Heat Lightning (Virgil Flowers, No. 2) - Softcover

9780425230619: Heat Lightning (Virgil Flowers, No. 2)
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
Virgil Flowers hunts a killer responsible for a strange string of murders in this thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford.

On a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a call from Lucas Davenport. A body has been found near a veterans’ memorial in Stillwater with two shots to the head and a lemon in his mouth—exactly like the body they found two weeks ago.

Working the murders, Flowers becomes convinced that someone is keeping a list—with many more names on it. And when he discovers what connects them all, he’s almost sorry. Because if it’s true, then this whole thing leads down a lot more trails than he thought it did—and every one of them is booby-trapped.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:
John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of the Prey novels, the Kidd novels, the Virgil Flowers novels, and six other books, including three YA novels co-authored with his wife Michele Cook.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey

Shadow Prey
Eyes of Prey
Silent Prey
Winter Prey
Night Prey
Mind Prey
Sudden Prey
The Night Crew
Secret Prey
Certain Prey
Easy Prey
Chosen Prey
Mortal Prey
Naked Prey
Hidden Prey
Broken Prey
Dead Watch
Invisible Prey
Phantom Prey

 
KIDD NOVELS
The Fool’s Run
The Empress File
The Devil’s Code
The Hanged Man’s Song

 
VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS
Dark of the Moon

G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New
York 10014, USA · Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue
East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of
Pearson Canada Inc.) · Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,
London WC2R 0RL, England · Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s
Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,
Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty
Ltd) · Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre,
Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India · Penguin Group (NZ),
67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division
of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) · Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty)
Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright © 2008 by John Sandford

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without
permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of
copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase
only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sandford, John, date.
Heat lightning / John Sandford.
p. cm.

ISBN: 9781440632204

1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Veterans—Crimes against—
Fiction. 2. Government investigators—Minnesota—Fiction.
3. Minnesota—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.A516H
813’.54—dc22

 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For Benjamin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Heat Lightning was written in cooperation with my old friend and hunting partner Chuck Logan, the author of a terrific bunch of thrillers of his own—the latest being South of Shiloh from HarperCollins. Chuck and I have shared a number of adventures that later turned up in our books, and that taught us about things like tracking blood trails through the North Woods. . . .

 
—JOHN SANDFORD

1

THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT: the shooter was going to work.

He jogged through the night in a charcoal-colored nylon rain suit and black New Balance running shoes, with a brilliant reflective green strap over his shoulders, like a bandolier. With the strap, he jumped out at passing cars; nothing furtive here, nobody trying to hide anything. . . .

He ran carefully, taking his time. The old sidewalk, probably laid down in the first decades of the twentieth century, was cracked and shifting underfoot. A wrong step could leave him with a sprain, or worse. Not good for a man with a silenced pistol in his pocket.

The night was hot, cloudy, humid. Lightning flickered way off to the north, a thunderstorm passing by. The tempest would miss by ten miles: no relief from the heat, not yet. He ran through the odor of summer flowers, unseen in the darkness—nice houses here, well-maintained, flourishes of Victorian gingerbread, fences with gardens, flower heads pale in the dim ambient light.

Stillwater, Minnesota, on the bluff above downtown, above the St. Croix River. Third Street once had so many churches that it was called Church Street by the locals. The churches that remained pushed steeples into the night sky like medieval lightning rods, straining to ward off the evil that men do.

 
THE SHOOTER passed the front of the redbrick historic courthouse, which was guarded by a bronze Civil War infantryman with a fixed bayonet and a plaque. He paused next to a hedge, behind a tree trunk, bent over with his hands on his knees, as if catching his breath or stretching his hamstrings, like runners do. Looked around. Said quietly, “On point.”

Dark, silent. Waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. After a last look around, he pulled off the reflective strap and stuffed it in a pocket. When he did that, he vanished. He was gone; he was part of the fabric of the night.

Across from the courthouse, just downhill, a metal spire pushed up from a vest-pocket park, illuminated by spotlights. Ten-foot granite slabs anchored the foot of the needle. On the slabs were more bronze plaques, with the names of the local boys who didn’t make it back from all the wars fought since Stillwater was built. A blank plaque awaited names from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The shooter slipped across the street, to the edge of the memorial. The brilliant spotlights made the nearby shadows even darker. He disappeared into one of them, like an ink drop falling into a coal cellar. Before he went, he pulled back the sleeve of the running suit and checked the luminous dial of his combat watch.

If Sanderson stuck to his routine—or the dog’s routine, anyway— he’d walk down the west side of Third Street sometime in the next ten minutes. Big German shepherd. Shame about the dog.

 
 
CHUCK UTECHT had been the first man on the controller’s list. He’d been a smooth white egg of a man, whose insides, when he cracked, flowed out like a yellow yolk. He’d given up three names. He’d given them up easily.

