Chapter 105
From his cottage, Santopietro heard a vehicle enter the lot.
The paddock gates were kept closed at night, but rarely locked.
The fence was low enough that locking the gates made little difference, but Santopietro always kept in mind a fire or medical emergency.
He didn’t want the police or EMT to be delayed, but he also didn’t want them breaking his gates by driving through them, because they were nice gates.
Santopietro looked out the window to watch the BMW park at the edge of the lot, beside the cars belonging to Santopietro and Renders.
It was not Renders’s scheduled night, but Santopietro had asked him to switch with Ishan Lal, one of the part-timers.
The BMW’s driver-side door opened and the interior light went on.
Edward Kenney emerged, pausing to take in the two vehicles.
Santopietro saw no lights in the student dormitories.
It was possible that some of the boys might have been woken by the sound of the car, but they were teenagers, and Santopietro was convinced that most teenagers could have slept through the Second Coming, waking next morning to discover a stranger with a beard entreating them to behave better.
Even if one of them did hear the car, they’d be reluctant to get out of bed to investigate, never mind leave the dorm on a miserable, stormy night.
Despite the rain, Kenney took a moment to stretch after the drive, then began walking toward the cottage. Santopietro left the office and went to the front door to greet him. Kenney kept his hands rammed in his jacket pockets.
“Edward,” said Santopietro. “You picked a bad night for it.”
“In so many ways,” said Kenney.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The Game is over—for all of us. There are feds at my home.”
Kenney’s neighbor, Joel Legere, had called him on the road to say that federal agents were crawling all over Kenney’s property.
Either Legere had spotted that Kenney’s BMW wasn’t in the driveway or had seen him leave, but regardless, Legere had never come across a conspiracy theory he didn’t believe and regarded all institutions of the federal government as either untrustworthy or actively corrupt.
He was a crackpot, but Kenney had always gotten along okay with him, because he was a crackpot who liked gardening.
His latest good deed for Edward Kenney was to inform him that the latter’s worst fears had come to pass.
“Do they know you’re up here?” asked Santopietro.
At first, it struck Kenney as a stupid question.
If the FBI knew that, they wouldn’t be at his house right now.
But he quickly saw that it wasn’t so stupid after all.
Here was the Saint, still weighing up his chances of survival.
The FBI might have tracked down Edward Kenney, which meant they’d soon identify Roger Teal as well, if they hadn’t already.
But if Teal was dead, and Kenney could be silenced, there’d be no one left to incriminate Santopietro. The Game could go on.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Kenney wouldn’t allow it, if for no other reason than, damn it, he just didn’t like Santopietro. He supposed he never had. His right hand emerged from its pocket holding a gun.
“Game over,” said Kenney.
He raised the gun as lightning flashed. The glare illuminated a figure standing to Kenney’s left, concealed before now by a sugar maple.
Kenney did the worst thing possible, which was to hesitate, and Renders shot him—once, twice, then a third time, the shots indistinguishable from the roll of thunder that accompanied them, Renders advancing with each pull of the trigger so that he was close enough by the last to see a hole appear in Kenney’s face, as if someone had dabbed the bridge of his nose with dark paint.
Kenney fell to the ground and did not move again.
Santopietro left the shelter of the cottage to join Renders. Together they stared down at the body.
“We’ll put him in his car,” said Santopietro, “and you can drive—”
Renders heard a sound that was harsher and nearer than any thunder.
Santopietro reached behind his back as if to scratch an itch before pitching forward.
Renders reached out to catch him and saw Roger Teal nearby, holding a gun in a two-handed grip, his legs splayed like Angie Dickinson at the opening of Police Woman.
Teal fired a second time and Santopietro bucked with the impact, though by then he was already dead.
Renders didn’t drop the body or try to run.
Instead, he rushed at Teal, Santopietro’s corpse held before him like a shield, and knocked the smaller man off his feet.
Teal went down, the gun falling from his hand, and Renders dropped Santopietro’s body on top of him.
Teal scrambled on the wet ground for the lost gun as Renders leveled the barrel of his pistol at Teal’s head and pulled the trigger.
Teal’s right eye turned to a dark unseeing star as a corona of red erupted from the back of his skull.
Renders lowered his gun. Another flash of lightning came, illuminating the two bodies, and still there was no movement from the dormitories.
Renders had blood on his hands and blood on his raincoat, but the rain was already washing it away.
The adrenaline was wearing off as he checked his body for wounds, but Teal’s bullets didn’t appear to have passed through Santopietro’s body.
Renders picked up Teal’s gun and examined it: a Smith & Wesson Equalizer, a home-defense weapon, probably loaded with frangible rounds to limit collateral damage.
That was fortunate, and being so, a man ought to ride that luck.
A disaster might yet be avoided, so Renders began dragging Teal’s body toward the parking lot.