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Virgil led theway across the street to the condo. Inside, they buzzed the Carters, identified themselves to Catherine, who answered, and she buzzed them up.
Carter was waiting by the door when they got out of the elevator. “Now what?”
“Couple more questions,” Virgil said.
Catherine poked her head past her husband: “We can’t keep doing this. If you keep coming at us, we’ll have to move.”
“Not outside the state of Minnesota, not until Henry’s parole is up,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, we’ll move to International Falls and you can drive up there when you want to talk,” she said. But she looked frightened.
“C’mon inside,” her husband said.
They went inside; the apartment hadn’t changed. Lucas and Virgil sat in the same chairs they’d taken the first time, and Lucas said, “Have you been talking to Margaret Cooper?”
Carter was mystified. “Who?”
“Judge Alex Sand’s wife,” Lucas said.
“Alex Sand’s wife. Why would I...”
“She bought a gun from you, right?” Lucas said.
“What! I don’thaveany guns. I don’twantany guns. Why in the hell would I sell a gun to anybody? Why would I sell a gun to the wife of a guy who put me in prison? If I did that, I’d go back to prison myself.” His voice was climbing, and finally he shouted, “What the fuck is going on here?”
“If youweregonna sell a gun to Margaret Cooper, where would you get it?”
Carter looked away from them, shook his head, and finally said, “I’d go on Express Heat, and order one, I guess. That was before I lost my federal firearms license. But if you’re... I guess I could go to a gun show, but I don’t think there’ve been any lately, not close around here. What’s going on? Did Mrs. Sand, Mrs. Cooper, shoot somebody?”
“No, she hasn’t,” Virgil said.
“Then what are you hassling me for?” Carter asked. “I gotta talkto my parole officer about this. I’ll have him call you. I’ve been walking the line.”
“If you had to get a cold gun...” Lucas began.
“Look. Check my trial record,” Carter said. “There’s nothing there about firearms. Not a thing. I was a straight-up, legit gun dealer. Kept the records, did everything right. Would you ask some clerk in a pharmacy where to buy heroin? Same thing with me. I never bought a hot gun in my life. Or a cold one. I have no idea where to get one.”
As they did the first time, they sat on the couch and asked the same questions in twenty different forms until they were all tired of it. When Virgil and Lucas were walking out the door, Catherine Carter squawked, “Hey! Don’t come back!”
Out on the street, Lucas asked, “What do you think?”
“I sort of believe them... but I sorta don’t. They didn’t seem shocked enough by the question. They had all the right answers, but it was like they were braced.”
“So, you think it’s possible that they sold Cooper a gun?”
Virgil looked up at the windows of the Carter apartment. “Twenty-five percent. Or fifteen percent. I guess I don’t really believe it.”
Above them, in the apartment, Catherine Carter asked, “Did they buy it?”
Carter looked at her and said, “Shh.”
—
Back in thecar, Lucas said, “Too early to quit. What do you want to do?”
“Go back to the BCA and look at somebody else’s paper, see whatthey got. Russo and Durey were going to start running checks on gyms where the boys might have gone. Maybe there’s something in that. I’m wondering if Russo is talking to the FBI.”
“Hope so,” Lucas said. “Because I’m running out of ideas. We could hit up Maggie Cooper again.”
