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Carter laughed: “Where do you think the Minneapolis gangs get their guns? No, he wouldn’t have a problem with the felony.”
“He’d have an appropriate gun?”
“Yes, but it’d cost,” Carter said. “It’d be cold, bought on the black market down in Alabama or Mississippi, cost maybe five thousand with the suppressor.”
“Good quality?”
“Yes, most likely a Ruger or a Glock. Do you know guns?”
“I took some lessons years ago,” Cooper said. “I still have a gun in the house, a revolver, but the police know about it and I can’t use that one.”
“That’s wise,” Carter said. He bit his lip. “What’s in it for me?”
“I will give you the five thousand dollars, in cash, for the gun. I will give you, personally, twenty thousand to get it for me.”
The couple exchanged quick glances: they wanted the money. “How soon?” Carter asked.
“Right now,” Cooper said. “I won’t pay until I have the gun and a box of the right ammunition.”
“What if I went to the cops and said, ‘I got a woman who wantsto buy a gun to commit murder, and if you give me my civil rights, I’ll tell you who it is’?”
Cooper smiled: “I’m deranged. Temporarily insane with grief. If you told the police that, as soon as they heard the name, they’d back off. They wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it. A psychiatric worker might come to see me. And you wouldn’t get twenty thousand dollars.”
The Carters considered that for a moment, then Catherine asked, “What if you got caught, and they offered a deal. They’d give you time off if you gave up the dealer?”
Cooper shook her head. “First, I’m smart. I’d never do anything that might get me caught. If I did, I’d say that Alex bought the gun at a gun show years ago, because he thought owning a silencer would be neat. If you give me a gun that I could use to kill the man who killed my family, I’d be grateful forever. I’d never turn on you.”
“How do you know that we wouldn’t turn on you? If there was a reward or something?” Carter asked.
“Would you really admit to facilitating a first-degree murder?” Cooper shook her head again. “If this happens, we may never see each other again, but we’ll be bound together. Neither of us would be able to testify to anything, without admitting murder or accessory to murder.”
The Carters stared at her for a moment, then Carter said, “Twenty thousand for me?”
“Or a little more,” Cooper said. “I brought plenty. And really, don’t think about assaulting me and taking it away. I’m not here alone.”
Carter looked at his wife, then said, “Let me and Cathy talk in the bedroom for a minute.”
Cooper waited patiently as the two disappeared into the back of the condo; they were gone only three or four minutes. When they emerged, Catherine Carter said, “We’ll do it, if we think we can be safe. You’re smart, tell us how we can do that—be safe.”
“First of all, don’t use your phones for any of this. Don’t call Jack to see if he’s home, just show up,” Cooper said. “I’ll take any good-quality automatic pistol. With a suppressor, I guess they’re called. A silencer.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got to know they’re not very silent,” Carter said.
“I plan to get some practice before I use it,” Cooper said. “After I use it, within the hour, it will be buried in a hole in a state park where it will never be found, so there’s no way it will kick back on you. I’ll give you your cash now, today, but you can’t spend it on anything expensive, or noticeable, because the police or the IRS could get onto that and start asking questions. You could buy inexpensive stuff. You could go to estate and yard sales and flea markets, you could buy food and clothing and medicine, all of that. Anything where you can reasonably pay cash. Not a car.”
“I see that,” Carter said. “I pretty much lived that way when I was boosting those cars. I did hit some Indian casinos.”
“You could still hit some native casinos, as long as it was small amounts of cash... five or six hundred dollars and you spread it out between games. Maybe you’ll even hit a jackpot.”
Both the Carters nodded. They all looked at each other, and then Catherine said, “I heard lots of stuff about how your kids were killed. That’s awful. We’ve got a son, he’s at a community college, learning to build guitars. If anything happened to him, I’d be where you are. I’m so sorry about what happened.”
Cooper: “Thank you. So?”
Carter said, “One way or the other, I’ll be back in an hour and a half. You could go out and get a sandwich. There’s a pretty good place right down the street. Lots of tourists, nice morning like this.”
Cooper nodded. “I’ll do that. How will I know you’re back?”
“If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen in an hour and a half. Come back then. Bring money. I’ll need some cash now...”
