A Clean Kill

by Mike Stewart

  I pulled open the front door and stepped back out into the frigid December air. Tiny, drip-shaped icicles lined bannisters and hung from the front edges of snow-powdered steps. Stepping carefully down the steps and out to the driveway, I paused and looked for tracks. I could see Sheri’s small footprints leading up to the tire treads of the taxi that took her away. Nothing else.

  The plan was to make a straight-line walk of my property’s perimeter—not to wander around leaving a confusion of footprints. Nature, or maybe Santa Claus, had been nice enough—finally—to powder the ground so that anyone approaching my house would leave telltale prints. The least I could do was not screw it up.

  Frozen turf snapped and squeaked beneath rubber soles, bouncing small echoes into the empty afternoon air. Pausing every twenty yards or so, I swept my eyes over the yard and then the beach. I stared down the shoreline, looking for nothing in particular, and watched my breath fog against the charcoal water of Mobile Bay. My neighbor’s floating Christmas tree bobbed out on the bay, and I wondered how in the hell they lit something like that. Finally, after trudging through snow-covered brush along the far side of the house, I found what I hadn’t wanted to find. And I found it in the place where I had started my armed search.

  Just inside the driveway, maybe a hundred feet from where I stood, sat a generic, black automobile. And leaning against the center of the hood was Mr. Zion Thibbodeaux. Zybo to his friends.

  Fingering the nine-millimeter in my pocket with freezing fingers, I walked across the front of the house and stopped at the walkway. Thibbodeaux had a long, heavy revolver in one gloved hand. The gun pointed at the ground. Inside my pocket, I eased the safety off the nine-millimeter.

  He raised his empty hand and, with his palm facing the sky, made a cupping motion like he was squeezing a ball.

  I raised my voice. “You want me to come there?”

  He nodded.

  I shook my head and pointed at a place midway between us.

  He nodded again and began walking. His gun still hung loosely from his fingers, pointed at the ground but swinging in an arc as he walked.

  I walked forward, feeling at once ridiculous and deadly—like a grown man playing at being a gun-slinger.

  Maybe he wanted to talk. Or maybe he just wanted me inside the killing range of his handgun. I had, after all, tried to pull his nuts off. But I didn’t think he wanted me dead. If he had, as Joey said, I never would have seen him coming. Just in case, though, as we came within my killing range, I raised the barrel inside my pocket and aimed it at his chest.

  When we were six or seven feet apart, he stopped. “Lower your muzzle.” Puffs of fog followed each syllable into the winter air.

  I never took my eyes from the oversized revolver hung casually from his gloved hand. “No.” I breathed deeply and caught the barest whiff of something like the scent of smoke or soot coming off the man’s dark clothing.

  “Okay, Tommy. What you say I point mine at you to make it be fair?”

  I moved my jaw from side to side without taking my eyes from his revolver. “That gun moves, even a little, and I’ll empty my clip into your chest.”

  His free hand moved slowly to his crotch, and he gingerly gripped his package like a teenage rapper. “I owe you one.”

  “And I owe you about six.”

  He said, “Could be,” and slowly moved the gun behind his back, where he tucked it into his waistband. “You met with Judge Savin.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Don’ waste time, Tommy. You and him had a sit down at de Mandrake Club. His two gofers dey were there. Yeah, I hear tell you taught dat Billy some manners.”

  I studied Thibbodeaux’s dark eyes. “What’s it to you, Zybo?”

  Something small and serpentine flickered behind the Cajun’s black irises when I said his name. “I wanna know what de old man he had to say.”

  “Ask him.”

  “I’m askin’ you.”

  I was locked into his eyes, but tried to keep his black-gloved hands inside my peripheral vision. “You’re asking me to screw my career.”

  Thibbodeaux smiled. “Screwed career. Fuggin dead. Up to you, Tommy.”

  I pulled the Browning out into plain view and pointed the muzzle at his nose. “Get off my property.”

