Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

Dumone cleared his throat uncomfortably and began reading from a yellow legal pad. The oath was a brief encapsulation of the points they’d already covered in their conversation two days ago in Rayner’s library. Tim repeated each point after Dumone, ending with the kill clause, then sat and pulled his chair in to the table. “Let’s get to work.”

With a shudder the paper shredder devoured Dumone’s sheet of paper. Dumone pulled his hands back from the feeder, a humorously chary motion. “Hungry little bastard.”

Rayner removed the creepy portrait of his son from the wall, revealing a Gardall safe with an electronic keypad on a circular dial and an inset baffle near the top that allowed items to be deposited when the door was locked.

Blocking the others’ view with his body, Rayner punched in the code and tugged the steel handle. He stepped aside, revealing a weighty stack of black three-ring binders within.

A charge moved through Tim, quickening his heart.

One of the binders was Kindell’s. One potentially held the key to the accomplice. A name. The secret of Ginny’s fate.

Rayner gestured to the open safe. “These are the relevant case binders I’ve compiled, the cases of the past five years that have generated the hottest debate in legal circles. I’m culling more for our next phase, but for now we’ll focus on these seven. Feel free to jot notes as we review the cases”-he nodded to the paper shredders by the door-“but no documents are to leave this room. Each binder is magnesium-lined, so in the event the authorities come, I can drop a lit match through the safe’s baffle and we’re evidence free. The safe has a three-hundred-fifty-degree, one-hour fire label, so it’ll contain the blaze until it’s burned itself out. If anyone tries to hacksaw his way in, the handle shears off.”

Ananberg said, “Now, before we start, I want to explain the process-”

Robert inhaled deeply, a half-joking show of exasperation. “The procedure hound howls again.”

Ananberg turned to address Tim. “Before you joined, Franklin and I moved that we come up with a procedure-nothing rigid, but a floor plan for our meetings. By acclamation we agreed I’d work out a rough idea of how we’re going to comprehensively review each case. In place of arraignment, we’ll first discuss what crime the defendant is alleged to have committed. Rayner and Dumone will lead the discussion. Since we already have to give up any pretense of being unbiased from the media, we’ll talk through the case in broad strokes and lay out major arguments. If it looks like a guilty vote is a reasonable possibility, we’ll return and move systematically through the files. Since William has managed to obtain files from both the DA and the PD, we have access to everything from discovery, whether it was eventually ruled admissible or not.”

Tim tore his eyes from the bottom binder in the safe, focusing on Ananberg’s words.

“We’ll move through the police investigation, then to the interview reports with investigators from both the DA’s and PD’s offices so we’ll be familiar with all angles both sides were considering in forming their respective arguments. From there we hit the forensic reports, then we assess evidence that came out in trial, including eyewitness testimonies. Everyone reviews every document before we vote-doesn’t matter how long it takes. Since I’m the procedure hound, as Robert so ingeniously dubbed me, I’ll be in charge of researching case precedent, which we’ll use as a touchstone.”

“Thank you, Jenna.” Rayner nodded once, slowly, with the proud air of a father at his daughter’s piano recital. He removed the top binder from the safe and sat, resting a spread hand on the cover. “We’ll start with Thomas Black Bear.”

“The gardener who slaughtered the family up in the Hollywood Hills last year?” Tim asked.

“Allegedly, Mr. Rackley.” Ananberg tapped a pencil against the arm of her glasses.

“Get off his dick, Jenna,” Robert said. Sitting beside Tim, he smelled faintly of bourbon and cigarettes. His face was more textured than his brother’s, a trellis of wrinkles supporting his eyes. The nails of his left-hand thumb and forefinger were yellowed from nicotine, the knuckles stained.

“What’s the evidence?” Tim asked.

The crime-scene diagram and evidence reports went around the table. An eyewitness had placed Black Bear, an immense Sioux, at the house earlier that morning, overseeing the removal of a dead sycamore from the front yard. Black Bear had no alibi for the two-hour span during which the crimes had been committed. He said he’d been home watching TV, a dubious claim given the detectives’ discovery that his set was broken. Motive was hazy; nothing had been stolen from the house, and the victims hadn’t been assaulted in a fashion suggesting a sexual predator or thrill killer. The parents and the two children-eleven and thirteen years old-had been murdered with gunshot wounds to the head, execution style.

After intensive questioning, Black Bear had signed a confession.

“Reads to me like some kind of drug hit,” Robert said, flipping through the file. “The father’s Colombian.”

“Because all Colombians are drug lords,” Ananberg said.

“Black Bear’s got a colorful rap sheet, but no drug or assault charges,” Dumone said. “Mostly small-time. Stolen cars, B and E, public drunkenness.”

“Public drunkenness?” Robert kept an eye on Ananberg. “Damn Injuns.”

The forensic report at his elbow, the Stork jotted a few notes, then stopped and worked a cramp out of his hand. A pill appeared magically in his palm, and he popped it without water and kept writing.

“How’d he get off?” Tim asked.

“The prosecution’s whole case rode on the confession,” Rayner said. “It was thrown out after it was determined that Black Bear was illiterate and spoke little English.”

Dumone added, “They sweated him in the interrogation room for nearly three hours, and he finally signed. The defense argued he didn’t understand what he was doing, that he was worn down and just wanted to get out.”

“Wonder if they turned the heat up,” Robert said. “In the room. We used to do that. Get ’em cooking at around eighty-five degrees.”

“Or the coffee,” Mitchell said. “Gallons of coffee and no bathroom breaks.”

The Stork placed his plump hands flat on the table. “Nothing conclusive in the forensics.”

Ananberg asked, “No prints, no DNA?”

“No blood was found on his person or property. A few prints were picked up around the exterior of the house, but that doesn’t mean much, since he was their gardener.” The Stork’s hand darted to the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses back into place. “No fibers, no footprints in the house.”

“He did disappear after the trial,” Mitchell said. “That hardly bespeaks innocence.”

“Hardly establishes guilt either,” Ananberg said.

Tim flipped through the pictures of the family members. The shot of the mother-a candid-had caught her standing in a garden, bent at the waist, laughing. Attractive, well-defined features, layered hair thrown back in a ponytail, bare feet in the grass. Her husband had probably taken the shot-the woman’s expression and the camera’s attitude toward her made it clear that the photographer had adored her.

Tim slid the picture down the table to Robert and waited for his reaction, anticipating he’d comment about her looks. But when Robert raised the photo from the table, his face eased into an expression of sorrow and tenderness so genuine that Tim felt a stab of guilt for estimating him so cheaply. The photo trembled slightly in Robert’s grasp, blocking his face, and when it lowered, his eyes were edged with a cold resentment.