Joel Goldman - Motion to Kill

He stumbled a few yards away while the aftershocks rocked his belly, and his head slowly stopped spinning. Kelly appeared at his side and pushed a towel into his clammy hand. He was surprised at the softness of her skin when their hands brushed against each other.

“Listen, I’m sorry. There just isn’t an easy way to do this. Is it Sullivan?”

The metamorphosis from “him” to “it” suddenly seemed natural. “Yeah, probably-don’t know. You better ask his wife.”

He was fresh out of smart-ass. Dead bodies, Mason realized, are hell on humor.

“We tried to reach her in Kansas City. No one answered.”

“That’s because she’s here-at the lake. They have a place in Kinchelow Hollow near Shangri-La. We’re having brunch over there at eleven this morning.”

Kelly turned back toward the coroner. “Doc, we’ll meet you at Listrom’s Mortuary in an hour. Tell Malcolm to hold the body for identification. Counselor, you come with me to see Mrs. Sullivan.”

Kelly aimed him toward the boat with a slight shove. He didn’t need the help, but he got the point.

The path from Sullivan’s private dock to the deck on the back of his house followed a switchback route up a slope landscaped with descending terraces set off by railroad ties and planted with a multihued variety of annuals and perennials. If Matisse had been from the Ozarks instead of France, he’d have painted Sullivan’s backyard instead of all those gardens.

Kelly and Mason climbed the path while Pamela Sullivan watched them ascend toward her from the protective shade of a moss green canopy suspended over the deck. Mason had met her only once in the last three months. She was cordial but disinterested, a well-cared-for woman accustomed to the role of professional wife.

Mason wanted to protect her from the news that Kelly carried, even though there was no avoiding it. Protecting people when they were in trouble. That’s what the law is for, his aunt Claire had taught him. She was his father’s sister and the first lawyer, liberal, and hell-raiser in his family.

She wielded the law like a club for her clients, who were usually poor, disadvantaged, or just outnumbered. “There, that one,” she would tell him when he was a child and she read the paper to him about the day’s injustices. Then she’d be off on another mission.

She raised him after his parents were killed in a car wreck when Mason was only three. She tried talking him out of going to law school, telling him that he wasn’t cut out for the only kind of law worth practicing. Her kind. He’d gone anyway, suspecting that she was right. He enjoyed the battle but didn’t care enough about the war she never stopped fighting. When he graduated, he joined a small firm that specialized in representing injured people.

“It’s the kind of practice where I can do good and do well at the same time,” he told her.

“Go sell your slogans to someone else,” she said.

Mason thought of Claire as the sun rose at their backs. She called Kelly the intrusive arm of the law-investigating, accusing, and punishing. She taught him that it’s the lawyer’s duty to shield the individual from that power. That duty drew her to the law. He understood the duty, but it had never held the allure for him that it had for Claire. Still, as they reached Pamela, he could hear Claire’s voice telling him, “There, that one.”

Pamela had the look of a handsome woman who did not miss the untarnished beauty of her youth. She carried herself with the confident assurance of someone who understood that age brings its own luster.

This morning, a lavender sweatband held back her chin-length chestnut hair. Her face was lightly made up, but not enough to cover the glow from a just-finished morning run. A trace of sweat darkened the scoop neckline of the yellow T-shirt that hung over her matching shorts. She stood with her hands on her hips, her full chest rising and falling with still settling breath, giving them a quizzical look as they topped the stairs.

“Oh my, excuse me. It’s Lou, isn’t it?” she asked him with sudden recognition.

“Yes, Pamela. I’m one of your husband’s partners. We met a couple of months ago.”

“Of course. Please excuse me. I wasn’t expecting you or the police,” she added, turning toward Kelly and extending her hand. “I’m Pamela Sullivan. But I expect you know that or you wouldn’t be here. What can I do for you, Officer?”

Kelly shook her hand quickly and firmly. “Mrs. Sullivan, I’m Sheriff Kelly Holt. Would you mind if we spoke inside?”

“My, this is starting to sound quite official.” Kelly didn’t reply and Pamela’s refined control showed the first sign of fraying as she held her arms folded across her chest. “Yes, it is a bit cool this morning, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t close to being cool, but Mason understood Pamela’s sudden chill. There was no possible explanation for their visit that could include good news. As if she sensed their purpose, Pamela led them through a sliding door, taking her time to delay the inevitable a few seconds longer.

They followed Pamela through a sliding glass door and into the den. She eased herself onto a sofa, her careful movement underscoring the fragility of the moment. Uncertain of his status, Mason stood near the sliding door. Kelly sat on the edge of a chair next to Pamela.

“I’m sorry to intrude on you, Mrs. Sullivan,” Kelly began in a soothing voice that quickly gave way to a crisp matter-of-factness. “A man’s body was found this morning in a cove not far from here. A wallet was also found with your husband’s driver’s license and credit cards. The man generally matches your husband’s physical description. Mr. Mason thinks it may be your husband.”

Pamela held fast as her jaw tightened and her eyes widened at the implications. She shook her head in response to the inevitable question of whether she knew where her husband was. Kelly’s request that she identify the body left Pamela mute and renewed Mason’s protective instincts.

“Sheriff, I’ll bring Mrs. Sullivan, but I would think my identification is sufficient.”

Kelly acknowledged his offer without taking her eyes from Pamela. “You’re welcome to come along, Counselor, but identification has to be made by next of kin if possible.” Her soothing tone was reserved for the newly widowed. He was entitled only to her official voice. “You can bring Mrs. Sullivan in her car.”

“I’m not a native, Sheriff. I’ll need directions.”

“I’m certain of that,” she replied. “Take County Road F to Lake Road 5-47 and pick up Highway 5 south. Go across Hurricane Deck Bridge and take the highway all the way to Starlight. Listrom’s Mortuary is on the square. I’ve got to return the boat, and I’ll meet you there.”

Doc Eddy greeted Mason and Pamela at the mortuary. He introduced Malcolm Listrom as the finest mortician in Pope County, able to restore the departed to grandeur they had never achieved while among the living. He was so effusive in his praise of Malcolm’s gift that Mason decided the coroner was in for a cut.

Malcolm basked in Eddy’s praise while emitting appropriate solicitous sounds of sympathy for the bereaved. When Mason told him that the deceased was just passing through and would be buried in Kansas City, he became a waiter trying to turn his table. Kelly arrived a few minutes later and Malcolm led them to the room where he prepared bodies for burial.

Malcolm plied his magic in a ceramic-tiled, circular operating room dominated by two large surgical tables in the center. Glass-covered cabinets filled with unfamiliar solutions and tools lined the walls. The air was heavy with disinfectant that made their eyes water. Sullivan lay on one of the tables covered in an off-white sheath and adorned with a vanilla toe tag marked John Doe .