  “I gotcha now.” He nodded. “You don’t tink I’m bein’ serious, or you more nuts than I tought. Either way …” He stopped to think. “I believe I’m gonna nose ’round some. You get a call from somebody sayin’ dey … what? Lookin’ for a good university psychologist? Somethin’ like dat. You know I wanna meet up.”

  I thought of Kai-Li inside the house. “You start threatening my friends and I’d just as soon shoot you right now.”

  Zybo grinned and held up gloved palms. “No threat, Tommy. Jus lettin’ you know dat there’s nothin’ you do I don’ know ’bout.” He turned his back and walked away—slowly, deliberately. When Zybo reached the car, he turned to find my gun still trained on his head.

  His coat and hair, even his gloves, were black. Standing there framed by ice and snow, the man looked uncannily like a raven in a winter field, like some physical manifestation of death. All he said was, “We be talkin’, Tommy Boy.”

  His voice echoed across the frozen landscape. He climbed into his idling car and turned left toward Fairhope and Mobile or, just possibly, toward the Mandrake Club.

  Zion Thibbodeaux was leaving. That was enough.

  I waited to make sure he was really gone before turning toward the house. When I did, I found Kai-Li standing on the front porch, staring at me and shivering in jeans and a blue cotton turtleneck.

  I walked up the steps. “Let’s go inside.”

  She turned and went in ahead of me without speaking. When we were in the living room, warming ourselves by the fireplace, Kai-Li said, “That was the first time I’ve seen him.”

  I poked at embers from the fire I’d built that morning. “You okay?”

  “Not really.”

  I placed the poker back in the wrought-iron rack. “Mr. Thibbodeaux’s a scary guy.”

  She turned her bottom to the fire and looked out at the room. “It’s not just that. Seeing him standing in the driveway brought home how real this is. I should’ve known after he gave you that beating on the beach. But, somehow, seeing him …”

  I said her name, and she turned and looked into my face with those deep green eyes. “Would you like to go home?”

  “There’s nothing there.” She was, I thought, talking about her daughter’s holiday absence.

  “There’s safety.”

  Before I could expand on that bit of nonsense, she said, “I don’t think that’s true, Thomas.”

  I thought about arguing with her, but anything I said would’ve been a lie. And Kai-Li was plenty smart enough to have known it.

  Some time passed. I moved the fire screen and put another log on the fire. Kai-li put the screen back. Then she reached out and touched my cheek. “How’s your nose?”

  “Fine.”

  “And your chest?”

  “It’s fine too.”

  She tilted her head. “What would happen if I thumped you in the middle of your chest right now?”

  “Pain. Maybe some weeping on my part.” I smiled. “It hurts, okay?”

  “Okay.” She kept her fingers on my cheek. “You’re a frightening person to spend time with, Thomas McInnes.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  She let her hand trail down to my shoulder. “I don’t doubt that. It’s your fatal flaw.”

  I started to speak. She put a finger against my lips and shook her head. Then Kai-Li turned and walked across the room, where she disappeared into my study. Seconds later, I heard her speaking quietly to someone on the phone.

  Some time later, the phone rang and I came back from some faraway place. I’d been standing by the fire, thinking. I didn’t know how long, but my pant legs burned my skin when I walked over to pick up the receiver.
r />   “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Joey. Loutie got the job at Russell and Wagler. She’s gonna be a receptionist.”

  “Good.” I rubbed the stubble along my jaw with my free hand and tried to think. “Tell her to see if she can steal some stationery. We’re also going to need some firm memo paper, a few old memos for forms, and some signature samples, especially Chris Galerina’s. And see if she can lay her hands on one of those manila routing envelopes with the to-and-from lines on it. Every law firm I’ve ever seen uses them. I want one that’s been circulated among some of the top partners. You know, with old names scratched out and new ones added.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  I didn’t answer. Memories of Kai-Li’s frightened green eyes filled my thoughts, mixing with images of Zion Thibbodeaux swinging a knife on the beach, hiding along some imaginary dark path, and walking up my gravel drive as though it belonged to him.

