A Clean Kill

by Mike Stewart

  Kai-Li descended the stairs into the living room. She wore jeans and a sweater. She looked great. I put my hand over the mouthpiece. “Joey’s in the kitchen.”

  She nodded and walked on through. She didn’t look fully awake yet.

  “No. Thanks, Loutie. I just needed to know if Baneberry-Cort Construction is a named plaintiff.”

  “Yeah. I’ve only glanced the complaint in passing, but I’m almost certain the partnership is one of the entities suing Dr. Adderson.” She paused as it sunk in. “How would they have standing?”

  I walked back toward my own kitchen with the mobile receiver. “Kate Baneberry was a partner.” A sharp squeak and the sound of running water went away. “You done with the dishes?”

  “Yeah. Look, like I said, I can get a copy of anything they’re working on.”

  Kai-Li leaned against the counter, drinking coffee. I sat down at the table across from Joey. “No, Loutie. The cat’s out of the bag. Your career as a highly paid law-firm receptionist just ended.” I waited for her to speak. She didn’t. “We’ll talk about it more in person.”

  “Sounds good.” Loutie was a smart woman. Smart enough to leave it alone. “I don’t think I did you much good though.”

  “Loutie,” I said, “you’d be surprised.”

  I pushed the off button and dropped the receiver on the table. Joey had grabbed a bowl from the counter and was eating huge spoonfuls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with milk. I pointed at his bowl. “I thought you didn’t know how I could eat that.”

  “Thought I’d find out.”

  I leaned against the back of my chair. “Can you stay around for a little while? I’d like to set up a meeting with Sully.”

  “Worried about your license?”

  “No. This is something else.”

  Joey finished the last of the cereal. He picked up the bowl and drank the milk with sugar and cinnamon in it. “Give me an hour or two. Gotta serve a summons in Foley for a buddy who couldn’t get to it.”

  I picked up the receiver and punched in Sully’s office number. I spoke with his secretary and dropped the phone back on the table. “Right after lunch.”

  Joey stood, placed his bowl in the sink, and walked out. I followed him to the door, where he paused. “Tom? You know that girl in there’s got a crush on you.”

  “She’s a good person.”

  “So, you nailing her or what?”

  I looked into his eyes. “Careful, Joey.”

  He laughed. Hard. “Works every time. I can always tell if you’re getting laid. All I gotta do is ask the wrong way and then check out the needle on the pissed-off meter.”

  I said, “Why don’t you kiss my ass?”

  Joey looked over toward the kitchen and back down to wink at me. “I think that job’s taken.” He opened the door and stepped out. Over his shoulder, he added, “And it’s about friggin’ time.”

  I swung the door shut before he’d finished the last word.

  Joey was back by noon. He asked Kai-Li to sit in the passenger seat of his Expedition. I climbed in back where, on the ride into Mobile, I listened to Joey question Kai-Li about whether she found it rewarding to teach undergraduates and how she had landed in Auburn after starting out life in Hong Kong. He asked all about her daughter, Sunny, and talked about spending Christmas away from family when he was in the Navy.

  My giant friend really hadn’t paid much attention to Dr. Kai-Li Cantil up until that morning. Now he figured she was a friend. Joey’s like that. If I liked her, he liked her. If Joey liked her, nobody better ever cause her harm. Kai-Li was making one hell of a friend, and I doubted that she even knew it.

  Sully was waiting in his office when we arrived. He asked if we’d had lunch and then sent a runner for sandwiches and soup.

  I met with him first, alone. Half an hour later, Sully placed a call to Assistant District Attorney Buddy Foxglove—the man who’d arrested me for murder at the urging of his superiors. Foxglove hadn’t liked the political interference at the time. Now, as Sully put the man on speaker, Foxglove paid us the courtesy of listening. We talked to him for over an hour. He said little.

  For the last half hour of the phone call, we called in Joey and Kai-Li. Foxglove seemed to find my Asian-American houseguest impressive. He was right.

  There were different levels of involvement and expertise among the four of us in Sully’s office. Sully, our host, now knew everything I knew. The other two knew what they needed to know to stay safe and play their parts.

