Motion to Kill

CHAPTER THIRTY

There was a message from Harlan Christenson on Mason’s answering machine when he got home just before midnight. Harlan had left the message three hours earlier.

“Lou, it’s Harlan. I know it’s late, but I was hoping you’d come out to the farm. I need to talk with you about my meeting tomorrow morning with the IRS agent. I’ve got to make a deal. I just don’t know how. Call me when you get home. Please.”

Mason heard fear in Harlan’s voice, the icy kind when a car slams on its brakes and shrieks to a stop at your feet. He dialed Harlan’s number and listened to a recorded explanation that the number was no longer in service or had been disconnected. Thinking he may have misdialed, Mason tried again with the same result.

Harlan’s farm was in Stanley, Kansas, twenty miles south of Mason’s house and ten miles west of the state line. The nearest neighbor was half a mile away. City lights melted into inky blackness as Mason drove into the country, thinking about the hours he had spent tramping through the fields with Harlan, casting a line in his pond, catching nothing but good memories.

The farmhouse was black and silent beneath a distant canopy of stars, the darkness swallowing Mason when he stepped out of his car. The only sound was a distant train whistle riding the night air. As he approached the house, he could make out a faint glow leaking around the edges of a front window.

There was no answer when he knocked on the weather-beaten door. He squeezed the handle, his palm sweaty, cursing under his breath as the door swung open and he stepped into the entry hall.

He was fearless in the courtroom, willing to take risks others wouldn’t because he was prepared and because he owned the ground, the battle one he’d chosen. Outside those walls, he’d never considered whether he was brave or what that even meant. Stepping across the threshold, he realized that bravery and stupidity were first cousins.

Mason called out to Harlan. He didn’t answer. Afraid of what he might find, he hesitated, light-headed and breaking into a sweat from the sluggish mix of heat and humidity inside the house.

The entry hall led straight back to the kitchen and the light he had seen from the porch, a dozen steps. He took one and then another, stopping as the floorboards creaked beneath his feet, listening for what he didn’t know, hearing nothing, starting again.

A man materialized out of the darkness, blotting out the light from the kitchen, and drilled his fist into Mason’s gut. Mason folded in half as the man grabbed him by the back of his shirt and threw him headlong down the length of the hall and onto the kitchen floor.

Gasping for air, his eyes clenched, Mason rose on hands and knees, when a boot to his back put him on the floor. He curled into a fetal crouch, waiting for the next blow. When it didn’t come and he heard the front door slam, he opened his eyes. Harlan lay next to him, tongue clenched between his teeth, bulging dead eyes staring past him into the fluorescent glow of the open refrigerator.

The silence was split by the cough of a grinding engine and tires spitting gravel. Mason crawled away from Harlan’s body and huddled against the front door, shaking, waiting for the nerve to go outside. Moments passed before he stumbled out the door, slumped into his car, and called 911. He passed the time wondering whether to charge the call to the firm. Claire always told him that humor was the last thread of sanity. He clung to it.

The county cops responded. They were polite but suspicious. Why was he there? When did he get there? Who hit him? What did he see? What did he hear? Let’s start again from the beginning.

Mason sat in the backseat of a stuffy patrol car, his sweat-stained shirt damp against his skin, answering questions in the dark. Every now and then, someone opened the car door, illuminating the spidery pattern of cracked upholstery on the back of the front seat.

The assistant DA on call for weekend bodies asked the questions. He was young and energetic and kept Mason on task. A deputy sheriff listened from the front seat, motioning to the ADA when paramedics emerged from the house, Harlan’s body zipped inside a black body bag, laid out on a stretcher. They watched in silence as the paramedics loaded Harlan into the back of an ambulance and drove away, the headlights blinding them for an instant as the vehicle passed by.

“One more time, Mr. Mason. From the top,” the ADA said.

Three hours and two detailed interrogations later, Mason stood under his shower, swearing never to spend another Sunday with his partners. Sleep was impossible. Sunrise wasn’t far off, and he went jogging at first light. Another shower and he headed for the refuge of work. He decided to wait to announce Harlan’s death to the staff until after he’d talked with Scott.

At eight thirty he looked up to find Kelly Holt smiling at him from his doorway, a soft-leather briefcase in one hand. Mason hadn’t seen her since Sullivan’s funeral. He wasn’t expecting her, but he was glad to see her. Her smile didn’t last long when she saw his face.

“Tell me about it,” she said and closed the door.

It wasn’t a question or a command. It was an invitation, and Mason gladly took it. She listened and asked questions that he answered with dull rote, having committed them to memory hours ago.

“Don’t try to forget it. You can’t. Don’t try to understand it. You won’t. Learn not to be afraid of it, and you’ll learn to live with it.”

“It’s that simple?”

“Nope. The tough stuff never is. The good news is that you owe me for a year’s worth of therapy. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got more good news.”

“I’ll take it.”

“I know how Sullivan was murdered,” she said.