Deep Kill (The Micah Dunn Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  “I know you did.” Was there a suggestion of softening?

  “Scott’s a good boy. He was just trying to prove something. Granted, it was a crazy thing to do, but he meant well.”

  “He was almost killed,” she said tonelessly.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “He was. But please don’t go too hard on him.”

  “Why not? Who should I go hard on?” The question hung between us.

  “I can’t change what I do,” I told her. “It’s my job, and I think it has some value, at least sometimes.”

  “Getting child molesters off? Dealing with pornographers?”

  “It’s the world we live in,” I said, and didn’t think it sounded very convincing. “Look, we need to talk.”

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  There wasn’t any more to say, so I hung up, feeling hollow. Then I dialed my office, using the number code to activate my answering machine. There was a message from a man who said only that he was from the church, and he asked me to call. I did.

  After I’d identified myself, Gabriel Condon came on, his voice mellifluous over the wires. “We couldn’t find Brother Taylor,” he said. “His sister says he went out to get a cigar the other night and never came back. So you aren’t going to find your white boy that way.”

  “I already found him,” I said. I told him about the raid on the house in Meraux.

  “But you don’t think they kidnapped the boy’s uncle, too,” Condon said.

  “No. I think Taylor Augustine is never going to be found. Or if he is, there won’t be enough of him left to identify.”

  “Who killed him?” he asked, his voice deceptively smooth.

  “The same person that killed Eddie Gulch,” I said. “And dumped Arthur Augustine’s body on the levee.”

  “You know who that is?”

  “I know who to look for,” I said. “But I still don’t know why. I was hoping Taylor could help me.”

  Condon sighed. “Maybe he can.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, surprised.

  “His sister, Cherisa: she saw a man come by and pick him up once last week. Man in a van. She didn’t think about it. But when Taylor turned up missing she remembered.”

  “Can she identify the man? Was he white?”

  “It was almost dark, and she didn’t see anything but the van.”

  “Well, that’s better than nothing,” I said.

  “Maybe. Now you just got to go through all the vans in five parishes. Shouldn’t be more than, say, ten thousand.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” I told him.

  “Hold on. You said you know who it is. So talk.”

  “No, I said I know who to look for. I meant, the kind of person, not his name.”

  “And?”

  “If I tell you, you may find him first and kill him. I want him to confess.”

  He grumbled something and was in the middle of making a threat when I hung up. It wouldn’t make much sense to tell him that the kind of man I was looking for was invisible.

  I called O’Rourke and got him on the second try, at his office. Before he could say anything I told him about my escapade with the Spiderwoman.

  “There’ll probably be something in the paper about an armed robbery,” I said. “They won’t say anything about holding a college student upstairs for half a week. I don’t think they’ll do anything about it, legally. My guess is they’re busy burning all their records right now.”

  “Shit,” said O’Rourke. “Do you know what would have happened if—”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Look, is there any word on Autry’s condition?”

  “I hear he’d holding his own. The bullets missed all his vitals. His son came to see me, begged me to stay on the case. What could I say? He said his father was going to sell some property, swore I’d get paid. I tried to tell him tactfully that the property was already gone, with the first shot. I don’t think he understood.”

  “That’s Melville,” I said, and suddenly it all made sense, appalling, mundane sense, the kind of logic that obtains when a fourteen-year-old mother confesses to killing her child. You’d rather it was something else, a serial killer, someone obviously demented, because there she is, all the time looking sorrowful, weeping real tears.

  “Oh, and I checked with the crime lab in Baton Rouge as soon as I got in; they worked through the weekend. Eddie Gulch didn’t fire a handgun for at least forty-eight hours before his death, unless he scrubbed awfully hard. But I told them he probably wore gloves.”

  “No,” I said. “He didn’t wear gloves. They’re right.”

  “What?”

  “Do you read Father Brown?” I asked.