“I only did one bad thing in my life,” he cried. “I’ve been making up for it ever since.”

His final words had been “I’m sorry,” not for what he’d done, but because he knew what was coming and had peed his pants.

The scout could extract only so much information from a man who accepted his own execution, who seemed to believe that he deserved it. They had not been in a place where the scout could use pliers or knives or ropes or electricity or waterboards. All he had was the threat of death, and Utecht had closed his eyes and had begun mumbling through a prayer. The scout had seen the resignation; he looked at the shooter and nodded.

The shooter shot him twice in the back of the head, halfway through the prayer.

Now he waited for Sanderson and the dog.

They needed two more names.

The scout said in the shooter’s ear, “He’s coming.”

 
 
BOBBY SANDERSON strolled down Third Street with the dog on the end of its lead, a familiar nighttime sight. The dog was as regular as a quartz watch: took a small dump at eight o’clock in the morning, and a big one at eleven o’clock at night. If it wasn’t out on the street, it’d be somewhere in the yard, and Sanderson would step in it the next day, sure as God made little green apples. So, twice a day, they were on the street.

Sanderson was preoccupied with an argument he’d had with his girlfriend. Or maybe not an argument, but he didn’t know exactly what else you could call it. She didn’t want him out at night; not for a while. Not until they found out whether something was going on.

“If you’re scared enough that you have meetings, then you ought to be scared enough to stay inside at night,” she’d said. She’d been in the kitchen, drying the dishes with an old square of unbleached muslin. She smelled of dishwashing liquid and pork chop grease.

“You know what happens with the dog if he don’t get his walk,” Sanderson said. “Besides, who’s going to mess with Mike?”

But before he’d gone, he’d stepped back to the bedroom, as though he’d forgotten something, had taken the .38 out of a bedroom bureau and slipped it into his pocket. He was not the kind of guy to be pushed. If somebody pushed, he’d push back, twice as hard.

Sanderson was fifty-nine, five-six, a hundred and sixty pounds. A short man, with a short-man complex. You don’t fuck with me. You don’t fuck with the Man.

He thought like that.

He thought like a TV show.

 
 
THE SHOOTER was waiting behind a rampart of limestone blocks next to the monument. Not tense, not anything—not thinking, just waiting, like a rock, or a stump, or a loaded bullet. Waiting . . . Then two words in his ear: “He’s coming.”

He heard first the click of the dog’s toenails on the sidewalk. The animal probably went a hundred pounds, maybe even one-twenty. Had to take him smoothly. . . .

Close now.

The shooter’s hand was at his side, with the pistol dangling from it. When they’d scouted Sanderson on a previous walk, they noted that the dog was always on a long lead—there’d be some distance between the dog and Sanderson. The dog didn’t seem particularly nervous, but might well sense a man waiting in the night.

Comes the dog.

The shooter went into his routine, squaring his feet, the deep breath already taken. He exhaled slowly, held it, and the dog was there, ten feet out, turning his big head toward the shadow—the alarm, or curiosity, or something, in his eyes, he knew something.

 
THE SHOOTER was in his shooting crouch, arms extended, and the gun recoiled a bit. There was a fast snap sound, like an electrical spark, and a mechanical ratcheting as the gun cycled. The dog dropped, shot between the eyes, and the shooter vaulted from the shadows, moving fast, right there in Sanderson’s face in a quarter second.

This was no TV show, and you do fuck with the Man. Sanderson’s eyes just had time to widen and his hand went to his pocket—he never really thought he’d need the pistol.

Never really thought.

The shooter had reversed the pistol in his hand and now held it by the silencer, so that it functioned as a hammer. He chopped Sanderson on the left ear and Sanderson staggered, falling, and put down his gun hand, no gun in it, and the gun pocket hit the ground with a clank, and the shooter, realizing that he hadn’t hit him quite hard enough, hit him again, and this time, Sanderson went flat.

Not a killing blow.

They needed those names.

 
 
THE SHOOTER was trained, the shooter was a killing machine, but he was still human. Now, breathing hard, he tasted blood in his mouth like you might after a tough run; and all the time, he was looking for lights, he was looking for an alarm, a cry in the dark.

He said into the mouthpiece, “Come now.”

He yanked the dog lead off Sanderson’s wrist, dragged the dog’s body into the darkness under the limestone blocks. Moved Sanderson next, the man twitching, trying to come back, but the shooter, gripping him by the shirt collar, moved him effortlessly into the dark. Another look around.

The scout came, all of a sudden, like a vampire bat dropping from the sky. He took a loop of rope from his pocket. The rope was a short noose, with a twisting handle, like the handle on a lawn mower starter-rope. He slipped the noose around Sanderson’s neck, twisted the handle until the rope was not quite choking the semiconscious man.

