A Clean Kill (12 page)

My accuser went first, and he told the truth.

When it was my turn, I told the truth too, only I shaded it a little.

I told the judge that I had been angry about the kid giving my photos to some stranger. I had wanted to know who he gave them to. I had cussed some and grabbed the kid’s shirt. I said that I had then apologized for my actions and had given the kid fifty dollars for the name of the person who’d picked up my prints.

When I finished my story, the kid said, “I object,” which wasn’t exactly the correct use of that evidentiary device, but we all knew what he meant.

I told the judge to check the kid’s pockets for the fifty.

The kid blushed. He produced the fifty. The judge ruled.

The kid had to give my fifty back, and I had to pay a three-hundred-dollar fine for misdemeanor disturbing the peace. I started to argue, but the judge gave me a look. And that was it.

The desk sergeant led me back into the holding area, where I recovered my wallet, watch, and belt and found that I had exactly two-hundred-seventy-three dollars and twenty-six cents on my person. And that included the recovered fifty from the photo guy.

I had credit cards. The sergeant grinned. “We don’t take plastic.”

My wallet, watch, and belt went back into the lockbox. I went back into the cage. The photo kid stopped by to smile and flip me the bird on his way out.

So far, my Auburn trip wasn’t really working out.

I called Kelly in Mobile to have money wired. At least, that’s what I would have asked her to do if she’d answered the phone. It was close to 6:00 now. I tried a couple more numbers. Joey still wasn’t home, and I found myself mumbling into unanswered rings. I think I said something about hoping he was still alive, since that’s what I was thinking, but I really just remember indulging in a little aimless mumbling appropriate to the circumstances and surroundings. Next, I tried Loutie Blue without success. I assumed she was still out looking for Joey.

My friends in Mobile were engaged in the circle of life, and I wasn’t in it.

I cussed some and placed a call to Dr. Cantil. She was still in her office. I explained my situation.

Her only comment was, “You’ve had a busy day.”

“Will you come?”

“I have to go by a cash machine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“You’re kidding.”

Dr. Cantil laughed. “Didn’t you expect me to help you?”

“Actually, no.”

It was 7:00
P.M
. Dr. Cantil had paid my fine and collected me from the cage without comment. When her ancient Volvo was well away from police headquarters, I asked her to take me to a cash machine so I could pay her back.

She nodded but she had the strangest look on her face.

I kept waiting for her to say something. Finally, I said, “Why’d you come?”

“You mean, why was I willing to bail out a convicted ruffian with delusions of being shadowed by invisible assassins?”

“I guess that’s one way to put it. Not the way I would’ve picked, but …”

She smiled. More than that. She seemed, well, mirthful. “I checked on you. After you left my office this afternoon, I was, quite honestly, concerned about your connection to reality. So I picked up the phone and found a few lawyers I know in Mobile and Montgomery who were in their offices on a Saturday afternoon.” Dr. Cantil glanced over at me. “I had some interesting conversations.”

“You can’t believe everything you hear.”

“What I heard was that you definitely are
not
crazy.”

“You can believe that part.”

“After asking around a bit for someone who knows you well, I spoke with a criminal attorney in Birmingham who has known you since you were both here in university.”

I knew who she meant. “Spence Collins.”

“Yes. Our networks intersected at Spencer. I’ve assisted him with jury selection on two capital trials. He told me to believe you. He said that you are drawn to these types of cases.”

I’d heard that opinion expressed before, and I didn’t much like it. “I don’t know if ‘drawn’ is the right word. This started out as a simple malpractice case. For all I know, that’s still all it is.”

The professor cut her eyes at me. “We all have at least three images. The person we think we are, the person that others see, and the person we actually are.”

“Thanks for clearing that up.”

“Spencer was not the only person I consulted who expressed this opinion of you. The way he explained you to me was this: Attorneys—litigators, at least—find themselves in the middle of all sorts of situations that could, if pressed, become dangerous or even violent. Most of them look the other way or resign from the case or simply contact the authorities when things begin to move in a frightening direction. He said that you don’t do that. He said that you
just keep pressing
.”

“Doesn’t make me sound very smart, does it?”

