The Kill Clause

26

TIM SLEPT LATE and showered long. The khakis and button-up shirt he’d hung in the bathroom to steam out the wrinkles actually smoothed out decently.

He dressed in the living room, near the comforting murmur of the television. After a commercial featuring a bronzed and exuberant woman astride an elaborate exercise machine, Rayner appeared on a plush talk-show couch looking particularly unaggrieved-perhaps his sorrow over Dumone’s stroke had been feigned after all. Or perhaps he couldn’t help but perk up when he saw himself reflected back in the lens of a camera. He was, of course, commenting on Debuffier’s death, waxing poetic about vengeance and duty and this travesty we call justice.

The pervasive theme of the show was that Debuffier had gotten what he’d had coming to him. With a few exceptions, the audience was energetic and sanctimonious, and the host, a Geraldo rip-off in an illadvised maroon suit, claimed that the “counteroffensive against murderers” was inciting Americans to take back the streets. When a caller proudly related that his cousin in Texas, inspired by the Lane hit, had “shot a burglar dead” the day before yesterday, the news received whoops and cheers.

Rayner cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well, it seems to me-and I’ve discussed this with several sources close to the investigation-that the person or persons behind these executions aren’t seeking to promote wholesale vigilantism. They’ve chosen these cases quite specifically-cases in which the justice system appears to have failed. I’d guess their motivation is to open up discussion about these shortcomings in the law.”

Tim watched Rayner’s betrayal with the horrified anticipation of a first-day-on-the-floor med student at a thoracotomy. Rayner’s need to issue a communique had been thwarted, so he’d chosen to tackle the issues as a commentator rather than leaving the Great Unwashed to think independently about the Commission’s efforts. His tedious media analyses had been nothing more than preparation for future orchestration. Before long he’d be feeding information to handpicked journalists to spin coverage. Maybe he’d done so already.

The TV host’s arms spread wide, bent at the elbows, microphone dangling like a baton. “Or they’re just kicking ass and taking names.”

Rayner’s eyes were unaffected by the tight smile that flashed on his face. “Perhaps. But I think these executions-however misguided-are part of a dialogue. They’re indicative of a growing sentiment in Americans today. We’re simply fed up with the law. We don’t believe that the law owns justice anymore, that the law will work for us.”

A hefty man in a Cleveland Browns sweatshirt called out, “Yeah! Screw the courts!”

Off Rayner’s expression of pained forbearance, Tim clicked the remote. One channel over, John Walsh from America’s Most Wanted was holding forth on Crossfire. Tom Green solicited passersby to target-shoot at crime fliers of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted. Howard Stern implored viewers to wager guesses about the respective lengths of Lane’s and Debuffier’s penises.

Tim felt sick by the time he turned off the TV.

He used his socks to dust off a pair of oxfords, which he laced loosely in anticipation of blisters. He deliberated over belts. Only when he pulled cologne from his dopp kit did he realize he’d been dressing up to see Dray.

He stopped by Cedars-Sinai on his way to Dray. The Beverly Hills-adjacent medical center rose glittering and imperious between Beverly and Third, a reassuring architectural display of order and competence. Tim got tangled up on Gracie Allen Drive before finding Lot #1 off George Burns Road. Trusty Tom Altman, aided by a smiling Arizona license, had little trouble talking his way past reception. After passing a woman wearing a mink over a hospital gown and an octogenarian with a Yiddish accent singing “Anything Goes” and raising his bathrobe for each glimpse of stocking, Tim found Dumone’s room on the VIP floor.

He tapped the slightly ajar door with his knuckles before entering. A disgruntled expression on his pale, crumpled face, Dumone sat shored up by a clutch of pillows. Blanketing the nightstand to his left were flowers and gift baskets.

Tim couldn’t resist a smile, and Dumone joined him, his grin pulling up only the right side of his face. “This place is all marble and plants and pillow fluffers. I feel like a pit bull at a poodle show.”

