A Clean Kill

by Mike Stewart

  “And what would that tell me, you know, if I will?”

  I cut in. “Zybo’s careful, and he’s smart.”

  Joey nodded. “Boy had a year of medical school at Tulane before messin’ up and killin’ somebody.”

  Kai-Li had been crossing the room to one of my club chairs. She stopped short. “Yes. That struck me when we first heard it. Do you know what happened?”

  “I haven’t gotten the trial transcripts yet,” Joey said, “but the story goes that he and some buddies from school were out celebrating after first-year exams, and some kind of fight broke out. Two of his med-school buddies hauled ass and left him in an alley with three oil-rig workers who decided it’d be fun to mess up a college boy.”

  “Bad idea, I guess.”

  “Yeah. Again, the story goes—and I don’t know how accurate this is—the story goes that Zybo took a carpet knife away from one of ’em, killed him with it, and was in the process of skinning a second one when the cops showed up.”

  Kai-Li walked over and sat beside me. “But isn’t that self-defense?”

  I said, “Maybe. But the courts do not look favorably on claims of self-defense in a drunken bar fight. They cut him some kind of slack, though. He’s out.”

  Kai-Li looked incensed. “With a ruined life.”

  Joey laughed. “Let’s don’t get to feeling too sorry for somebody who strapped a carbon monoxide canister to the heater in Tom’s Jeep.”

  Kai-Li was unfazed. “Nothing’s simple.”

  I turned and smiled at her. “Is Zybo three people too?”

  She gave me a look. “At least.” She turned back to Joey. “How’d some med student take on three roughnecks?”

  “Well, first of all, he grew up down in a Louisiana swamp where he’d probably been fighting since he could walk, and he was some kind of jock at Southwest Louisiana. I’m guessing gymnastics or maybe wrestling from the way he moves. So, looking at all that, these oil-rig tough guys just chose the wrong boy.”

  Joey stood there, his forehead wrinkled, thinking about Zybo’s life. Finally, he said, “We got off the subject here. Y’all were sayin’ that I’m missin’ somethin’ about the ‘sequence of events.’ ” He pointed his nose at Kai-Li but held my eyes. “Something about,” Joey switched into a bad English accent, “ ‘the levels of harassment.’ ” Like a Brit, he emphasized the first syllable of “harassment,” rather than the second.

  Kai-Li asked, “Am I being made sport of?”

  “Just yankin’ your chain a little,” Joey said. “You gonna answer my question?”

  I broke in. “I started out by saying this Zybo is smart.”

  Joey nodded.

  “Think about what he’s done. Carbon monoxide poisoning that would be almost impossible to trace. Piling furniture in my living room with me asleep and the alarm set, making it so it’d look like a joke if I called the cops. Then he just put a dead squirrel on my hood.”

  Joey got it. “The lighted house with music playin’ and the busted window on the Land Rover. That was too much.”

  I agreed. “Way too much. Almost as if someone else did it. Someone who wanted us to stay focused on Zybo and not look elsewhere for answers.” I glanced over at Kai-Li. “Bottom line is, we think Judge Savin’s jury-rigging club is getting ready to bust apart from more pressure than we’re putting on it.”

  Joey wrinkled his head again and turned back toward the window. “Something else’s goin’ on that we don’t know about.”

  “Something else is going on.”

  Joey turned and propped his butt against the window frame. “Is that gonna affect what we’re doing?”

  “Seems like it should, doesn’t it?”

  Joey nodded and the phone rang.

  Kai-Li picked up the receiver and said, “Hello … Thank you again for last night. We … I’m sorry, what? Hang on.” She held the receiver out to me with her palm placed over the mouthpiece. She whispered. “It’s Laurel Adderson. She’s not happy.”

  Now I said hello, and that was pretty much the last complete thought I managed to work into the conversation. I listened. I tried a couple of excuses and said goodbye.

  Joey was grinning, enjoying my obvious discomfort. When I hung up, he asked, “What’s goin’ on?”

  I sighed and sat back against the sofa. “Basically, the doctor wanted to ask how dare I advise Sheri to join the lawsuit against her. How dare I come to her house and eat her food after doing such an underhanded thing. Pretty much, how dare I go on living and breathing on the planet.”

