by Mike Stewart
Pithway glared at ADA Buddy Foxglove. “Is this your idea of good public policy?” The judge looked down to shuffle through papers stacked haphazardly on the bench in front of him. “According to the immunity agreement you’ve executed with Mr. Thibbodeaux here,” he moistened his thumb and flipped a page, “he admits to poisoning eighteen jurors over the past three years. Can that be right?”
Foxglove cleared his throat. “We believe it’s a correct number, your honor. My office has analyzed the cases. In every case cited by Mr. Thibbodeaux, a juror left service due to illness and was replaced by an alternate. We are in the process of interviewing the parties and jurors on those cases.”
“And one of them, a Mrs. Kate Baneberry, later died?”
“Yes, Your Honor. But we are unable to establish any nexus …”
The judge waved an open mitt in the air as if shooing flies. “And still your office is comfortable enough to let,” he motioned at Zybo with the same relaxed, open hand, “this admitted felon with a previous conviction for …”
Foxglove filled in the blank. “Assault, attempted murder, and manslaughter.”
Pithway turned his massive head and trained his eyes on Zybo. “Quite a life you’ve carved out for yourself, Mr. Thibbodeaux.”
I stood. “His conviction stemmed from an act of self-defense, which the parole board took into account in cutting short Mr. Thibbodeaux’s sentence. If I may, I’d like to point out …”
“Mr. McInnes?”
“Yes, Your Honor?”
“You may not.”
“Yes, Your Honor.” I sat down.
“Stand back up, Mr. McInnes.” I stood. “Are you admitted to practice before this court?”
This was not the fun part. “My license has been temporarily suspended by the State Bar. However, we have already received notice that I’ll be reinstated as soon as the disciplinary committee meets. In the interim, I’ve asked my own attorney, Sullivan Walker, to sit …”
Judge Pithway glanced at his watch. “Mr. McInnes? It is now one twenty-three in the afternoon. Do you, at one twenty-three in the afternoon, on this date, have a license to practice before this court?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Then sit down, Mr. McInnes.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Foxglove?” All eyes turned to the DA. His face was red; his eyes watered with suppressed laughter. “You enjoying yourself?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Stand up!”
And so it went. The lawyers got reamed, and Zybo got his immunity. Just another day in the Mobile County Courthouse.
Maybe I didn’t like the place as much as I thought.
On the sidewalk outside, Zybo reached out to shake hands. We were not friends; everything was not in the past; I hoped a bus would run over him.
I shook his hand. “Joey’s a friend.”
Zybo withdrew his hand and just looked at me.
“He thought he was doing the right thing when he brought the cops to our meeting at the diner.”
Nothing.
“It turned out right, Zybo. That’s what’s important, and I don’t want anything to happen to Joey. I’m serious.”
“I owe him, your friend.”
“Let it go. Take a swing at him if you want. Just don’t do anything permanent.” I paused while a gaggle of young lawyers strode past, discussing some slip-and-fall like it was the trial at Nuremberg. When they had passed, I asked, “Are we straight on this?”
The Cajun nodded. “We’re straight.” He turned and walked away down the sidewalk. He hailed a cab.
On my flip phone, I punched in Sheri Baneberry’s work number. Just as before, she answered her own phone. I told her we needed to meet.
She had heard about the arrests at Russell & Wagler.
“That’s part of what we need to discuss.”
Seconds ticked by. “Not today. I can’t. Call back tomorrow. We’ll set something up.” She hung up.
I held the phone out and looked at it. That didn’t help. I called my office and spoke with Kelly. “We’re back in business. At least we will be after the first of the year.”
“I heard. Congrats.”
“Thanks. There’s still not much I’m allowed to do before the disciplinary committee meets. What’s going on there?”
“Sorry, it’s dead here. You do have a message, though. Dr. Laurel Adderson’s office manager called—a girl named Naja. The doctor wants you to stop by her house tonight after dinner. Around eight, she said. I have a number.”
“I’m standing out on the street. How about calling her back for me? Tell her I’ll be there. That it?”
She said, “That’s it.”