  We all agreed, even ADA Buddy Foxglove—I was in a hell of a mess.

  When the conference call had ended, Sully asked, “How do you contact this Zybo character?”

  “I can’t. He contacts me.”

  “Judge Savin’s not going to let you walk around unmolested forever. So, figure out a way. You’ve lost your license and been indicted for murder, even if the charges were later withdrawn. A lot of people think you’ve lost it, Tom.”

  “Thank you.”

  He shrugged. “A suicide—let’s just say any kind of death that even looks like a suicide—by someone in your position would hardly raise an eyebrow. So,” he paused for emphasis, “find this damn Cajun. We’ve got to get moving.”

  We were leaving Mobile. Kai-Li sat up front again. Joey was being charming. He’d just pointed out a small alley where he once got shot through his left hand. He held the scar up to the light. “See.”

  I leaned forward. “This is the thug version of polite conversation.”

  Joey glanced in the rearview mirror. “You callin’ me a thug? Go look in the mirror, bubba. Nobody’s been beating me in the face with a knife and a pistol.”

  A mall passed by. I said, “Turn in here.”

  Joey braked and made the next entrance. “What’re we doin’ here?”

  “We’re looking for a music store.” Kai-Li turned and gave me a strange look. I said, “I need some zydeco. I’m thinking of cranking up the stereo when we get home.”

  Kai-Li smiled. “Think that’ll work?”

  Joey glanced up again at me in the rearview mirror. “What are you talking about?” He turned to Kai-Li. “Think what’ll work?”

  Thirty-four

  The doors and windows stood wide open. We filled the Eastern Shore with yodeled vibrato and the rhythmic twang of stringed instruments. I feared blowing my Martin Logan speakers into little pieces.

  Three neighbors called. Two were almost polite. The fourth caller asked, “You lookin’ for a good university psychologist?”

  “That’s right.”

  Zion Thibbodeaux said, “Same diner?”

  I said, “Yeah,” and he hung up.

  Joey had gone back to Mobile. I quickly called him and left for the diner.

  Inside the Safari, my palms sweated and slipped on the steering wheel. The sides of my stomach seemed to abrade against each other. It was a short drive that seemed long.

  I found the place around dinnertime. Inside, there was the same smell, the same waitress, and four new patrons at the counter. Zybo sat at the back table.

  When I approached, he said, “Sit on down.” So that’s what I did. “Whatsa matter, Tommy Boy? You worried ’bout de Wagoneer? Nobody found it yet, if dat’s what’s botherin’ you.”

  I leaned back and stretched out my legs. “What Wagoneer?”

  “Now you talkin’.” Zybo nodded. “So what’s de problem?”

  “Judge Savin. As soon as he figures out I’m still in the world, he’s going to try again.”

  The Cajun looked bored. “I tol you, I got your back.”

  “For how long?”

  He shrugged.

  “That’s my point,” I said. “What I need is something to make him back off.”

  “Why you talkin’ to me ’bout it?”

  “I know you’ve got something. Something you put back to protect yourself. Listen …”

  A man in a dirty coat stepped down off a stool at the counter and asked the waitress, “Where’s the head?”<
br />
  I held up a palm at Zybo as the guy made his way beside the tables and passed us. But as the dirty coat passed Zybo, he turned and placed the muzzle of an automatic pistol against the side of Zybo’s head.

  “Don’t move. Either one of you. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Someone grabbed me from behind and yanked both of my hands behind my neck. An unseen hand clamped onto my fingers while another hand moved over my clothing. From behind, a voice said, “You can stand up and step aside, Mr. McInnes.”

  I looked up into Zybo’s eyes. There was murder in them. I said, “Don’t say anything.”

  He slowly shook his head at me. Then, as I stood, the front door slammed, and Zybo’s line of sight shot past me. His face turned dark. I spun around and saw Joey walk in.

  “What is this?”

  Joey’s eyes drooped. His shoulders and arms hung limp. “It’s for your own good, Tom.” He motioned at Zybo. “You gotta be done with this guy.”

  I lunged forward and swung hard at Joey’s chin, just catching the tip of it as he jerked his head backward.