  “What? You mean Chesterton’s detective? Some of them, sure. Alec Guinness played him in the movie. I don’t have it on tape, but—”

  “There was a story called The Invisible Man,” I said. “Do you remember it?”

  “Not offhand. Should I?”

  “Look it up,” I said. “I think that’s what we’ve got here.”

  “Don’t be obscure.”

  “Look it up,” I said. “And while you’re at it, read Doyle’s Silver Blaze.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  Because it held everything together: the wire used to tie the boy, the motive—God, the motive …

  It was time for me to see a man and find out if I was right.

  Twenty-Two

  The man, whose name was Hap Silverman, worked out of a lab at the University of New Orleans, doing contract archaeology for private firms seeking wetlands development permits from the Corps of Engineers. He was a gnomish, balding little fellow in his late thirties, in love with his work. I’d met him a couple of years before, through Katherine, who knew most of the archaeologists in town. He’d never rise higher than instructor, because he only held a master’s degree, but so long as he had his lab he would be satisfied. Some people went out with shovels, he explained, leading me around his little room and pointing to rusted agglomerations of metal, and some people worked with augers. But none of that for him: he was high tech. He went to a cabinet in the corner and drew out some multicolored maps. I’d seen the same sort of thing in Nam, but the technology, he explained, had come a long way since then.

  “Landsat,” he said. “We get ’em from the Space Center in Gulf-port. The whole Mississippi River delta. And with side-looking radar we can even do even more. Indian mounds that have been buried by sediment, for example. Well, that’s only theoretical, but it ought to be possible.”

  “But all this high-tech stuff is pretty fallible,” I said, “just like radiocarbon dating.”

  He drew back, offended. “Is it any more fallible than some yuk with a shovel who gets his artifact bags confused? Look, I could tell you horror stories about some of the old-timers.”

  I patted his shoulder. “Just kidding, Hap. Actually, I need your help. And maybe your high-tech stuff as well.”

  He smiled, mollified.

  “I thought so. What is it, Micah? A dead body? No. Something bigger than that, right? Detectable through remote sensing.”

  “Hap,” I said, “you’re dead on.”

  I set it up for that afternoon and went back to my office, feeling worn out. If I was right, it would be over soon.

  All along I’d been looking for the wrong person. I’d been looking for the killer of Arthur Augustine, and then the killer of Eddie Gulch. But there was somebody else I should have looked for first. Because if my hunch was right, that was the key to the whole business.

  I turned my thoughts to Katherine. I needed Scott for one more thing. I could only hope she would eventually understand. But first I had to tie up a loose end.

  I called O’Rourke and he listened in horror.

  “Jesus, Micah, are you crazy?”

  “Probably. But I have to get clear on this. I can’t get stopped for questioning.”

  “That’s not the reason. You just want to get even.”

 
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe so. Will you do it?”

  “But I can’t get a warrant.”

  “You don’t need one. Get a dog. You know the people at customs.”

  “And I know the people at the DA’s, one of whom I owe my soul for something that didn’t matter to start with.”

  “Believe me,” I said. “This matters.”

  He sighed. “All right.”

  We drove over to Scott’s place and got his equipment. At twelve thirty we picked up Hap at the university and headed for the Pontchartrain Causeway. Hap told us his kids were looking forward to Halloween. I thought we were about to have it a couple weeks early.

  It was dark when we got back. I passed up dinner, feeling slightly nauseous. Scott was on an adrenaline high, though, and I knew it would take a long time for him to come down: he’d redeemed himself, and that was important. I dropped him at Katherine’s and watched her fly into his arms, half admonishing, half soothing. Her eyes touched mine for an instant, and I nodded to let her know I understood and then got back in to my car.

  All the weariness of the last few days seemed to have descended onto me at once, and I wished I could go back, tell her it had all been a dream, and curl up beside her on the sofa as if nothing had happened. But something had happened, to other people and to ourselves. And there would be no time to look for comfort until it was over.