“Fine. Why don’t you close the place up and go home. We’ve got voice mail. No need staying around just to answer the phone.”
“You read my mind.”
“See you January second.”
“Really?”
“Really. Merry Christmas.”
I got home around three. Kai-Li borrowed the Safari to run in to Fairhope. She said she wanted something to read.
Upstairs, I shucked off my suit and put on jeans, hiking boots, and a long-sleeved polo. After grabbing a canvas hunting coat from the hall closet and locking the door behind me, I struck out along the beach. It had been a while; my thighs and calves felt taut and sore. I walked until my body felt like a whole thing again, instead of the random collection of bones, joints, and muscles I’d had when I first stepped off the deck.
I was home in an hour. Kai-Li wasn’t.
Reading didn’t take. An old Bogart mystery on TV sucked up the afternoon. I had dozed off on the sofa by the time Kai-Li reentered the house a few minutes before six.
“You’ve been busy.”
I sat up and stretched. “I should’ve gone with you.”
“You weren’t invited. I was getting a little stir crazy. Needed some time to myself.” She smiled. “No offense.”
“None taken.” In fact, as much as I liked Kai-Li, I was pretty sure I’d like her even better if she lived somewhere else. I wanted to see her. But neither one of us had really asked for this practically living-together thing we’d gotten ourselves into. “I’m going out tonight.”
She smiled.
“I’ve got to meet with Dr. Adderson.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
She picked up a large grocery sack. “I picked up a deli tray, some rye, and pumpernickel.” I followed her into the kitchen, where we each built sandwiches and scooped potato salad onto plates. We ate that night in front of the television like an old married couple.
Thirty-seven
Dr. Adderson had been uncharacteristically imprecise about the time for our meeting. I left home at 7:30 and made the now familiar nighttime drive to her home. The shining traces of ice and snow were memories. The air had warmed during the afternoon, and distant lightning flashes glowed inside thick cloudcover, preceding distant rolling thunder.
When I pulled up at the farmhouse, a new bronze Land Cruiser, complete with brush guard, roof rack, and heavy-duty winch, was parked by her walkway. It was a nice vehicle for a hunter type like Adderson.
I wouldn’t have wanted the Wagoneer back either.
The lightning was closer now. I jogged through light rain to reach the protected alcove that held the front door. I pushed an ivory button, and chimes like the ones in my grandmother’s house played a tune somewhere deep inside the house. I waited, then pushed the doorbell again. This time, the faint gonging was accompanied by the quick beat of shoes on hardwood floors.
The door opened. “Tom,” was all she said.
I stood there. “May I come in?”
She stepped back to make room. I walked into the warmth of her dimly lit foyer and removed my coat. Dr. Adderson let me stand there and hold it.
I tossed the coat over an umbrella stand. “I guess you’ve seen the news.”
“I have.” She looked off
in the distance over my shoulder and cleared her throat. “I suppose I owe you an apology.”
Something was wrong. I listened for someone else in the house. “That’s not necessary.”
She nodded. The skin creased between her eyebrows. “Then why are you here?”
“You invited me.”
“No, Tom. I didn’t.”
My heart trembled. “Do you have an office manager named Naja?”
“Yes.” Dr. Adderson stepped forward quickly and locked the door. “But I did not invite you here or ask anyone else to.”
The chimes of St. Michael’s played on a grandfather clock somewhere in the old house, and a small hammer began to beat out the hour. Pong … pong … pong … With each note, my heart struck harder in my chest. “I’m a little concerned here, doctor.”
She said, “Don’t be silly,” but I saw her swallow before she said it. “You’re certainly free to leave.”
“Who else is here?”
“No one. I can assure …”
My voice grew sharp. “Who else is here, Laurel?”
“No one. I promise. No one is here but us.” She turned and motioned for me to follow. “This is ridiculous. Standing around snapping at each other. Come this way. We need to sit down and talk about this.”
I wanted to leave. But if Dr. Adderson was telling the truth, then leaving could be deserting her to face Luther Savin or Zion Thibbodeaux or God-knows-who alone. I really did want to leave. Instead, I followed her along an L-shaped hallway to a sitting room—the one with the thing she’d called a breakfront.
