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“You don’t think you hit him?”
“He didn’t fall down or stagger or anything, that I could see, but I was... freaking out, is what I was doing,” Cooper said. And, “I don’t know. What do I know? I’ve never done this. I fired five times and he fired a bunch of times and that’s all I know.”
Moss looked around, poked a finger at a patrolman and said, “Junior, get some guys and talk to all the neighbors. We need to know that there’s nobody lying dead in their houses. Or shot up.”
Junior nodded: “On it.”
“We need crime scene here right away,” Lucas said to Moss.“Look for blood. If we got blood, we got DNA. Maybe she hit him...”
—
Lucas and Virgilstayed at Melton’s house until the two women began to settle down, and arrangements were made to place Edina officers outside the house and another inside, until the next morning.
When they left, Melton was making grilled cheese sandwiches for the cops. In the yard, crime scene crews were still crawling around the yard under tripod-mounted work lights, looking mostly for blood spatter, without finding any, but picking up eight ejected shell casings.
On first examination, the shells appeared to be identical to those found at the Sand-Cooper residence. Slugs taken from the door frame where Cooper had been standing were also recovered and would be compared to those taken from the Sand-Cooper residence.
As they walked out the door, Cooper caught Lucas’s jacket sleeve and said, “It was me he was after. Alex and the boys got caught by mistake.”
Lucas shook his head and said, “Don’t jump to conclusions. That’s one reading. The other reading is, you know something that Alex also knew, and he doesn’t want it to get out. You’re now in charge of the family money. That has to count for something, too.”
Virgil: “Lucas told me that you talked to Tom Burston this afternoon...”
Cooper: “Yes, I did.”
“...and you mentioned something about bequests in Alex’s will. Would the bequests be large enough that somebody might want tohurry them up? Or would the recipient believe that Alex was unlikely to die naturally before the recipient did?”
Cooper looked down, dragged her fingers across her mouth, looked up and said, “Yes... though I’d hate to think that anyone on his list would commit murder. There are three individuals and two organizations that would get a million dollars each.”
“We need that list,” Virgil said.
“I’ll get it to you in the morning,” Cooper said.
Lucas looked at Virgil: “But why would they come after Maggie, if Alex is already dead? They wouldn’t get more money...”
Virgil looked at Cooper: “Would they?”
Cooper thought again, and said, “Well... one would. I’ll get that to you tomorrow, as well.”
—
Before they broke upfor the night, Lucas and Virgil stopped by their cars to talk. Lucas said, “We’ve still got to talk to the car-theft guy in Stillwater. Carter? Though he’s sort of... receding in my thoughts. Killing Sand is one thing, but why would he come after the wife?”
“Ah, yeah. I’ve sort of written him off, but I guess we ought to talk,” Virgil said. “Maybe get breakfast tomorrow, and then run out to Stillwater. Back before noon.”
“If Maggie’s moving to the Sand place tomorrow morning, we could stop there after Stillwater and get the list of bequests from her. Maybe go over to Home Streets and check out Dahl and Heath tomorrow afternoon,” Lucas said. “Sandy should have some returns on those guys, though I haven’t heard from her yet. We can call her in the morning, give her a push.”
“I’m more interested in the people who would inherit from Sand. I should have thought of that sooner,” Virgil said. “I might bump them up ahead of the Home Streets guys. Then, there’s Maggie’s students at the U. We haven’t even started on that...”
“We can sort it out tomorrow,” Lucas said. He looked up at the sky: no moon anymore. “It’s late. We can hit Cecil’s about nine o’clock. Drop your truck at my place, I’ll drive.”
“Deal,” Virgil said. And, “You think this guy, this shooter... think he’ll quit? That he might have had enough tonight?”
“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “What I’m afraid of, is, he’ll pull back, lay low, and then a month from now, or two months, make another run at her, if we haven’t caught him. He’s got some reason for doing what he’s doing. Why would we think that reason will go away?”
“There’s a happy thought to end the day,” Virgil said. “See you tomorrow.”
They got in their cars, but before Lucas could pull away, Virgil flashed him twice with the Tahoe’s headlights, got out of the truck and walked down to the Cayenne. Lucas rolled the window down and Virgil said, “I try really hard not to be a cynical asshole.”