Tim crossed, and they regarded each other warmly for a moment. “You look like hell.”

“Don’t I know it. Look at this crap Rayner sent over.” Dumone’s hand rooted around one of the gift baskets and emerged with a foil-wrapped bag of coffee. “Guatemalan Fantasy. Sounds like a blue movie.”

The droop of his face slurred his words, just slightly. To his side a monitor blinked at intervals. His left arm lay limply in his lap, hand coiled. An IV ran into his good arm, and an oxygen tube fed his nose.

The wardrobe stood open just enough to reveal Dumone’s hung shirt and slacks, his Remington dangling in a shoulder holster.

“They let you keep your revolver?” Tim asked.

“Once I explained who I was, showed ’em my conceal-and-carry. I told them my weapon goes nowhere without me. They agreed sweetly, then took all the bullets, the bastards. They’re used to negotiating with old-school producers. A simple cop like me doesn’t stand a chance.”

He jerked forward, seized by a violent coughing fit, hand held up to stave off any impulse Tim might have to help. Finally he quieted, his breath rasping. He took a moment before speaking again. “Rob and Mitch wanted to come by, but I put the hold on them. Wanted to talk to you first, get the lay.”

“Are you feeling-?”

Dumone cleared his throat loudly, cutting him off. “Threw a clot. Had it on the radar, was just a matter of time. Let’s talk shop. I’m not much good at the other.”

He listened quietly and attentively, nodding from time to time, his mouth set slightly to the side. When Tim finished filling him in, Dumone pulled in a deep, halting breath and exhaled shakily. “What a shit storm. You gotta get things back on track.”

“First and foremost I have to get the ROEs more clearly defined.”

Dumone nodded, the oxygen tube rustling against his chest. “It’s all about the rules. They’re the only thing that separate us from vigilantes and Third World thugs. How we go about our actions is the entirety of who we are. Without perfection we’re a lynch mob.”

“Robert and Mitchell are hungry for more operational control, but after this I’ve got no choice but to pull them back. Robert entirely.”

“How about Mitch?”

“He’s more poised under pressure than Robert, but he’s also straining at the bit. He brought explosives to a surveillance job, for Christ’s sake. And Rayner’s being oddly indulgent of them.”

Dumone’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know why that would be-there’s no love lost there from either side, last I checked.”

“Well, Rayner’s content to-”

“You’re in charge. You. Not Rayner. Rayner bribes us with a room in a nice house, but that does not put him in the driver’s seat. My vote goes with you. If you have to roll heads, roll heads. Tell Rayner to get his mug off the news. Have Rob ride the bench after that bullshit. Use Mitch if you need him. Run the show according to your judgment, and work things slowly back to a good balance.” He coughed jerkily, squinting through the pain. “Rob and Mitch give you jaw, send ’em to me.”

“Thanks.” Tim nodded and rose. “Enjoy your coffee.”

“You kidding me? If I can’t stir it into hot water, I don’t trust it.”

Tim rested a hand on Dumone’s shoulder, and Dumone gripped him at the wrist. It was a brief gesture but an intimate one.

“You’re at a crossroads, Deputy.” Dumone winked. “Lay down the law.”

•Bear’s rig was already hogging the curb when Tim pulled up. He parked across the street. The murmur of voices from the backyard reached him halfway up the front walk, so he circled, lifted the latch on the side gate, and stepped through.

Fowler, Gutierez, Dray, and about four other deputies milled around the Costco picnic table, surrounding Tim’s paint-splattered boom box, which was throwing out Faith Hill from back when she still twanged. They were all fisting beers, and their heads turned in unison toward Tim. Mac, sleeves double-cuffed to show off muscular forearms, was leaning over the grill, dousing a clumsily arrayed mound of charcoal with too much lighter fluid. Bear sat sideways on the deck chair with the snapped straps, waiting for Tim by himself, exuding loyal outrage. He was wearing a jacket, despite the fact that it was the first sunny afternoon in two weeks, and a baseball cap with an embossed gold star.

