Motion to Kill

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“Let’s caravan to Sandra’s,” Blues said after Harry left. “Make sure she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Makes sense,” Kelly said.

“Anyone want to know what I think?” Sandra asked. They looked at her. “I think it’s a hell of a good idea.”

Mason rode with Kelly while Blues took Sandra home. “What’s the history between Harry and Blues, besides bad?”

“Blues blames Harry for getting him kicked out of the police department and Harry thinks Blues should be in jail.”

“Who’s right?”

“I wasn’t there, and I’m not picking sides.”

Kelly parked in front of Mason’s house, Blues nosing in behind her. The front door was open, the blue porch light off.

“You leave the door open?” Blues asked him.

“No.”

“Are you strapped?” Kelly asked Blues.

He raised his shirt, showing her the holster on his hip.

“I’ll take the back,” Kelly said.

Blues nodded his agreement. “You wait here,” he told Mason.

“And do what if Camaya pays me another visit while you’re inside?”

“Fair point. Stay behind me and keep your mouth shut.”

The deadbolt on the door was splintered. Blues eased the door the rest of the way open, crouching as he stepped inside, sweeping his gun through each room on the first floor, meeting Kelly in the kitchen. Tuffy stood next to her, wagging her tail.

“I found the dog hiding behind the firewood on the patio,” she said.

Mason scratched her behind the ears. “Your German shepherd ancestors would be very embarrassed.”

They checked the bedrooms and the basement and found no one lurking behind shower curtains or behind closed doors. All they found was a mess. Everything soft was sliced open. Everything solid was broken.

The wreckage was systematic, purposeful. The photographs of Tobiah and Hinda lay on the dining room floor amidst the shattered glass that had covered them. Tobiah had a scratch beneath his right eye. Hinda was fine. Their candlesticks lay close by, unharmed. Someone wanted something. Mason didn’t have a clue what it was.

“Call it in,” Kelly said to Blues.

Harry Ryman was there minutes later. “Your aunt isn’t going to like this. She loves this house. That’s why she gave it to you. And she’s more than partial to you. I’ll have a couple of uniforms out front.”

“That’s not necessary. I can’t sleep here tonight anyway. I’ll stay with Blues.”

“Then get out of here and let me do my job.” He shot Blues a hard look. “Anything happens to him, Bluestone …” He didn’t have to finish the sentence.

When they got to Blues’s house, Mason flopped in an easy chair with Tuffy curled at his feet. He tried to make sense of a day in which he’d lost his job, his car, his home, and his possessions and nearly lost his life-all for reasons he couldn’t fathom. He thought of his great-grandparents and their escape from the pogroms. They had lost everything they had held dear, except for a pair of candlesticks. Yet they recovered, starting a new life in a new world. He still had their candlesticks, but he wondered if he had their courage. Kelly and Blues were in the kitchen, deciding his future.

“What will he do now?” Kelly asked.

“Only thing he can do. Start over.”

Mason spent the night flip-flopping between half-fetal and half-pretzel positions in Blues’s easy chair. When he woke up, Kelly was asleep in the kitchen, folded onto the butcher-block table.

The sun made a cameo appearance on the eastern horizon before bowing out to the vagaries of a Kansas City summer that breeds thunderstorms faster than time-lapse photography. By the time they gathered at the breakfast table, a fleet of towering thunderheads had formed in the distant southwest sky, readying for an assault on the city. The hum of the window-unit air conditioner bolted in above the kitchen sink added a strained chorus to an already tense morning.

“I still say one of us should be with him at all times. We’ll take twelve-hour shifts,” Kelly said.

Red-eyed and wrinkled, she slid a half pint of milk across the table. Blues stirred a tall glass of iced coffee, declining the milk and the suggestion.

“If Jimmie Camaya is hunting our boy, and he’s half as good as you say, it isn’t going to do any good to walk Lou across the street even if both of us hold his hands. Besides, you’re a sheriff who’s a long way from home.”

Kelly pushed away from the table and threw the game plan back to Blues. “What do you suggest? Call Camaya and tell him to meet us on Main Street at high noon?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Lou needs to take a trip.”

Mason pulled an orange into two sections as juice squirted on his T-shirt.

“Wrong,” he said. “Drive-by shootings are the summer’s top team sport. Besides, if this guy was Camaya, he was probably after Kelly to finish off his last job. I’m just an unemployed lawyer. Nobody’s mad at me except MasterCard.”

“And the people who trashed your house were just an overzealous cleaning crew,” Kelly said.

“Random chance. Odds are the same as winning the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes-just my lucky day.”

“We’ll put that on your tombstone,” Blues said. “Somebody’s decided to reestablish the pecking order with you at the bottom.”

“Look, I’ve lost my job, my car, and my La-Z-Boy recliner. I’m not going to be run out of town.”

“So, Counselor, what are you going to do?” Kelly asked. “Print resumes and go door-to-door? Be sure and tell the receptionist that the guy who’s shooting at you is really aiming for someone else.”

“I’m going to go home, shower, and change. Then I’m going to the office and get some answers from Scott. You could do one thing for me that I would appreciate.”

“What? Pick up your dry cleaning?” Kelly asked.

“That too. I left my briefcase in my car. Can you find out where the cops towed it?”

“What’s in the briefcase?” Kelly and Blues asked in unison.

“C’mon, guys. Pens, paper. Stuff from the office. Nobody would try to kill me for that.”

“What’s in the briefcase, Lou?” they repeated.

Mason raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Copies of the memos on O’Malley and his billing records. Nothing somebody couldn’t get with a lot less trouble than shooting up a neighborhood and pillaging my house.”

“Buddy of mine handles impounded vehicles. I’ll check it out. Kelly, take Clarence Darrow home, and I’ll call you there.”