  Joey spoke. “What’s wrong?”

  “Other than the lost-my-license, accused-of-murder stuff? Zion Thibbodeaux was just here.”

  “You’re shittin’ me.”

  “No.” I found myself scanning the beach through frosted windows. “I went out to check around the house. Make sure everything was okay. When I came back around from the beach, he was standing next to a car at the end of my driveway.”

  “You shoulda shot him.”

  “Thought about it.”

  Joey let a few seconds pass. “What’d he want?”

  “He wanted to know what Judge Savin had to say when we met at the Mandrake Club.”

  “Think he got there followin’ you or followin’ the judge?”

  I thought about that. “Probably me.”

  “Probably.” More time passed while I let Joey work it out for himself. “The Cajun don’t trust the judge. You think we can do somethin’ with that?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “that’s exactly what I think.”

  Twenty-five

  Ghostly patches of white spun by in the night. Most of the snow and ice had turned to water in the late-afternoon sun, but there remained just enough white, scattered under evergreens and along the eastern side of hills and houses, to lend the night a feeling of magic, a feeling that, “If I reached my hands down, near the earth, I could take handfuls of darkness.”

  I glanced over to see Kai-Li watching the night, her profile barely visible inside the car. Then I turned back to watch the road. I needed to think.

  Dr. Laurel Adderson lived in one of the too-perfect farmhouses I’d noticed outside Daphne on my first trip to the Mandrake Club. She’d said there would be a silhouette of a long-haired pointer mounted on the mailbox. She’d been right. I turned in and followed the red dirt-and-gravel road about two hundred yards, through a thinned pecan grove, before reaching the clapboard house.

  I parked next to an ancient Jeep Wagoneer—the kind with wood grain along the sides—and cut the engine.

  Kai-Li reached over and grasped my knee. I looked straight ahead and nodded at the house. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “Why don’t you look at me?” I turned to face her. She smiled, but it looked forced. “They already know about me. You said this Zybo character talked about a ‘university psychologist’ yesterday afternoon.”

  I nodded.

  She asked, “And you think this is a good idea?”

  “Well.” I shrugged. “Let’s just say it’s an idea.”

  Kai-Li’s smile seemed more genuine. “Well, so long as you’ve thought it out,” and popped open her door.

  Before we reached the threshold, Dr. Adderson’s paneled front door swung open to reveal the doctor and Judge Luther Savin standing arm in arm like an old married couple, framed by the warm light behind them.

  Judge Savin beamed. “Right on time. Wouldn’t have expected anything less. Come on in.”

  At his side, Dr. Adderson looked disturbed or confused. I couldn’t read her look. But, as we covered the last few steps of the walkway, Kai-Li leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Dr. Adderson looks pissed.” And she had put her finger on it. Dr. Adderson seemed to understand that there was gamesmanship all around her, but I would have been willing to bet just then that she was clueless about the evil that shared her life and her bed. The doctor, it seemed to me, had the innocence of one who spends her days helping others.

  The odd couple backed up so Kai-Li and I could step inside. But I paused in the doorway and held out my hand to the judge. He had to step forward to shake it. It made for an awkward moment, but it also made for a highly visible moment for anyone who might be watching us from the dark shadows of the pecan grove.

  As the judge stepped back, I handed a bottle of my best cabernet—a 1996 Silver Oak—to the doctor. “You said venison?” I think I startled her.

  “Ah, yes. That’s right.” She looked at the bottle. “Come on in.”

  Dr. Adderson handed off the wine bottle to Judge Savin, and he disappeared into some other part of the house. The doctor looked at Kai-Li. “Would you two like the grand tour?”

  Now Kai-Li looked a bit startled. “Yes. Sure.” She glanced at me. “We’d love to look around your home, Dr. Adderson.”

  “Please, call me Laurel. Why don’t we start with the living room. I have some interesting glass pieces salvaged from a home in Savannah.” And so it went. Everything in Laurel’s house seemed to have a story behind it. And it was beautiful. At one point, Kai-Li leaned over to me and whispered, “This is depressing the hell out of me.”