Tim’s hands moved before his mouth could, gesturing out through the gate. “I should go. I didn’t realize you were having a party.” He prayed that the hurt indignation in his voice wasn’t as apparent to them as to his own ears. He felt foolish in his nice clothes.

“Oh, come on, Rack. There’s no reason to be like that. Come in. Have a burger.” Mac wore a we’re-all-friends-here frat-boy smile. He’d propped a large, flat cardboard box against the side of the grill, as if tempting the gods of conflagration. Next to it lay a basketball.

Dray approached fast, talking low so only Tim would hear her. “I’m so sorry. Mac took the liberty of inviting everyone back from the station. I didn’t know you were coming.”

He felt the impulse to peck her on the lips in greeting. Her aborted lean told him she’d resisted the pull of the same habit.

“He seems awfully at home here,” Tim said.

A shadow flicker of remorse crossed her eyes. “He knows this is our home.”

“Does he?” Tim looked away. “I’ll just sign the forms, then get out of here and leave you to your thing.”

“It’s not my thing.”

Mac threw a lit match on top of the charcoal briquettes, then studied them with disappointment. He added more lighter fluid.

“Where’s the paperwork?” Tim asked.

He followed her inside, nodding to the others. Bear stood and followed them inside, walking through the circle of deputies just to make them move out of his way.

“Could you grab another jar of pickles?” Mac called after them.

Dray grimaced and slid the door shut behind them. They turned and watched Mac leaning over the charcoal briquettes, examining them. A burst of orange flame leapt up, and he reared back, face flushed, then shot a handsome smile over at them to cover his embarrassment.

Dray headed into the kitchen, rubbing her bare ring finger uncomfortably. “The forms are in here.”

Tim turned to Bear. “Why don’t you give us a few minutes?”

“Oh, sure, great. I’ll be outside with Wile E. Coyote.” Bear closed the sliding door behind him a little harder than necessary, in case Tim had missed the point.

When Tim entered the kitchen, the forms were laid out neatly on the table. He sat and signed where they were marked. Dray was at the sink, straining against the pickle-jar lid, elbow pointing out. She gave the lid a good glare before subjecting it to hot water from the tap. “No update? On Ginny’s case? Kindell?”

“Nothing yet. I’m working on it.”

“I see you made the news again. You and your posse.”

“I don’t want to discuss that. Not unless we’re alone.”

“This time with a victim in the middle of it. Signs of a confrontation. Narrowly avoiding police. Aren’t you worried it’ll get out of hand?”

“It did get out of hand.”

Dray gave the jar a half turn under the faucet. Steam rose from the sink. “Why don’t you get out before it does again?”

“Because I made a commitment to this. I need to see it through.”

“They say men think logically, women emotionally. The way I see it, neither are very good at either.” She turned to face him. “Tim, you have to realize you’re off track here. Whatever it is you think you’re involved with, what you are involved with is crap.”

“We hit a snare, but we’re working it out.”

“Tell that to Milosevic and his pig-faced cronies when you’re sitting next to them at The Hague. I’m sure they’ll empathize.”

“Point taken, Dray. I’m very aware of where we don’t want to end up.”

“Bear’s dialed into the fact that you’re up to something dicey. Don’t think he’ll let you get in too deep before he pulls you out.”

“He’ll get tired of that routine,” Tim said. “Just like you’re getting tired of it.”

She turned back to the sink. “You’re still wearing our wedding band.” She threw off the question casually, but he could hear the hopefulness hiding in her voice.

He shifted uncomfortably, something prying at the cage of his ribs. That he was unable to put the ring aside as she was made him feel deeply vulnerable. “I can’t get it off over my knuckle.”

The lid still didn’t give, so she started banging it against the counter, angrily. Tim crossed and tried to take it from her, though she didn’t relinquish it immediately, not from stubbornness, Tim guessed, but because she wanted to keep banging something. She finally let go and stood with her head down and her arms loose at her sides.

