by Mike Stewart
Thirty-eight
Kai-Li picked me up at the hospital in Daphne, but she did not share my bed that night. She understood that the gash Zybo had cut into my nose had been an unfortunate side effect of our plan to capture him. She understood that the mouse over my eye had resulted from being cornered by Judge Savin, Chuck, and Billy at the Mandrake Club. She even understood that I had no control over what had happened to Chuck and Billy later that night. Kai-Li said she really had understood these things. The shotgun pellets in my back, however, had been too much—the straw that broke the camel’s back. Her narrow Asian eyes had grown narrower. A white line had formed around her lips.
I pointed out that Judge Savin’s death meant we no longer had to worry about her daughter in Iowa. It meant that she, herself, no longer had to watch for frightening shadows in the night.
Kai-Li had tried to smile. Then she’d gone to sleep in the guest room.
By the next morning, the tension had melted a bit. But it would be Christmas in three days, and I expected now to spend it alone.
“I need to talk to Sheri Baneberry.”
Kai-Li nodded and probed scrambled eggs with her fork. “Time to tie up loose ends.”
“She’s my client.”
Kai-Li glanced up. “You know, Sheri has other problems besides her mother’s death. This is not judgmental. At least, I hope it’s not. But she really should speak to someone about her drinking.”
“Probably,” I said. “But not her attorney.”
Kai-Li ate some eggs and took a small sip of hot coffee.
Might as well ask. “Will you be here when I get back?”
She gave me a wan smile. “Of course. I’ve been thinking about catching a plane to Iowa, but …”
“Can you do that? I mean, will your … your ex-husband … is that okay with him?”
“No.” She pushed back from the table. “It’s not going to happen. I’m just thinking about it.”
I stood and cleared the table of dishes. As I raked leftovers into the disposal, Kai-Li pulled open the dishwasher and waited for me to hand her the plates and glasses. “This is over, Kai-Li. I’ll make it up to you.”
She turned and locked onto my eyes with hers. “Go see your client. I’ll be here when you get back.” She leaned over to close the dishwasher door, then looked up to smile. “Promise.”
Maritime Mutual Assurance occupied a somber brick rectangle only a dozen blocks from my office in the Oswyn Israel Building. I parked on the street. A uniformed guard buzzed me in through a glass-and-steel door.
“Tom McInnes. I’m here to see Sheri Baneberry.”
He scanned a computer printout on a clipboard. “Ms. Baneberry expecting you?”
“Yes. Well, probably not this minute. But she knows I wanted to meet.”
The guard nodded and picked up a phone on his desk. He couldn’t have cared less whether Ms. Baneberry was expecting me or not. He was asking what they’d told him to ask. “Ms. Baneberry. Jerry up front. Yeah. Got a fella here …”
“Tom McInnes.”
“A fella here named Tom McIntosh says you’re expecting him.” He nodded, said, “Yes ma’am,” and hung up. “She’ll be right down.” He pointed with one hand as he picked up a newspaper with the other. “Sit over there.”
I sat over there.
Eighteen minutes passed before the elevator dinged and Sheri Baneberry stepped out into the industrial-decor lobby. She looked ticked. She was wearing that pissed-off smile of hers.
“Tom. I thought I made it clear about meeting with you here.”
“We needed to meet. You didn’t call me back. I knew you’d be here.”
“Well, can this wait? Because …”
“No. It can’t. We need to talk.”
She sighed deeply and turned her back. “There’s an office down here nobody uses.” She walked away, and I followed her down a narrow hall to a plain particle-board door. When we were inside and Sheri had closed the cardboard behind us, she motioned at one of four metal chairs around a cheap table. “Have a seat.” I did. Sheri sat across from me, tucking her navy skirt tightly around her thighs as she perched on the plastic cushion. “Okay,” she said, “what is it?”
“Have you heard about Judge Savin?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean about the indictment. I’m talking about last night.”
