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“I called Tom Burston to talk about the estate documents he’ll need, and the account, and bequests in Alex’s will,” Cooper said. “He said you’d interviewed him today. What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Did he do it?” she asked.
“Don’t quote me,” Lucas said.
“I promise.”
“I believe you were right about him. He seemed seriously affected by the killings and it looked genuine; he’s feeling some grief,” Lucas said. “I don’t believe he killed your family.”
She exhaled, then said, “All right. After a while, you begin todoubt your own judgment, but... All right. That makes me a bit happier.”
—
Nightfall came aroundseven o’clock. Hess didn’t know a lot about guns, but since every idiot in the country seemed to know how to use one, he was confident in his ability to make it gobang!He’d taken lessons in his specific gun, a Glock, on YouTube, so he was good to go.
He left his house as the sun disappeared below the western horizon, driving across the Cities to Edina. The night was cold, and he’d gone warm and dark and in the required uniform: a black hoodie over black jeans and black boots, the gun in the pocket of the hoodie.
He made a preliminary pass at the Edina house. There were lights on, most intensely in the back, maybe a kitchen. The area around the front door was more dimly lit. The tension was climbing up his back to his neck; he’d have an overnight headache for sure.Why was he even doing this?
Around the corner from the house, he could look past a row of bridal wreath bushes and across a neighbor’s yard to the back windows of the Cooper house. As he hovered there, waiting on the street, he saw Cooper walk past a back window with a cup in her hand, wearing a red blouse. She appeared to be alone. Washing dishes, maybe.
—
The line ofhouses that included Cooper’s all faced the same street; each house had a moderately-sized back yard, most skimpilylandscaped with shrubs and trees, some with children’s playsets or basketball hoops. The backyards ran slightly uphill to a line of fences, where they met another set of backyards, attached to houses facing the opposite direction, to another street.
Most of the houses showed lights, but the backyards were dark; a waxing first-quarter moon was well off to the west, throwing enough light between the scudding clouds to give the neighborhood the gritty feel of the northern Halloween.
—
He choked, nearlychickened out. He drove around the block again, and started around again when he noticed, a hundred yards or so from the house where Cooper was staying, a house that was dark, but with three newspapers on the driveway.Why was he doing this? If the cops caught him...
Nobody home. He drove around the block again, beginning to quite literally sweat, smelling the odor welling up from under the hoodie.
Thought:Just do it.
He pulled into the driveway, waited to see if a light came on—none did. He touched the gun in his pocket, cool and hard like a tool, like a hammer head. He got out of the car, took a deep breath, and began jogging down the block like a night runner.
—
Cooper said, “I’vewondered whether the shootings had any effect on Chelsea. Sometimes, she seems to fix her eyes on something and then just not move them. Staring into space. Not asleep, but... she sometimes seems stunned.”
“She’s an infant,” Melton said. “Every once in a while, she goes back to the womb.”
“Change of topic,” Cooper said, taking a sip of tea. Talking about children tended to inflame the ball of rage that sat below her heart, spinning her off-balance. “Did I tell you what Delonia did today? She comes out on stage in an orange kind of chiffon blouse,reallythin, probably rayon. Maybe silk, but thin, whatever it is. Unbuttoned to her goddamned navel. No bra, it’s cool in there, her nipples were sticking out like pencil erasers. The kid I was telling you about, Colin? He’s gotta be a virgin. I don’t even know if he’s seen a nipple outside a porno. He takes one look and before he gets halfway across the stage, you can see he’s already working on a...”
Melton’s phone rang, and she looked at the screen, frowned. “Neighbor. Old lady in the back. She hardly ever calls, I’m her emergency responder...” She pushed Answer and the speaker button at the same time and said, “Shirle?”
Shirley said, in a rusty old voice, “Annie! Annie, there’s a man in your backyard. He looks like he’s... he looks like he’s looking in your window. I’ll call 9-1-1 if you... He’s hiding in a bush and he’s looking in your back window, he’s dressed all in black.”
Cooper waved Melton off and said, “Shirle? This is Annie’s friend, the one staying with her? That might be a friend of mine. Before you call, let me check out there...”
“I’ll be watching, dear,” Shirley said.
“Thanks, Shirle.” Melton touched the phone to ring off, and half stood. “You think?”
“Gotta be. Gotta be,” Cooper said. The ball of rage now had her by the throat. “Let me, let me...”