Tim turned the lid, and it gave with a pop. He offered the jar back to her. The Great Deliverer of the Pickles.

She set the jar on the counter. “When Ginny died, we started talking different languages, you and I. And what if we never find our way back? What a fucked-up love story this makes. Happy couple, trauma, separation. I don’t know about you, Timmy, but I give it a thumbs-down for predictability.”

“Don’t call me Timmy.”

She was already walking out. She appeared in the backyard a minute later. Mac said something to her that Tim couldn’t make out through the window.

Dray said, “Get your own fucking pickles.”

Mac made a shrug at the guys and went back to the burgers. Tim would have left out the front door if Bear weren’t waiting for him out back, like a passive-aggressive dog.

When he stepped outside, the cardboard box was open on the patio, parts strewn about. Mac was now up on Tim’s ladder, struggling under the weight of a basketball backboard. With a shoulder he pinned it against the wood paneling where the wall peaked to meet the chimney. He smiled when he saw Tim, two fat nails protruding from his mouth like iron cigarettes. His eyebrows were slightly singed. “Bet you never thought of this, huh? The patio makes a perfect little court.”

Tim stared at the pristine strip of wood at the chimney’s edge; he’d painted it with a three-fourths angular liner brush so he wouldn’t stain the bricks.

Mac pounded the nail through the backboard, and the wood panel beneath split. Tim felt his teeth grind so hard his skull vibrated. Dray was sitting backward on the picnic table, feet on the bench, her head lowered into her hands, her face hidden by the drape of her bangs. Beside her, Bear watched the proceedings with the horrified absorption of a rubbernecker at a particularly grisly car wreck.

Another volley of bangs, and then Mac called out, “Is it straight?”

Fowler and Gutierez paused from dribbling on the patio to flash him thumbs-ups. “Good enough.”

The backboard was at a four o’clock tilt.

Tim walked over and stood before Bear and Dray, one foot up on the cooler.

Dray gestured limply to Mac but couldn’t muster words.

“I’m on my way,” Tim said.

“I’m following,” Bear said.

“You can’t leave me stuck here.”

“He’s your guest, Dray,” Tim said.

The other deputies were at the rear fence line, smoking and speaking in lowered voices.

Dray’s face was drawn and weary, and the dark pockets beneath her eyes looked like bruises. Tim remembered when they first met, at a fire-department fund-raiser. She’d been wearing a yellow dress dotted with tiny blue flowers. The straps crossed in the back, showing off a diamond patch of skin just below her nape. She’d walked past him, pursued by a fire chief-older guy, as all her exes were-and she’d sent a breeze of jasmine and lotion his way that had on him the kind of effect usually reserved for shitty romantic comedies and Pepe Le Pew. Later that evening he’d caught her out in the parking lot getting a sweater from her car, and they’d spoken for about forty-five minutes in the intimate space between vehicles. He’d kissed her, and she’d gone home with him, and for months afterward firefighters from Station 41 had fixed Tim with cold, aggressive glares every time their paths crossed, a reprisal he gladly endured.

Only in hindsight had he realized how noteworthy Dray’s feminine getup had been that night; she’d not worn the dress since, nor anything yellow, nor especially anything with little blue flowers. Now she looked tired and world-weary and unspecifically pissed off, like a stoic dust-bowl mother with a child hanging from her neck and three more behind her, around her, waiting to be fed.

“I lied to you, Dray,” Tim said. “I’m not wearing my wedding band because I can’t get it off over my knuckle. I’m still wearing it because I can’t not.”

Her lips parted slightly. Her chest rose beneath her tank top and stopped with a held breath. Her eyes were brilliant green in the sunlight and as large as he’d ever seen them.

Mac’s voice rose, disrupting them. “…so we called the Milpitas guys the Mil-penis guys,” he was saying, recounting his week at EOB SWAT training, his fifth time through the program and in all likelihood the fifth time he’d fail. “Good little rivalry. I shot a two sixty-two on the test.”

