The Kill Clause

by Gregg Hurwitz

  Tim waited until the garage door creaked down, whoomping closed against the concrete, then eased up to the pair of windows. Inside, Kindell was curled into the fetal position on the couch, huddled inside the unfurled sleeping bag. His eyes were closed, and he breathed deeply and evenly, his head rocking slightly on the bunched pillow. His shivering had calmed.

  Kindell would never help in identifying his accomplice—this had been made perfectly clear to Dray. If the answers were to be found anywhere, they were in the papers stuffed in Rayner’s safe.

  Kindell had torn apart Ginny’s precious body and now was sleeping contentedly, the truths about her last wretched hours hidden safely inside his skull like personal, horrid keepsakes. Her pleas, the panic smell of her sweat, her last scream. The other face she’d seen beside Kindell’s, grinning through wet lips, lascivious in the eyes, not yet anticipating that the turn of events would move from depraved to deadly.

  Acid washed through Tim’s stomach, seething and curdling.

  Numbly, mechanically, Tim set his stance, placed both hands on the pistol, and sighted just above Kindell’s ear. His finger slid on the metal and hooked inside the guard, coming to rest against the trigger. He felt the pre-shoot calm descend over him, a precise unmotion. He stood for a moment, watching the delicate rise and fall of Kindell’s head through the alignment of the sights.

  He floated away, seeing himself from above in his mind’s eye. A figure hidden in darkness, gun aimed through a greasy window. Through a confused and solitary childhood, Tim had clung to a desperate belief that there was something that shone in the human spirit that elevated it above meat and bone. With frantic hope and blind knowing, he’d fought his father’s code year after strenuous year, and yet here he stood, seized in the grasp of his own want and rage, bent on satiating his own needs at any cost. His father’s son.

  He lowered the gun and walked away.

  Replacing the pistol in the back of his waistband, he sat on the weedy concrete of the charred foundation, facing the freestanding garage. The tremendous responsibility the Commission, a by-all-accounts-illegitimate body of justices, had elected to shoulder struck Tim anew. To deem who was society’s scourge, to condemn justly, to be the voice of the people—these were responsibilities that could not be taken too seriously. And they demanded an impeccability of character, for the law was not to be meted out but acted; it was not a promise but a code.

  He vowed to uphold that code even when the last binder moved from Rayner’s safe to the table, even as he picked through paperwork detailing the dismemberment of his daughter. If he didn’t honor it, he was no better than Robert or Mitchell or his father, selling fraudulent burial plots to lonely widows.

  Something rustled to his right in the weeds, and his pistol was drawn and aimed as quickly as he turned his head. Dray’s form resolved from the dark, clad in black jeans, a black sweatshirt, and a denim jacket. She approached, unbothered by the gun, and sat beside him. Another ghost, another watcher in the night. Sliding her hands into the pouch pocket of her sweatshirt, she flicked her head toward his gun, then the garage. “Second thoughts?”

  “Every minute.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah.” She propped her elbows on her knees, pressed her hands together, and rested her chin on the ledge of her thumbs. She seemed to remember something and quickly put her left hand back in her pocket. The collar of her jean jacket was up; she looked like Debbie Gibson with an attitude problem. “Saw your handiwork on the news. You’re creating quite a buzz.”

  “We aim to please.”

  “Funny, I never would have thought street justice was your style.”

  “It isn’t. But my old style was found wanting. At least to some people.”

  “How’s the new one fit?”

  “A little tight in the shoulders, but I’m hoping I’ll adjust.”

  “You tailor the suit to the man, not vice versa.”

  He reached over and patted her down casually with one hand. She wasn’t hiding a weapon beneath her bulky sweatshirt. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just keeping an eye on things. I like to have the creep under my thumb.”

  The dim flashlight bobbed inside the garage, then a fierce rattling broke the silence.

  “What the hell’s going on in there?” Tim said.

  “I rerouted his mail to a drop box. I got his credit-card numbers, his telephone, gas, and power account numbers, then I canceled everything. It’s petty and small, but it makes me feel better.”

