“Hello?” Rayner’s voice.
“This a secure line?” Frenzied breathing. Panic. Robert.
“Of course.”
Tim pictured the sleek recorder by the phone on Rayner’s nightstand, generating another insurance policy that Rayner could lock away in a safety-deposit box.
“He killed her. He fucking killed her.” Gagging noise. “Cut her to pieces, the fucking retard.” Robert’s high agitation matched the description of the anonymous caller who reported Ginny’s body’s location.
Rayner’s breathing quickened. He managed a single breathy word. “No.”
“The whole thing’s fucked. I didn’t—fuck—didn’t sign on for a little girl to get…Christ, oh, Christ. He was just supposed to hold her here and wait. Not lay a finger on her.”
“Calm down. Is Mitchell there?”
The phone being fumbled, then Mitchell’s voice, dead even. “Yeah?”
“Did you leave any evidence behind?”
“No. We haven’t even approached the shack. We’re up on the road above the canyon, our staging point for the entry. When we got here, we saw him inside, through the binocs. He was already at work on the body.”
Dray emitted a little noise from deep inside her chest.
Robert in the background. “He was supposed to do nothing to her.”
“Quiet down,” Mitchell hissed. Then, to Rayner, “I figured our little rescue-and-execution plan was out the window, so we aborted the mission.” Rustling. “Hang on, hang on. Here he comes. He’s stepping out. Stork—get the lens on him.”
The click of a high-speed camera. Tim’s eyes returned to Kindell’s glossy, blood-smeared thighs, his throat constricting. The photo was date-stamped—February 3. The top one of a stack of at least twenty. Tim felt as though his heart had shattered, and any move he made caused the jagged edges to dig further into his insides.
Robert’s voice in the background. “God, oh, God. The sick motherfucker.”
“Listen to me,” Rayner said. “The plan is off. Get the hell out of there.”
Mitchell’s voice came, cool and sly like a knife. “We can still use this. For the candidate.”
That’s me, Tim thought. The candidate.
“What are you talking about?” Rayner asked.
Mitchell, already calculating, maintaining a bone-chilling serenity. “Think about it. ‘A strong and personal motivation’—isn’t that what you said we’d need to flip him? Well, William, I’d say we’ve just been outdone.”
Rayner’s tense breathing across the mouthpiece.
Robert’s raised voice. “We gotta tell Dumone.”
“No,” Mitchell said. “He’d go ballistic that we even thought about doing something like this. Plus, we gotta keep him clean for the candidate. The way this worked out, we don’t have to tell Dumone anything at all.”
The way this worked out, Tim thought. The way this worked out.
“No one breathes a word of this to Dumone. He’d have our asses. Or to Ananberg.” The media-polished, in-charge Rayner, rearing his well-groomed head. “This isn’t what we planned, but Mitchell’s correct. It’s a tragedy, but we might as well bend it to serve our aims. Get the hell out of there, and we’ll regroup in the morning, get a new strategy.”
“Out,” Mitchell said.
The tape continued to spin; the speakers kept up their staticky hiss.
Tim raised his eyes to Dray’s, and they stared at each other, the world seeming to screech to a halt. There were just her bangs, damp-pasted to her forehead, the heat in his face, the pain—no, agony—in her eyes that he knew mirrored his. She cracked open her dry lips but took a moment to speak. When she did, the sound seemed to shatter the hypnotic spell of the whispering spool.
“You asked Dumone what they had to gain by killing Ginny,” she said. “The answer’s simple—you.”
The door to the garage opened. Dray quickly hit the “stop” button on the tape deck and flipped the file shut, hiding the photo of Kindell. Mac came in, wrench hooked through a belt loop, T-shirt stretched tight across his chest. A stalactite of sweat stained the front collar just so, as if a wardrobe stylist had sprayed it on. He looked up and froze.
Tim nodded at him.
“Rack, you can’t be here, man. People are…they’re looking for you.”
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re putting Dray at risk.” His eyes shifted to Dray. “And what are you thinking?”
