Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

“What are you doing?”

“Hello, ma’am. I’m a friend of Mick’s. I was just dropping by to-”

“Mickey doesn’t have any friends.” She crouched, one varicosed leg protruding from the slit of her bathrobe, half covered in a thick compression stocking.

“Let me get that for you.”

She snatched the canister back from him as if recovering stolen goods. “The police came by and hauled him off. He didn’t do anything. Not before, not this time. He’s a good boy. It almost broke his heart, the last time. That business with the kids, all meshugaas. The way he was treated, it was beyond belief. He loves children, that one. Loves them. He’s a good boy.”

“How long ago did the police come?”

“You just missed them.”

He tempered his relief, weighing the possibility that Robert and Mitchell had impersonated police officers to kidnap Dobbins. “And they had uniforms?”

“Of course. Two cars full of them, the cops-flashing lights, the whole to-do. Blocking up the driveway. I was fit to be tied. Fit to be tied.”

Nosy Old Woman-the investigator’s best friend.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’m going to see if I can’t help out our Mickey.”

“Someone should be so good as to look out for him.” She placed a mottled hand on her plush bathrobe, in Pledge of Allegiance position. “Besides me.”

Tim headed back to his car, formulating his next step. With Black Bear, Bowrick, and Dobbins temporarily accounted for, Tim had just one more target to cover. Rhythm Jones, he remembered from the case review, didn’t have a current address. To find him before the Mastersons, he’d need access to the same clues they had. Rayner had been paranoid about confining and limiting Commission materials, but he was also a master strategist. Tim would have bet he kept copies of the case binders stashed away somewhere-another of his nifty insurance policies.

The question was, where?

•Dumone rustled in his hospital bed and looked up at Tim. Though the lights were off and the curtains drawn, Tim could see that his eyes were sunken, deeply shadowed, his skin sallow. Dumone had difficulty raising his head. “What’s wrong?” His voice was barely discernible.

Tim shut the door behind him, crossed, and sat bedside. Chest leads bumped out the fabric of Dumone’s gown, and multiple wires snaked from his sleeve. The continuous monitor cast a gentle green glow across his pillow’s edge. Moved by a sudden impulse, Tim took his limp left hand.

“Don’t do that,” Dumone said.

Tim let go, feeling a flush of embarrassment, but Dumone reached across with his right hand, grasped Tim’s wrist, and held it in an approximation of warmth. “Can’t feel anything in that hand.”

“You’ve had a setback.”

“Another stroke last night,” Dumone slurred. “I just rolled in from the ICU and boy are my wheels tired.” He tried to pull himself to a more upright position but couldn’t, and he shook his head when Tim moved to help. “Give it to me. The bad news. You look worse than I probably do.”

“Robert and Mitchell have gone off the deep end. They killed Rayner and Ananberg, stole the case binders.”

Dumone exhaled deeply, his body settling into the sheets. “Mary mother of Jesus.” He closed his eyes. “Details.”

Tim brought him up to speed in a low voice devoid of emotion. Dumone kept his eyes closed throughout. At one point Tim caught himself watching for the rise of his chest to make sure he was still breathing.

He finished, and they sat together a few moments, the occasional blip of the monitor the only thing breaking the silence. When Dumone opened his eyes, they were moist. “Rob and Mitch,” he said gently. “Christ, boys.” He squeezed Tim’s wrist, squeezed it hard. “You know you’ll have to stop them.”

“Yes.”

“Even if it means you use deadly force.”

“Yes.” Tim took a deep breath, held it until he felt the burn. “Did Rayner ever tell you who Kindell’s accomplice was?”

“No. Not a word.” Dumone’s upper lip trembled on one side. “He couldn’t give you that before he died, the manipulative bastard.”

“The Stork lied about when he installed the digital transmitter in my watch. Do you know when they started listening in on me?”

“I didn’t oversee all surveillance-we each took different candidates. We’d been at it, the search, for the better part of a year, so we couldn’t all keep track of everyone. You started out on Rayner’s list. Rob and Mitch handled the fieldwork, as usual, with the Stork thrown in if they needed gadgets. So I don’t know. I got involved once Rayner got serious about you, right around your daughter’s funeral. What’s up?”

An image came to Tim-standing out on Rayner’s back patio with Ananberg, watching Rayner whispering to Mitchell in the kitchen. “Maybe they were involved.”

“Involved in Virginia’s death?” Dumone shook his head, jowls swaying. “I don’t care how far out of their tree they are, they wouldn’t murder a little girl. They’re not sexual predators, not sickos. Zealots, maybe. Vicious, yes. More than I guessed. But they hate-and I mean hate-scum like Kindell. What would they have to gain by murdering Ginny?”

“I don’t know. Another high-profile Commission execution down the line.”

“Come on, Tim. It’s not like they could have anticipated how Kindell’s trial would go. In all likelihood he’d have been locked up. And they wouldn’t help kill a girl just so they could kill a patsy for killing her. It makes no sense. And you know damn well that however fucked up they might be-Rob and Mitch and Rayner-they wouldn’t do that. Plus, there’s no way Ananberg would stand for it.”

Ananberg certainly wouldn’t have. But she-like the Stork-might not have been in on the plan.

“Why wouldn’t Rayner have just told me who the accomplice was, then?” Tim asked. “He’s covering something up, something that would damage his reputation.”

“Rayner’s always been an information tyrant-how he gets it, how he guards it, how he leaks it-that’s his power reservoir. What makes you think he’d relinquish control of that, even in death? He’s a megalomaniac. There’s still his reputation to guard, his cause to go down in the annals. If you abide the kill clause, then Rob and Mitch get written off as a couple of loose cannons who acted on their own, and he goes down as the compassionate professor who did his damnedest to influence public policy and protect victims.”

Tim remembered Robert’s mortification about the dead woman in Debuffier’s freezer, Rayner’s queasiness when graphic crime-scene photos circled the table, the hurt vehemence with which Mitchell had discussed Ginny’s death at Monument Hill, and he knew that Dumone’s instinct was correct. They wouldn’t have participated with Kindell in Ginny’s murder or molestation.

“You’re right. But Rayner knew what happened to Ginny that night-he wasn’t bluffing. And since the twins shredded Kindell’s folder, the secret may have died with him.”

Dumone’s hand tightened around Tim’s wrist, as if in anticipation of what Tim was about to ask.

“I’m dead-ended here, on all fronts,” Tim said. “With Ginny. With Robert and Mitchell. If I’m gonna stop them, I need to know if Rayner kept copies of the case binders anywhere.”

Dumone’s breathing grew shallow and raspy. If Tim pursued the Mastersons and sought protection for the targets as they both knew he must, both Tim and Dumone would be implicated, prosecuted, probably imprisoned. Dumone’s telling Tim the location of the case binders would essentially be turning over hard evidence on himself.

Dumone gripped the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, pressing the baggy flesh around his eyes. “He kept one extra set at his office. Go get them. Blow this thing open. Stop Rob and Mitch however you can. Find out who else killed your daughter. I have no more answers for you. I have nothing.” He removed his hand and studied Tim through reddened eyes. “If there’s one thing I regret in this life, it’s dragging you into this thing, son. I hope someday you’ll find clear to forgive me.”