  Tim extended a fist to her, which Dray matched. They knocked knuckles, a modified high five they used only on the range or the softball diamond. Dray leaned into him slightly, touching at the hip, the elbow. He pressed his lips to the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her hair. They sat for a bit in silence.

  “You get anything new on the case?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve pretty much run out the leads. I wanted to see if you’d gotten your hands on that case binder.”

  “No, it’ll be a while, unfortunately.”

  “We’ll have to wait, I guess.” Her face crinkled. “It’s wrecking me. The waiting. Bracing to find out something even more awful, or maybe to not find out anything at all.”

  They stared at Kindell’s shack for a few moments. Tim bit his lip. “I hear Mac’s been hanging out at the house.”

  The gap opened up again between their hips. Her mouth tensed. “The house was empty and haunted.”

  “You trying to hurt me, Dray?”

  “Is it working?”

  “Yes. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Believe it or not, everything I’m going through isn’t about you. Mac is staying on the couch because I’m scared of the dark right now, like a little girl. I know, pathetic, but you’re certainly not around to help me with the problem.”

  “Mac has a thing for you, Dray. Always has.”

  “Well, I don’t have a thing for Mac. He’s staying as a friend. No more.” She reached over and took Tim’s hand, keeping her left hand wedged in her pocket.

  A sudden dread gut-checked him. “Take your hand out of your pocket, Dray.”

  Unwillingly, she withdrew her hand. Her ring finger was bare. A deep-lit pain took hold in Tim’s chest and spread out and out, brushfire-fast. He turned away, looking at the house of the man who had consumed his daughter, but Kindell had quieted within and could provide no distraction.

  Dray’s lips quivered ever so slightly, the pre-quake warnings of anger, of self-loathing, of sorrow—a triple cocktail with which Tim had recently grown familiar. Her face, gloomy and frozen in a halfcringe, matched nothing he’d ever known of her. She knuckle-scratched the top of her nose, a gesture she made when distressed or deeply sad. “I feel like you don’t want me anymore, Timothy.”

  “That’s not true.” His voice rose a bit with the inflection, but it was just him and Dray and a deaf man at thirty yards.

  “It’s too hard for me to wear it right now. I’ve looked at that ring every day of our marriage, first thing when I wake up, and it always made me grateful.” Dray seemed small and vulnerable sitting in the darkness, her arms hooked across her knees the way Ginny used to hold hers when she watched TV. “Right now it just reminds me of your absence.”

  He plucked up a weed by its roots and tossed it. Its mud-caked cluster of roots hit the foundation a few feet away with a satisfying splat. “I have to see this through. The Commission. Get my hands on that case binder. I can’t do that if I’m living at home, in plain sight. It puts me at too much risk. It puts you at too much risk. I need to protect Ginny at least in her death, so the men who did this…” When he raised his hand to wipe his nose, he saw it was trembling, so he lowered it into his lap and squeezed it, squeezed it hard.

  “Timothy.” Her tone approached pleading, though for what, he did not know. She started to reach for him but withdrew her hand.

  It took another minute or so before he could trust his voice again. “I’m sorry,” he said
. “I haven’t said her name in a while.”

  “It’s okay to cry, you know.”

  Tim bobbed his head a few times, an intimation of a nod. “Right.”

  Dray stood up, dusted off her hands. “I don’t want to not see you right now,” she said. “I don’t want to not have you in my life. But I understand why you have to do this for you, for us. I guess we just wait and hold on and hope what we are is strong enough.”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her hand, her bare finger. The hole that had opened up in his chest continued to dilate, claiming his lungs, his voice.

  Something fluttered nearby, settled, and began to chirp.

  Dray turned and started the long walk back to the road.

  •Halfway home, Tim pulled over and sat, hands on the wheel, breathing hard. Though it was February-cold, he had the AC on high. He thought of his waiting apartment, its barrenness and bleak functionality, and realized how ill equipped eight years of marriage had left him for being alone. He pulled Ananberg’s address out of his pocket and studied the edge-ripped slip of paper.

