by Joel Goldman
He had trapped himself. Julio would check the exits to make certain they were still locked. He’d walk the aisles and not find him. The bathroom would be next. Julio’s footsteps slapped against the concrete floor and stopped outside the door, making him a prophet.
“Come on out, man. I won’t hurt you.”
Mason was surprised that Julio’s voice was soft, almost feminine, but he wasn’t tempted.
“Have it your way, man.”
Five shots smashed through the door, splinters flying, Julio kicking the door off its hinges. Mason lifted the porcelain tank lid off the back of the stool, lowered it in a two-handed grip, counted off the two steps from the door to the partition, and swung for the fences, catching the center of Julio’s face, driving his nose into his brain.
Julio crumpled as Mason’s swing carried them forward into a heap, Mason on top, Julio not moving. Mason pushed himself to his feet and turned on the light. Julio’s eyes were wide open and fixed. His nose had vanished into his face, blood trickling from his ears and the corners of his mouth.
Mason heard more footsteps running in his direction. Julio’s gun had skidded beneath the sink. Mason reached for it, hoping there were a couple of rounds left, giving up when he heard a familiar voice.
“Freeze, shitbag!”
Blues stepped into the bathroom, gun drawn.
Mason looked up at him and smiled. “Sorry. I forgot to tell you. I’ll be late for dinner.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
“FUCK YOU! WHAT THE fuck you think you’re doing?”
Sandra pushed her way into the bathroom and knelt at Julio’s body, searching for a pulse.
“He’s dead,” she said. “How’d you do it?”
Mason stood. “I hit him with the tank lid.”
“I don’t fucking believe it. You killed the son of a bitch with a toilet!”
Blues shook his head and walked out. Mason and Sandra followed him.
“Let’s get out of here before Camaya comes back,” she said.
“They took Sandra’s car. Where’s yours?” Blues asked as they stepped outside into the driving rain.
“In an alley. What do we do about Julio?”
“Let Camaya clean up his own mess. Follow me back downtown. We’ll leave your car in a tow zone.”
“Why do we have to leave it anywhere?” Mason asked.
“You’re getting out of town. You can’t go back to your place. The cops will tow your car and at least you’ll know where to find it.”
Mason parked the TR6 in a handicapped spot in front of city hall and got in Blues’s car, smiling when he saw his briefcase. Blues had made good on his promise to retrieve it from Mason’s Acura.
“Thanks for that,” Mason said, pointing to the briefcase. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I was minding my own business, waiting for you to show up for dinner, when Sandra called and told me what happened. I swear to Jesus, both of you are too stupid to live! What in the hell were you thinking? Never mind. I know the answer to that question. You weren’t thinking!”
They knew better than to argue so they kept quiet as he wound through a maze of inner-city side streets, doubling back several times to make certain they weren’t followed, before finally reaching the interstate.
Wiped out by the post-adrenaline letdown, Mason closed his eyes, thinking about the fraternity of killers he’d joined. Camaya was a charter member. He’d just been initiated.
When he woke up, they were at the intersection of Highways 50 and 65 in Sedalia, Missouri. Blues turned south on Highway 65 in front of a sign that pointed to the Lake of the Ozarks.
Blues called Kelly, told her what had happened and that they were on their way to the lake. She met them at one a.m. on Highway 5 just after they crossed the Camden County line south of Laurie, Missouri.
Mason rode with her as she led Blues through the woods. Her stony silence told him all he needed to know. She crushed the one attempt he made at explaining with an attack on civilians who tried to play cops and robbers.
They stopped at a cabin so isolated and hidden that Mason half expected it to be a bed-and-breakfast run by the seven dwarfs. After handing out blankets, Kelly left, threatening more than promising to return in the morning.
They drew straws and Sandra won the only bedroom. Blues claimed the couch, and Mason got the wooden floor. Claire had always claimed that sleeping on a board was good for a bad back. Mason decided that she must have cheated and used a mattress. He woke up at first light, heard Blues snoring, and stepped outside.
