“Tomás Gomez shot and killed a man just a few hours ago.”
“Oh no.” Mike Lunde’s face twisted into a grimace, as though the information caused him physical pain.
“It’s on the news,” said Bob.
“I’ve been working nonstop on the Lab since I closed the store—it has to be ready by Saturday. Have you caught him?”
“No,” said Bob. “We think he’s on foot, so we’re looking for him here in downtown. I’d like to come in, in case he tries to hide out here.”
“I doubt whether you’re on the job, Detective Oz.”
“You do?”
“You’re drunk.”
Bob opened his mouth, expecting some plausible explanation of his predicament to emerge. But it didn’t. He shrugged.
Mike Lunde sighed. “How about a cup of coffee?”
30
Death Penalty, October 2016
“So now he’s officially a killer,” Mike Lunde said with an unhappy shake of the head.
They were sitting in the smaller of the two workshops as Bob sipped at the strong black coffee that Mike told him he needed.
“Yeah,” said Bob. He’d hung his clothes up to dry and was wearing sweatpants and a sweater borrowed from Mike. “One attempted murder, now an actual murder. Victim is a family man who as far as we know never hurt a fly. Gomez can count himself lucky we’re on this side of the state border.”
“Because of the death sentence, you mean?” Mike stood working his scalpel around the eyes of the Labrador retriever up on his workbench.
“Yeah.” Bob leaned back in his chair. He was already beginning to sober up. And not feeling too bad either. “Where do you stand on that? Do you think we should be executing people too?”
Mike paused his cutting and peered up into the air. “It’s a difficult one. I’m against capital punishment because I believe that as a society we should be taking a lead in the whole civilization project, and that means not taking human life. And as I read somewhere, the long view suggests that fewer murders are being committed here. And that applies also to other states that don’t have the death penalty, I think?”
“True enough. But?”
“Well, that man they executed four or five years back…”
“Donald Moeller.”
“That’s right. He raped and killed a nine-year-old girl, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. She went to the store to buy sugar. They were going to make lemonade. After he raped her, he cut her throat.”
Bob saw that pained expression cross the taxidermist’s face again.
“Sorry, Mike, maybe you have kids yourself.”
“That’s okay. Actually that’s the point. If it had been my child, how would I have felt then about capital punishment?”
“Like Tomás Gomez,” said Bob.
Mike gave him a puzzled look.
“Cody Karlstad, the man who was shot this evening, was a passionate supporter of the right to bear arms. The way the NRA sees it, they’re fighting for a principle of freedom. In their view, that trumps the knowledge that these weapons take more innocent lives than they save. In a court of law that would be called being an accessory to murder.”
“So you believe…”
