The Kill Clause Part 4

The incessant hammering of grief and stress left Tim and Dray with tattered and few resources. Though they tried to comfort each other, to embrace, to mourn together, their pain seemed amplified by the other's distress and their own uselessness in the face of it. They both found themselves increasingly wrapped in their own private pain, unable to muster the strength to pull themselves out of it.

They began keeping a respectful distance from each other, like roommates. They napped frequently, though always separately, and they rarely ate, despite the array of filled Tupperware that packed their refrigerator, replenished almost hourly by neighbors and friends. When they did interact, it was in brief, overpolite exchanges, parodies of domesticity. The sight of Dray elicited in Tim a piercing shame that he was unable to be more for her right now. He knew that in his face Dray saw reflected back only the same devastation that weighed down hers.

The DA's office was respectful about keeping them in the loop about the case, though also cautious about releasing many specifics. In conversations with her colleagues, Dray managed to piece together fragments of information about Gutierez and Harrison's investigation, enough to grasp that they'd jettisoned the accomplice theory to focus their full energies on shoring up the case against Kindell.

Tim's mind returned to Kindell's shack with obsessive regularity, replaying each detail, from the slipperiness of the oil-stained floor to the sharp scent of paint thinner.

I wasn't supposed to kill her.

He didn't- Eight words had opened up a chasm of doubt. The pain of not knowing almost equaled the pain of loss, because it played carnival-mirror tricks with Tim's grief, magnifying it one moment, reshaping it the next. He was mourning without knowing the exact parameters of what he was mourning-Ginny was dead, but what she had gone through and who was responsible for it were blank canvases awaiting the latest incarnation, the latest projection of rage or horror. Kindell had proved enough to sate the appet.i.te of the detectives and the DA, but Tim knew there were additional gutters to be flushed. The progression of atrocious events that had filled his daughter's last hours remained out there, frozen in history, waiting to be reconstructed.

Wednesday night he and Dray went for a drive, their first outing together since Ginny's death. They sat awkwardly in silence, trying to let the movement and crisp night air lull them back to compatibility. On their way home they pa.s.sed McLane's. Dray craned her neck, checking out the vehicles in the dark lot. "Gutierez's rig," she murmured.

Tim flipped a U-turn and pulled in the lot. Dray turned in her seat to watch him, more curious than surprised.

They found Gutierez in the back, shooting stick with Harrison. Gutierez nodded in greeting, then spoke in the same softened voice everyone used with them now. "You guys holding up okay?"

"Fine, thanks. Can we have a minute?"

"Sure thing, Rack."

The detectives followed Tim and Dray out to the back parking lot.

"Word is you're dropping the accomplice angle," Tim said.

Harrison stiffened. Gutierez c.o.c.ked his head slightly. "It didn't yield."

"Have you checked Kindell's priors? Did he work with an accomplice on those?"

"We're working very closely with the DA, and we've turned up no evidence of other people's involvement. We've looked into everything. Now, you're well aware that we can't involve parents of victims in our cases-"

"A little late for that," Dray threw in.

"You've got no distance from the case. No perspective. And to say you're biased is something of an understatement. Now, I know what you thought thought you heard in there-" you heard in there-"

"How did you find Ginny's body?" Tim said. "So quickly. I mean, that creek bed is pretty remote."

Harrison blew out a breath that clouded in the cool air. "Anonymous call."

"Man or woman?"

"Look, we don't have to-"

"Was it a man's or a woman's voice?"

Gutierez folded his arms, irritation starting to shift to anger. "A man's."

"Did you trace it? Was it recorded?"

"No, it went to the private line of the deputy working the desk."

"Not 911? Not dispatch?" Dray said. "Who would know the private number?"

"Someone making sure their a.s.s was covered," Tim said. "Someone afraid to be implicated or ID'd. Like an accomplice."

Harrison stepped forward, getting in Tim's s.p.a.ce. "Listen, Fox Mulder, I don't think you have any idea how many anonymous tips we get. It doesn't mean the guy was in on a murder. I mean, odds are a guy drifting through an out-of-the-way creek bed is up to something other than selling Girl Scout cookies. It could have been a guy with a rap sheet, a scared kid who didn't want to get tangled up in a murder case. It could've been a b.u.m sniffing glue."