The only log cabins he had ever seen were on bottles of maple syrup. Studying this one was easier than thinking about Julio.
Rough-hewn logs, sculpted at each end to mate with another log, were laid one on top of the other. Gaps between the logs were filled with mortar made from clay and mud. Windows and doors had been cut into the logs, each ninety-degree angle sharp and precise. The roof was made from split rails raised to a modest pitch that extended over the front porch, a limestone chimney on the south side adding a homey finish.
The cabin was set on the side of a hill in a clearing ringed by trees. The untamed grass formed a green belt roughly a hundred feet wide between the trees and the cabin. Long-stemmed purple stalks, sunflowers, and deep blue pansies painted the grass in a natural palate.
A fifty-gallon propane tank on the north side fueled the hot-water heater, kitchen appliances, and an electrical generator. Along with the bathroom, they were the only concessions to modern living.
Mason sat on the wooden bench on the front porch, letting the rising sun warm him as he relived last night. Hallmark has a card for almost every occasion. There’s one for birthdays, remembered or forgotten, comings and goings of all kinds, friends and loved ones gained or lost. There’s even one for Mother-in-Law’s Day, but he was certain there was no card for killing someone. After all, what would it say? Congrats on hitting the big one! Or maybe, The bigger they are, the harder they fall!
He was just tugging at the fringes. He didn’t know how this was going to feel now or in the future. He knew three things for certain. The first was that he had responded to the most basic instinct of survival. The second was that killing came more easily than he would have ever imagined possible. And the third was that the threat was still there.
Everything began with Sullivan’s death. Harlan’s murder and the latest efforts to add him to the obituary list connected events since then.
Sullivan had been poisoned, which is a chancy way to kill someone. The killer can’t be certain that the poison is going to be consumed or that the dose is sufficient for the size of the victim. Unless the poison acts instantly, there is always the possibility the victim will fall ill and get to a hospital before it’s too late.
Sullivan had been poisoned with insulin. According to the autopsy report, the reaction time can vary from a few hours to a few days. Even if the killer was present when Sullivan took the fatal dose, he or she could not have known where he would be when the stuff hit him.
Poisoning was like drawing to an inside straight when compared to the pat hand used with Harlan. His neck had been snapped like a dried branch. Nothing left to chance. Poisoners and neck snappers weren’t cut from the same cloth. The difference was enough to convince Mason there were two killers. Probably.
Someone in a black Escalade tried to run him off the road. The next time he saw it, Jimmie Camaya was shooting out a window at him. The last time he saw it, Vic Jr. was driving it but Camaya was in it. That was enough to convince him that there was a connection between the two killers. Probably.
He didn’t have a favorite on the short list of suspects he’d given Kelly. Pamela Sullivan had enough motives for a miniseries and probable access to insulin.
Without his own clients, Scott Daniels’s best chance of securing his future was to inherit Sullivan’s practice. Angela was squirming enough under Sullivan’s blackmail to risk bugging the offices. Either one—or both—could have rented a
ski boat, met Sullivan at the condo, and poisoned him. As long as Sullivan agreed to sit still while they injected him with a fatal dose of insulin.
With the feds closing in, O’Malley may have decided Sullivan was the weak link in his defense—or maybe he really didn’t like paying for work that nobody did. He wasn’t at the lake when Sullivan was murdered, but he was the type who hired people to cut his grass, shovel his snow, and do his killing.
Even if one of them killed Sullivan, Mason couldn’t guess at a reason to kill Harlan or—better yet—to hire Camaya to kill him. What did he have that was worth killing for?
Mason thought about it as if he were preparing for trial. Putting a case together meant building a puzzle, tearing it apart, and putting it back together again until any jury can understand and believe it. No matter how many times he prepared a case, he always worried that he’d forgotten something that would unravel his case faster than a loose thread on a cheap suit. This case was all loose threads—each one leaving a hole when he pulled it out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
THE RUMBLING GROWL OF AN ENGINE in low gear scattered his thoughts. Mason resisted the urge to run for cover, not believing Camaya could find him in the wilderness.