  Joey smiled. “She let you answer?”

  “Hell no.” I stood and walked over to stand between Joey and Kai-Li. “I’ve been thinking. Sounds like we know about as much about Zion Thibbodeaux as we’re ever going to.” I nodded at Joey. “I’d like for you to switch over and see what you and Loutie can find out about Jim Baneberry’s suit against Dr. Adderson. Check out the parties. Check out Baneberry’s finances, his company, that kind of thing.” I paused. “And check out that sonofabitch Jonathan Cort while you’re at it.”

  Joey smiled. “You got it.” Then he walked out, leaving Kai-Li and me standing by the window, staring off into the overcast sky.

  Kai-Li and I drove into Fairhope for lunch. Inside a quaint café with twenty-foot ceilings, I ate half a dozen dry shrimp arranged on a bed of pasta. It was a “heart-healthy” menu item. Must have been. It tasted like hell.

  Thirty minutes later, we were in Dr. Adderson’s waiting room.

  “The doctor can’t see you today.” The nurse wore white scrubs. She looked like a refrigerator with shoes.

  I tried to look friendly. “It’ll just take a minute.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry.” And she disappeared through one of those swinging doors that mark the boundary of every doctor’s inviolate territory.

  I decided to violate it.

  No one stopped me. The scrub-suited fridge had disappeared, and I wandered the hallways unmolested, finally locating Dr. Adderson’s small, neat office in the back right corner of the building. I sat in the client chair—or maybe the patient chair—and waited. Nothing happened. I got bored and walked over to sit in Dr. Adderson’s tufted leather chair. I looked at the phone.

  Someone—maybe the fridge—had typed a little note and taped it to the doctor’s phone: “To page, dial 6, wait for a dial tone, then dial 999.”

  Sounded good to me. I punched in the numbers. “Paging Dr. Laurel Adderson. Paging Dr. Laurel Adderson. You’re late for a meeting in your office. Thank you.”

  Pretty professional, I thought.

  A blanket of white uniform filled the doorway. “Get out of here this minute! Who do you think you are? Get out of the doctor’s chair!”

  Nurses tend to think of doctors as little gods. Doctors like it that way.

  I stood to plead my case, but, before I could speak, Dr. Adderson’s calm voice sounded behind the mainsail in the doorway. “It’s okay, Millie. Go call the police.”

  “Yes, doctor.” She virtually spit the last word at me. She had me now. I was screwing around with the doctor.

  Laurel Adderson entered the room. “Would you like to say anything before the police get here?”

  “That’s why I came.” I moved around to the visitor’s side of her desk.

  “So,” she said, “speak. Whatever it is must be very important for you to make this big an ass of yourself over it.”

  “Actually, this is about average on the ass meter for me.”

  She sat down and crossed her arms.

  I sat in the patient’s chair so I could look directly into her face. I placed my elbows on my knees and leaned forward—earnestly, imploringly, I hoped. “I did not advise Sheri to sue you. She fired me. Any actions she and her father take against you are outside my control.”

  “Is that it?”

  “That’s it. Except that she left owing me fees, which I can’t collect now because I managed to get my license suspended trying to represent her.”


  Now Dr. Adderson leaned forward. She propped her elbows on her desk. “I do not feel sorry for you, Tom. You pursued Sheri’s case in a way … well, let’s just say that the judge believes you could have handled it better.”

  “Probably true.” I tried to look ashamed. “But my reputation can’t take much more right now. I wanted you to know I didn’t release any information you gave me to Jim Baneberry’s lawyers.” And that much was true.

  “Fine. You’ve told me. If you leave now, you may manage to avoid meeting the police on the way out.”

  I stood. “One more thing. I need a favor.”

  She sat back in her chair. “You’re kidding.”

  “No. I’m not. I want you to explain all this to Judge Savin. Tell him about our conversation. And, if you would, tell him this. Tell him that I want to keep my law license. I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to hold on to my practice and to collect my fees from Sheri Baneberry.” I walked to the door and turned back. “You weren’t the only one who got screwed when Sheri joined the opposition, Dr. Adderson.”

