Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

“Don’t be sorry.” He reached out and stroked her hair, but shedidn’t respond. He put on his clothes quietly, unsure whether she perceived his dressing as an insult or as his move to gather his pride; he’d intended neither.

“I guess I just need some space.”

“Maybe I should go back to…?” He pointed down the hall, then retreated slowly across the room. He paused for a moment at the door, but she didn’t stop him.

•Tim slept lurchingly through a tangle of nightmares and awoke in a sweaty haze a mere hour later, his intake of dream images somehow affirming his suspicion that Ginny had died at the hands of two killers-one still an enigma.

He couldn’t trust the detectives’ competence. He didn’t agree with the DA’s take on the case. He couldn’t use the service. He couldn’t investigate the case himself.

He was desperate.

Desperate enough to look for help in the one place he swore he never would.

He glanced at the clock-11:37 P.M.

He jotted Dray a note in case she woke up, left the house quietly, and drove swiftly to Pasadena. He headed through the clean suburban neighborhood, his heartbeat and anxiety increasing with his proximity. He parked at the end of an aggregate concrete walk, the stones perfectly smoothed as they were on Tim’s porch. The windows sparkled-not a single smudge. The lawn was dead level and precisely trimmed, the sides lined to perfection by an edger or maybe even shears.

Tim headed up the walk and stood for a moment, taking note of the coat of paint on the front door, untainted by even one brush mark. He rang the bell and waited.

The footsteps approached evenly, as if timed.

His father opened the door.

“Timmy.”

“Dad.”

His father stood, as always, wedged between the door and the jamb, as if protecting the house from a Bible salesman’s assault. His gray suit was cheap but well pressed, the knot of his tie seated high and hard against his throat despite the hour. “How are you holding up? Haven’t talked to you since the news.”

The news. An engagement. A business deal. A daughter’s death.

“May I come in?”

His father inhaled deeply and held his breath for a moment, indicating the inconvenience. Finally, he stepped back and let the door swing open. “Would you mind taking off your shoes?”

Tim sat on the couch in the living room, facing the La-Z-Boy upon which he knew his father would eventually settle. His father stood over him for a moment, arms crossed. “Drink?”

“Water would be good.”

His father leaned over, plucked a coaster off the coffee table, and handed it to him before disappearing into the kitchen.

Tim looked around the familiar room, unchanged since his childhood. A scattering of picture frames covered the mantel, displaying the sun-faded stock photographs that had come with them. A woman at the beach. Three babies in a kiddie pool. A generic couple having a picnic. Tim was unsure if the frames had ever housed personal photos. He tried to remember if a picture of his mother, who’d wisely left them when he was three, had ever been on display in the house. He could not.

Ginny was the last of the Rackleys, the end of the lineage.

His father returned, gave Tim the glass, and offered his hand. They shook.

Easing into the La-Z-Boy, his father shoved the wood lever on the side and leaned back, the footrest kicking up beneath his legs. Tim realized he hadn’t seen his father since Ginny’s fourth birthday. His father had aged, not drastically but significantly-a faint net of wrinkles beneath each eye, a slight pucker cupping the points of his mouth, coarse white hairs threaded in his eyebrows. It distressed Tim. Another stark glance at death’s encroachment-slow this time, but equally unrelenting.

It struck him that when he was little, he hadn’t understood death. Or he’d understood it better. It had seduced him. He’d played war, he’d played cops and robbers, he’d played cowboys and Indians, but he’d played no game in which death had not been a participant. When his first Ranger buddies had died, he’d worn his uniform and sunglasses to the funerals and observed stoically, dark and tough. And he hadn’t been mourning for his friends, not really, because they’d just beaten him to it. First one to get a license, first one to get laid, first one to get killed. But with falling in love, losing a daughter, that had all changed. Death wasn’t seductive anymore. When Ginny died, he’d felt a part of himself break off and spiral down a void. The damage had lessened him. And left him more exposed to dread.

He found he had less and less stomach for death.

To steel himself he reached for the reliable joist of aggression. “You been shooting straight?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

“No fraudulent checks, no running fake credit-card numbers?”

“Not a one. It has been four years now. My parole officer is quite proud, even if my son is not.” His father tilted his head for emphasis, then let his smile drop.

He leaned forward, the footrest sucking into the cheap fabric and disappearing. Crossing his legs, he laced his hands across his knee. He’d always exhibited an elegance that far outpaced the people and objects with which he surrounded himself. It was hard to square his well-filed nails with a life patched together from second-rate cons.

What he said next surprised Tim more than anything he’d ever said.

“I miss Virginia.”

Tim took a sip of water, more to stall for time than anything else. “You never saw her much.”

His father nodded, again with his head slightly tilted, as if he were listening to distant music. “I know. But I miss the idea of her.”

Tim found himself gazing at the photographs on the mantel. “She wasn’t just an idea.”

“I didn’t say she was.”

It took some effort for Tim to get the words out. “I need help.”

“Don’t we all.” His father uncrossed his legs and leaned back, his hands gripping the armrest, like Lincoln at the monument. “Money?”

“No. Information.”

His father gave a grave nod, that of a judge who’d seen it all before.

“I was wondering if you could put the word out about Ginny’s death. To your guys. You know people in all walks-maybe someone’s heard something.”

His father stood, removing a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket. He wiped the condensation from Tim’s glass, wiped the coaster, replaced them on the coffee table, and sat back down. Tim wondered if his own impeccable neatness was an attempt to satisfy some deep-buried urge to please his father or simply a learned need to hold in order those matters in which order could be held. The house conveyed not a loving custodianship but the rigidity of the not deeply secure. His father had built it plank by plank, or so he’d always claimed.

“It was my understanding from the newspapers that there’s a clear suspect. This Kindell.”

“He is. But I have a feeling there’s more to the story.”

“It sounds like you’re being a bit emotional.” He regarded Tim, waiting for a response. When it became clear he wasn’t going to get one, he said, “Why don’t you dig around? You have confidential informants, colleagues. You deal with people on the wrong side of the tracks, I’d imagine. Aside from your father, I mean.”

“I’m reluctant to put myself too close to the case, given my clear bias. And I can’t use the service for a personal cause.”

“Ah. The superego speaks.” His father pursed his lips; he had a pronounced Cupid’s bow, a more handsome face than Tim’s. “So you’ll put me on the line, call in my contacts but not your own.”

“I’m compromised here, for obvious reasons. I thought if you came across something hard, a strong lead, we could turn it over to the authorities.”