The engine belonged to Kelly’s maroon, middle-aged Chevy pickup. She swung the truck in a tight arc, braking so that the Chevy’s nose was pointed downhill.
She climbed out, took four brisk strides to the porch, folded her arms across her chest, and glared at him. The dust hadn’t settled around the truck tires. She was ready to pick up where she’d left off last night when Blues opened the cabin door. He was wearing a ratty T-shirt and boxer shorts and was engaged in the male morning scratching ritual when Kelly turned her high-intensity eyes on him.
“Morning, Sheriff,” he said. “Glad you could join us for breakfast—hope you brought enough for everybody.”
With an easy stretch and a wide yawn, he pivoted half a turn and slid back inside.
“Well, you can take the cop out of the country but you can’t take the country—”
“Save it, Counselor! It’s going to take a lot more than smart-ass punch lines to clean up this mess.”
Kelly was back in uniform, body and soul. She had a real knack for spoiling magic moments. Mason pulled himself up from the love seat and followed her inside.
Blues had brewed coffee, and the aroma filtered into the bedroom, bringing Sandra back out with it. Mason had never developed a taste for coffee and still felt like a kid when he was the only one sucking on apple juice. Since the cabin didn’t have a fully stocked minibar, he rinsed his mouth with tap water while the others drank their attitude adjustment.
They each stood their ground in the cramped kitchen, no one talking, sorting their muddled feelings for each other and their circumstances. Kelly stood at parade rest, shoulders drawn back, fingers of both hands wrapped around her mug, eyes fixed on a watermark on the wall. Blues hunched over the sink, humming something unidentifiable under his breath, pausing only long enough to take an occasional sip. Sandra lounged against the refrigerator, drawing invisible circles on the hardwood floor with her bare toes. Mason filled the doorway between the kitchen and the den, bottling them up. Steam rose from coffee cups. Nothing else moved.
“Kelly—,” Blues began, his back still to her. “Lou and Sandra were in a jam. We had to get them out of there before Camaya came back.”
“Goddammit, Bluestone! You were a cop! How could you be so stupid? You let him run around until he almost gets himself and Sandra killed and then you leave the scene of a homicide! And just for kicks, you drop the whole mess in my lap!”
Blues placed his cup on the Formica countertop and watched a pair of squirrels chase each other in the grass.
“You called it in, didn’t you?”
“The body, the one you called Julio? You knew I would the minute you told me what happened.”
“Kansas City cops or the feds?”
“Kansas City—it’s their jurisdiction.”
“They told you someone had already called it in.”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“Because I called it in from the car. You call them back this morning to find out what went down?”
“Yes.” The edge was gone from her answer.
Blues turned around, facing Kelly, and raised himself onto the counter. “And they told you they checked it out and didn’t find a body.”
Kelly’s face softened as she nodded her reply.
“Wait a minute!” Mason said. “I killed that son of a bitch and his body disappears?”
He dropped onto the lone kitchen chair, a metal-backed model with torn, red vinyl upholstery.
“I told you Camaya would clean up his own mess,” Blues said to him. Turning back to Kelly, he continued, “Camaya was coming back to finish up with Sandra and Lou. If the cops got there first, it was Jimmie’s problem. If he cleaned house first, it stayed private. Either way, Sandra and Lou had to get out of town.”
Satisfied for the moment, Kelly changed course. “Camaya isn’t the only one looking for you, Lou. Gene McNamara called first thing this morning wanting to know if I knew where you were.”
“What did Fido want with me?”
“Victor O’Malley’s son is missing. McNamara wants to talk with you about that. I told him I would let you know the next time I saw you.”
Mason knew that if he talked to McNamara, he would have to tell him all about last night. Body or no body, he’d killed a man. He knew it was self-defense, but he also knew that he wasn’t ready to talk to McNamara about it. He’d probably end up on the receiving end of one of B.J. Moore’s comforting chats. Trouble was, if he didn’t tell McNamara what he knew about Junior’s disappearance, he could be in more trouble for obstructing justice. While that sounded fairly puny compared to homicide, it appealed to his lawyerly sense of duty. Since McNamara had sent his question through Kelly, he decided to use her for the reply.
