A Good Kill

by John McMahon

Kelly mentioned that she had fixed up her old house outside of Charleston, three years ago. The place she’d left to move to Mason Falls.

  “I scrubbed and painted that house,” she said. “Installed the wood floors myself.”

  “So you’re not just artistic?” I smiled. “You’re available for weekend work?”

  She hit me on the arm, describing how she’d dug up half the front yard in the month before she left town. Planted a hedge of foxglove and a line of purple indigo that led from the street to her front door.

  “That’s what’s nice about renting now,” Kelly said. “If I want to, I can just up and go. I’ve already figured out that I can get everything important in one carload.”

  The sun rose up into the sky, and I pulled into an inlet. Kelly threw anchor, and I took out two umbrellas. Set them up on the deck near the two fishing chairs.

  Kelly went inside then and grabbed Sprite atop crushed ice. She came out with a pack of salami and cheese.

  We got a second line in the water and waited, passing the food back and forth.

  “Are you close with these kids in your class?” I asked.

  “You’re not supposed to form personal relationships,” she said. “But you do.”

  “So the girls from that day?” I asked.

  “I love those girls,” she said.

  The conversation went quiet for a second, and far off I could see only one other boat on the lake, motoring along. A solid mile away.

  “What was your son like?” she asked.

  “Jonas,” I said, a smile coming to my face. “He was so curious. So smart.” I thought a moment before continuing. “That’s one of the things that crushes me still,” I said. “Not getting to find out what he would’ve become. He was reading really early. That was Lena’s doing. They read every night and every morning. It was my job to tell him stories.”

  “Like make-believe?”

  “A lot of them were cop stories that were real.” I grinned. “But I’d take out the dangerous parts. Like instead of a guy having a gun in his hand, he’d have a donut.”

  Kelly patted her waistline. “Donuts can be deadly.”

  “I’d tell Jonas it was a really menacing snack. An illegal snack, so Dad had to arrest the guy. He loved that part. Where I cuffed him and took the donut as evidence.”

  Kelly reached over and put her hand on mine.

  “When he was six, he got into these Magic Tree House books where this boy and his sister would go up into this big tree.” I furrowed my brow, remembering. “I think it was his sister. Anyway, they’d use books to travel through time.”

  “You remember where they went?”

  “Everywhere,” I said. “The Middle Ages or the Cretaceous Period. The Wild Wild West. Egypt. Jonas and Lena would read them, and then he’d explain every detail to me. Then he’d tell me about these new endings he’d dreamt up. Alternate endings. And I thought—wow. Maybe we’ve got a writer in the family.”

  I fell silent and pulled in my line, resetting my bait, which was gone now.

  Kelly climbed onto my lap.

  I leaned against the chair back, and she hugged me. She had no bra on under her T-shirt, and I felt her breasts soft against my chest.

  I exhaled, and she laughed.

  “I’m gonna see if that stove top works,” she said.

  She went inside and made up a bit of chili. Mixed in some avocado and some fresh tomatoes and came out with a bag of chips.

  “Damn,” I said. “Did you mix pimento cheese in there?”

  “I did,” she said, flicking her eyebrows.

  I did a twangy voice. “That right there will make a freight train take a dirt road.”

  Kelly laughed, and I explained that this was an expression my dad used to say about food that was so good you took a different route to get it.

  After the snack, we took a nap on the deck, and a warm breeze woke us at sundown. In the distance along the shore, someone was piling firewood by their lakefront home, six feet high and four feet deep.

  We cooked a striper and talked.

  “This stuff at your job—it doesn’t always end right, does it?” Kelly asked.

  “You mean do the right people get punished?”

  She nodded, her face still.

  “Most of the time,” I said.

  “And when they don’t?” she asked. “How do you deal with that?”

  “It’s hard,” I said.

  “You never want to take the law into your own hands?” she asked.

  “I have,” I said. “And it hasn’t gone well for me.”

  She went silent then, not asking for more details.

  Kelly had this instinct—when to back off and when to press forward. I wondered how she was coping since the shooting. I wanted to ask her, but inquiring would just open her up to asking me. And I wasn’t really sure myself. It wasn’t just pulling the trigger on Jed Harrington at the school. A cop’s son had been killed at the bar. An innocent.

  We stared at the stars, and I saw that Kelly was fading, so we lay down in the bed, each of us in shorts and T-shirts that stayed on all night.

  It felt good not to complicate things. To just be with someone.

  The next morning I got up and went skinny-dipping. As I swam about in the cool water, I heard a splash around the bow and realized Kelly had dove in the other way.

  She swam around my side, and her hair looked different. Wet and plastered back to her face.

  She noticed me looking and pointed. “I’m gonna have the craziest frizz about five minutes after this dries.”

  “I don’t mind frizz,” I said.

  I climbed out by the ladder and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around me. I laid out another one for Kelly and took two more. Draped them across the deck.

  “Close your eyes,” she said, and I did.

  Kelly climbed out, and after a moment, I opened my eyes. The oversized beach towel was wrapped around her, from her thighs up and over her breasts.