Dray’s head went on warning tilt. “Mac—”
“You’re an active deputy.”
“Mac, don’t push this,” Dray said. “Leave us alone.”
“No, I’m not gonna leave you alone. He’s a wanted—”
“I’m asking you to give us a minute.”
“This is idiotic, Dray. You can’t harbor a suspect in your house.”
Dray’s eyes seemed to contract to shiny dark points. “Look, Mac. I appreciate your being here for me. But I’m talking to my husband right now, and I think it might be time for you to leave.”
Mac’s face loosened, his mouth hanging slightly ajar in post-slap shock. In his indignation his features had arranged themselves somehow more gracefully, providing a window into some private reserve of dignity.
He nodded once, slowly, then eased from the room with a near weightlessness, light and forward on his feet. A moment later his car turned over in the driveway and the whine of his engine rose and faded away.
Dray sighed, digging the heel of her hand into her forehead. “Well, if I know one thing about Mac, it’s that he wouldn’t sell you out. He’s loyal to a fault.”
“He has no reason to be loyal to me.”
Her eyes picked over his face. “To me, Timothy.”
Tim pulled the tape from the deck and tapped it against his palm. Mac’s brief intrusion had forced them both to recover their composure; Tim was scared to open the file again, to see the photo of his daughter’s blood smeared across pale thighs. His mind drifted to Robert’s frenzied charge down the basement stairs at Debuffier’s. Robert’s agitated words back at Rayner’s afterward: People fuck up sometimes. No matter what happens, an operation can spin out of control. We’ve all had that happen.
“It was a mission that went to shit,” he said. “They were gonna bust in, shoot Kindell, and play the big heroes to me. I can hear the sales pitch—here’s a guy who was gonna rape and kill your daughter, skated on three priors due to loopholes in the law. The guy was your neighbor, in a school zone, no one monitoring him. Except us. We saved your daughter’s life, kept her from being raped. Not the law. Come see what we’re about. We have a plan that’s gonna open your eyes.”
“Those animals,” Dray said softly. “Even if it had gone right, can you imagine what it would have done to Ginny? Being kidnapped? Being held? Having a man shot before her eyes?” Steam was curling from the cup of coffee to her side, and she ran her hand through it. “No decency. There’s just not a fucking ounce of decency in men who would take those risks with a little girl’s life.”
“No,” Tim said. “There’s not.” He pulled a chair out and sat down heavily. It felt as if it had been months since he’d been off his feet. “They’ve been torturing me all this time, holding the case over my head, the accomplice. They knew all along. Having Kindell kidnap Ginny was just part of some…psychological equation Rayner was evolving to get me to join the Commission. And it worked.”
“You’ll find them,” Dray said. “You’ll make them pay for this.”
“Yes,” Tim said. “Yes.”
She nodded at his face, the bandage’s bulge under his T-shirt. “You’re okay?”
He touched his shoulder gingerly. “Yeah, it was nothing.”
She looked away, but not before he saw her relief. “Your face doesn’t look like nothing.”
“I wasn’t planning on getting by on my looks.”
Her lips pursed but did not form a smile. “At least you’re realistic.”
“I want you carrying all th
e time. Even in the house.”
Dray raised her sweatshirt to reveal the Beretta tucked into her waistband. “I hope to hell they do come after me. But I have a feeling they’re not gonna make it that easy.”
“Probably not.”
She hooked her hair back behind her ear, then stood and fingered the blinds. “You shouldn’t have come here. You’re too smart to pull this move.”
“Let’s be grateful they think so, too.”
“They’ve been out there feigning competence since yesterday morning. I told them we don’t talk anymore, but I think they knew I was lying.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Not all men lack perception.”
Tim handed her the tape. “Not a bad piece of leverage. A little creative editing by Rayner and it could hang all his accomplices.”
“Or at least keep them in line.” She took the tape and set it down quickly on the table, as if she didn’t want it touching her flesh.