“Tell him to look for a black Ford Escalade. Last time I saw Junior, one of Camaya’s boys was loading him in the back like a sack of groceries.”
“I don’t suppose you noticed the tag number?”
“It’s an Illinois plate,” Sandra said. “I caught the first three numbers—735—before they put me in the car.”
Kelly looked at Sandra, unable to thank her for the information or fire a shot across her bow. She was saving her ammunition for Mason. She wrote the information down without a reply before stuffing her notepad into her shirt pocket
“You’ll have to talk to him eventually; you know that.”
Anger takes a lot of energy to sustain, especially if the other side won’t fight back. She’d had all night to work herself up. Mason hoped that her anger was partly out of concern for him. That, plus the realization that he’d screwed up big-time and was lucky to be alive, kept him from firing back.
“Yeah, I know. Only not yet. You can tell him everything I know, which isn’t much, and his investigation won’t be stalled.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
MASON DIDN’T WANT TO GO HOME until he had a lot better idea who his friends were. The only way he knew to figure that out was to put this puzzle together from the beginning.
Kelly agreed not to arrest Mason for homicide, obstruction of justice, illegal parking, or any of the other offenses he’d committed in the last twenty-four hours. With a look that said she knew she would regret it, she went outside to call McNamara. She returned a few minutes later with a briefcase she tossed on the sofa and a sack of groceries she deposited in the kitchen.
“What did he say?” Mason asked.
She didn’t answer until she had emptied the contents of the sack on the table. A dozen eggs, butter, a pound of bacon, a gallon of orange juice, a loaf of Ozark Home Style Honey & Wheat Bread, and a jar of strawberry preserves.
“I like my eggs scrambled and the bacon crisp. Butter the toast lightly. I’ll get my own orange juice.”
Mason saluted and went to wor
k.
Kelly continued. “McNamara accused me of harboring a potential suspect in a kidnapping investigation and threatened to have my badge. I told him he could have it if I got to pin it on.” Her mouth opened in a half-moon smile, her first of the day.
Mason negotiated an “I’ll cook and you clean” package with Blues and Sandra. Within minutes, the small cabin was brimming with the fragrance of Ozark smoked bacon snapping in the frying pan. Fresh air, hot food, and being alive, he thought. Things could be worse.
He sat on the sofa with Kelly while the dishes were washed. The fabric was rough tartan wool. The springs had long ago given up. The ones that still had some punch were pointed at odd angles guaranteed to poke where the sun didn’t shine. The floor was looking better to Mason all the time.
Mason retrieved his briefcase from Blues’s car and started reviewing the O’Malley summaries, looking for a thread to tie everything together. He was seeing the words without reading them. They were too familiar to him. He glanced at Kelly. She was equally glazed over, thumbing through reports she’d read a dozen times.
“Listen,” he suggested, “we both need a fresh approach. Let’s trade files. Maybe we’ll see something the other has missed.”
Kelly handed him her folder. Sullivan’s medical records from Charlie Morgenstern’s office were on top. The chart was organized chronologically with the most recent records on top. It was like reading Sullivan’s life story in reverse. He already knew the ending. He just hoped there was something useful in the past.
The first entry was impersonal. Patient died in boating accident, Lake of Ozarks, July 3—date estimated—await autopsy from coroner. No hint of a twenty-plus-year friendship. Mason hoped when his doctor made his final entry for him that he at least rated a “poor Lou” instead of the anonymous “patient died.”
There were weekly entries since Sullivan’s diagnosis of HIV, regular blood work and prescriptions. Mason expected to find records of multiple injections, but there weren’t any. He’d assumed that the needle marks found at autopsy were treatment related, but the records didn’t support that. He started writing a list of questions on a legal pad, beginning with Needle marks?