  I walked quickly away. In the waiting room, I edged past a white refrigerator with a bright red face and crooked a finger at Kai-Li. She was on her feet and matching my pace as we hit the door and hurried through the foyer and out into the parking lot.

  As we reached the Safari, a black-and-white pulled up alongside and rolled down a window. A lone, uniformed cop leaned out. “What’s happening here? Did you come from inside the doctor’s office?”

  Kai-Li stepped into the passenger seat and closed her door.

  I said, “Yeah. There’s this big, red-faced nurse in there. Size of a Buick. She’s in the waiting room, yelling something about the doctor’s office and threatening to smother anyone who comes near her.” I pointed over my shoulder at Kai-Li. “Had to get my wife out of there. Woman was scaring her to death.”

  The cop stepped out of his patrol car, told me to “wait right there,” and ran inside the building.

  I nodded. Then I stepped into the Safari and drove out of the parking lot.

  Twenty-eight

  The sign read, Sunset Villas, Baneberry-Cort Construction, General Contractor.

  I raised my paper cup in the direction of a skeleton of rust-colored steel that slashed the evening sky into irregular, unnatural shapes. “Ugly, isn’t it?”

  Joey sat in the passenger seat of the Safari, eating his second Quarter Pounder with Cheese. “I think all these damn things are ugly. I like Saint George and Dog Island. Grayton Beach is okay. Hurricanes keep blowing Gulf Shores off the map, and contractors keep coming back and fuckin’ it up. Beach always seemed to me like the wrong place for a ten-story condo.” He took another huge bite of burger. “That’s what I think, but nobody asked my ass about it.”

  “My condolences to your ass.”

  Joey grunted.

  “Is this all you wanted me to see?”

  My giant friend polished off his sandwich, popped the plastic cover off a large Coke, and took a long swallow before answering. “Look at the completion date on the sign.”

  “Where?”

  He placed his drink in a cup holder and opened his door. “Come on.”

  I followed him to the sign—a painted four-by-eight sheet of exterior plywood. In smaller print, in one corner, the sign read: AVAILABLE FOR OCCUPANCY, but the date had been painted over.

  Joey flipped on a flashlight. “Look. You can just see it.”

  The date was almost a year past.

  “Is that it? That’s why I had to come way out here in rush-hour traffic? Hell, Joey. You know as well as I do, construction gets stalled for all kinds of reasons—zoning, owner financing problems, lousy advance sales.”

  Joey just listened. That’s how I knew he had the answer. “But this one was financed, designed, and almost built by one company.”

  “Baneberry-Cort Construction.”

  Joey turned to walk back to the vehicle. “Amazing. Hit you over the head a few times, and you pick right up on it.” He stopped to lean against the hood and look out over the Gulf of Mexico. “And guess who was the third partner in the firm of Baneberry-Cort Construction.”

  I stopped to think. “Kate Baneberry.”

  Joey turned and opened the passenger door. “About time.”

  I looked at him.

  “I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.” He grabbed his Coke from inside the truck and leaned back out. “Time to quit fuckin’ around with these folks, Tom.”

  He killed his drink and threw the ice across the construction site before stepping inside the vehicle.

  The skies over Gulf Shores were still tinged with the last bright smudges of daylight when we pulled off the construction site and headed home. I drove, and I took it easy, which is unusual. I needed to think.

  Twenty minutes into the ride, Joey pointed at a Jr. Food Store coming up on the right, and I pulled over. I pumped gas while Joey went inside and came out with two six-packs of Heineken.

  I asked, “You pay for the gas?”

  He nodded.

  That was it. Neither Joey nor I spoke for the next hour. He was thinking. So was I.

  As we passed through Fairhope, I recalled that Joey had once worked for the investigative arm of the state troopers, and I broke the silence.

  “You used to be with Alabama Bureau of Investigation, didn’t you?”

  Joey grunted an affirmative noise.

  “You got any ABI friends left up in Montgomery?”

  Joey was slow answering. “Yeah. I guess. A couple, maybe.”

  “Good.”