“Yes, Tom. I know he’s dead. I know Dr. Adderson killed him, and I know you were in the middle of it somehow.”
I felt sorry for her, but I’d also had enough of this. “You put me there, Sheri.”
She flushed red, but her features softened a bit. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“What happened to Bobbi Mactans?”
She squinted at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, where is she? The last I heard, Bobbi had come to my house making threats when you were there, and Joey ran her off.”
“Oh. Well, Bobbi called me a couple of times after that. I, uh, didn’t get back with her. She’s fine. There was a message yesterday from her on my answering machine at home.” Sheri hesitated. “It was strange, though.”
I waited for Sheri to decide to tell me.
“Bobbi said she was going to take care of things last night, that everything would be like it was.”
My head pounded. My shoulder ached. “Sheri, the night Bobbi told you she was going to ‘take care of things’ is the same night Judge Savin tried to murder me.”
She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. She could have meant a thousand things …”
“She could have.” I shifted in the chair to see if a different position would help. “And I’m not accusing her. It’s just, the cops don’t know how Savin got to Doctor Adderson’s farmhouse. Somebody—they don’t know who—drove him there. And they think from footprints in the mud that an accomplice cut the power lines.” I fidgeted some more to find a comfortable place in the ache. “Obviously, that doesn’t mean it was Bobbi. I was just wondering …” Some time passed. “I’d still like to help you, Sheri. I told you from the first that I’m not a plaintiff’s lawyer, but even I know you’ve got the mother of all lawsuits against Russell and Wagler.”
Her eyes rounded above bright red cheeks. “But they’re out of business.”
“Yep. And every one of them is worth a few million bucks. You get in line first, and I think you could wind up with four or five times the money you could’ve ever gotten from Dr. Adderson. And,” I said, “unlike Laurel Adderson, these bastards have it coming. Let me set up a meeting with Sullivan Walker. By the time he’s done, you’ll own Russell and Wagler.”
Sheri looked at the floor. “I heard you helped get off that awful man who poisoned Mom. Is that true, Tom?” And there it was. She was hating me big time for that one.
“His name is Zion Thibbodeaux, and he gave your mom something in her dinner to give her food poisoning. I don’t know what happened at the hospital, but …”
She glanced up.
I took the opportunity to lean forward and hold her gaze. “I wish I’d been able to wrap up everything in a pink bow, Sheri. I had to make choices. The choice I made was to get Russell and Wagler, to get the people who hired Zybo to make your mother sick.”
“It wasn’t your choice to make.”
I nodded. “Maybe. And maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better, but I don’t think Zion Thibbodeaux ever intended to murder your mother.”
“Yes he did!” She was yelling. “Jonathan Cort saw him …”
“What?”
Sheri stood and reached for the door.
“Sit down.”
She ignored me.
“Sheri, you put me in this. I’ve been knifed, pistol-whipped, disbarred, and pumped full of bird shot. Now sit the hell down and talk to me!”
She sat. “They told us not to say anything. The law firm.” She chewed her nail. Her eyes made designs on the plastic woodgrain tabletop. “I guess it’s okay now. The lawyers were probably just protect
ing their own person who did their killing for them.”
“What did Cort see?”
“The night Mom died. Mr. Cort came by to take Dad to dinner and saw that Zion whazisname leaving Mom’s room.”
“And Wagler told you not to mention it to anyone?”
“Yes, well, he told me to keep quiet after Dad mentioned, you know, in front of me, what Mr. Cort had seen. I guess it was really more Mr. Cort telling me to keep it a secret than it was Bill Wagler. Mr. Cort threw a fit. He was mad at Dad for talking about it in front of me. Anyway both he and Wagler told me not to tell anyone what he’d seen. Wagler said it was their ace in the hole.”
I needed to think. Sheri said something and I held up a hand. Thoughts swirled in my birdshot-pelted skull. Somebody was lying—either Zybo or Cort—and I didn’t know which. I asked, “Have you been in on the discussions of your mother’s life insurance?”