“In your fucking dreams you shot a two sixty-two,” someone said.

Mac’s finger made the sign of the cross on his barrel chest. “It was pretty funny. They had this bull dyke on their squad-”

Dray was on her feet. “Why’d you use that word?”

Mac stopped, glanced at Gutierez and Fowler for support. “I don’t know. Because she was, I guess.”

“Why? Short haircut, good build? Working hard on the job?” Her arms were crossed, and Tim knew from her expression that she was all about the fight right now and not the content, and so they’d be at it for hours. “I field that shit all day, and you can bet your ass she does, too.”

Bear signaled Tim with a jerk of his head, and Tim followed him out through the side gate. Bear pointed to his truck, and they both climbed in and sat for a moment. They could still make out Dray’s voice, the fricatives and raised syllables.

“On the warpath, ain’t she?” Bear said.

“It’s a thickheaded way for her to beat up on herself.”

Bear fingered one of the schisms in the heat-cracked dash, then wiped his moist palms on his slacks. He was giving off discomfort like a scent, fiddling with the hockey puck of a watch strapped to his wrist. Tim waited, knowing Bear didn’t like to be pushed when it came to words.

“Look, Tim. This is a tough thing to ask you. It’s about the killings. This vigilante stuff.”

Tim felt an icy band of sweat spring up on his forehead, just at the hairline.

“I know you quit and all, but…we’d like your help apprehending the guy.”

Tim made sure he breathed a few times before he answered. “Why’s the service involved?”

“There’s some talk the guy could be a fugitive-his fuck-all attitude, probably. Like he’s got nothing to lose. Mayor Hahn’s going ballistic on this one. He tapped Robbery-Homicide, Chief Bratton is leaning on us to pull together a fugitive list from their profile, we already have FBI up our asses-Tannino says fuck ’em all, if we’re doing the work anyway, we might as well try to get the collar ourselves, carve us a bigger piece of the pie at budget time.”

“Makes sense.”

Bear’s hand rustled in his jacket. “Just give this a listen for me, would you?”

“I’m not really-”

The microcassette recorder peeked out from Bear’s fist like a trapped canary. He flipped it and punched the side button with a thumb. Tim heard his own barely disguised voice issue forth. “I have a medical emergency at 14132 Lanyard Street. In the basement. Repeat: in the basement. Please send an ambulance immediately.”

Bear clicked it off. He stared at Tim expectantly. Tim got busy studying the front lawn through the window.

“Personally, I don’t buy the fugitive angle.” Bear’s tone was driving, knowing. “I’m thinking the guy’s former military or PD. He’s got the radio formality, repeating key information.”

Tim recalled being impressed with himself at the time of the call for refraining from spelling out the street name using a phonetic alphabet. Somewhere beneath his guilt and fast-hardening shame shone his admiration for the meticulousness it took to be a competent criminal. A single lapse in a high-heat moment-the location repeat-had narrowed the ground Tim was standing on considerably. A helpful tip from a friend and partner, granted from a position of plausible deniability.

“This jackass”-Bear shook the recorder-“is usurping the law, stealing it from the same people who are gonna track him down. That’s liable to piss people off-understandably so, if you ask me. If I was this guy, I’d be pretty concerned. I’d make sure I knew exactly what I was into.”

Tim waved his hand, palmed some sweat off his forehead, then looked at his watch. “Shit. I’m late for a…meeting.” In his split-second hesitation yawned another void he’d later fill with worries. Bear’s eyes seemed cold-another of Tim’s concerns, trickling in, seeking the emptiness.

“What meeting? You don’t have a job.”

“Exactly. It’s an interview. Private security gig.” Tim pushed open the door and stepped out onto the curb.

“That’s good.” Bear’s face held a not-so-subtle warning. “A lot of people need looking after these days.”