The Kill Clause

by Gregg Hurwitz

  “Go ahead…leak my name to the cops, the press…but…you’ll never know….” Rayner’s eyes steeled with a smug intractability, and Tim felt a quick rush of affinity for whichever Masterson had tried to smash through his expression with a gun barrel.

  Tim’s voice came low and harsh, and it held a note of menace that surprised even him. “Tell me who else killed my daughter.”

  Rayner grimaced, his teeth shining through the split upper lip. His spitefulness vanished, replaced with terror at death’s final approach. His hand inched out, trembling, and gripped the cuff of Tim’s pants.

  Tim stood over him, glaring down, arms crossed, watching him die.

  Rayner’s body seemed to retract slightly, as if curling into itself, though it hardly moved. He looked up at Tim, floating in a sudden calm. “I loved my boy, Mr. Rackley,” he said, and then he died.

  Tim stepped away, his pants pulling free of Rayner’s fingers. He had little time before the ambulances arrived, and he’d be damned if he was going to leave without Kindell’s case binder. Especially in light of what Rayner had told him.

  Following the trail of Rayner’s blood, he entered the conference room, the whine of the paper shredder growing louder, and walked past the blast-blown victim photos on the immense table. Aside from some black scorching near the baffle, the safe was perfectly intact. The door hung slightly open, its lugs still extended in the locked position. Tim leaned closer, noting the frag scars, like little scratches, also near the baffle. He sniffed the air, twice, deep, waiting for the smell to navigate through his memory; it unlocked a box that had been closed since Somalia in ’93. Fifty-grains-per-foot det cord.

  Mitchell had probably slid about two feet of detonation cord inside the baffle and stuck a blasting cap in the protruding end. The explosion would have overpressurized the air pocket inside the safe, flexing the door outward to the point that the locking lugs unseated themselves and the door popped. The metal baffle would have acted as a buffer, protecting the case binders beneath.

  That the door had snapped back to its original shape with no permanent damage was testament to Mitchell’s precision and skill. Robert and Mitchell had opted for an explosive breach, which was louder and riskier than picking the safe. Tim hoped that meant they didn’t have the Stork on board, the only one who could have accomplished the latter.

  Tim nudged the door open with a knuckle. Only two binders remained—Lane’s and Debuffier’s.

  Kindell’s was missing.

  Behind him the paper shredder continued its laments. Tim’s eyes closed with the horror of the realization. He ran over to the shredder, banging into a high-backed chair and knocking it over. A single page had crumpled up in the machine, jamming the blades. Tim ripped it free, and the bottom half shot through, dissipating into tiny squares.

  Roger Kindell’s booking photo, torn just below the eyes.

  Robert and Mitchell had shredded Kindell’s file, and the secrets it held. The ultimate act of aggression, the final step in the power play, a declaration of war.

  The Mastersons were now operational.

  Tim stared at the half photograph, feeling his frustration grow to rage. The agony of all he had lost rattled through him, leaving him winded. He finally lowered the top half of Kindell’s head into the whirring blades.

  He stopped on his way out only to retrieve Ginny’s framed picture from the table.

  33

  BEAR’S VOICE WAS ragged with sleep, gruffer even than usual. “What?” Tim threaded the needle between a Camaro and a semi on a two-lane slide to the freeway carpool lane, drawing a cacophony of bleating horns. Even in February the L.A. morning came on hard and relentless; the sun matched the explicitness of the town itself, all too eager to skip foreplay and be revealed.

  “You heard me. Those are the names and addresses. Do you have them?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I got ’em. What is the extent of your involvement in this?”

  “Call local PD, get cars to Mick Dobbins now. Put out a BOLO on Terrill Bowrick now. As I said, I don’t have a current address for Black Bear—”

  “Thomas Black Bear’s doing a nickel in Donovan for grand larceny.”

  “Then don’t worry about him. I have no current for Rhythm Jones either, so put out another BOLO. He’s in grave and immediate danger. And get to William Rayner’s before the bodies chill.”

  “How are you caught up in this?”

  Tim was anxious for Bear to stop talking, call dispatch, and put out the Be on the Lookouts. “Yamashiro at five-thirty. I’ll bring all the answers.”

  “Fuck Yamashiro. You want me to get on the horn, I need some answers now.”

  “You don’t want those answers now. You want to get those subjects in protective custody without being compromised by the knowledge that we know you already have anyway. I’ll clear the air when I see you.”

  “You’ll do more than that.” Bear hung up.