  Her apartment building in Westwood was security-intensive— controlled access, double-locked glass front door, security cam in the brief stretch of tile that passed for a lobby. Turning from the camera, Tim ran a finger down the directory beside the call box outside and was not surprised to see the numbers listed by last name, not apartment number. He punched the button and waited as the metal speaker harshly projected a buzz.

  Ananberg clicked on, sounding wide awake though it was nearly four in the morning. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Tim. Tim Rackley.”

  “First and last name. How wonderfully unassuming. I’m in 303.”

  A loud buzzing issued from the heavy glass door, which Tim yanked open. He took the elevator up. The third-floor carpet was clean but slightly worn. When he knocked lightly on Ananberg’s door, he heard soft footsteps, then the sounds of two locks and a chain being undone. The door swung open. Ananberg wore a thigh-length Georgetown T-shirt. One hand held a thick-necked Rhodesian Ridgeback at bay by the collar, the other gripped a little Ruger, the muzzle of which she was using to scratch her leg.

  “You should check the peephole. Even if you just buzzed someone up.”

  “I did.”

  He knew she was lying, as he hadn’t seen the darkness of her eye through the lens. The dog moved forward and nuzzled his nose moistly into Tim’s cupped hand.

  “Impressive. Boston usually hates people.”

  “Boston?”

  “I inherited him from an ex-boyfriend. Harvard asshole.”

  She turned and headed back into the oversize studio. Past the kitchenette, diminutive dining table, and TV-facing couch, two bureaus cordoned off the sleeping area, which was no more than a full-size bed wedged beneath the room’s single large window. She snapped her fingers, and Boston trotted to a fluffy disk of a dog bed and lay down. The pistol she slid into the right bureau’s top drawer.

  She stepped closer to the bed, leaving them a few steps’ space. They eyed each other across a frayed throw rug. Crossing her arms, she lifted her T-shirt off over her head. Her body, thin and wonderfully shaped, was unexploited by weights or vigorous training. Modest, firm breasts rose above the in-curve of her stomach. Her gaze held the sapient matter-of-factness of examining nurses and prostitutes. It was frank and distressingly genuine, a sad, doleful ritual in a sad, doleful apartment.

  Tim’s eyes strayed uncomfortably to the single place mat on the dining table, the T-shirt puddled by the box of Kleenex on the floor. He understood more concretely that she’d been touched by death and loss, as had they all.

  “I’m afraid you misunderstood me. I can’t…” His hand described an arc of some sort but failed to extract better words. “I’m married.”

  “Then why are you here, Rackley?” She pulled a cigarette out of a pack on her nightstand and lit it.

  “I need a favor.”

  “I offered to give it to you, or hadn’t you noticed?” She winked at him, and he returned her smile. She stubbed out her just-lit cigarette in a candle on the bureau, fell back on the bed, and pulled a blanket across her body neither shyly nor modestly.

  “I’d like you to get me the public defender’s notes from the Kindell file. As a good-faith gesture. I know you have access to it. It’s too hard to wait without…something.”

  “I can’t break policy. Bring it up at a meeting, we’ll take a vote.”

  “We both know Rayner will never let that fly.”

  Her eyes never broke from his; for a moment it seemed they were looking straight into each other. He knew that his suffering lay exposed and vulnerable, and there was little he could do to shield it from her gaze. He cleared his throat softly. “Please.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m making no promises.” Reaching over, she clicked the bedside light down a notch. “Come here.”

  He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. She hooked an arm around his waist and tugged him until his back was propped against the curved wooden headboard. She poked him until he shifted slightly left, then raised his arm and adjusted it out of her way. Content, she burrowed into his side, her head at the base of his chest.

  “Comfortable?” he asked.

  She strung a delicate arm across his stomach, and he was taken by how thin it was at the wrist. “You love her, huh?”

  “Deeply.”

