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“True dat.”
—
Russo, St. Paul’slead investigator, and the investigators from the BCA had determined that there were six more-or-less recently released convicts who’d been sentenced by Sand.
None were criminal geniuses. Only two had been convicted of gun crimes. One of those had an airtight alibi, having died of lung cancer shortly after his release. The second gunman had been attending a real estate license training course in Tempe, Arizona, on the night of the murders and had a dozen people to say so.
“Why didn’t the shooter kill the baby?” Lucas asked.
“Because he didn’t think it was necessary, and maybe he didn’t want to make any more noise,” Virgil answered. “He killed the two boys because they were old enough to be witnesses. The baby isn’t.”
“Did he know Cooper wouldn’t be there? Maybe he was looking for her.”
“Something to ask her,” Virgil agreed.
—
“Here’s a question,”Lucas said. “When Sand and the two kids came back in the house, none of them were carrying a baby. So they left the baby at home, alone?”
“We talked about that this morning, when I picked up the files,” Virgil said. “Cooper said Sand would never leave the baby alone, unless it was for one minute or something, to run out to the car or pick up a newspaper. Or maybe, to go out with the boys for two minutes and shoot some baskets, if the baby was sleeping.”
Lucas thumbed through the pack of security photos. “None of them were wearing raincoats.”
“Nope. They probably went out before the rain started.”
“Did the camera see them going out?”
“No. They almost certainly went out through the garage. There’s a back door in the garage,” Virgil said. “The camera doesn’t see it, because it’s mounted above the door and is focused on cars and people coming up the driveway. If you go out that door and turn right, there’s a flagstone walkway through a little secluded flower garden that opens out onto the side lawn. They walked out the door, turned right, shot some hoops, then ran around the house and wentin the front door. Cooper said she saw the basketball in the garage before she went to work, so maybe that’s why they did that.”
“Sand didn’t have a gun on him?” Lucas asked.
“Man, they wereshooting hoops... No, he didn’t have a gun with him.”
“Does he even have a gun?”
“Yes. If you look further into the interview with Cooper, you’ll see that she says they once had two guns. They’d even taken some lessons with one of them, someplace over in Wisconsin, the name is in there... But they never got carry permits or anything,” Virgil said. “The main gun, that they took lessons with, was kept locked in a steel gun box hidden in their library. Ruger .357, hadn’t been shot recently. The killer used a Nine, and... the second gun was a Nine, but she said Sand sold it in the parking lot of a gun show in Hudson, Wisconsin.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Cooper said that it’s embarrassing, that he would do that. She didn’t know the brand. She says it originally belonged to Sand’s father. Sand inherited it but didn’t want it.”
“Okay.” Lucas scratched his head, reading about the guns.
“If you read down a bit, you’ll see that Cooper said they didn’t like shooting, and didn’t much—a time or two after the lessons. The .357 wasn’t fun to shoot, but, it’d do the job, they thought,” Virgil said.
“That’s true enough. If the .357 was locked up in the library, that would suggest that Sand didn’t feel threatened,” Lucas said.
Virgil: “Well, Cooper said even if they did feel threatened, they probably wouldn’t have gone for the gun. She said they’re not gun people. Even if they’d seen somebody snooping around in the yard,they probably wouldn’t have thought of getting the gun. They would have gone out to ask the guy what he was doing.”
—
Lucas closed hiscopy of the file, rubbed his chin, squinted out at the street.
Virgil: “What?”
Lucas: “Revenge. Money. Sex.”
Virgil: “Self-defense. Insanity.”