  I smiled. “You should’ve gone to medical school.”

  She pursed her lips and turned to listen to the history of something called a breakfront. It was a piece of furniture I’d heard of but had never really known what it was. And when Laurel had finished her description and moved on to the next room, I still didn’t. I was thinking.

  Dinner was great—if, that is, your tastes run to foods that once had a heartbeat. In addition to the main course of grilled venison, there were bacon-wrapped quail breasts for appetizers, a seafood gumbo with andouille and a deep-fried, whole turkey on the table just in case someone didn’t like deer meat.

  I admit it. I ate a lot.

  After a dessert of bananas foster, which I also ate, Judge Savin said the words I’d been waiting to hear. “Tom, you mentioned that you have some business you’d like to discuss.”

  As we stood up from the table, I asked, “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  The doctor volunteered her study, and Judge Savin led the way.

  When we stepped inside, he turned to me and winked. “Was this on the tour?”

  “No. We missed this one somehow.”

  “Too private.” He nodded in the direction of the dining room. “I was surprised when she said we could use it.”

  I walked around the room. At least a dozen shotguns were hung from brass mounts on the walls. On an antique sideboard, Laurel had arranged a display of seven shooting trophies, which were mixed in with black-and-white photos of her hunting doves, quail, pheasants, and ducks in different locales. I said, “She likes her guns.”

  From behind me, he said, “She’s good at it.”

  “I know. She took me shooting just after I first met her.”

  The judge chuckled. “I heard.”

  I pointed at a faded photo on the wall above the sideboard. The picture, which was about a foot square, was of a downed elephant. A man with a brush mustache and Hemingwayesque safari clothes sat atop the giant beast’s rib cage, holding the rifle that was presumably the proximate cause of the great animal’s demise. “Is this Laurel’s father?”

  “That’s him. She thinks he hung the frigging moon.” He stepped up to stand shoulder to shoulder with me and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Just between you and me, I hear he was the biggest sonofabitch ever to set foot on Southern soil.”

  I motioned at the picture again. “I guess he liked killing things.”

  “That bother you, Tom?”

  I sh
ook my head. “Not really. I don’t think I’d get any pleasure out of killing something as majestic as that. But I’ve shot my share of ducks and quail. So I don’t have any business lecturing anyone else.”

  The judge stepped away. When I turned, he was standing beside a tea cart and filling two snifters with cognac. He held one out. “I’m always amused by folks who bitch about hunting while they’ve got a stomach full of McDonald’s, part of a cow’s hide on their feet, and their money inside a piece of an alligator’s underbelly.”

  I took in a healthy swallow of the cognac. “Moral consistency is not a characteristic of our species.”

  “Damn right.” Judge Savin laughed. “Where’s that come from?”

  “I think I just made it up.”

  He laughed some more and then suddenly changed demeanor the way someone can whose expressions of emotion aren’t real. “Let me ask you this, Tom. Are you characteristic of the species?”

  “I try to be moral, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  The judge plopped down in a tufted club chair. “Well, shit, Tom. We all fucking try. It’s a more complicated question I’m asking.”

  “I’ve thought a lot about what you said the other day at the club.” I reached inside my coat pocket and pulled out a manila, interoffice routing envelope with a half-dozen scratched out names on the routing list. I held it out to the judge, with the list of names turned away from him.

  “You wouldn’t be trying to bribe a state appellate judge.”

  “Of course not. Just look at it.”

  Judge Savin unwound a string on the back of the envelope and pulled out a folded sheath of papers.

  I looked over his shoulder. “Sorry. I think they’re in reverse order.”

  The judge snorted disgust, showing a bit of his true personality, and began thumbing through the papers—placing the top document on his knee and stacking each successive page on top to fix the order. As he proceeded, the judge worked slower rather than faster. Some of the forms and reports in the packet were ringing bells, and he was trying to think. I stood and watched him do it.