"Because b.u.ms whacked out on glue fumes are in possession of private phone numbers into the Moorpark Police Station," Dray said.

"It's listed."

"A b.u.m with a phone book," Tim said.

"Hey, man, you missed your chance to take care of business. We gave it to you. And guess what? You wanted everything aboveboard. Well, fine. We can respect that. But that means it's out of your hands now. You're a biased party, the parents of the vic, and you're to go nowhere near this case or we'll slap you with obstruction. There's no shooter on the gra.s.sy knoll. Your daughter died, and we got the sick f.u.c.k who did it. Case closed. Go home to each other. Grieve."

"Thanks," Dray said. "We'll take that under advis.e.m.e.nt."

They walked back to Tim's car silently, climbed in, and sat.

"He's right." Tim's voice was soft, cracked, defeated. "We can't get involved. There's no way we could go about this investigation fairly, objectively. Let's hope Kindell sweats it and tries to talk for a plea. Or chokes on the stand and spills. Or that his PD trots out the accomplice theory as part of the defense. Something. Anything."

"I feel useless," Dray said.

A cop car pulled in swiftly and parked across the lot. Mac and Fowler got out, joking and chuckling, and headed into the bar.

Tim and Dray sat in the afterwash of the laughter, eyes on the dash.

*When Tim entered the kitchen Thursday morning, Dray looked up from the latest batch of thank-yous and condolence-card replies she was writing. Her eyes went to the pager in his hand, then to his Smith & Wesson, clipped to his belt. "You're going to the office? Already?"

"Bear needs me."

Light glowed yellow through the drawn blinds, falling across her face. "I need you. Bear'll be just fine."

The phone rang, but she shook her head. "Press," she said. "All morning. They want a sobbing mother, a stoic father. Which do you want to play?"

He waited for the phone to quiet before speaking. "A tip came in from one of our CIs this morning. We're planning a hot takedown. I have to go in."

One of Bear and Tim's confidential informants had caught wind of a deal going down that had Gary Heidel's smell all over it. The Escape Team had been tracking Heidel, a Top 15, for the better part of five months. After being convicted for one count of first-degree murder and two counts of drug trafficking, Heidel had escaped during his transport from courthouse to prison. Two Hispanic accomplices in a pickup had pinned the sedan against a tree, shot both deputy marshals, and extracted Heidel.

Tim had known that Heidel would need money quickly, and so he'd turn to the one place guys like him got money quickly. Since Heidel's MO was a distinctive one-he acquired diluted cocaine from Chihuahua and had mules drive it across the border hidden in wine bottles-it had been easier for Tim and Bear to press the street for related information. Finally their vigilance had paid off. If their CI had given Bear reliable intel, a forty-key deal was going down sometime that afternoon or night.

"You sure you're ready to work?"

Tim's eye flicked to the scattering of cards on the wood tabletop. Garlands in muted inks on taupe paper. "I don't know what else to do. I'm going out of my mind. If I don't work, I might do something stupid."

Dray dropped her eyes. He knew she sensed his eagerness to get out of the house. "You should go, then. I think I'm just upset that I'm I'm not ready yet." not ready yet."

"You sure you're okay? I could call Bear-"

She waved him off. "It's like what you said to me that first awful night." She mustered a faint grin. "At least one of us should get some sleep."

He paused for a moment in the doorway before leaving. Dray leaned over the card she was writing, her jaw set just slightly as it got when she concentrated. Early sunlight shone through the window, turning the edges of her hair pale gold.

"Of course I remember that day at the picnic, with her and the airplane," Tim said. "I remember everything about her. Especially when she was bad-for some reason those memories bring her the closest. Like when she drew on the new wallpaper in the living room with crayons-"

Dray's face lightened. "And then denied it."

"Like I I might have done it. Or you. Or that time she put the thermometer against the lightbulb to get out of going to school-" might have done it. Or you. Or that time she put the thermometer against the lightbulb to get out of going to school-"

She matched his smile. "I came back in the room, and the mercury was redlined at a hundred six degrees."

"The princess tyrant."

"The little s.h.i.t." Dray's voice, loving and soft, cracked, and she pressed a fist to her mouth.

Tim watched her fighting tears, and he looked down until his own vision cleared. "That's why I can't...why I avoid it. When we talk about her, it's too...vivid...and it..."

