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A barista called their coffee, and they took it out to the Tahoe. Lucas took a sip, burned his lip, and asked, “How do we play it?”
“We don’t tell them we know,” Virgil said. “We might find a use for the information. You know, later.”
“Good. That’s good. The fact that she did something to get inside... she must have bribed someone. I still can’t see her for the murders.”
They’d finished the coffee by the time they got to Crocus Circle, and Virgil pulled to the curb. Cooper opened the door as they got out of the car and she walked barefoot down the frosty walkway and rasped, “Did he kill my boys? Did he hire it done?”
“Who?” Lucas asked.
“Noah Heath. His secretary was murdered and the director can’t be found and Gary Durey told me you’re investigating them for fraud, stealing from the charities. Tom was right! They’re crooks!”
“We have no evidence that would hang him, not with the director missing,” Lucas said.
“I don’t remember the director, this Dahl, I only saw him once. Does he fit the killer’s profile? Is he tall?” she demanded.
“He’s kinda short,” Lucas said. “After we talked to him, he cleaned out all the personal stuff in his house, so we figured he was running. Then we found his van at the airport with blood in the back. We think it might be his.”
“Noah killed him to get rid of witnesses! It’s obvious!” Cooper said.
“Go inside before your feet get frostbitten,” Virgil said.
Cooper looked down at her feet, as though she hadn’t realized she was barefoot, did a little dance, and turned and hurried back toward the house, with Lucas and Virgil trailing.
Inside, in the living room, she said, “It’s obvious!”
“Where’s Ann?” Virgil asked.
“At work,” she said. “What I want to know...”
“He didn’t kill Alex and the boys. His alibi is good. Could he have hired it done? Maybe. He apparently has the money, but the killings weren’t professional, they were sloppy,” Lucas said. “If he hired it done, he hired somebody who didn’t know much about guns.”
“Which would be weird,” Virgil said.
Cooper ran her hands up through her hair, then shook her head, as though she were trying to clear it. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe we’ll never find out. I was up half the night, trying to break through the wall: What could Alex have done? What could he have done, or been planning to do, that would cause somebody to take such a huge risk? It doesn’t seem like the money thing could havebeen enough.... Of course, if Noah Heath killed two people, I guess the ‘not enough’ theory goes out the window.”
“Money is always enough,” Virgil said. “Especially in large amounts.”
“But killing a federal judge and two children in cold blood? That’s life without parole, in Minnesota,” Cooper said. “If he’s charged by a federal prosecutor, he could be executed. What did Alex do? We talked all the time, if he had hidden concerns, I should have at least picked up that he was hiding something...”
She looked at Lucas and asked, “What?”
Lucas turned his eyes away from her and said, “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Cooper said. She could read his mind; he was almost afraid to look back at her. “You just thought of something this very minute. Do you know who did it?”
“No, but... you might.” He turned to Virgil. “I just thought of what I picked up at Lundgren’s place, but she ran past it so fast, it didn’t stick.”
To Cooper, Virgil explained that Lundgren was a violent family member of a man Alex Cooper had sent to prison. “You suggested to us that maybe a family member would be upset...”
“I remember that. The ill-gotten-gains thing,” Cooper said.
Virgil looked at Lucas: “So tell us.”
Lucas had closed his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. After a moment, he said, “Fuck me.”
Cooper: “What?”
Virgil: “Maybe we should step out on the lawn.”