  Two cops grabbed my arms. A third one, the man in the dirty coat, told the others to cuff me. They used nylon zip cuffs to secure my hands. I looked back. Zybo stood between the dirty coat and a second cop, his face turned to the floor.

  The head cop, the one in the coat, began to read Zybo his rights as the two men holding my arms pulled me toward the door. I yelled back over my shoulder at Zybo. “Don’t say a word. I’m this man’s lawyer. You can’t question him without me.” When we reached the door, I jammed a foot against the doorframe and caught Zybo’s eyes. All I could get out was, “Not a word,” before the cops shoved me out into the night.

  They let me go home, telling me to be at police headquarters at eight the next morning. I told them I needed to see my client. They said, “Fine. At eight in the morning.”

  After three phone calls the night Zion Thibbodeaux was arrested, I met Sullivan Walker in his Mobile office the next morning at seven. Sully and I were at police headquarters thirty minutes later. They let me see Zybo at 9:20, which was a few minutes after ADA Foxglove had finished rubbing my nose in the mess he thought I’d made of things.

  Zybo was already in the little prisoner/attorney room when I stepped inside. His head was bowed over a small, square table made of gray metal. His hands were cuffed in front and locked to a thick chain around his waist.

  I pulled out the only other chair and sat across from him. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” He didn’t look up. Over his head, names and initials had been scratched into a dirty wall covered in chipped paint that, in one corner, bore the imprint of some difficult prisoner’s front teeth.

  “Have you said anything to them?”

  He wagged his lowered head from side to side.

  “Nothing?”

  He mumbled. “Not even my name.”

  This was not the man I’d feared for weeks. “What’s the matter? What’d they do to you?”

  He looked up. His dark eyes were flat, almost lifeless. “Nothin’.” He looked around. “I hate dese fuggin places.”

  I nodded. Zion Thibbodeaux’s medical career had ended in a place much like this one. “Maybe we can do something about that. Look, the DA knows about Russell and Wagler. About the jury tampering. Looks like the investigation into Chris Galerina’s death turned up something.”

  I had his attention now. “Dat why dey want me?”

  “Yeah, I told you the Mobile cops got a call from Montgomery about a Louisiana hit man. Looks like they figured out who that was.”

  A faint spark moved behind his pupils. “Wouldn’t have if you hadn’ had me arrested after we tied up on de beach.”

  “Listen. We didn’t ‘tie up.’ You followed me and harassed me and tried to slice my face open with a knife.” I paused. “The way I look at it, the cops know who you are because you tried to kill me on the beach. And I have trouble feeling a lot of responsibility for that.” I felt the anger again just talking about it, and I found myself yelling at my sort-of client.

  A guard stuck his head inside. “Everything all right in here?”

  I turned. “Fine. Just explaining life.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “well, do it quieter.” He closed the door.

  Some silence settled between us. Zybo spoke first. “It’s de way I live. Maybe I picked it. Maybe it picked me. I deal with it.” He rolled his shoulders and sat up straight. He seemed to be all the way with me again. “So. De cops dey tink dey got sometin’ on Russell and Wagler. What ’bout de judge?”

  I smiled. “Smart boy. That’s exactly what you’ve got that they don’t. Also, you need to realize that, once the DA starts in on the law firm, they’re going to start yelling your name, blaming everything on you.” I stopped and waited for him to speak. He didn’t. “Anyway, if we come forward first, I think we can make Wagler admit that you were just hired to make people sick—not to kill them.”

  “Dat’ll help dem too.”

  I nodded. “Right. They just hired you to make a few jurors sick. That way, they’re not accessories to murder.”

  “What ’bout de Baneberry woman?”

  “Did you kill her?”

  “Hell, no. I tol you.” He looked down again. “Damnit!”

