down the stairs in response to the gunshots. Jackson headed over to intercept her. No point her seeing any of this. Through the noise Franklin became aware that Cooper was saying something else. He leaned down lower, his ear so close he could feel the snatched breaths.
‘Thank you …’ Cooper whispered, ‘for … helping me … leave.’ The last word came out as a long sigh that ended in a rattle he had heard too many times before. It was over. Cooper was dead.
Behind him he could hear voices now, Jackson low and calm, Miss Boerman angry and hysterical. He could hear more footsteps too as the other two uniforms also responded to the gunfire.
Too late. Nothing to see.
He moved across to where Cooper’s gun was lying on the stone floor, holstering his own and slipping a pair of Nitrile gloves over his hands. He picked up the discarded weapon and instantly knew from the weight and balance of it that it was empty. He checked to make sure – no magazine in the clip, no bullet in the chamber – and realized what Cooper had meant with his dying words. He wouldn’t have been able to face his Lord if he had taken his own life. Suicide was a mortal sin. So he had got Franklin to do it for him.
Suicide by cop.
83
Shepherd was standing on the porch of Douglas’s observatory watching the FBI tech team trample all over the local cops when his phone buzzed in his pocket.
‘Cooper is dead,’ Franklin said the moment he answered.
‘Jesus.’
‘He pulled a gun so I had to put him down. He was involved in the hit on Douglas, no question. I’ve got an intercepted phone call of him discussing it and I’m currently standing in his studio looking at some particularly nasty phone images of the professor taken post-mortem. They were being edited into a video package that was no doubt going to be the cornerstone of the late Reverend’s next sermon: God’s retribution on the blasphemers, behold his mighty wrath – you can imagine.
‘Bad news is these same pictures are already on the internet, leaked anonymously, and now popping up on all the nuttier religious conspiracy sites presumably so they could hide the source of them for their news piece. We’ll take them down as fast as we can but they’re starting to get picked up by some of the news outlets and spread around on Twitter. We can’t keep this genie in the bottle, which means we have to find Kinderman fast before he really goes to ground or Cooper’s angels of death get to him.’
‘I could use the email I found on Douglas’s laptop, tell Kinderman what’s happened here and offer the hand of friendship and protection.’
‘The tech guys arrive there yet?’
‘Yeah, they’re currently making friends with the local folk.’
‘I bet. They’re not going to like you walking all over “their” crime scene but a man’s life is at stake here. Use the laptop and wear gloves. If they complain about it in their report I’ll say I ordered you to do it.’
‘OK. I’ll let you know if he bites. You want me to head back to Charleston after I’m done here?’
There was a silence on the line and somewhere in the background Shepherd could hear Cooper’s voice still ranting away. ‘You still there?’
‘Yeah, I’m here,’ Franklin sounded distracted. ‘You should get some rest then drive to Charlotte, it’s nearer than here. I’ll warn them you’re coming.’
‘What about you?’
‘Call me if you get anything from Kinderman.’ The phone clicked before Shepherd could respond and the line went dead.
By insisting that he needed to use Douglas’s laptop Shepherd succeeded in annoying both the FBI tech guys and the local PD. He ignored their looks and whispers as they worked together to photograph and remove Douglas’s body from the wall while he crouched over the keyboard, figuring at least he’d done his bit to get them co-operating with each other. They were united now in thinking he was an asshole.
He opened Kinderman’s last message using pens to tap the keys, hit Reply and then paused. He would only have one shot at this. Get it wrong and Kinderman would shut down the email account and vanish again. His eyes flicked to the countdown, getting smaller all the time.
He could try and draw him out by pretending he was Douglas but he didn’t know enough about their shared history to do it convincingly. Also, according to Franklin, the pictures of Douglas’s murder