Dr. Adderson motioned at a chair, then left without comment and returned minutes later holding a silver tray. Two blue-and-ivory china cups sat on either side of a silver service. She placed the tray on a coffee table. She poured coffee into one delicate cup and held it out.
As I reached for the lip of the saucer, the room went black. The china cup and saucer hit the tabletop with an outsized crash. Steaming coffee splattered over my jeans. Someone yelled, “Shit!” I think it was me.
“Did I burn you?” Dr. Adderson was using her physician’s voice. Calm. Self-assured. Mildly interested in others’ pain.
I brushed at the drops of coffee burning through my blue jeans. “I’m fine. Sorry I cussed.”
Lightning flashed, casting Dr. Adderson, the walls, and furnishings in shades of silver on black. “I’ll survive.” Her shadow raised up before me. “Stay here. I’ll go try the switch breaker. Maybe they’re not out.”
“I should come with you.”
“No.” She leaned down to level her head with mine. “You’ll trip over something, and I’ll have to look after you and the house.” Her shadow moved across the room, her shoes beginning to click when she reached the edge of the carpet.
I just sat there, trying not to be a burden.
The tinkle of broken glass filtered in from another room.
“Dr. Adderson?”
Nothing.
I tried again, louder. Furniture squeaked against floorboards as someone bumped into a breakfront or a sideboard or maybe a chiffarobe—the woman didn’t have any simple furniture. “Laurel? Answer me. Are you all right? I heard glass breaking.”
The static sizzle of falling rain, muffled by closed doors and windows, filled the darkness. Against the background of white noise, floorboards creaked in the hallway.
Rising slowly, stepping carefully to avoid the crunch of broken china beneath my boots, I moved across the rug, feeling my way around hand-carved furniture and antique knickknacks. Someone’s weight shifted just outside the sitting room door, and I stepped next to the wall. I flattened my back beside the doorframe and waited. Nothing happened. Someone in the hall waited for me, as I waited for him or her.
Fear disciplines. I stayed put. Seconds turned to minutes. Minutes piled on top of each other, and still no one moved or spoke. My legs quivered with the strain of tensed muscles held immobile. Sweat trickled down between the cords of muscle on either side of my spine, bringing the skin-crawling sensation of an insect roaming inside my clothes.
Lightning. A hard shadow, the shadow of a gun barrel, flashed on the opposite door jamb. I waited. There was no noise. The person on the other end of the gun shadow had gotten past the creaking floorboards and now moved silently. The dark form of the barrels slid into sight through the doorway. It was a double-barrel, like the ones hung in the Mandrake Club Gun Room and, I thought, like the ones hung on the wall of Dr. Adderson’s study.
The double-barrel penetrated the room slowly and deliberately. First, just a couple of inches of steel. Then a foot.
Pivoting on my left foot, I made a grab and clamped onto the barrels with my right fist. Yanking hard, I felt someone on the other end lose balance. A bulk of shadow fell forward through the doorway as a thunderous boom sounded like thunder in the small sitting room. The shot sent a scalding flash of heat through the barrels. I lost my hold on the hot, slick metal and spun sideways as a shattered window cranked up the volume on falling rain.
Bounding up onto my feet, I’d taken only one step when lightning flashed again. Judge Luther Savin stood across the room, leaning painfully against an antique hunk of walnut. His hands held a twelve-gauge double-barrel. The twin black barrels pointed directly at my chest.
In the brief flash of light, I could see his features—features twisted into a mixture of pain and pleasure. He was hurt, but he was going to kill me. I held both hands out in front of me, palms down. I didn’t speak. It wouldn’t have done any good.
A blinding flash filled the room, exploding like a flashbulb, tingling the small hairs on my arms and neck. Thunder followed with such speed and force that the boom seemed to originate inside my chest.
I spun hard and ducked into the hallway.