“People are complicated. Spencer, for example, says he’s glad he has the sense to stay away from trouble. But he seems to admire whatever it is that makes you barge ahead.”

The conversation was turning uncomfortable. I
wanted to go back to being
the person I thought I was
. “Are all psychologists as much fun as you are?”

She smiled. “Sorry. Shrinks love to shrink.”

“No, no. I’m glad to finally meet someone who thinks I’m as fascinating as I think I am.”

Dr. Cantil pulled into a drive-thru lane at an AmSouth branch. When she pulled up next to the machine, she said, “Give me your card.”

I handed her my credit card.

She fed the plastic rectangle into the slot. “What’s your pin number?”

I looked at her. “I think you’re supposed to keep that secret.”

“You are.” She was studying my face. I could almost see the shadows of thoughts flickering behind her pale eyes.

“Is this a test?”

She shrugged.

“Okay. But I’m trusting you with a very important number.” I looked into her eyes. “It’s six, six, six.”

She laughed out loud. “Fine. I’ll back up. You and Satan can get out and do it yourselves.”

I smiled. “It’s three, seven, one, nine.”

She tapped in the number and, at my instruction, pulled three hundred out of my checking account. Dr. Cantil handed me my card and pocketed the cash as reimbursement for my fine. As she pulled back onto the street, she said, “Interesting number.”

“Huh?”

“Your pin number. ‘X’ marks the spot. That’s how you remember it. You just draw an ‘X’ on the keypad.”

I looked over at her profile. She looked proud of herself, which made her appear even younger than her
twenty-eight-or-so years. I said, “You’re a smart woman.”

“I hear the same thing about you,” she said, “except for the woman part. By the way, if you don’t mind a little driving tomorrow, I found the law firm disk we talked about.”

“From the state bar?”

She nodded. “I told Beth it was an emergency. I’m supposed to call her at home tomorrow morning. If you can make it, she’ll meet you at our Montgomery campus at noon with a copy of the disk.”

“Dr. Cantil?”

“Kai-Li.”

“Okay, Kai-Li. Are you convinced now that it’s an emergency?”

“Let me explain. You see, Tom … May I call you Tom?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

“My family is scattered from Hong Kong to Bermuda to Scotland. I had a long, lonely, boring Christmas break ahead of me. Then this crazy attorney walks into my office with a problem that sounds like actual
fun
.”

I studied her face. “But you’re not completely convinced that it’s the emergency I think it is.”

She tilted her head to one side. “Not completely. But it
is
interesting.”

I awoke in an uncertain room, a polyester print tucked under my chin. Susan had been out of my life for some time, and I was edgy from having dreamed of her—or someone like her. My night vision of Susan had floated from a true picture of her to someone almost her, someone who kept the shaggy blonde hair and flashing smile but whose eyes had turned an absorbing Asian green.

It was late. Midmorning. I pushed out of bed onto the balls of my feet and walked stiffly across the carpet to pull open heavy hotel drapes. Hard winter light cut at my eyes, and I retreated to the bathroom to shower and shave and finish waking up.

Half an hour later, downstairs in the Auburn Convention Center, I found Sunday brunch being served in the dining room. I ordered waffles and then found a pay phone in the lobby where I placed a call to Joey. He didn’t answer. Neither did Loutie Blue.

I returned to my table as waffles and sausage, orange juice, and coffee arrived. Some sort of convention that involved pudgy, middle-aged women seemed to be the hotel’s only other business. The women all chose the buffet—it was “all you can eat,” and that’s what they were having. Maybe it was part of the package.

I ate waffles with maple syrup and watched. After all, someone was watching me. Some guy with a suit and a badge had found me in Auburn and stolen my photographs of the Cajun stranger. And I thought it would be nice if I could catch a glimpse of the person who found me such interesting and easy prey. But unless
the man
had morphed into a chubby, fifty-something housewife—which I was beginning to believe was not outside the realm of possibilities—my stalker wasn’t in evidence.

Stuffed with waffles and orange juice, I headed back up to my room to stuff my nylon bag with clothes and toilet articles before checking out. As the door clicked open, I heard the soft wind-noise of the shower running. I’d already started to shut the door, planning to get the hell out of there, when I realized I couldn’t do it.