  She lay next to me, atop the crisscross of the towels. It was a Monday, two weeks after Labor Day, and the lake was empty of all boat traffic, the kids back in school and the tourists all gone home.

  Kelly inched closer to me, and I took my finger and traced a line that ran along her cheeks and onto her neck. Her hair fell onto my shoulder. “What do you want to do today?” I asked.

  “You,” she said.

  We started cracking up then.

  I hadn’t shaved in a couple days, and she took the back of her hand. Ran it down the coarse area along my jaw. “You have a good face,” she said. “And there haven’t been a lot of good faces in my life.”

  She closed her eyes and I did the same. Resting there. Thinking nothing.

  We got up a bit after that, and Kelly made eggs. I got out the fishing gear, and the two of us joked around, but kept steering away from topics we couldn’t handle right now.

  After breakfast, we sat out on the smaller deck. The afternoon water was calmer than usual, and a swallow-tailed kite dive-bombed the blue-green water, but pulled up right before he hit the surface. Then he flew back to a tiny island of grass nearby. Stared at us from a thick tree twig. And then repeated the same action all over again.

  Kelly donned a Braves tee, tied tight in a knot around her slender waist.

  We had drifted into the low water near a shoreline, and a musty sulfide odor from the blue-green algae filled the air. I motored farther out into the deep water.

  “I’m gonna go inside and read a book,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  After an hour I lowered the bill on my fishing hat and closed my eyes.

  When I awoke, hours had passed and I ambled over to the cabin.

  Kelly had fallen asleep, a copy of Brian Panowich’s Like Lions dog-eared on her lap, about two hundred pa
ges in.

  I moved up to the main captain’s chair on the bow, where I’d been fishing, and pulled out my cell. A handful of texts came in, but I didn’t look at them.

  Something had been stirring within me since Kelly’s question about taking the law into my own hands the night before.

  Remy answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hey,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “The chief didn’t tell you?” I asked. “About my email?”

  “Sure he did,” she said. “But that didn’t keep me from stopping by your house. I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  “I just needed a couple days.”

  “Of course,” Remy said.

  “How’s Gattling?” I asked.

  “Not good,” she said.

  I saw this coming the other night. The way he’d been rocking as if in a trance at the back of the ambulance.

  “I went by Marvin’s, and he said you went fishing.”

  “I’m sitting on a boat right now,” I said. “Staring at the water.”

  “Well, don’t worry about the case.”

  As she said this, it dawned on me that I hadn’t considered the case at all in the last two days. Hadn’t thought once about the short man or the old man.

  “I was calling about something else,” I said. “I made you a promise. That I wouldn’t look into Lauten Hartley alone.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “I start looking into it.”

  Remy didn’t answer right away.

  “We start, you mean.”

  “That’s why I’m calling.”

  “Okay,” Remy said. “But easy, P.T. All right? Easy.”

  I stared out at the black water. The moon was rising into the sky, a waning gibbous. It shone off the surface and made the still water look like igneous rock.

  “Tomorrow night, partner,” I said. “You and me.” I hung up and stared out at the lake. A striper jumped, and concentric circles formed, more perfect than smoke rings coming off the stage at an old jazz club.

  I moved about the boat. Flipping down jump seats and making sure the tackle boxes were affixed in the aft stowage locker.

  I went into the galley and climbed into bed beside Kelly. My eyes were tired, and I fell fast asleep beside her.

  22

  In the morning, we motored back to the dock and met Harry Glavis at the time we’d originally arranged with him. Along the way, Kelly sprayed down the deck and cleaned up the trash. She stripped the sheets off the bed and left them folded atop the mattress.

  Once we handed over the boat, we got back in my truck and fired up the engine. Headed down through Ralston and into Oakes Bluff.

  As we moved through rural areas, I saw more election signs for Jerome Bleeker than I did for Toby Monroe, even in the traditionally conservative white areas. Did this Bleeker guy have a chance of taking down Governor Monroe? No way.

  We moved southwest, following the route of the Tullumy River, its water churning parallel to the road that carried us to Mason Falls. The river that had changed my life.

  Down in the valley close to the river, a blanket of fog was thick and gray, but as the sun rose, the fog became translucent and misty over the trees, and it disappeared as it hit the highway.

  “I’m glad I stayed,” Kelly said, the sun streaming in through the open passenger window and the light playing off the tan sheen of her legs.

  I stared at her.

  “With you, silly,” she said. “On the boat.” Her brown eyes studied me. “You’ve been quiet,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m good.” I placed my hand atop hers. And I felt good. A few days clean of the school shooting and the mess that the stakeout had become.

  Ten minutes later, I dropped Kelly off and gave her a kiss. Told her I’d call her later.

  “You better.”

  As she walked away, my eyes lingered on her shape, and she turned, shaking her head. Caught red-handed.

  About five minutes after that, the phone rang, and I smiled. In three days, I felt like I already knew enough of Kelly’s sense of humor. That she’d call me five minutes later and ask if I was ready with the ring. Our running joke.

  But it wasn’t her at all. It was a man from County.

  “P. T. Marsh?” he asked.

  “Yeah?”

