* * * * *
“Direct hit,” Bouchard said matter of factly, looking down on the area with a high-powered set of binoculars.
“His head’s turned to mush,” Hennessey confirmed.
“Viper move. Subject’s down,” Bouchard ordered into the radio. “Switch it when he gets to the skyway,” he said to Hagen.
Bouchard needn’t have bothered with the order. Viper saw the hole in the back of Knapp’s head. Quickly down on a knee, out of sight from the outside, he pulled the rifle apart and put it into the case. He was on the move in ten seconds, a black blur, moving between the vans, across the parking lot, towards the stairway.
Through the stairway door, he was quickly down one flight of steps to the skyway level. He pulled at the Velcro collar on his coat and it opened into a sport coat, with an open-collared white button-down-collar shirt. The stocking cap was off, replaced by a hounds-tooth driving cap. A fake beard concealed his face, along with a pair of stylish tinted glasses. While walking towards the skyway, he flipped his case over, so the outside looked like canvas. An empty Starbucks cup fished out of the case finished off the ensemble. As he walked out to the skyway, and into surveillance camera view, he blended in and looked like any one of a thousand people walking downtown over the noon hour.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The van pulled up to the curb in front of the Vincent Ramp, and Mac, Lich, and Patrick piled out. It had taken them fifteen minutes to get back downtown from Knapp’s place in Hudson. Their fears had been put to rest on the way in, when it was confirmed that other than Knapp, nobody else had been hit. Rock and Riles were okay, which was what they were most concerned about. Riles had gone back to the station to get cleaned up from Knapp’s blood.
The three of them moved up the steps to the third level where they found Rock and two other detectives in the southeast corner of the ramp, looking back towards the courthouse. Rock saw them coming and walked over.
“Christ, what a mess.”
“What the hell happened?” Lich asked.
“We think a sniper hit Knapp from the corner area over there.”
“Why here?” Mac said, not seeing anything indicating otherwise.
“Somebody claims they saw a muzzle flash from up here.”
“Anybody hear the shot?” Lich asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Rock replied. “Probably had some sort of silencer.” Rock wiped his shaved head with his hand. “I gotta tell ya, we’re out of the car, walking Knapp in, and next thing I know he’s slumped down and Riles is coated in blood.”
Mac walked over to the corner between two mini-vans and looked out over the street towards the courthouse. It was a shot of maybe a hundred yards. The spot provided a good field of fire towards the front of the courthouse. If a person were going to take a shot, this was a pretty good place. Nonetheless, it took pretty good aim and a steady hand to make the shot, Mac thought.
Lich walked up behind him. “We got ourselves another Lee Harvey Oswald?”
“We got someone who was a pretty good shot,” Mac replied.
“Don’t look that far to me,” Lich said.
“Rock, how many shots?” Mac asked.
“Only one I think.” Rock replied.
“One shot from here, not bad,” Mac said. “Probably a scope, with a silencer, a pro job?”
“Who knows? Hell, you can get a scope and silencer for a hunting rifle,” Rock replied.
“Any of the victims of this guy… they got family members maybe who hunt or are good with a rifle?” Mac asked.
Rock shrugged, “Don’t know.”
“How long before you guys were up here?”
Rock grimaced. “Probably three or four minutes at best. It was pretty chaotic. The person who saw the muzzle flash didn’t get to us for a minute or two. Then we ran over, but whoever did it was long gone by then.”
“Where to? Where do you go from here?” Lich asked.
“There’s a stairway to the skyway, there’s another stairway down to the street. They might have jumped into a car in the ramp and left. Hell, they could have taken the elevator down, although I doubt it. We’re pulling the surveillance cameras. We’ll see what we find,” Rock replied.
“No rest for the weary,” Lich replied. “I thought we were going to get some days off.”
“We are,” Rock answered. “Chief’s already got a whole group down here looking at it. He says we’re off it. We’ve done enough. If they need to know anything about the families, they’ll ask us, but otherwise we’re done. We finish up some loose ends tomorrow, then we all get the rest of the week off.”
“Fine by me,” Lich said.
“Let’s go check on Riles,” Rock said.
Mac took one last look out over the street and to the front of the courthouse. A large blood spot marked where Knapp went down. Police tape marked the area off, and the crime scene guys were collecting what little evidence there was. He shook his head. Something didn’t seem right.
Viper pulled up to the front of the boss’s house, parked his car and walked up to the front door. The housekeeper opened the door, took his coat and escorted him to the dining room. The boss was sitting at the table, reading some papers, sipping a glass of wine.
“What would you like?” the boss asked, holding up his wine glass.
“One of those would be fine.” Viper sat down while the boss poured him a wine. He waited for the staff to leave.
“How’re we doing?”
“Good so far,” Viper replied. “I was six blocks away before the police even made it up to the ramp. I was out of downtown within ten minutes. We look clean.” Viper sipped his wine, a lovely red. “Did the police get anything out of Knapp before-”
“-his untimely demise?” the boss finished. “No. He immediately asked for a lawyer. That was that.”
“So, we should be good then,” Viper stated. “Although I have Kraft and a few others keeping an eye on things from my end, just to be sure.”
“Good. I’ll be doing the same,” the boss added. “Now we need to get back to looking for the Cross documents.”
“Yes, sir. Now that this is over, we’ll refocus our efforts in that direction.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Knapp’s assassination didn’t dampen anybody’s mood. The bastard killed seven women. If someone took his head off, well, that shouldn’t have happened, but nobody was going to lose sleep over it. It saved the public some money was a common view held in the Pub. Two months of built-up pressure and steam were being blown off big time. Every cab in St. Paul would be parked outside at closing time, Shamus would see to that. When Mac walked in, someone shouted out his name. Another yelled, “Hey look, it’s Ronnie Lott.” The room erupted. On his way to the bar, Mac received high fives, pats on the back and even a couple of kisses on the cheek, which he hoped were from women. When he got to the bar, Uncle Shamus was there with a warm handshake and a cold Guinness.
Mac made the rounds, shaking hands, trading smiles and exchanging wisecracks. He finally found Riley, Lich and Rock holding court at the end of the bar. Even Dot was there, her first appearance with Dick. What a way to start, Mac thought. There was already a stack of empties developing around the group. It would only get bigger. If only I owned Tylenol stock, Mac thought, envisioning the bottles of it that would be consumed tomorrow.
“Mac, my boy,” Riles said enthusiastically, acting as if he hadn’t seen him in five years, giving him a big bear hug. Riles appeared no worse for the wear from the day’s activities. If anything, having not been shot earlier made him all the more ebullient. Or perhaps it was the alcohol, of which Riles had already had plenty. Others gathered around to hear Riley tell the story about the take down on Knapp. Riles had it down pat now, probably having told it twenty times already, adding great drama, timing, if not a little embellishment to it. He stood in the middle of thirty people, his arms waving, his voice getting louder, funnier than hell.