Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

WHEN BEAR CAME to tell him that Ginnys body had been found raped and dismembered in a creek six miles from his house, that her remains had required three biohazard bags to depart the scene, that they were currently sprawled on a pathologists slab awaiting further probing, Tims first reaction was not what he would have expected of himself. He went ice cold. There was no griefgrief, hed learn, takes perspective, recollection, time to unfurl. There was just the news slapping him, dense and jarring like face pain. And, inexplicably, there was embarrassment, though for whom or what, he was not sure. The heel of his hand lowered, searching out the butt of his Smith & Wesson, which of course he wasnt wearing at home at 6:37 in the evening.

To his right Dray fell to her knees, one hand clutching the door frame, fingers curling between the jamb and hinges as if seeking pain. Beneath the razor edge of blond hair, sweat sparkled on the band of her neck.

For an instant everything was frozen. Rain-heavy February air. The draft guttering the seven candles on the pink-and-white-frosted birthday cake that Judy Hartley held poised for revelation in the living room. Bears boots, distressingly carrying the crime-scene mud, blotting the aggregate porch, the pebbles of which Tim had meticulously smoothed on his hands and knees last fall with a square trowel.

Bear said, Maybe you want to sit down. His eyes held the same guilt and attempted empathy Tim himself had used in countless situations, and Tim hated him unjustly for it. The anger dissolved quickly, leaving behind a dizzying emptiness.

The small gathering in the living room, mirroring the dread emanating from the hushed doorway conversation, gave off a breath-held tension. One of the little girls resumed recounting Harry Potter Quid-ditch rules and was hushed violently. A mother leaned over and blew out the candles Dray had lit in eager anticipation after the knock on the front door.

I thought you were her, Dray said. I just finished frosting her Her voice wavered hard.

Hearing her, Tim registered an aching remorse that hed pressed Bear so hard for details right here at the door. His only way to grasp the information had been to try to contain it in questions and facts, to muscle it into pieces small enough for him to digest. Now that hed taken it in, he had too much of it. But hed knocked on enough doors himselfas had Drayto know that it would have been only a matter of time until theyd known it all anyway. Better to wade in fast and steady and brace against the cold, because the chill wasnt going to leave their bones anytime soon, or maybe ever.

Andrea, he said. His trembling hand felt the air, searching for her shoulder and not finding it. He couldnt move, couldnt so much as turn his head.

Dray bent her head and started to weep. The sound was one Tim had never heard. Inside, one of Ginnys schoolmates matched her cryingconfused, instinctive mimicry.

Bear crouched, both knees cracking, his form broad but huddled on the porch, his nylon raid jacket sweeping low like a cape. The yellow lettering, pale and faded, announced U.S.DEPUTY MARSHAL in case someone cared. Darlin, hold on there, he said. Hold on.

His immense hands encircled her bicepsno small featand drew her in so her face pressed against his chest. Her hands clawed the air, as if afraid to set down on something for fear of what they might do.

He raised his head sheepishly. Were gonna need you to

Tim reached down, stroked his wifes head. Ill go.

The three-foot tires of Bears chipped-silver Dodge Ram hiccupped over seams on the roadway, shifting the broken-glass dread in Tims gut.

Composed of twelve square miles of houses and tree-lined streets about fifty miles northwest of downtown L.A., Moorpark was renowned for little more than the fact that it housed the states largest concentration of law-enforcement residents. It was a low-rent country club for the straight arrows, a post-shift refuge from the streets of the off-kilter city they probed and fought for most of their waking hours. Moorpark radiated an artificial fifties-TV-show feelno tattoo parlors, no homeless people, no drive-bys. A Secret Service agent, two FBI families, and a postal inspector lived on Tim and Drays cul-de-sac. Burglary, in Moorpark, was a zero-growth industry.

Bear stared dead ahead at the yellow reflectors lining the center of the road, each one materializing, then floating downward in the darkness. Hed forgone his usual slouch, driving attentively, seeming grateful for something to do.

Tim sifted through the mound of remaining questions and tried to find one to serve as a starting point. Why did youwhy were you there? Not exactly a federal case.

Sheriffs department took prints from her hand.

From her hand. A separate entity. Not from her. Through his sickening horror, Tim wondered which of the three bags had carried away her hand, her arm, her torso. One of Bears knuckles was smudged with dried mud.

the face was tough, I guess. Jesus, Rack, Im sorry. Bear heaved a sigh that bounced off the dash and came back at Tim in the passenger seat. Anyways, Bill Fowler was in the handling unit. He firmed the ID He stopped, catching himself, then reworded. He recognized Ginny. Put in a call to me, since he knows how I am with you and Dray.

Why didnt he do the advise next of kin? He was Drays first partner out of the academy. He just ate barbecue at our house last month. Tims voice rose, grew accusatory. In its heightened pitch he recognized his desperate need to lay blame.

Some people arent cut out for telling parents that Bear laid off the rest of the sentence, evidently finding it as displeasing as Tim did.

The truck exited and hammered over bumps in the off-ramp, making them bounce in their seats.

Tim exhaled hard, trying to rid himself of the blackness that had filled his body, cruelly and methodically, somewhere between the porch and now. Im glad it was you that came. His voice sounded far away. It betrayed little of the chaos he was fighting to control, to categorize. Leads?

Distinctive tire imprints heading out of the creeks slope. It was pretty muddy. The deputies are on it. I didnt reallythats not really where my head was at. Bears stubble glimmered with dried sweat. His kind, too-wide features looked hopelessly weary.

Tim flashed on him setting Ginny up on his shoulders at Disneyland last June, hoisting her fifty-three pounds like a bag of feathers. Bear was orphaned young, never married. The Rackleys were, for all intents and purposes, his surrogate family.

Tim had investigated warrants with Bear for three years on the Escape Team out of the district office downtown, ever since Tims eleven-year stint in the Army Rangers. They also served together on the Arrest Response Team, the Marshals SWAT-like tactical strike force that kicked doors and hooked and hauled as many of the twenty-five hundred federal fugitives hidden in the sprawling L.A. metropolis as they could get cuffs on.

Though still fifteen years from the mandatory retirement age of fifty-seven, Bear had recently begun referring to the date grudgingly, as if it were imminent. To ensure hed have some conflict in his life after retirement, Bear had completed night law school at the South West Los Angeles Legal Training Academy and, after failing the bar twice, had finally wrung a pass out of it last July. Hed had Chance Andrewsa judge he used to work court duty for regularlyswear him in at Federal downtown, and he, Dray, and Tim had celebrated in the lobby afterward, drinking Cooks out of Dixie cups. Bears license sat in the bottom drawer of his office file cabinet, gathering dust, preventive medicine for future tedium. He had nine years on Tim, currently apparent in the lines etching his face. Tim, whod gone enlisted at the age of nineteen, had had the benefit of opposing stress with youthfulness when learning to operate; hed emerged from the Rangers seasoned but not weathered.