Edwards did some serious figuring that night. Afterward, getting to sleep had taken two jolts of bourbon, an hour more of lying awake, then more bourbon. But he had a decision of sorts: he’d voice no speculation till the autopsy report was in. He’d simply tell the press that the unknown gunman had apparently fired from the stadium roof. They’d speculate like crazy, but he could live with that.
* * *
Two days earlier, Luther had told friends, including his supervisor, two other guards, one of the boarders and Signe, that he’d had a phone call from a friend in Oakland. There was a job for him there if he wanted it, with the Port Authority. A job less agreeable, but paying somewhat more.
After the shooting, he completed his shift, then drove home to his aunt’s. Before going to bed, he packed most of his things in his large, scuffed leatherette suitcase. When he did go to bed, he slept like a baby.
As usual he slept till nine, then went to the kitchen and rustled up his own breakfast. Signe had almost nothing to say to him—avoided looking at him, as if she wondered. That shook him. Driving to Seafirst, he went to Security wearing civvies, and turned in his uniform. It seemed to him they looked at him speculatively. He said he’d send an address when he had one, so they could mail his final paycheck. After that he sat around in the coffee room for a few minutes, joking with a couple of guys.
Afterward he drove back to Signe’s. To his relief, she was out on errands.
After stowing his suitcase and sleeping bag in his trunk, he drove east, not south or west. That afternoon he located an old buddy in Lolo, Montana. After supper they drove into the Bitterroot Mountains, where Lute picked his careful way up a primitive road, his friend following in a pickup. At the edge of a rugged wooded canyon, he stopped and removed his license plates. Then the two men pushed the car over the edge, watching and listening to it bounce and smash its way almost to the bottom. Someone would find it eventually, of course—some hunter or forester—but by then . . .
Next his buddy drove him to Missoula, where he bought a bus ticket to Salt Lake—for cover. He buried the ticket in a pocket, and his friend drove him all the way to Great Falls, where he jumped a freight train.
Ever since he’d left the crawl space, he’d known it was time to get honest—as honest as possible without turning himself in. He’d find a job of whatever sort, hope his past didn’t catch up with him, and start a new life.
Two days later he was in Duluth, where he got an under-the-table job in a scrap iron yard. No formal employment, no papers, no questions. Just show up for work, do his job, and be paid in cash. It would take quite awhile to accumulate money for new counterfeit papers.
Meanwhile he had no further interest in Ngunda Aran, and didn’t wonder about it.
* * *
He’d acted none too soon. The evening after the shooting, Spokanites heard on the six o’clock news that the unknown gunman had apparently fired from the stadium roof, behind the third base line. And that police snipers there denied having fired, or seeing anyone else fire.
An electrician heard the newscast. It was he who’d wired the new press box, when the ball club went triple-A, and remembering the crawl space, phoned the sheriff’s office. By eight o’clock, the rifle and rangefinder were in the sheriff’s evidence room. Then stadium security reported Karlson’s fortuitous departure. No prints were found, but questioning Signe brought out that Karlson’s real name was Koskela. That he was an ex-Ranger and mercenary, who obviously carried false ID. He became the lead suspect.
Meanwhile an Interpol check of the dead man’s fingerprints uncovered his actual identity as an ex-IRA terrorist. This shifted the investigation to the FBI, and the sheriff’s office was glad to be rid of it. The FBI, in turn, theorized that someone with an old grudge against Corkery had caught up with him: someone Irish or English.