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A while later,Weather called Lucas. “Okay. She’s done, she’s still asleep. I’ll talk to her when she wakes up—don’t call her until tomorrow.”
“I’ll go see her in the morning,” Lucas said. “How’s she gonna look?”
“She’ll have two scars that’ll look like thin white hairs on her cheek. Even without makeup, you’d have to get six inches from her to see them. With makeup... very light makeup... they’ll be invisible.”
“You’re good,” Virgil called.
“Indeed,” said Weather. “You guys are indirectly responsible for this. Who should I send the bill to?”
—
Melton called. “I’msitting here at Regions. She’s asleep. Weather’s still around. Maggie called me before the board meetingand told me about your lunch. I just hope our suspect doesn’t show up. Maybe you ought to drive over and hide in the house. Then you could shoot him.”
Lucas said nothing for a moment, then, “If I did that, how would I get in?”
“If you go to the basketball net, the pole that holds it up? It’s on a concrete pad. At the back right corner of the pad, as you look at it, if you poke around you’ll find a thing that looks like a rock. It isn’t. It’s made out of plastic and there’s a key inside. It fits all the doors. If you go in and turn on the lights, he’ll think she’s home.”
“What about the baby?’
“Fatima and Chelsea are at my place. I told Fatima a little about what was happening... and she’s okay with moving over to Edina.”
“I’ll think about it,” Lucas said. “You take care of yourself. Jesus. Heath tried to strangle her. And he cut her.”
“He is crazy. A crazy man,” Melton said. “As I understand it, if the board members hadn’t dragged him away, she’d be dead.”
—
There was stilllight in the sky when Virgil and Lucas drove out of Muller’s driveway, then drove a quick loop around the neighborhood to confuse a watcher, if there was one, then went back and stopped in front of Cooper’s house.
Virgil got out and walked through the opening in the hedge to the basketball net and found the key to the house. He continued to the back door, let himself in, and started turning on lights. When the lights came on, Lucas drove around the block again and back into Muller’s driveway. He went in the back door and up to the stakeout room with Muller.
“That boy’s going to search her house, isn’t he?” Muller said. “Just to see if anyone missed anything.”
“Of course not,” Lucas said. “I think your dipsy-do, or whatever you call it...”
“Picky-Arc...”
“...has made you a little paranoid about cops.”
“No, it’s made mereallyparanoid about cops. I do admire their ability to lie with an absolutely straight face, even in court, and even when everybody knows they’re lying,” Muller said, smiling at Lucas.
“It is part of the skill set,” Lucas admitted. “Wouldn’t be so necessary if we weren’t up to our asses in nitpicking lawyers.”
“You may be right,” Muller said. “I used to be one of those, by the way. A nitpicking lawyer.”
—
While waiting forthe killer to show up, Virgil ate one of the chicken wraps and probed gently around the house, looking for cameras, among other things, but not seeing any. He eventually made his way up the stairs, wandered around the home office without touching anything, and poked his head into the boys’ rooms. He didn’t know which was which, since they were mostly identical in furnishings, but both had framed photos on the walls, of the boys doing sports.
In their first interview with Cooper, she’d mentioned that Alex hadn’t been much of an athlete, but enjoyed the sports that he did play, especially basketball, and he admired athletes. He had season tickets to the Vikings and Wild. He was also a decent golfer, she said, but he was more of a team-sports enthusiast.
She’d said, with a smile, that he was worried that his nonathleticgenes would doom the kids to a life of spectating. Or worse, that they’d follow in his golfing footsteps.
“Fortunately, they got my genes. They were going to be good at basketball. And probably golf, as far as that goes. I wouldn’t let them play football; your life becomes somewhat limited with repeated head trauma.”
—
Virgil was backdownstairs, in the kitchen, waiting for Lucas to call, or for a noise at the back door, when he had a thought. He went back upstairs, looked at the photos, then pulled his shirt sleeve over his hand so he could open closets without leaving fingerprints. In one of the boys’ closets, he found a gym bag. Then he sat down on a bed and called Lucas.