“I shouldn’t stay long. I don’t want to put you at risk. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I…I need that money.”
“Of course. I pulled out a couple grand for you this morning. It’s in the gun safe.”
“Thank you.”
They sat quietly, unsure of what needed to be said, hesitant because the next words would likely signal Tim’s departure.
“I see you got a new coffee table. The box is, uh, in Ginny’s…”
“I can’t respect that room as hallowed ground forever. Living here, it puts you on a different timeline, maybe. At least for some things.” She looked away quickly, and he saw her face set, mad and little-girl stubborn. He remembered that he didn’t miss all parts of her. “You wouldn’t know.”
He let the remark skip off into inconsequentiality. “How’s security on Dobbins?”
“No way they’re getting at him. His hospital room is like Fort Knox. Where’s Bowrick?”
Bowrick’s confidential hold ending at midnight was another concern to add to his list. “They won’t find him.”
She took a sip of coffee, grimaced against the heat. “Why would the Mastersons stay here where everyone’s looking?”
“They hate L.A. because their sister was killed here, they hate L.A. cops because they handled their sister’s case poorly, and they hate the system here because the L.A. courts turned her killer free.”
“Where’s her killer now?”
“Shot to death.”
“Hefty coincidence.”
“That it is.” Tim cracked his knuckles. “They have a plan for the city. They have strong contacts here, know their way around. Plus the case files they stole—all L.A.”
“Now their motive for killing Rayner is a lot clearer,” Dray said. “Tying up loose ends. Keeping eyewitnesses off the books.” Her chest expanded, and then she sighed deep and hard, as if expelling something from her body.
“Yeah. They know there’s no hard evidence or charges would’ve been brought. They’re mopping up.”
Dray pulled her head back, as if she’d been struck. Exasperation and intensity colored her smooth cheeks. She spoke slowly, as if she were still trying to catch up to her thoughts. “There’s another loose end they’re gonna have to tie up.”
Tim felt his mouth go dry, instantly. An ocean rushing in his ears. Realization. Alarm. Stress.
He was on his feet, down the hall.
He was pulling ammo from the gun safe into a backpack when he became aware of Dray in the doorway. The roll of cash he’d wedged in the back pocket of his jeans. Dray studied his hands, the ammo.
“Take your bulletproof vest,” she said.
“It’ll slow me down.”
“May you die and come back a woman in Afghanistan.”
He stood, slinging the backpack over one shoulder. He started out, but she shifted in the doorway, blocking him. Her arms were spread, clutching the jamb on either side, the sudden proximity of her face, her chest, recalling the moment before a hug. He could smell her jasmine lotion, could feel the heat coming off her flushed cheek. If he’d turned his head, his lips would have brushed against hers.
“You’re taking the fucking vest,” she said. “I’m not asking.”
42
WHEN TIM TURNED off Grimes Canyon Road onto the snaking drive to the burned-down house, he felt a thrumming start in the void where his stomach should have been. He pulled to a stop on the overgrown concrete foundation where the house used to stand, dead weeds crackling beneath the wheels.
Ahead, the stand-alone garage stood at the base of the small eucalyptus grove. At night it conveyed a sort of dilapidated grandeur, like a forsaken Southern mansion, but in the bright and unflinching daylight, it looked pathetic and distinctly unmenacing. Tim pulled on his gloves, his bulletproof vest, then approached.
The dirt-clouded windows had grown almost opaque. The garage door creaked up on rusty coils. The first thing that struck him was the odor, damp and dirty, the smell of water left stagnant and then drained. The busted water pipe had deposited swirls of silt on the greasy concrete floor.
Same ratty couch. Same hole in the far wall, no longer plugged by Ginny’s underwear. Same enveloping dankness.
But no Kindell.
The side table had been knocked over, the cheap particleboard splintered down the middle, throwing up spikes of wood. One of the couch’s cushions had been upended, the fabric split across the front like a burst seam. Crusty yellow stuffing protruded from the rip. The lamp lay shattered on the floor, the bare lightbulb still miraculously intact.
