches of farm fields helped, but enough grains of snow were blasted onto the road by the wind to make it lethal if he wasn’t careful.
Cole liked a wide range of music, but only occasionally listened to classical. Occasions like this. Something about this case made him pop in a CD he’d made of his favorite classical songs, and Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man came on. The song was five minutes long, but the entire CD was close to an hour. He planned to be in Prairie du Chien before the final notes played.
As he drove he thought about how the toughest cases he’d ever worked resembled the parts and rhythm of a symphony. This case had started with an allegro or brisk pace, then dropped to an adagio or slower pace. The minuet, the old courtly dance movement followed, back and forth. He felt the case now building to a crescendo and, hopefully, its finale. The base drums pounded and the trumpets sounded as he barreled through Montfort, population seven hundred. Twenty large white wind turbines, each towering two hundred feet tall, waved him on with their gigantic arms. They looked like they’d been planted in the middle of long harvested cornfields, the straw-colored stalks chopped to a foot high pushing out from the snow. His ringtone sounded and he glanced at the phone. “Collin Jeffers,” it read. He kept driving.
He dropped down to under thirty before reaching Fennimore, when he came up fast behind a black buggy pulled by a sturdy black mare. Water from melting snow was spun into the air by its large spoked wheels. A big orange yield triangle hung on the back of the Amish rig. Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major tried to soothe Cole’s nerves without success. Any other time he would have basked in the grace of the music combined with the snow-covered fields and the stark beauty of the black buggy against that backdrop of white. Instead, he punched the gas when he saw an opportunity and roared around the buggy and quickly through the town. Jeffers called again, and then again. He left voicemails both times. Cole drove.
He knew there would be consequences for not answering Jeffers’s calls. Olson made it clear from the start that Jeffers was in charge of the investigation. He owed him a report. He wondered if ignoring Jeffers was worth losing a job he mostly loved. When his ringtone went off again, he picked up. “I’m sorry,” he forced himself to say. “I must have somehow put my phone on vibrate.”
“What? It’s me, Lane. I’ve got that intel you asked me for on the Centralia guy. The guy we originally thought purchased the first murder weapon.”
Cole blew out a long breath. “What do you have?”
“He was pulled over by a county sheriff’s deputy on the outskirts of Prairie du Chien,” Lane said. “The guy said he was speeding and admitted he drank a few beers before he left the fishing derby. He told me he thought he was good to drive but was nervous anyhow when he saw the lights come on behind him. He’s had two other speeding tickets in the past twelve months and was surprised when the deputy let him off with a verbal warning.”
“Did he get the deputy’s name?”
“No,” Lane said. “But he gave me a description. He said the deputy was a bit on the short side and skinny.”
“Thanks, Lane. That helps complete the picture. Do me a favor and call up the Boscobel Supermax. Ask them if a Deputy Hubbard from Crawford County either brought them a prisoner or picked one up since Christmas.”
“Okay. Hey!” he said, with growing excitement. “You think the deputy pulled over our Centralia guy and made a copy of his license. And the same deputy was in Boscobel and picked up those cigarette butts. You think this Deputy Hubbard is our killer!” Lane said.
It wasn’t a question, but Cole answered, “I do,” before thanking Lane and disconnecting the line.
Strauss’s Blue Danube waltzed Cole past Mount Hope, its two hundred residents, and the town’s iconic top-heavy water tower. Five minutes later, he dropped down Patch Grove hill. The spring movement of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons carried him through the long, winding valley and over the two bridges that crossed the chasm carved by the Wisconsin River. Bach’s haunting “Air on the G string” filled the Charger as he drove into Prairie du Chien and made his way to the courthouse. The rise and fall of violins magnified his emotions; he felt their bow strings drawing back and forth against his nerves. A text message from Jeffers lit up his screen.
Don’t fucking confront the suspect until I get there!
Apparently, his team was filling Jeffers in as he’d directed.
Another text appeared, this one from Lane.
Deputy Hubbard dropped a prisoner off at the Supermax on December 28th.