Neil McMahon - Dead Silver

I walked back outside to Gary, who'd stayed in the car to make calls.

"They're losing Jessup; he's passing in and out," he said. "I'm going over to St. Pete's. You want to come?"

"Seeing that evil prick is the last thing in the world I want."

"That ain't really a question, Hugh. You'll feel better in the long run, I guarantee."

The authority in his tone brought me around to something I'd never thought about-whether Gary had ever shot anyone. It was a good bet that in thirty years of Montana law enforcement, he'd been where I was now.

I exhaled tautly, and nodded.

He put the car in gear, flicked on the lightbar, and we started off. I'd never ridden in the front seat of a police cruiser, or for that matter, without cuffs on, before tonight. But there was still no feel of being in a passenger car. Like the construction trucks I was used to, ambulances, and other such rigs, this was a vehicle used for serious business, with the seriousness underscored by the shotgun in its rack.

"This should make you feel better," Gary said. "I talked to Renee. She said she tried calling your place and couldn't get through; must have been while the line was cut. Anyway, she's coming back tomorrow."

I let out my breath again, this time with relief.

"It does, a lot," I said. "Thanks."

Gary was an expert at getting where he wanted to go fast, barreling past traffic that scrambled to get out of the way, and barely slowing for red lights. St. Peter's was clear across town, but we pulled up at the entrance within five minutes.

Personally, I hadn't been in all that much of a hurry.

The sights and smells inside the building were almost alarmingly familiar. I realized that I'd had more dealings with hospitals in the past few weeks than in the past twenty years put together. I felt a lot the same about the medical profession as the police-while I appreciated them hugely, I tried like hell not to make contact.

A charge nurse led us to the ICU, where a pair of city cops stood outside a room and personnel in scrubs hurried in and out. The cops greeted Gary respectfully and gave me curt nods. They didn't seem to know that I was the shooter, or if they did, to care.

We stepped into the room. Jessup looked like a creature being cloned in a sci-fi movie, lying on his back in a reclining chair with a network of tubes attaching him to IVs, oxygen, and blinking, bleeping monitors. He'd have been hard to recognize, anyway, with his beard shaved and his glasses gone. His eyes were closed and his face was bloodless. It was hard to imagine him as the big, hearty-and murderous-man that he had been.

Maybe that helped me stay numb.

I stayed where I was while Gary talked to an ER doc. I could hear enough of what they said to glean that Jessup had extensive internal damage, and his belly was full of blood. Trying to operate would have been futile. He was in his last minutes and probably wouldn't regain consciousness.

But then I glanced at him and saw that his eyes were open. His gaze was fixed on me and focused, and I got the chilling certainty that he recognized me.

"Need-to tell you-something," he got out in a hoarse, painfully slow whisper.

I stepped forward like I was approaching a coiled cobra.

"Just did what I had to," he rasped. "Not personal."

He raised his right hand a few inches, extending it toward me as if imploring me to grasp it and render him absolution-a final con.

"It was personal to us," I said.

The hand dropped back to his lap and his eyes closed again. I turned away and walked out of the room.

Gary followed me and laid a fatherly hand on my shoulder.

"Pretty cold, Hugh," he said. "But right on the money."

I found out later that Jessup died within the next few minutes.

The next day started with good news-the tomcat was going to pull through. The veterinary surgeon had taken out a slug lodged between his heart and lung, and he'd stabilized during the night. The downside was that the shot had damaged his left foreleg so badly it had to be amputated below the shoulder. But the vet assured me that three-legged cats tended to get along fine, and pretty soon he'd never even miss it.

Then came a couple of hours around my place with a team of law enforcement personnel, giving them a statement and showing them what had happened where during my run-in with Jessup last night. I was given to understand that for a noncop to shoot a fleeing man was not regarded favorably, but the fact that he'd just murdered his wife and then took a couple of shots at me would smooth the path.

In the process, we checked Renee's Subaru and found that Jessup had done the same thing as with the phone line: cut a chunk out of the negative battery cable-covering bases with his usual thorough caution. It was an easy fix, another wire splice that would serve to get it to town.

When the cops were done with me, I drove the Subaru to a parts store and replaced the cable, then dropped it off at Renee's house for her to use when she got home. Madbird met me there and loaned me a Datsun pickup that he used for hauling brush and such. It was small and beat-up, but four-wheel drive and king cab, so I had plenty of leg room-fine for running around for the time being.

My own truck was a question mark. It still ran fine-the gunshots hadn't impaired anything mechanical and a body shop could take care of the external damage. I could get aftermarket interior door panels and seat cushions from a GMC reconstruction outfit, and do that part myself. And it was long overdue for a thorough cleaning, anyway.

The issue was whether I'd feel Lon Jessup's presence clinging to it. I decided that if I did and that was too disturbing, I'd have to try to find another pre-planned obsolescence rig, but saving the old one was worth a try.

By the time all that scurrying around was done, it was two o'clock in the afternoon. I still hadn't had a chance to talk to Renee, but I'd checked in with Gary Varna a couple of times, and he'd told me her flight was due in around three-thirty. He wanted to pick her up at the airport and talk with her, so I wouldn't be seeing her until four-thirty or five.

I suddenly found myself alone and with nothing to do. If it weren't for Renee, I probably would have headed for a bar.

Instead, I drove back to her house, let myself in, and started walking around-for the first time, taking a careful look at the remodel work that was needed. The way things had changed, maybe she'd decide to take the time for that before she sold the place.

And I wanted to keep my mind off the man I'd killed, although it was inescapable.

Jessup hadn't made any kind of confession before passing on, but now the police had his fingerprints and some other information from tracking his business dealings. They had identified him with fair certainty as one Raymond Tice, wanted in Florida for a fifteen-year-old string of crimes that included murdering two women there.

I'd only gotten a thumbnail account from Gary, but apparently Tice was a backwoods Southern boy who already possessed a large measure of natural cunning, who'd joined the military and acquired the kind of training he could readily turn to a criminal career-special operations and intelligence. After getting out, he'd quickly graduated from low-level drug dealing and scams to more sophisticated swindling, eventually setting himself up as a financial adviser who preyed on Miami's large population of wealthy, lonely widows.

His name became known to the police, but nothing stuck until one of his suspicious victims hired a private investigator and discovered that he was spending her money on a glossy lifestyle, complete with a stripper girlfriend.

It sounded bleakly familiar, and so did the follow-up. The woman pressed charges that would have sent Tice to prison. He got out on bail and vanished-but both the older woman and the stripper were found dead.