  He introduced himself as Lonnie Fuchs, explaining that he worked for Animal Services.

  “There’s a note,” Fuchs said, referring to a canine he’d been holding. “It says ‘Before euthanizing, contact Detective P. T. Marsh.’ We’ve been calling you for two days.”

  “Geez,” I said, remembering now that Remy had asked for a favor for me about Harrington’s dog.

  “The dog you’re planning to put down is Beau?” I asked. Referring to the tan-and-white husky-retriever mix that I’d found in the school shooter’s backyard.

  “Exactly,” the man answered.

  “And your facility has a capacity issue?” I confirmed. “Detective Morgan is my partner.”

  “So you know then,” he said. “We can’t keep animals more than three days. Are you interested in adopting?”

  “Me?” I said, surprised. “Oh no, I can’t. Apologies if I slowed down your process.”

  I hung up and drove another mile, thinking about Jed Harrington, the school shooter. Of what he’d done to Kelly and me. About the tension that entered the police department when the shooting happened. And how it segued into me rooking that shrink and maybe thinking I was in better shape than I was. And how it ended in me not firing on that old man in the forest.

  There was a line from Shakespeare that my mom quoted when I was a kid.

  The evil that men do lives after them.

  Until, of course, something good steps in its way. And stops the cycle.

  I called back the number and heard the same guy’s voice pick up at County.

  “Fuchs,” I said. “Give me your address. I’m gonna take that dog after all.”

  23

  By five p.m., I had filled out the necessary paperwork at County, and they brought Beau out from the back.

  He had a tan body with a thick white ring that circled his chest, and a white stripe that meandered across his head and nose.

  “He looks excited,” Fuchs said, selling it hard, even though I’d already committed. Then again, it was true. The dog was over the moon to be out of a cage. He ran to me, wagging his tail and jumping.

  I sat down on the lobby floor and took the eight-foot leash into my hand, letting the dog jump into my lap and lick me.

  “Okay,” I said. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  I called Marvin to bring Purvis back home.

  Per my new friend Lonnie at County, it was not kosher to put Purvis and Beau into my truck together, since Purvis’s smell would be in the vehicle, nor was it okay to bring the new dog home first and then get Purvis after.

  So Marvin met me at the duck pond in the neighborhood and had Purvis leashed up, so the two dogs could meet on neutral turf. I parked outside my house and hustled over. As I turned the corner, I saw Marvin and Purvis, the two wandering around the edge of the water.

  Beau saw Purvis and picked up his pace. He arrived and promptly gave my bulldog a good smell from head to butt.

  At eight years old, Purvis was slower at avoiding dogs’ sniffs, but Beau was only a year and a half old and excited to be outside of the county kennel.

  “You catch anything?” Marvin asked as the dogs consorted, both of them friendly.

  “Some bass,” I said, leaning over and getting Beau to sit so Purvis got a break for a second. “Six or seven striper. That lake’s full of striper,” I said. “Practically jump into the boat.”

  Marvin had brought some dog treats with him, and he rewarded both dogs fo
r being nice.

  We stayed out there a good half hour, and Marvin never asked about Kelly once. I liked that about him. That he didn’t push things. Eventually Marvin told me his legs were aching.

  “C’mon, fluffy-butt,” I said to Beau, who had two large tufts of white hair on either side of his tail. I pulled hard on the leash. The dog wasn’t technically a puppy, but he was hyper as hell.

  We brought the two home, but kept Beau on a longer leash, tied inside the house, like my friend at County had advised, while Marvin got off his feet. We talked fishing, and some changes Marvin was making to his yard.

  “You’re planting in fall?” I asked, and Marvin nodded.

  “Black-eyed Susans bloom in fall,” he said. “So do daylilies.”

  As we talked, Beau smelled around the living room, and Purvis, who prefers to drool and sleep most of the time, left the area and went out back. I heard the plastic flap of the doggie door and guessed that Purvis was headed to his favorite area on the lawn out back.

  “You stay two days on the lake and then get a dog?” Marvin asked. “You gonna buy a Porsche next?”

  “You’re the one who said I needed to be open, didn’t you?”

  “Hey, I’m not complaining,” Marvin said. “I’ve just always wanted to drive a Porsche.”

  I smiled at my father-in-law, and we let Beau off the leash. He stayed close to us, and when we walked into the kitchen, he followed.

  “I didn’t entirely think this out,” I said to my father-in-law, grabbing a Coke for him and a Dr Pepper for me. I pointed at the new dog, who was full grown at thirty-five pounds. “But they were gonna kill the little guy.”

  “He’s a good dog,” Marvin said, leaning over and petting Beau. “You want me to take him for a couple days?”

  “No,” I said. “I just gotta meet Remy tonight. Can you hang out for a bit and watch the two of them?”

  “I thought you were off of work.”

  “I am, and I’m not,” I said. “I promise I’m back by midnight. You can crash in your old bed if you get tired.”

  “Hold on,” Marvin said. He checked the guide on the TV before answering and saw that the Braves were back playing the Phillies again, the first in a three-game stretch. He grabbed his Coke and waved for me to get going.