"I need to talk about her," Dray said. "I need to remember."

Tim made a gesture with his hand, but even he wasn't sure what it was meant to convey. He was again struck by the ineffectiveness of language, his inability to digest his feelings and shape them into words.

"She's a part of our lives, Tim."

His vision grew watery again. "Not anymore."

Dray studied him until he looked away. "Go to work," she said.

5.

TIM SPED DOWNTOWN, reaching the cl.u.s.ter of federal and courthouse buildings surrounding Fletcher Bowron Square. The squat cement and gla.s.s structure that pa.s.sed for the Federal Building housed the warrant squad's offices. Embedded in the front wall was a mosaic mural of women with square heads, which Tim had never quite grasped. The few times he'd taken Ginny to the office, she'd found the seemingly inoffensive mural unsettling; she'd keep her face turned into his side as they pa.s.sed. Tim had always had a tough time deciphering her fears; also on her list were movie theaters, people over seventy, crickets, and Elmer Fudd.

He badged himself at the entrance, took the stairs to the second floor, and headed down a white-tiled corridor with spotty patchwork on the walls.

The office itself wasn't much to look at, a haphazard throw of cubicles with metal schoolboy desks and fabric walls the color of Pepto-Bismol-laced vomit. For months admin had been promising the deputies a move to the more upscale Roybal Building next door, and for months it had been delayed. The b.i.t.c.hing had reached a daytime-talk-show high, but it did little good; the deputies weren't the first to note that federal bureaucracy moved like an arthritic tortoise, and, to be fair, shoddy office s.p.a.ce had never been an impediment for deputies who preferred the street anyway. The walls were covered with newspaper clippings, crime stats, and most-wanted mug shots. John Ashcroft peered out from a portrait, all beady eyes and weak chin.

As Tim threaded through the cubicle labyrinth to his desk, the other deputies mumbled condolences and averted their eyes, precisely the type of reaction he'd come to work to avoid.

Bear approached him at a half sprint, filling the narrow s.p.a.ce between desks. He was geared up-ballistic helmet under an arm, goggles around his neck, thin cotton gloves, a mike-mounted portable radio, two sets of matte black cuffs, a gaggle of hard plastic flex-cuffs fanning back off his shoulder, black steel-plate boots, a Beretta in a hip holster, a can of Mace, extra mags dangling from a shoulder rig on his right side, and a Level III tactical vest, more flexible than the old Christmas-platter trauma-plate specials, but still able to stop most rounds. Forty-plus pounds, not counting his primary entry weapon, a cut-down twelve-gauge pump-action smoothbore Remington, charged with double-aught buck and fitted with a fourteen-inch barrel and pistol-grip stock. Because of its absence of a shoulder stock, the shotgun kicked back thirty-five pounds of recoil to be absorbed by the arms; this was nothing for Bear, but Tim had seen more slender deputies get knocked a.s.s over teakettle.

Like the rest of the Arrest Response Team members, Tim preferred the shoulder-mounted MP-5, which could better pinpoint targets. He thought Bear's shotgun an unwise choice because it tied up both hands and presented penetration problems in a confined area, but Bear had grown partial to the Remington in his Witness Security days, and the shuck shuck it gave when he racked a round could up a fugitive's pucker factor considerably. it gave when he racked a round could up a fugitive's pucker factor considerably.

ART was composed of the best-trained deputy marshals. When the bell rang, they came off regular duty, threw on Kevlar, and enacted precision strikes to extract fugitives. Because of Tim's Spec Ops background and his early record working up warrants, he'd been fortunate to make ART almost immediately after graduating the academy. During one fugitive roundup in his second month, his team had been hitting as many as fifteen hideouts a day, guns drawn on each entry. They kicked in the door half the time, and more than half the arrests were of armed men.

Bear hardly slowed as he reached Tim, and Tim turned and moved with him to keep from getting run over.

"We're waiting on you. Downstairs. Now. We'll have our pre-op briefing on the way over."

"What happened?"

"Our CI dropped dime on a buddy who was supposed to mule a shipment of imported wine, clear it through customs, port of entry San Diego. His meet is with a guy who fits Heidel's description."

"Where?"

Bear's gold marshal's star flashed on its leather belt clip as he walked. "Martia Domez Hotel. Pico and Paloma."