He knelt then, his knees weighing on Sanderson’s chest, pinning him, and he shined an LED penlight into Sanderson’s eyes. Sanderson moaned, trying to come back, then turned his head away from the burning light, his feet drumming on the ground.

“Listen to me,” the scout said. “Listen to me. Can you hear me?”

It took a moment. Though the shooter had been careful, even a mild concussion is, nevertheless, a concussion. “Mr. Sanderson. Can you hear me?”

Sanderson moaned again, but his eyes were clearing. The scout turned the choke rope so that Sanderson could feel it, so that he couldn’t cry out.

Slapped him, hard: not to do further injury, but to sting him, bring him up. He put his face next to Sanderson’s, while the shooter watched for cars, or another runner. The scout said, “Utecht, Sanderson, Bunton, Wigge. Who were the other two? Who? Who is Carl? Mr. Sanderson ...”

Sanderson’s pupils narrowed: he was coming back.

“Mr. Sanderson, who is Carl?” The scout’s voice was soft, and he loosened the noose. Sanderson took a rasping breath. “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. Not me. Not me.”

“Who is Carl? We know Ray Bunton, we know John Wigge, but who’s Carl?”

“Don’t know his name . . .” The desperation was right there, on the surface. The scout could hear it.

“But you knew Utecht,” the scout said, persisting, pressuring. “Bunton and Wigge were at your house two days ago. I watched you argue. Who was the man in the car?”

“Some pal of Wigge’s. I don’t know, I don’t know.” He strained for air, feet beating on the ground again.

“There was a sixth man. Who was the sixth man?”

“Don’t . . .” Then Sanderson’s eyes reached up toward the scout’s and he seemed to recognize him, what he was, why he was there; with the realization came the knowledge that he would die. “Ah, shit,” he said, the sadness thick in the words. “Sally will be hurt.”

The scout saw the death in Sanderson’s eyes. Nothing more here. He stood up, shook his head. The shooter extended the gun and, without a further word, shot Sanderson twice in the forehead. He caught the ejected .22 shells in his off hand.

The shooter could smell the blood. The odor of blood sometimes nauseated him now. Didn’t happen before. Only the last couple of years. He slipped a lemon from his pocket, scraped it with a fingernail, and inhaled the odor of the lemon rind. Better. Better than blood.

Then he bent, pushed down Sanderson’s jaw, shoved the lemon into his dead mouth.

2

EVERY NIGHT, before he went to bed, Virgil Flowers thought about God.

The practice was good for him, he believed, and...

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherG.P. Putnam's Sons
  • Publication date2009
  • ISBN 10 0425230619
  • ISBN 13 9780425230619
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages448
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780399155277: Heat Lightning (The Virgil Flowers)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780399155277
Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008
Hardcover

  • 9781847394699: Heat Lightning

    Pocket..., 2009
    Softcover

  • 9780425228579: Heat Lightning

    BERKLEY, 2009
    Softcover

  • 9780739499023: Heat Lightning Large Print Edition

    Double..., 2008
    Hardcover

  • 9781436153966: Heat Lightning - Unabridged Audio Book on Tape

    Record..., 2008
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Sandford, John
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Books Unplugged
(Amherst, NY, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0425230619xvz189zvxnew

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 9.61
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Sandford, John
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0425230619-new

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 9.61
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Sandford, John
Published by Penguin Random House Company (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Paperback Quantity: > 20
Seller:
BookOutlet
(Thorold, ON, Canada)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Paperback. Publisher overstock, may contain remainder mark on edge. Seller Inventory # 9780425230619B

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 5.39
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
From Canada to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Sandford, John
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Lakeside Books
(Benton Harbor, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New! Not Overstocks or Low Quality Book Club Editions! Direct From the Publisher! We're not a giant, faceless warehouse organization! We're a small town bookstore that loves books and loves it's customers! Buy from Lakeside Books!. Seller Inventory # OTF-Y-9780425230619

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 5.83
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Sandford, John
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Soft Cover Quantity: 10
Seller:
booksXpress
(Bayonne, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780425230619

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 9.90
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Sandford, John
Published by Berkley Books 10/6/2009 (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Paperback or Softback Quantity: 5
Seller:
BargainBookStores
(Grand Rapids, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Heat Lightning 0.55. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780425230619

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 10.29
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Sandford, John
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Softcover Quantity: 5
Seller:
GreatBookPrices
(Columbia, MD, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 6546464-n

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 7.84
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 2.64
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Sandford, John (Author)
Published by Penguin Random House (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
INDOO
(Avenel, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 0425230619

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 7.03
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Sandford, John
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Paperback Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Save With Sam
(North Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # 0425230619

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 12.76
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Sandford, John
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons (2009)
ISBN 10: 0425230619 ISBN 13: 9780425230619
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Lucky's Textbooks
(Dallas, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ABLING22Oct2018170012130

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 8.91
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book