“What?” Lines formed across her pale forehead. “Well, yes. I’m an actuary. Dad wanted me to look at everything.”
“What about the construction company? Did the partnership have life insurance on your mother?”
“How’d you know that?” She leaned back and studied my face. “I thought that was strange at first. But it’s not. I never knew that the company was started with some money Mom inherited from her grandfather. And Dad said she worked there getting it started right along with him and Mr. Cort. So she was a full partner.”
“How much insurance did they have on your mother?”
“Two-point-four million.”
My head spun from a collision of thoughts. I’d lost enough blood from the shotgun hit to wiggle things around some when I tried to concentrate. “And so what you were saying about your mother being a full partner—does that mean your parents had two-thirds of the business?”
“Until she died, yes.”
“What do you mean until she died?”
“The living partners get the partnership interest of any deceased partner in equal shares.”
“So your mother dies. The next day the partnership gets two-million-four-hundred-thousand dollars, and Cort goes from a one-third partner to owning a full half?”
“Well, yes. But …”
“And Cort’s the only witness that someone other than him killed your mother?”
Sheri stared off into a distance that wasn’t there. Tears pooled along her bottom lashes and ran down flushed cheeks. “That’s not it. That can’t be it, Tom. That can’t be it.” She sounded less sure with each word.
I stood, and the cheap metal chair banged sharply into the wall. “I’m going to set up a meeting between you and Sullivan Walker, Sheri. He’ll take care of you. He’ll do the lawsuit against Russell and Wagler right. Can I do that for you?”
She nodded.
“Good.” I said. “Now, where can I find Jonathan Cort?” She didn’t answer. “Sheri!” She startled. “I asked you where I can find Cort.”
“Oh, yes. He’s out on a job. The company’s been having problems with a condo project in Gulf Shores. He’s starting the work up again.” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she’d said.
“The insurance money?”
My young client leaned forward and cupped her eyes in both hands. She nodded her head. Her arms moved up and down. “Yes,” she said, “I guess that must be it.”
Thirty-nine
I was angry. I also was so beat up, cut up, and shot up that I was starting to walk funny. I stopped by Loutie Blue’s house and picked up Joey before leaving for Gulf Shores.
I drove for the first hour, until a ghost hunkered down behind me and proceeded to pound my head with his ghost mallet in a steady rhythm that seemed to echo my heartbeat. Pulling over at a quick mart, I found a bottle of Excedrin Migraine on the shelf and washed down a few with a cold Coke. Back outside, Joey was already in the driver’s seat. I thanked him, and he put the Safari in drive.
Just west of Gulf Shores, Joey spoke for the first time. “We gonna mess this guy up?”
“I couldn’t mess up a ten-year-old girl right now.”
Joey let some time pass. “Be glad to do it for you.”
I can’t say I didn’t give the suggestion serious consideration. In the end, I said, “No. I want to confront him. See what he says. What he does. But, if he tries to get tough—well, I’m too banged up already. So, if he starts something, I would very much appreciate your beating the living shit out of him.”
Joey nodded. “You got it.”
Minutes later, Joey pulled the Safari onto the Baneberry-Cort Construction work site, and I stepped out. Cort spotted me. He didn’t run, but he didn’t quite walk either as he beat a path for a red pickup truck. I was already out. I banged on the door to get Joey’s attention and pointed at the pickup.
Joey floored the gas pedal, sending a rooster tail of sand and gravel into the air. He charged Cort’s pickup and, maybe three yards before collision, slammed on brakes and slid with a loud bang into the pickup’s front grille.
Cort bounced back and forth inside the cab, shook his head, and dropped the transmission into reverse. Joey was ready. He floored the accelerator once again, knowing his forward gear would produce more acceleration than Cort’s reverse.