  “I’ve never loved anyone. Not like that. My shrink says it’s the result of an early loss. My mom, you know. I was fifteen, just entering sexuality. It’s all linked, death and sex. Fear of intimacy, blah, blah, blah. That’s probably why I like being with Rayner. He takes care of me and doesn’t make me feel too much.”

  “How was she killed? Your mother?”

  “A motel-room murder/rape. There were lots of headlines and prurient speculation. Sort of glamorous, come to think of it. I came home from school, and my dad was sitting there in the kitchen, waiting for me, the smell of formalin coming off his clothes from the ME’s. To this day, I smell formalin….” She shuddered.

  Tim stroked her hair, which was even finer and softer than he’d imagined.

  “He looked utterly broken, my dad. Just…defeated.”

  “What happened with the case?”

  “They caught the guy a few weeks later. The jury was, for the most part, white trash, unemployed, and utterly incompetent. They ruled ‘not guilty.’ The evidence was so overwhelming that the Post speculated openly about bribery. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just plain inanity, like most things are.” She shook her head. “Defense attorneys with deep pockets and jury consultants. Not technically a loophole in the law, more like sanctioned corruption.” She made a noise of disgust deep in her throat. “They say it’s better for one hundred guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be put to death. How long does that sententious bullshit bear weight? After the one hundred guilty men commit one hundred more murders? A thousand?”

  “No,” Tim said. “It holds weight when the one innocent man is you.”

  She grinned faintly. “I know that. I know it—I just don’t always feel it.” Her face felt warm and comforting against his chest. He kept listening, kept stroking her hair. “My dad sold real estate, but he was on a mortar crew in Korea, and some of his old platoonmates had become cops. One night a few of them and my dad rounded the guy up, took him for a drive to a warehouse in Anacostia. I’m fuzzy on details, but I know that when they found the body, they had to print it to make the ID because there wasn’t much left in the way of dentals.”

  Tim remembered how Rayner had claimed that her mother’s killer had died in a gang beating, and he wondered if he knew the real story. That depended on how deep the intimacy ran between Rayner and Ananberg.

  “I remember when my dad came home that night and told me what he’d done. He sat at the edge of my bed and woke me. He smelled of grass and his knuckles were split and he was shaking. He told me. And I felt nothing. I still feel nothi
ng.” Her voice was quieter now, muffled against Tim’s chest. “Maybe I’m just not wired that way or I’m missing that gene, the conscience gene. Maybe when I get to the gates of heaven or whatever you Christians believe in, they’ll turn me away.”

  She shook off a shiver, then turned her face up to him. She pressed her lips together, working up the courage to ask something. Her voice shook a little when she finally did. “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

  He nodded, and her face softened with relief. She settled back into him. Soon enough her breathing grew regular, and he sat with the warmth of her face against his chest and stroked her hair. After twenty minutes he slid carefully out from under her and slipped out so silently Boston didn’t even raise his head.

  23

  TIM PULLED UP to Dumone’s apartment a little before 7:00 A.M. A graceless stucco complex that exemplified bad seventies architecture, the building was less than a block off the 10 at Western. Next door, the ampm threw off fumes of gasoline and shitty coffee. The just-risen sun gave out a pale straw light to which Tim felt unfamiliarly attuned. He still had not slept.

  His surprise at Dumone’s early-morning cell-phone summons was surpassed only by the fact that Dumone had given him his home address rather than picking a public spot to meet. Had Tim not felt a strong intuitive trust for Dumone, he would have speculated about an ambush.

  Tim walked down the concrete walk that threaded along the building. A whistle called out, and there was Dumone, waiting for him behind a dusty screen door. They shook hands, Dumone’s mouth twitching in response to the formality of the greeting, and he stepped aside and allowed Tim to enter.

  It was a ground-floor, single-bedroom job that smelled of stale carpet. A budget laminate bookcase and desk housed awards, plaques, and a few guns encased in glass. Dumone swept his arm grandly around the interior. “Get you something? Pellegrino? Mimosa?”