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“Does self-defense apply here?”
“It does if the killer thought Sand was about to do something to him,” Virgil said. “Either as a judge or a rich guy with influence. Business and political influence. Social influence, maybe.”
“Maybe we look at the cases he’s been assigned but haven’t come to trial yet,” Lucas said. “The most extreme example of judge-shopping.”
Virgil: “The FBI and us guys both looked at that. Came up dry.”
“When you said ‘social influence,’ what are you talking about? You think he tried to keep somebody out of the Town and Country Club? Blackballed them?”
“He was at Somerset,” Virgil said. “No known serious antagonisms over there. Russo checked with the members.”
“All the members?”
“Yes. Russo actually got a list of all their male friends... and enemies, though there aren’t many of those, and they’re mostly people they simply didn’t like, or who Cooper believed didn’t like them. No real animus.”
Lucas thumbed through to the list: “Twenty-two of them. He checked them all.”
“They’re doing everything,” Virgil said. “The thing is, Sand was appointed by Obama. Some guys are thinking a right-wing nutcase...”
“A right-wing nutcase who killed Sand so a new judge could be appointed by Joe Biden?”
“Right-wing nutcases are not necessarily that good at critical analyses, as was demonstrated by the pizza shop basement fiasco.” Virgil looked at his watch, and said, “We better get over to your place so you can change. Tell me one thing to think about.”
Lucas considered, then said, “The killer sorta knew what he was doing. Two shots in the back to knock down Sand, one shot each to knock down the kids, then heart or head shots for all of them, to finish them for sure. He couldn’t leave survivors. He figured that out before he went in. Rehearsed it.”
“Yup.”
“Now you tellmesomething,” Lucas said.
Virgil thought for a moment, and said, “Like I said, self-defense. Or sex, somehow, but I can’t see how, judging from what Russo got so far. Not money, because they had more than they needed and none of it is going out of the house because of the shooting. Not raving, delusional insanity—too carefully planned and he didn’t kill the baby. I kinda don’t think revenge, but it’s a possibility. Psychopath or sociopath, for sure.”
“Self-defense or sex. Interesting,” Lucas said. “Let’s go talk to the lovely Ms. Cooper.”
“She’s lovely?”
“She is—or was, anyway, to my eyes, judging from those photos,” Lucas said. “After what happened, we’ll see. If my kids were murdered, three weeks later I’d look like a fuckin’ hobgoblin.”
—
On the wayout the door, the counter girl said, “I overheard some of that... I wasn’t eavesdropping, I just... heard. You’re cops, then?”
“We are,” Virgil said.
“I thought about applying for the St. Paul cops,” she said. She half turned away, with her eyes cutting back, as if she expected sarcasm.
“Well, they’re hiring,” Lucas said. “So is Minneapolis. So is everybody else.”
“The problem is, I don’t like cops very much,” she said.
“Bad experience?” Lucas asked.
“I’ve had a lot of jobs like this, and they kinda... hit on me. A lot.”
“Yeah, that’s cops. Gonna be some built-in aggression. They’re always pushing, especially new ones. Old ones mostly just want to get through the day,” Virgil told her.
She laughed and said, “Well. Get through the day yourselves... have a nice one.” Then she looked inside herself and added, “I say that all the time. The nice day thing. Cops don’t have to do that, do they?”
Lucas: “We don’t really deal with nice days. Not that often, anyway.”