Nose to nose, Joey pushed the pickup across the construction site in a wavering line that filled the air with rock and dust and sand. The trucks smashed through stacks of plywood and insulation, over a trough of fresh cement, and across the sugar-white beach on the other side. Twenty feet from the high-tide mark, Joey locked up his brakes and shot Cort’s pickup out into the Gulf of Mexico.
I followed on foot, arriving on the beach in time to see Cort climbing through the driver’s side window of his truck and falling head-first into the Gulf. I looked over at Joey, and he shot me with his index finger.
Someone behind me yelled, “What the hell you doin’?”
I turned to see three construction workers running at me. The door on the Safari slammed, and Joey stepped between me and the laborers. He held a Colt .45 automatic at his side. All he said was, “Stop.” That’s what they did. He turned to me. “Go have your talk.”
I walked to the water’s edge. Jonathan Cort stood in the shallow surf, catching his breath. Waves slapped the backs of his knees. He looked up and took a step forward.
I said, “Don’t.”
“You can’t tell me what to do. I’m going to kick your …” His eyes wandered past me and spotted the gun in Joey’s hand. He stopped. “What is this?”
“We need to talk.”
“Fine. Let me come up there and …”
“No. You’re going to stand there. I got shot last night.”
Cort’s eyes seemed to acquire an added twinkle at the thought. “I heard.”
“So I’m not going to fight you. You’re going to keep your distance.” I walked down to where the water lapped the wet sand only inches from my shoes. “I just met with Sheri. She told me you saw Zion Thibbodeaux at the hospital the night Kate Baneberry died.”
“That’s right.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“I did. Told my lawyer.”
“You told a lawyer who was representing you and your partner in a civil action for money. Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“Attorney’s advice.” He glanced over my shoulder again at Joey. “So it’s none of your fucking business what I did.”
“I think what you did was kill Kate Baneberry for the insurance money. I also think you found out about Zion Thibbodeaux after Judge Savin and his minions at Russell and Wagler hung him out to dry. When you did, you planted the story with your lawyer about Zybo in case anyone ever got suspicious about how you killed her.”
The man actually smiled, and there was something like pride in it. “Yeah, well, that all sounds real good. But, tell me, how do you think I did something like that?”
“Probably a potassium push. Maybe a drug like Pavulon ahead of time to paralyze her so your partner’s pretty wife
wouldn’t put up a fuss about dying.”
Cort stopped smiling. He looked at the water, then leaned down and picked up something off the sandy bottom. After glancing at Joey, he held up a gray-green sand dollar between his thumb and index finger. “Guess I’m gonna have good luck.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
He smiled again and threw the sand dollar at me with a sidearm toss. It missed. Joey glanced back and then returned to his job of watching Cort’s men. “Boy, all you’re doing is telling bedtime stories. If this happened and if that happened. Shit, McInnes, last time I looked they didn’t convict people in this state on ifs and maybes and bullshit theories.”
I tried to bore into his conceited eyes. “But you killed her just the same, didn’t you?”
He smiled and shrugged. “What difference does it make? Nobody’ll ever prove it. Nobody’ll ever even believe it.”
“Sheri believes it. So do I.”
“Big fucking deal. So little Sheri hates me. I’ll learn to live with it. Hell, Sheri’s old man already thinks she’s gone off the deep end.” The man smiled. It was almost friendly. “No, no. Even saying for argument’s sake that I killed Kate Baneberry,” he shook his head, “nobody will ever prove it.” The bastard actually winked at me. “Face it, McInnes. Whoever did the job, it was a clean kill.”
Acid burned inside my gut. The afternoon sky moved and blurred behind Cort’s head. The soft, repetitive sloshing of the Gulf at my feet grew loud and grating. I needed to get out of there. I needed not to murder this piece of shit in front of three witnesses.
“Joey!”
“Yeah.”
“Time to go.”
“Yeah.”
I turned and walked to the Safari, where I stepped inside and shut the passenger door. As I moved, I could feel Cort walking behind me, coming up out of the water.
I never looked back.