  Joey turned in his seat to look at me. And, for the rest of the drive into Point Clear, we discussed how we could best exploit his friends’ loyalty to our advantage.

  Kai-Li had enjoyed enough surprises during our brief time together. I honked the horn as we pulled up next to the house, and, seconds later, Loutie’s face appeared in the column of windows next to my front door. Joey and I walked in. We were out of beer.

  Loutie asked, “You two drunk?”

  Joey reached over and absentmindedly patted her hip. “Just a few beers.”

  As Joey passed through to the living room, Loutie hung back. “Tom?” Her hard, clear eyes searched my face. “Kai-Li seems like a nice girl. Smart.”

  Something was wrong. “Yeah, I think so.”

  She nodded. “Susan called from Chicago.”

  My heart missed a beat, and I asked without thinking, “She okay?”

  Loutie understood. I’d nearly gotten Susan killed once upon a time, and I felt more than a little protective of her. “She’s fine. She wants you to call her.”

  I nodded.

  “Go ahead and do it now.”

  I looked hard into her eyes. “And she’s fine?”

  “She’s fine. Go call.”

  I said hello to Kai-Li on the way through the living room, and got a sympathetic smile in return. Both women knew I was about to get the there’s-someone-else news. Now I knew it too.

  I sat at my desk and dialed the number in Illinois. Susan sounded relaxed, happy, and concerned. He was an assistant conductor of the Chicago Symphony. I made a feeble joke about how I’d never believed the conventional wisdom that all symphony conductors are gay. She laughed. I wished her the best. She wished the same for me. I went back into my own living room to be pitied and treated with kid gloves by an ex-stripper and an Asian shrink.

  Sometimes life sucks.

  As I came into the living room, Joey said, “So. I hear she dumped your ass.”

  Loutie balled her fist, and Joey moved quickly out of reach. She was not a woman given to playful punches. Loutie was getting ready to pop Joey one, and he knew it. But the pity, the serious demeanor of the women, and Joey running from Loutie—it was all too much, and I started laughing.

  Joey grinned. “Poor little fella. He’s in shock.” He winked at me. “Come on, Tom. Let’s go get us a beer before Loutie kicks my ass in front of this distinguished professor you got
stayin’ with you.”

  I followed Joey into the kitchen, where we opened the first of an unknown number of beers that would be consumed that night.

  I honestly didn’t feel as bad about being dumped as I probably should have—Susan and I had split up weeks before—but, as Joey was sensitive enough to point out, “Not datin’ a woman anymore and knowin’ some other guy is bonin’ her are two different things.”

  On top of that, it had been a hell of a week on a lot of levels. So, Joey and I conducted an inebriated tour of the beers of the world—as least as represented by the contents of my refrigerator. It is not an exaggeration to say we covered at least two beer-producing countries on each of the major continents.

  By the time he and Loutie said good night some time around midnight, I was lit. Glowing. Basically drunk as Cooter Brown, as my mother used to say. And, as Joey’s Expedition disappeared into the night, I’m almost certain I tried to engage Kai-Li in a discussion of just exactly who Cooder Brown might have been.

  As I recall, she had very few thoughts on the subject.

  A door opened. I rolled over onto my back and opened my eyes. Bad idea. Bright sunshine stabbed through my pupils like steel needles. A bundle of nerves just behind my eyes seemed to explode before I could screw my eyes shut again.

  Kai-Li’s voice said, “Headache?”

  I think I said, “Umm.”

  “I made some coffee. Would you like some?”

  I repeated my all-purpose syllable.

  By the time she walked back into the room, wearing the New Orleans Jazz Festival T-shirt I’d given her to use as a nightgown and carrying two stoneware mugs of steaming coffee, I’d managed to prop two pillows against the headboard and achieve a more-or-less upright position.

  She carefully placed a hot mug in my hands and I said, “Thank you.”

  “Actual words.” Kai-Li smiled and sat cross-legged on the bed facing me. “Impressive.”

  I looked down and felt a glandular jolt. “Umm.”

  “Words, Thomas.”

  “I can see your underwear.”

  She rolled her eyes and punched the long T-shirt down between her legs. “You happy now?”