The mule would probably leave the drugs in a truck in the parking lot to eliminate the risk of getting caught with them in the room. At the motel he'd receive his first payment and get directed to the stash house, where the water would be extracted from the "wine," leaving behind cocaine.

"How'd you pin location?"

"ESU. Heidel's a smart b.a.s.t.a.r.d, been phone-swapping about every other day, but the CI coughed up his new number and it tripped a cell site right at Paloma and Twelfth."

The Electronic Surveillance Unit had a unique set of tricks at its disposal when it came to tracking fugitives. Every cell phone emits a locating burst in its own distinct radio frequency, identifying itself to its network. If a top-clearance government agency like the Marshals Service or NSA is willing to commit outrageous resources, a nationwide cellular system can be programmed to pinpoint that burst to a local cell-system coverage area within a radius of less than three hundred yards. Because of the expense-a live cell-phone trace requires men and cars and global positioning satellite handsets-the obvious problems gaining legal clearance, and the reliance on private-sector telecommunication cooperation, the technology is used sparingly. They were going all out for Heidel.

"Martia Domez is the only hotel on the block, and the CI knew the meet was in a hotel Room 9," Bear continued. "The meet wasn't supposed to be until six P P.M., but Thomas and Freed did a drive-by about twenty minutes ago and said someone's already in the room. Two more men just showed up."

"Either of them fit Heidel's description?"

"No, but they look like the spicks who helped spring him. Thomas and Freed are sitting surveillance with the ESU geeks-I told them not to get eye-f.u.c.ked, that we'd hot-a.s.s over and take the mutts before Elvis leaves the building."

Bear knocked the door open so hard it left a dent in the wall. The other deputies watched them with some envy as they headed out.

*The Beast waited for them downstairs. An old, retrofitted military ambulance, the Beast fitted twelve people on two opposing benches. Huge white letters stood out from the black paint-POLICE U.S. MARSHALS MARSHALS-almost exactly matching the T-shirts of the ART members. On all U.S. marshalissue clothing and gear, POLICE POLICE appears in text larger than that proclaiming the agency name, because if given the choice in a high-heat situation, a deputy marshal doesn't want to wait for the Average Citizen to remember what a deputy U.S. marshal is, and because appears in text larger than that proclaiming the agency name, because if given the choice in a high-heat situation, a deputy marshal doesn't want to wait for the Average Citizen to remember what a deputy U.S. marshal is, and because POLICE POLICE is the international language for is the international language for CAN SHOOT STRAIGHTER THAN YOU CAN SHOOT STRAIGHTER THAN YOU. The yellow lettering and embroidered badges also cut the odds considerably that the ART squad would be mistaken for a stickup crew.

Tim grabbed his gear from the trunk of his car, swung up into the back of the Beast, slapped a few fives, and sat between Bear and Brian Miller, the supervisory deputy in charge of ART and the Explosive Detection Canine Team. Miller's best b.i.t.c.h, a black Lab named Precious after Jame Gumb's poodle, nuzzled up to Tim's crotch before Miller snapped her back into place.

Tim regarded the eight other men on the benches. He was not surprised to see both Mexican ART members present; knowing that Heidel's two deputy-killing accomplices were Latino, Miller had pulled in the Hispanic talent as a preemptive strike against claims of racial retribution. A Cuban kid named Guerrera was sitting in for their regular number-three man, who was the brother-in-law of one of the deputies whom Heidel's men had shot. Miller had taken every precaution to ensure a fair, lawful takedown and to make sure his men would survive the postop hernia-check scrutiny of the Los Angeles media.

There was some uneasy shifting on the bench opposite Tim. "Do me a favor. Don't tell me how bad you feel about my daughter. I know you all do, and I appreciate it."

a.s.sorted nods and mumbles. Bear broke the awkwardness, pointing to Tim's holstered .357. "Hey, Wyatt Earp. When are you gonna get an auto and enter the twenty-first century?"

Bear's little drill to show the others Tim wasn't fragile. Appreciative, Tim played along. "The average gunfight lasts seven seconds, occurs within a range of fewer than ten feet. Do you know how many rounds are typically exchanged?"

Bear smiled at Tim's mock-formal tone, and a few of the others joined him. "No, sir, I do not."