The mark of a brief struggle.
Tim placed his gloved fingertips on a dark spot on the couch, then smeared the moisture off the leather onto the white Sheetrock of the rear wall so he could discern its true color. Blood red.
A carton of milk lay on its side on the counter, a thread-thin tendril of fluid leaking from the closed spout. Tim righted the carton. Almost empty. He stared at the pool of milk on the floor, about four feet in diameter. He watched its drowsy expansion, gauged it had been at it for at least half an hour.
They’d taken Kindell somewhere. If they were merely going to kill him, they would have done it here. Isolated, quiet, rural. The stand of eucalyptus would have gone a long way toward stifling a bullet’s report.
There was another plan in the works.
As Tim headed out, a white seam in the freshly exposed couch-cushion stuffing caught his eye. He walked over and tugged on it. His daughter’s sock emerged.
A tiny thing, not six inches heel to toe, a ring of circus-color polka dots around the top. His daughter’s sock. Stowed away in a ripped cushion like a dirty magazine, a bag of pot, a wad of cash. In this place.
His legs were trembling, so he sat down on the couch, gripping the sock in both hands, thumbs pressed into the fabric. The small room did a drunken tilt, a jumble of sensations pressing in on him. A waft of paint thinner. Milk dripping from the counter. A tingling in the scab over his eye. The smell of the embalming table, of what had remained of his daughter at the end.
He pressed his hand to his forehead, and it came away moist. His knees shook, both of them, uncontrollably. He tried to stand but could not find the strength in his legs, so he sat again, clutching his daughter’s sock, shaking not with rage but with an unmitigated longing to hold his daughter, a longing that ran deeper than sorrow or even pain. He had not been braced, had not anticipated the need to shield these vulnerabilities, and the tiny white sock with its foolish dots had soared right through his fissures and struck him deep.
After ten minutes or thirty, he made it out into the pounding sun, across the scorching foundation to his car. He sat for a moment, trying to even out his breathing.
He had some trouble getting the key into the slot. He turned over the engine and drove off.
On the freeway he picked up the pace, accelerating until the speedometer pushed ninety, putting miles between himself and the killer’s shack. Both windows down, air conditioner blasting. It wasn’t until he roare
d past the First Street exit that his breathing returned to normal.
He pulled over and called Dray, reaching her at the station.
“They took Kindell.”
The pause seemed to stretch out forever, then it stretched some more.
Her laugh, when it came, sounded like a cough. “What are they doing with him?”
“I don’t know. If I could just get a lock on one of their residences.”
“Big ‘if.’”
“I was almost there. I can’t believe the Stork’s car didn’t pan out. If the damn footage was clearer, I could have gotten the plate number.”
“Wait a minute. Footage. What footage?”
“The security recording. I found his car on a security tape I took from a video store.”
“Was it day or night? When the footage was shot?”
“Night.”
“What was the lighting?”
“What?”
“The lighting. How did you see the car?”
“I don’t know. A streetlight, I think. Why does this matter?”
“Because, genius, if the streetlight was sodium-arc, it would make a blue car look black on film.”
Tim’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.
“Hello? Are you there?”
“How do you know that?”
“Security-systems Secret Service course at Beltville last spring. Did you forget that in addition to being a domestic goddess, I’m a highly proficient investigator?”
“You got half of that right.”
“Go check the streetlight. I’ll start running the blue PT Cruisers, call me with the confirm.”
“I’m on my way.”
•Fortunately, the streetlight was offset a good ten feet from the Cinsational Video front door, so Tim could stand gawking up at it without risking being spotted by the kid he’d robbed Saturday morning. He hadn’t considered the fact that it was difficult if not impossible to determine whether a streetlight housed a sodium-arc lamp during the day, when it was shut off. He’d pulled on a zippered jacket to hide his bulletproof vest, but his reflection in a passing bus’s window showed he’d succeeded only in making himself look conspicuous and fat.
The Kill Clause Page 44