  I went back to my office, where the red eye of the answering machine stared accusingly. For a long time I sat in my chair in the dark, staring back. Finally, my hand weighing a ton, I picked up the phone and punched in Melville Autry’s number.

  “You,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You got a hell of a lot of nerve.”

  “Shut up, Melville. I’ve got something to talk to you about, and I want you to listen.”

  It must have been my tone of voice. He listened. I replaced the phone and resigned myself to wait. But waiting was too difficult, as tired as I was: my eyes couldn’t meet the red light, and I kept finding I needed something in the kitchen, first a soft drink, and then some snack crackers. Finally I gave up and went down the inside stairs and out onto Decatur.

  Across the street was the brooding old Mint building, now a museum. In 1862, when the federal troops landed to occupy the city, a local youth named Mumford pulled down the stars and stripes from the building. General Benjamin Butler, determined to assert his authority, hanged Mumford from the flagpole on the Mint’s front lawn. Today bums congregate along the iron fence outside, and Mumford would be given a misdemeanor summons if he were caught at all. But it is unlikely he’d be caught, because the police are busy with more serious things, like protecting the tourists in the French Quarter, who tend to get shot, robbed, and raped at a disconcertingly frequent rate.

  In my years in the Quarter, though, I’ve never been molested by street thugs. Maybe it’s the impression I convey, or maybe I don’t look worth the trouble. I wouldn’t have advised anybody to fool with me at that moment, because I was in a mean mood.

  The motive for it all had been so petty.

  Then I thought about the professor who’d been shot dead by a holdup man a few blocks from here: the motives, I reminded myself, were usually petty. When you’re twisted, it doesn’t take much.

  I made my way through the thin crowd. It was Monday night, and the usual denizens of the Quarter weren’t into the spirit of things. They piled up on street corners like dirty laundry, eyes dull and without enthusiasm. Even the tourists seemed chilled, as if the sixty degrees on the thermometer was a lie and the real temperature was below freezing. At the corner of Chartres and Dumaine a wino started in my direction and then veered away, as if he saw something he didn’t like. I made my way back toward Jackson Square and stood in front of the cathedral. A woman with a kerchief on her head went in through the big main door and, without thinking, I followed. I watched the woman head for one of the confessionals. The air smelled of incense, and I thought of something I’d read once, about the medieval cathedral being a model of the cosmos. It was a comforting thought, to have everything set out and measurable. Heaven was one way, hell another, and mankind was in between.

  I’d never been religious, but I thought I knew about hell and it wasn’t under St. Louis Cathedral. I was sure of that, because I’d seen it today.

  I left the church and walked back to my rooms. Two hours later Melville called back.

  It was just after ten when I reached the cabin. I used a picklock to open the back door and went in, the bare wood floor creaking under my feet. I thought about Cal’s grandchildren, Melville’s kids, and how Cal had wanted to have this place for them, so they could go swimming off the pier he was going to build. The thought stirred my stomach, and I forced it away. I took out my penlight and swept its beam over the counter, the bedrooms, the big living room, but everything seemed as I had left it the night I’d spent there with Cal. Wrapping my blanket around me, I took a seat on the couch and waited.

  Maybe it wouldn’t work, but I thought it would. There was too much for the killer to lose.

  I didn’t like being there alone, though. Even with my revolver in my hand under the blanket, I still felt like a staked goat. I just hoped my timing was right; dawn would be a better time than midnight or the hours just after. All I had to do was see who it was and it would be enough: there was no other reason for that person to be here.

  Eleven o’clock came and went. An owl took a perch on a limb outside the window and chilled me with its eerie hoot-hoot-hoot. A couple of times I thought I heard the sound of tires on the gravel, and I got up, holding my blanket about me, and went to the front window to look out, but there was nothing but darkness.

  The cabin smelled of dust and pine needles. I wondered what it had smelled like that day five years before. Or had the thing been done outside?