  “Well, I guess I don’t have much choice but to believe you. And—whether I believe you or not—if you can give the cops enough hard information on Savin and his ties to Russell and Wagler, I think the DA’s going to be willing to go along with Jim Baneberry claiming his wife died as a result of medical malpractice. Basically, I’m thinking the DA’s going to take a statewide jury-rigging case over a possible, probably unprovable, death by poisoning. One is better press and better politics. And I’m thinking Jim Baneberry is going to believe the story that puts money in his pocket. Malpractice does that. Murder doesn’t.” I paused to let Zybo absorb what he’d heard. But I didn’t want him thinking too long. I wasn’t sure that I believed all of it myself. “You don’t know everything, but there are a lot of complicating circumstances surrounding Kate Baneberry’s death. And, Zybo, we’d be talking about immunity for all acts committed in connection with this case. That would include Mrs. Baneberry.”

  “What ’bout Savin’s boys?”

  “No. Not them.”

  He shrugged. “Can’ have everyting.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. We may get nothing. But I’ve got something to sweeten the deal a little.” He raised his eyebrows. “Dr. Cantil—the Chinese psychologist?”

  He nodded. “She’s got this study she did. She can show—without any doubt at all—that Russell and Wagler has been fixing jury trials.”

  “Good. But why she gonna use it to help me?”

  “She’s not,” I said. “She’s going to use it to help herself and maybe me. After the other night, neither she nor I are ever going to be safe until Judge Luther Savin is behind bars or dead. And I’ll never practice law anywhere ever again until Savin is ruined.”

  Zybo nodded. He started to say something and stopped. Seconds passed. He tried again. “What now?”

  “It’s your turn.”

  “To do what?”

  “You’re too smart to’ve worked for people like these and not have figured out some way to protect yourself.” I stood up. I had too much energy to sit. “I want to make a deal with the DA. I get my license back. You get a reduced sentence. Maybe even immunity.”

  His eyes bounced around the room. “Screw reduced sentence. I ain’t doin’ anyting without immunity.” He looked around. “I’m tellin’ you. I can’ stand dese fuggin places.”

  “You got something that’s worth immunity?”

  Zybo sat up straight. For the first time that morning, he looked like the same scary bastard who’d been ruining my life for a month. “Dey want de judge? I can give ’em de judge.”

  “How fast can you get the information here?”

  “Make de deal,” he said. “I get it here
fast. Jus’ make de deal.”

  An hour later, Zybo was ushered back into the room. This time ADA Buddy Foxglove had joined us in the tiny room.

  I nodded at Foxglove. “Zybo. The DA says he needs to see what you’ve got.”

  “Hell, no. He see what I got, why he need to make a deal?”

  Foxglove said, “Fine,” and walked out.

  I spent another hour cajoling Zybo. While I was at it, my lawyer, Sully, stroked the DA. A few minutes past eleven that morning, we had a meeting of the minds. Zybo gave me a website address, a list of exceedingly strange instructions, and a string of mixed letters and numbers to use as a password.

  “Tell ’em. If dey try to print it, de site it’ll shut down. De password it’ll change. Look, don’ print. You got it?”

  I said, “You’re kidding.”

  He didn’t answer. I guess he wasn’t. Two guards escorted the Cajun back to his cell.

  All the government computers had firewalls designed to keep our law enforcement officials out of the porno sites. We couldn’t raise Zybo’s site on Foxglove’s computer. Ditto for his secretary’s unit.

  We stood around. Foxglove mumbled under his breath. I asked, “You got anybody who investigates Internet crime?”

  The DA cussed. He banged open a door and jogged down the hallway. We followed him to Vice, where he butted some clerk out of the way and logged on to a computer labeled FOR VICE USE ONLY, which struck me as something that could, without fear of contradiction, be printed on most computers with Internet access.

  In the address window, he typed Zybo’s World Wide Web address. Detailed specs for an old Luxman stereo receiver filled the screen.

  Foxglove said, “Okay, what now?”

  I reviewed Zybo’s instructions. “Count down to the twentieth word.”

  “Count the title?”

  “Beats me.”

  Foxglove used the cursor to jump from word to word. The clerk and Sully stood behind him. Their lips moved as the cursor bounced along the lines of text. He said, “harmonic.”

  “Click it.”

  He did. A picture of the receiver’s innards popped up. I said, “Find something labeled ‘THD Switch’ and click on that.”