Motion to Kill

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Now he knew how Sullivan and Angela had been murdered. Vernon could tell him who and why, but he wasn’t talking.

Mason stood at the edge of his bed, staring at him, feeling like an idiot. What did he expect Vernon to do? Listen to a list of suspects and blink once for innocent, twice for guilty?

The Loving Hands people provided a nightstand for each patient’s personal items. A copy of a Kansas City Star newspaper lay on Vernon’s. Mason picked up the newspaper to check for the date. It was two days old. Vernon had had a recent visitor.

Mason dropped the newspaper in the trash can next to the bed and saw a Bible that had been hidden beneath it. The Bible was bound in black leather, Phillips Family Bible embossed in small gold filigree letters on the spine.

Tommy Douchant’s family also had a Bible embossed with the family name. He remembered Tommy showing him the family tree on the inside cover that traced his clan back five generations. Be there, baby, Mason prayed as he picked up Vernon’s Bible.

And so it was written. Vernon Phillips and his wife had been married in 1956. Four years later, a daughter, Meredith, was born. She died in 1990. Beneath her name was the inscription Alice, born to Meredith July 3, 1977. Alice made no sense. There was no Alice. Mason went back to the beginning, to Vernon and his wife. He read her maiden name. Then he knew.

He said good-bye to Vernon and tucked the Bible under his arm. Promising himself that he’d return it when everything was over, he drove straight to Blues’s house, struggling with the last hurdle in solving Sullivan’s and Angela’s murders. How to prove it? A brilliant trial lawyer once told him not to bother him with the facts, just tell him what the evidence was. Now he knew what the evidence was, but he wasn’t certain that he could prove the facts.

He flashed back to the chalkboard at The Limit announcing the symposium on alternative AIDS therapies. He conjured the haunting image of Sullivan injecting himself, thinking it was some experimental AIDS treatment, not realizing he was killing himself. The killer had watched from a safe distance, not wanting to betray any undue interest, content in the knowledge that Sullivan would die by his own hand.

And that would be the killer’s defense, that somehow Sullivan had made a terrible mistake. Whoever Sullivan had bought the phony AIDS meds from had made the mistake.

There would be no confession. Too much was at stake. The killer knew that, at best, the circumstantial evidence was as thin as yesterday’s soup. Mason would prepare the same way he prepared for trial. And that meant tying up a few more loose ends.

Tuffy’s barking announced Mason’s arrival at Blues’s house before Mason could knock on the door. Blues was standing at his kitchen sink, cutting slices from a fresh peach. Tuffy pawed happily at Mason’s side until he scratched her ears.

“Peach?” Blues offered.

“Pass. Here’s how I think Sullivan was murdered.”

Blues listened, probing, picking, and ripping at any weakness. When Mason finished, he dropped the peach pit in the sink and wiped his hands on his shorts.

“I believe you. But you can’t make it stick.”

“Why not? It’s all there.”

“On Sullivan, maybe. But where does Angela fit in?”

“Murdered the same way. Insulin overdose.” It was clear to him, why not to Blues?

“People get shot every day. Don’t mean it’s the same gun. If you’re right about the killer, why take out Angela?”

Mason sagged under the weight of the question. “Angela told Sandra she had something else to tell her about besides the money laundering. Something she could only tell her in private. It must have implicated the killer. Did the cops find anything at Angela’s apartment?”

“Harry Ryman told me they turned the place upside down. Nothing.”

“I thought you guys didn’t talk to each other.”

“We don’t. He’s helping you, not me.”

Mason’s phone rang. He answered, listened, and hung up.”

“Who was that?”

He looked at Blues, shaking his head. “That was the hospital. Man, I’ve got a new client.”

“Who?”

“Jimmie Camaya. He’s out of intensive care, and he’s asking for me. Says he won’t talk to anybody until he talks to me.”

“Where is he?”

“Truman Medical Center,” Mason said. “I’m guessing a private room with a cop on the door.”

“You better take something just in case Camaya is feeling frisky.”

Blues disappeared for a moment before coming back carrying a pistol he handed to Mason.

“What is it?” Mason asked as he held the gun.

“Thirty-eight caliber. Good enough for close range.”

“Camaya can’t be dangerous. I already shot him once. Plus the cops will be there.”

“Somebody might be hanging around the parking lot waiting for you to come visit. Stick it in your waistband in the small of your back. Less chance you’ll shoot your dick off.”