“Go now!” O’Rourke shouted.
Before his men could react, the door opened.
Bob Oz stood in the doorway peering into the sunlight. He was holding something that looked like an ID card above his head. Kay slipped the mirror back into her jacket pocket and steppedout from behind the vehicle. Heard the whirring sound of cameras from down the street—the media had been thronging outside the police tape ever since she arrived on the scene. Bob walked away from the doorway and the black-clad figures swarmed in behind him.
Kay walked toward Bob. It struck her that he looked very tired. And very lonely. Without thinking about it she found herself putting her arms around him.
With her chin resting on his shoulder, she saw one of the black-clad men reemerge and gesture with his hand. Right hand, fingers drawn across the throat: Mike Lunde was dead. The odd thing was that the signal was given not to O’Rourke but to Springer.
“Can you tell them what they need to know?” whispered Bob.
“Me?” said Kay. “Where are you going?”
“Let’s see if I can give you an answer to that some other day.”
Bob Oz carefully extricated himself from her embrace and crossed the street to where Walker stood waiting.
Kay headed to the store doorway. Pushed it open and went in. The SWAT team was obviously now going through the other rooms on the premises, because the body was still in the chair. The shot had entered under the chin. The top of the head was gone, like a breakfast egg. But the face was intact. And it was a face she recognized. Lunde had not escaped from the Rialto. This was the man she had spoken to inside the theater, the man who told her he had bought an invisibility dress for his daughter’s birthday. He’d looked like a nice man. And sounded so honest. So maybe it was true, maybe he had bought something for his dead daughter. But wedged down in that bag from the toy store he must also have had his own cloak of invisibility: Tomás Gomez’s face, his hands and his clothes. And in that same instant it occurred to Kay that he hadn’t escaped via the air-conditioning duct at Track Plaza after all, he hadn’t risked breaking his leg on any jump. When they later studied the footage from the security cameras, she knewthey would see the man in front of her emerge calmly from the restroom and walk straight past them all.
She looked at Mike Lunde again. Because he resembled someone, didn’t he? Or no, not exactly resembled. But shared something with somebody. With Bob Oz. And now she saw what it was. Even in death, the taxidermist looked lonely.
54
Hero, October 2016
Bob crossed the street from Town Taxidermy and walked toward the SWAT car where Walker stood. His face and posture gave nothing away, but Bob took the warmth in his voice as recognition.
“Good work, Oz.”
Bob pressed his ID card into Walker’s hand and kept walking. Passing the police car he retrieved his mustard-yellow cashmere coat, then ducked under the police tape and slipped away through the spectators. Fortunately, no one seemed to realize he had just played a central role in the drama they had witnessed. Then came a loud, authoritative female voice:
“Bob Oz!”
He looked up and recognized the face of the TV reporter from the sports bar. The same guy holding the camera on his shoulder behind her. A red lamp blinked above the lens and Bob assumedit meant they were on air and live. They backed away in front of him and slowed down, but he didn’t stop.
“Can you describe how you felt in the middle of all this drama?” The reporter posed the question with exaggerated body language and a bright red, ingratiating smile as she pushed the microphone into his face.
“Yes, I can,” said Bob, and her smile grew even wider. “But not to you.” He looked straight into the camera. “Viewers, change the channel to WCCO and you’ll hear my whole story. You’ll also get better news there. You’ll even get better weather.”
As he walked on in the direction of his Volvo Bob registered the crestfallen look on the reporter’s face.
A young man with a shoulder bag appeared beside him.
“From theStar Tribune.That was some answer you just gave!” He laughed and sounded as though he meant it. “But are you sure you wouldn’t rather talk to a real newspaper than WCCO?”
“I was kidding,” said Bob. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. Okay?”
“I understand,” said the young man. But kept trotting alongside Bob. “Right now you just want to be left in peace. But once things have quieted down, maybe we can talk then. Here’s my card.”
Bob stopped by the Volvo, picked up the parking ticket wedged under the wipers, took the card in order to get rid of the guy and stuffed both into his coat pocket.
“You’ll get column inches with us,” said the young man.
“What would I want column inches for?”
The guy shrugged. “To say what you think about this. About Lunde. About his project.”
“His project?”
