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“I don’t do therapy after sundown,” Lucas said.
“Not asking for therapy, I want you to tell me that even if I have asshole-like, cynical thoughts, I’m not really a cynical asshole.”
“All right. Tell me.”
“We had two shooters, and we know where they were. Maggie was at the kitchen door, the shooter started out by that flower circle and then over by the neighbor’s fence, right?”
“That would be correct,” Lucas said.
“Maggie fired five times. The shooter fired at least eight shots at her, apparently emptied his gun at her, first from twenty feet, andthen from what, forty or fifty? And neither of them hit anything. Nothing. Nada.”
Lucas closed his eyes: “I’m afraid I see where this is going.”
“There were at least thirteen shots fired from close range and none of them even broke a fuckin’ window, Lucas.”
“What happened was, the shooter just proved that there’s a killer out there, and it’s not her. That’s very, very good—for her,” Lucas said.
“Tell me I’m not a cynical asshole.”
“Well, you are, but you’re also right,” Lucas said. “The shooter hit to the right of the door, and to the left of the door, but he never hit the door where Maggie was.”
Virgil looked back at the house, still lit up like a Christmas party, with cops still crawling around the place. “We may have to stop calling her Maggie and start calling her Ms. Cooper again. You know, like a suspect.”
“Ah, man,” Lucas said. “I’m too tired for this shit. I gotta go to bed.”
“Yeah.” Virgil slapped the door panel and said, “One more time—see you tomorrow.”
10
Tomorrow turned out to be cold and dark, with a chill wind jabbing at exposed necks. They got breakfast and then headed east out of St. Paul to the old town of Stillwater. Henry James Carter, former car salesman and later car thief, now an unemployed ex-con, lived in a condo on Stillwater’s main drag.
“How’s your leg?” Virgil asked, as they went.
“Another indication that something is seriously wrong with me—ever since I started working again, I don’t hurt so much,” Lucas said.
—
They rang Carter’sapartment from the lobby, and a woman answered. They identified themselves, and after some talk between the woman and a man in the background, she buzzed them up.
Carter met them at the apartment door. He was a burly man, running to fat, balding, three inches under six feet, clean shaven, wearing a tee-shirt, shorts, and Nikes. A pair of copper-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. His file said that he was fifty-six, and he looked ten years older, with a pale, flaccid face.
At the door he asked, “What’d I do?”
Virgil shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Did you do something?”
“Nothing except look for a job.” He backed into the condo, where the woman, who matched Carter in size and weight, stood, mouth half open, waiting for the worst. Virgil and Lucas followed him in. “If you guys don’t mess me up, I got an offer from Fleet Farm. I start next Sunday.”
“Good for you,” Lucas said. “We understand you were interviewed by the BCA and St. Paul police about the murder of Alex Sand...”
“Is that what this is about?” He glanced back at the woman, ran a hand through the remnants of his hair, and said, “They know I didn’t do it. The police. I mean, I was here. They know I was talking on my phone... besides, I had nothing against the judge. It could have been any judge. The sentence could have been longer. The judge wasn’t like a judge, he was like a clerk. All he did was give me the sentence that got worked out between the prosecutor and my attorney.”
“He had nothing to do with it,” the woman said. She began to cry, and walked backwards into the living room, and sank down on a sofa. Carter looked at her, saw the tears gathering in her eyes, and Lucas said, “Look. Give us ten minutes.”
They asked about the phone alibi, about the piano practice. He showed them what might have been an expensive Roland keyboard, if the keys on the top and bottom octaves had worked.
“I’m trying to fix it in my spare time, which I got a lot of,” he said.“At least for now. I’m hoping for some decent overtime up at Fleet Farm, I’m a good salesman. If I can get the piano going, I might have a gig at a golf club, you know, Saturday nights.”
The woman said, “He is a good salesman. He’ll never do anything like that again. Like the cars. He got hooked on the Indian casinos, that’s what made him do it.”