  Twelve thirty.

  My limbs were getting stiff. I still had bruises from my encounter with Condon, and my exploits at the LeJeune house hadn’t helped any. I wanted to get up and pace, work my muscles loose, but if I did that I might miss the all-important noise and change myself from hunter to hunted.

  One o’clock.

  It was times like this when the memory was always the worst: waiting by the trail for Truong, knowing they’d be just as glad if I took him out, because he’d thrown a bomb into the village school and killed fifteen kids. But the orders weren’t to take him out, because nobody wanted an assassination coming back to haunt them at a court-martial. The orders were to attempt to capture him, but to take no chances. None at all.

  When he’d reached the spot where I was hiding he’d stopped, nose quivering like a hunted animal’s. I knew he probably smelled me, and so I stepped out of my hiding place then, my silenced .22 pointing straight at his head. For a second we looked at each other, and then he reached for the knife at his belt and I shot him. He was still looking at me as he fell.

  It was self-defense; I hadn’t assassinated the man. And back at the base they asked no questions, just scratched out one code name and closed a file. They even bought me drinks. Nobody mentioned the killing, there was just the usual men’s talk, as if nothing had really happened.

  But something had happened. They didn’t issue you a .22 with a silencer for routine missions. I’d made a pact with them by accepting it, and I’d honored the pact with myself by giving Truong a chance to go for his own weapon, to be sure he couldn’t be taken alive. But he’d never really had a chance, because if he’d surrendered, it would’ve been out of my hands, he’d have been handed over to the interrogators, and they weren’t nice people. So he’d done the only thing he could.

  Afterward I refused that kind of mission. But I still remembered Truong and the light fading from his eyes as he went down, looking at me.

  A twig crackled outside, and I came instantly alert.

  My heart started to pound. I tried to ignore it, to focus all my attention on the sounds of the night, because maybe it was just a pine cone falling from a
branch, or a dog rooting in the pine needles.

  There was a swish, like a piece of cloth brushing the side of the house. I’d been wrong. I’d expected him at dawn and he’d come early.

  The back step creaked, and I heard a faint jingle of keys as someone fit one into the lock. He was coming into the cabin.

  I gathered my blanket and stepped softly back to the big closet, closing the door behind me.

  The hinges creaked as the back door opened, and I heard footsteps in the kitchen. From the crack in the closet door I could see flickers in the darkness as the intruder’s penlight searched the room. Then the darkness folded back over everything, and I knew he had gone into the bedroom. I thought of tiptoing out, catching him from behind, but it would take five seconds, and in that time he could be out and facing me. Even as I made the decision, the floorboards groaned again and the beam of light darted back into the kitchen and then resolved into a single eye, looking straight at my hiding place.

  For a moment my blood froze; I was sure he’d seen me, but then the light streaked off at an angle and came to rest on the wall opposite. It painted a stripe on the wall that moved methodically from one corner to the other. When the light was thrown on the wall directly across from me and I knew his back had to be to me, I stepped out.

  “Put both hands in the air and kneel down,” I said.

  The figure seemed to congeal into a darker mass against the night, as if my words had shrunken it, causing it to solidify in the gloom. I took a step forward, pistol cocked, edging my way toward the light switch by the front door.

  He made his move before I got there. The light spun at me like a rocket, catching me in the forehead. I fired once, but the shot went wild, and he grabbed my legs, sending me crashing backward against the wall. I brought the gun down hard where I thought his head should be, but it only caught him a glancing blow, and I heard him grunt. Then something hammered my face, and the darkness seemed to flash red. I raised my hand but something hit my forearm, sending arrows of pain through it. I still had my legs, but he was too smart for that. He was bigger than I was and used his bulk to pin me. Something else hit my head, and this time my entire body went numb. The darkness began to spin slowly, as if I was drunk, and as consciousness fled I knew I had underestimated him and was going to die.