  Tim tried Robert’s and Mitchell’s Nextels next, but their respective voice mails picked up without a ring. He left no messages.

  In the widening range of dire potentialities, Tim saw his foolishness clarified, amplified, and he took a moment to bask in an unadulterated self-contempt before pulling himself back to utility.

  That the Mastersons had shredded Kindell’s case binder instead of taking it indicated they weren’t interested in pursuing him. Kindell alone among the suspects they’d leave be, to torment Tim with his continued existence. For the hits they’d start with Bowrick and Dobbins, since both had known addresses, and then they’d get on Rhythm’s trail. Black Bear, they’d soon learn, was safe from them in prison.

  Tim’s objective was clear: Before and above all else, he had to ensure the safety of the targets.

  Bowrick was gone already; Tim had watched him climb into the tricked-out Escalade and disappear into the rush of traffic on Lincoln.

  At a stoplight he called information to get Dobbins’s address. An apartment in a shitty part of Culver City, south of Sony Pictures. He got snagged in the morning commute, so it took nearly a half hour to get to Dobbins’s place, a cracked stucco job from the fifties.

  No crime tape, no forensic van from SID, no signs of any police presence or violent activity. Dobbins’s apartment, 9D, was in the rear.

  Tim rang the doorbell. No answer.

  Dread tightening his jaw, he peered through the window into the shabby interior, expecting to see the retarded janitor’s body sprawled on the shabby carpet amid an ellipse of blood spatter. Instead he saw a framed Tony Dorsett poster, a brown La-Z-Boy, and an obese and slightly bored cat licking itself. He had his pick set in hand when an ancient woman lost in a toothpaste-blue bathrobe and a constellation of curlers inched around the corner and shook a drugstore bag in his direction. A plastic canister of Metamucil fell out and lost itself in a patch of long-dead juniper.

  “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.”

  “We all own our decisions. Don’t put that on yourself.”

  “Of course. I’m being condescending. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re knocking on death’s door.” He coughed hard, and his face crumpled in pain.

  “Want me to call a nurse?”

  Dumone searched Tim’s face. “Leave me a bullet.”

  Tim opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “There’s nothing more for me to do here but waste away. And we both know that doesn’t suit me well.”

  The blip of the monitor. The greenish glow across the pillow. Cold coming off the floor tiles.

  Tim reached down and removed his .357 from his hip holster. He released the wheel, slid out a single bullet, and deposited it in Dumone’s waiting hand.

  “Thank you for not making me do the bullshit.”

  “We’ve never done the bullshit.”

  “Set this right, Tim. Get your answers.”

  Tim nodded and rose. At the door he turned. Dumone lay quietly, watching him. He raised his right hand and tapped his forehead in a salute.

  Before l
eaving, Tim returned the gesture.

  •Tim drove into Westwood, winding past the row of dilapidated mansions with chipped fraternity signs and shirtless youths spraying party refuse from porches. It took him the better part of an hour to find a parking spot, even within one of the many campus lots. A quarter got you about seven minutes on the meter, a ploy worthy of his father. A change machine was graciously provided on every floor. Before he left, he’d deposited about nine bucks into the unit.

  The UCLA campus was alive with students of all shapes, sizes, and ethnic backgrounds. A gargantuan woman in a muumuu and red pigtails was making out with a slight Persian man about half her size beneath a tattered poster advertising the Korean Independence Movement Day bash.

  Diversity in action.

  Tim entered the John Wooden Center and called information. An adenoidal voice informed him that Dr. Rayner’s office was on the first floor of Franz Hall.

  A plaque announcing WILLIAM RAYNER was adhered to the last door on the corridor—the other professors, Tim noted, had respectfully availed themselves of a few lowercase letters. The translucent window panel was dark; no shadows moved in the adjunct professor’s office. A glimpse at the seam of light at the jamb showed that the last secretary out hadn’t bothered to key the dead bolt.

  Tim pretended to peruse the grade postings, which were affixed beneath a photocopied Vanity Fair profile of the dearly deceased, until the hall was clear. Tom Altman, man of many resources, accommodatingly supplied a laminated driver’s license that made the shitty, state-issued latch bolt play hide-and-seek.

  Tim closed and locked the door behind him, passed an assistant’s desk, and entered the larger room in the back. Sturdy oak desk, metal filing cabinets, shelves of books—most of them Rayner’s own. A spin through the file drawers revealed them to hold mainly classroom materials. The computer’s screen saver, a photograph of Rayner’s boy, bounced repetitively around the screen like a physics-defying missile in an Atari game.