The scariest thing about ghosts is the unnatural fact that you can’t see them. I was tired, and I was ready not only to see this one but to kick its ephemeral ass.

I pushed inside. The outer room was empty. I grabbed a brass desk lamp for a weapon and stopped outside the bathroom door. The shower kept running. The knob turned in my hand. I burst inside and snatched the shower curtain aside.

No one was there.

My shampoo was still on the tiny ceramic shelf. The
hotel soap was next to the drain where I’d dropped it and left it. I turned. On the fogged plate-glass mirror above the sink, someone had used what looked like a finger wrapped in a washcloth to draw a smiling happy face. Beneath the drawing my visitor had written a greeting:
HAVE A NICE DAY, ASSHOLE
.

Ten minutes later, a few minutes after 10:30, I pulled out of the hotel’s parking deck and headed for the interstate. It was not a pleasant drive. I found myself repeating a pattern of speeding recklessly and then slowing in a useless effort to force calm.

Kai-Li had said that Beth, the state bar association’s voice of Emerging Issues in Legalmetrics, would meet me at Auburn University in Montgomery—she called it “A.U.M.”—to deliver a disk containing the state bar directory broken down by law-firm affiliation.

A.U.M. is on the Auburn side of Montgomery, four or five miles outside the city limits, and the trip took less than an hour. And if someone was following the big blue Expedition, he or she was better at following than I was at spotting followers.

I was there early. Beth was waiting when I arrived. She had gelled hair, heavy makeup, and razor-thin eyebrows, and she was standing outside the entrance to the Student Life Center. As I approached on foot, she did something with her face that was intended to approximate a smile.

“Tom McInnes?”

“Yes, Beth. It’s nice to meet you in person.” We were face-to-face now. “Thank you for coming out on
Sunday morning like this. I know it’s beyond the call of duty.”

“Dr. Cantil said it was an emergency. And, anyway, I’m meeting some girlfriends just down the road at one.” She had a Zip disk in one hand, and she tapped it against her thigh as she spoke. “We’re going Christmas shopping this afternoon.”

I smiled and nodded and looked at the disk.

Beth smiled and nodded and looked hard into my eyes.

Oh. I asked, “Can I pay you something for your trouble?”

Beth made the smile-face again. “I would usually say no. But I’ve gotten away from home this morning without any cash. So, you know …”

“Sure. Absolutely.” I reached into my pocket. “How about fifty dollars to help with Christmas shopping with your friends?”

She continued to look at me as if I hadn’t said anything.

Okay
. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. There’s not much you can get these days for fifty dollars.”

She shook her head. I took out five twenties and held them out. Beth made her smile-face, and I got the disk.

Beth went inside the Student Life Center for some reason I didn’t know. I cut a diagonal across the central green and headed toward the gymnasium parking lot, where I’d left Joey’s Expedition. As I made the outside corner of the gym, I saw two young guys in golf clothes lounging against my vehicle, which seemed fine. It was, after all, a college campus, and they looked like college students. There was symmetry there.

I walked up to the giant Ford and popped the locks with the remote.

One of the guys, a big, athletic-looking kid with a Marc Anthony haircut, spoke up. “Are you Mr. McInnes?”

I opened the door, swung my backside onto the seat, and closed the metal door in his face. I admit that—in the absence of a likely stalker—it would have been a rude gesture. He tapped on the glass. “Mr. McInnes? Mr. McInnes, we’ve got a message from Judge Savin.”

Judge Luther Savin was the senior jurist on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. I cranked the engine and rolled down the window. “What’s the message?”

A blond kid with a whitewall haircut and long, thin sideburns came over to stand beside the kid with the wimpy Roman do. “Would you mind stepping out so we can talk?”

I smiled a nice, friendly smile. “What are you, the golf cops?”

The two men laughed. The blond reached for the door release. “Give us a break. The judge asked us …”

“Get your hands off my door.”

Blondie feigned shock, but he tried to open the locked door anyhow. “Sir.” The tone was growing firmer. “Judge Savin has asked us to invite you to his home.”