Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30) - John Sandford Page 0,67

itself,” Jackson Wheatley said.

The cops arrived three minutes later, and after a brief seminar on domestic violence, Lucas, Bob, and Rae went on their way.

“And another useless few hours dribble into history,” Rae said, as they got in the Tahoe.

“She looked so dignified when she opened the door,” Bob marveled.

“But they had a gun,” Lucas said. “Like everybody else.”

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Dunn was at work with his crew before the sun poked over the horizon on Monday, hustled all morning, pushed the crew through lunch, and quit at one o’clock, a full day’s work done. By three he was at his cabin and by five o’clock had satisfied himself that one of Stokes’s rifles, a Colt LE6920 in .223 with a variable power scope, would do the job.

The smaller rifle was more comfortable to shoot than his .308, with a much crisper trigger, and also had a snap-down bipod as a shooting support. Altogether, he was significantly more accurate with it. By the end of the shooting session, he was keeping all of his shots on the twelve-by-eighteen-inch paper, many grouping around the bull. He kept in mind that he didn’t actually have to kill the kid, he only had to hit him or come close.

Stokes’s second rifle, also a .223, had a more radical, skeletonized look, but didn’t have a scope, and Dunn didn’t want to learn how to mount one, or take the time to do it.

When he finished with the shooting, he sat in the cabin and cleaned the rifle, scrubbing out the bore, putting a light coat of lubricant on the mechanical parts, then wiping those down. As he worked, he continually flashed on the plan, and on his place in history, even if that place, with good luck, turned out to be anonymous.

Probably wouldn’t be admired. He would be shooting a kid. The effect, though, would be critical: the planners of 1919 would change history, dragging the nation away from catastrophe . . .

Maybe, he thought, he could leave a will that disclosed his part in the program. Or a letter locked in a safe, so that his name would be known.

* * *

—

THAT NIGHT, LATE, he drove to the cemetery overlooking the Stillwater School, parked a half block away. He snuck down the narrow road at the bottom of the cemetery slope, climbed the slope when he thought he was about halfway down the length of the graveyard. At the crest of the slope, he sat and listened, then walked as quietly as he could through the weeds to the old tool shed. He found the loose supporting brick, pulled it free, and pushed the rifle through the hole. He listened again, heard only a distant rumble of cars, and slid the block back in place.

He sat and listened for a few minutes more, heard not much but the usual trucks and airplanes, and then snuck back out to his car. He picked up a dog walker in his headlights, three or four blocks away from the cemetery. Not a problem. The man paid no attention to Dunn and his truck, but it made him think: dog walkers. People also walked dogs in the morning. He’d seen them on his way to work. The old cemetery would be a nice spot to take a dog . . .

The next morning, before going to work, he cruised the cemetery, saw no dog walkers. The school’s schedule, available online, showed classes beginning at 8:30, with a fifth-grade recess at ten o’clock. Lunch was at 12:30, with a fifth-grade gym class at two o’clock. Watching from the top of the hill, but well away from the cemetery, he found a hefty percentage of the arriving kids didn’t go directly into the school, but walked around to the playing areas and hung out there until a preliminary bell rang at 8:25.

Would Thomas McGovern be one of them? He had no idea. He’d prefer to shoot early, a time with heavier traffic to get lost in; and decided that checking the pre-bell time slot would be worthwhile.

* * *

—

HE SPENT A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, getting his guts up and playing and replaying in his mind the shot he might be making the next morning. He was out of bed at six, as the sun was coming up, dressed himself in field pants and a tan barn coat. He got a Canon digital camera and his camera bag out of a cupboard, put a 35mm lens on the camera, tucked two zoom lenses in