“Don’t forget Quentin,” said Mike.
Both children broke away from their mother and ran back to the dog, lifting it, one at each end, and carrying it over to where their mother stood, holding the door open. She gave Bob a look that he interpreted as gratitude before she followed the children out. The store bell jangled merrily as the door slid shut behind them.
“How long have we got?” asked Mike. The rifle was now between his knees with the butt on the floor and his hands around the barrel, which was pointing up toward the ceiling.
“Before they storm in? Fifteen minutes maybe.”
“That’s plenty of time. Shall I make some coffee?”
“I think it’s best that you sit right where you are. They’ve got snipers out there just waiting to get a sighting on you.”
“Aha.” Mike’s smile was sad and resigned. But not just that. There was something else. Hope, thought Bob. Like at a parting you know is final, at the same time as you sense something new and unknown lies ahead of you. Bob felt a little bit the same way.
“So you want to tell me what happened?” asked Bob. “Had you been planning this long?”
Mike Lunde shook his head slowly. “Tomás Gomez just happened to come in here one day. Just like you did. Said his cat was dead and Mrs. White had recommended me. It was thirty years since the last time I had seen him, he looked very different. But you know, it’s in the eyes. I never forgot those eyes. The eyes of the guy who killed my little girl in that parking lot. Who stood over me and was about to kill me too. We got a real good look at each other before he heard the police car coming and ran off. And even so, Gomez didn’t recognize me when he came into the store.”
“They called him Lobo, he was a killing machine, you were just another number to him. Did you kill him straightaway?”
“No. I had several conversations with him. I went to his home and ate with him.”
“And then?”
“Then I took him to a studio up in Cedar Creek where I kept his stuffed cat. He was pleased with the job I’d done. I gave him coffee. With Rohypnol in it. When he woke up he was tied to a chair.”
“I know, we found him. Why didn’t you kill him immediately?”
“Why do you think?”
“I think you had to act out those fantasies of revenge you’ve been living with these past thirty years. You tortured him.”
“Yes.”
“And did it meet your expectations?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I got sick, I had to throw up.”
“Even though you’ve spent your whole life cutting up animals?”
“It was the first time I had ever inflicted pain on a living creature. The worst thing was that Tomás regretted it. Talking together here in the store he never said in so many words exactly what he’d done, only that he’d caused untold harm to others, that he didn’t deserve to live. His gang life was behind him, he said, he worked casual jobs, but he still had nightmares every night. In that respect it might have been a harder punishment to let him go on living. Lonely, but haunted. But the torture at least gave me the name and address of the person he had bought the Uzi from, Marco Dante. I learned where his boss Die Man hung out. And that the detective I had trusted took bribes to keep any suspicion from leading to Tomás and Die Man and their gang. And I got his face. And the skin of his hands. When he was dead I took his clothes and the keys to his apartment.”
“The rest of his body you freeze-dried.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“So Tomás Gomez bought the Uzi he killed your daughter with from Dante?”
“That is correct.”
“And after you shot Dante, you left enough clues and witnesses who saw you disguised as Gomez to make sure he would be the suspect.”
“Yes.”
Bob glanced at his watch. “Tell me about Cody Karlstad.”