A second boom sounded in the small room as I cleared the doorway. A dozen wasps stung my shoulder and the back of my head. I kept pumping hard, into the second hall and right to the front door. I snatched at the chain, twisted the dead bolt, and grabbed the brass knob. Labored footsteps knocked a shuffling rhythm on the hardwood floor behind me, and time slowed to a series of snapshots, like the stuttered movements of pictures on flipcards. I remember the brass feeling cool in my hand. I remember the gush of cold, wet air as the door swung wide. I lunged forward and lost balance, skidding on my chest over the brownstone landing and over the sharp edges of stone steps.
The night swam in a bath of freezing rain. My shoulder throbbed. Sharp, jarring streaks of pain shot across my scalp from the back of my head, ending in a metallic jab at the backs of my eye sockets.
I planted both hands in the mud and pushed up, arching my back and craning my neck to look back at the doorway. But she was in front of me.
Dr. Laurel Adderson stood on the walkway eight or ten feet from my nose. The front door had been locked; she’d walked through pouring rain from the back of the house. Wet, dark hair plastered her head. Silk and wool hung on her body like soaked laundry. In her hands and mounted against her right shoulder, Dr. Adderson held her ten-thousand-dollar Krieghoff shotgun. Rainwater ran down the ventilated rib and fell in a tiny waterfall from the muzzle.
Still on my stomach in the mud, I pushed hard with my right palm and spun left. The woman could shoot. I knew that. I knew too that I was dead, but damn if I was just going to lie there and take it.
I hit on my knees, stumbled onto my feet, and had taken the first step of a hard sprint when the shotgun fired. And I felt nothing. Nothing but freezing rain and the cold burn of wet December air in my lungs. Mud, grass, and leaves spun and slipped beneath my feet, and I was in the pecan grove. I cut right and glanced back. No one was following. Ten more yards and I stopped to listen. Still there was nothing.
Seconds passed, and I worked forward to the edge of the grove.
Dr. Adderson knelt before the front steps as if praying at an altar. Her extraordinary shotgun lay in the mud at her side. I moved forward, using the doctor’s new Land Cruiser for cover. As I neared, she lower
ed her thighs onto her heels and bent her face forward into open hands.
I saw him.
Judge Luther Savin lay in the doorway, his shoes sticking through the opening at an awkward and unnatural angle. I breathed deeply. I reached up to touch the back of my neck and came away with a hand smeared thick with blood.
Not knowing how much longer I’d be conscious, I walked forward through the winter storm to stand beside the doctor. I reached down and picked up her shotgun. Through the door, I could see the judge’s round, slack body. Half his neck had been chewed away by a load from his lover’s gun. A black halo of blood spread around his head.
I stepped beneath the sheltered alcove and pushed numb fingers through the mud and grit caked across the top of my hip pocket. The cell phone came out streaked with mud, but the small screen lighted when I flipped open the keypad with my thumb. I dialed 911 and gave the address. “There’s been a double shooting,” I said. “We need an ambulance and the police.” I asked them to hurry.
I had a shoulder blade full of nine shot. Three stray pellets had punctured skin on the back of my head but hadn’t penetrated skull. Judge Savin had never been an outdoorsman, and he’d made a bad choice. The judge had pilfered shells from Dr. Adderson’s skeet bag. He’d stolen low-brass shells loaded with bird shot that was never designed to bring down a large mammal. By contrast, Dr. Adderson had not made the same mistake. She knew guns, and she’d known where she kept the buckshot.
Nobody—not the police or the doctors, especially not me—told Dr. Adderson that her lover had planned to murder me with her gun and then frame her for the crime, likely snapping her neck or something equally unpleasant, in a staged fight with some imagined partner of mine. No one mentioned this to Dr. Adderson for obvious reasons, even though that scenario seemed pretty obvious to everyone involved. No one told Dr. Adderson any of this, but they didn’t need to. She was not a stupid woman.
When I was released from the hospital just before midnight, the nurse told me that Dr. Laurel Adderson had been admitted to the psyche floor. “Just for observation.” But I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be practicing medicine for a while. I thought it’d be longer than that before she found another afternoon’s pleasure firing her Krieghoff masterpiece at flying bits of clay.
