The Kill Clause Part 6

Tim raised a hand in a half wave, but his eyes were on the marshal's Bronco, just pulling through the police perimeter. Marshal Tannino hopped out and approached in a jog. A stocky, muscular man who'd come up through the ranks, Marco Tannino had joined the service at twenty-one. His recommendation last spring by Senator Feinstein paved the way to his marshalship, one of the few appointments made on genuine merit. The majority of the ninety-four marshals were big contributors to Senate campaigns, trust-fund babies whose dads rubbed elbows with Beltway bra.s.s, or sycophantic bureaucrats from other government agencies. Much to the chagrin of the street deputies, one of the marshals out of Florida was a former professional clown. Tannino, on the other hand, had logged plenty of trigger time in his distinguished career, so he was respected from bottom to top in the district office and elsewhere.

He wore a focused expression, running a hand through his coiffed salt-and-pepper hair as Freed filled him in.

Miller squeezed Tim's shoulder. "We need to get you a paramedic?"

Tim shook his head. The aftermath of the adrenaline kick had left his mouth dry and sour. The area smelled of sweat and cordite.

One of the police officers crouched over Tim and flipped open his black notebook. He started to talk, but Tim cut him off. "I have no statement."

Tannino stepped in hard, his knee brushing against the cop so he had to stand to regain his balance. "Get out of here," he said. "You know better than that."

"Just doing my job, Marshal."

"Do it elsewhere."

The cop retreated inside the hotel room.

"How are you doing?" Tannino asked. He was looking Hill Street hip in his Harvey Woods sport coat, polyester slacks, and Nunn Bush wingtips.

"Okay." Tim unholstered his Smith & Wesson, double-checked that the wheel was empty save the six casings, and handed it over to Tannino, not wanting to make him ask for it. The weapon was no longer his; it was federal evidence.

"We'll get you a fresh one soon."

"I'd appreciate that."

"Let's get you out of this mess. The media monkeys are banging the bars, and the scene's gonna heat up."

"Thanks, Marshal. I fired si-"

The marshal held up his hand. "Not now, not here. Nothing oral, ever. You know the game. You'll make one statement one time, and it'll be in writing. You did your job and did it well-now let's jump the hoops and make sure you're protected." He offered his hand and pulled Tim up off the wall. "Let's go."

*The room was small and painfully bright. Tim shifted on the examination table, and the stiff paper beneath him crinkled. Bear and the other ART members had also been cleared to County USC Hospital and set up in separate rooms to simmer down.

A polite knock on the door, then Marshal Tannino stepped in. "Rackley. You left quite a trail back there." He c.o.c.ked his head, regarding Tim with his dark brown eyes. "The doctor told me you refused sedatives. Why's that?"

"I don't need to be sedated."

"You're not upset?"

"Not about this."

"You've been through this before. With the Rangers, too."

"Yeah. Yeah, I have. I'd like to say just a few times."

"There's an Employee a.s.sistance Intervention Team coming out. They're available to talk to you, the other guys, your wife, whatever you want."

"The Hug Squad, huh? I might take a pa.s.s."

"You can do that. But you might want to consider it."

"To be honest, Marshal, this doesn't bother me very much. I had little choice. I abided by regulations. They tried to kill me. I shot them justly." Tim moistened his lips. "There are other things I need to tend to. Things closer to home."

"I wanted to talk to you about that, too. Your daughter. There's that guy who specializes in this kind of stuff-that high-profile shrink over at UCLA...."

"William Rayner."

"He's expensive, but I'm sure I could get admin to spring for-"

"We're gonna feel our way through this one on our own, thanks."

"Okay." Tannino clicked his teeth a few times, watching Tim with concern. "How are you two doing with that stuff?"

Tim pursed his lips, then unpursed them. "I don't know."

Tannino cleared his throat, studied the floor. "Yeah. I'd imagine that's just about right."

"Is there any way...?"

"What, son?"

"Is there any way we could have one of our guys look into my daughter's case? The sheriff's detectives on it aren't..." He stopped again, unable to meet Tannino's eyes.

"We can't put this office's resources on the line for a personal case, Rackley. That's not how we play. You know better than to ask that."

Tim's face reddened. "Yes. I do. I'm sorry." He slid off the table. "I'm okay to go?"

"I'd like to buy you a little more time from the media. Three dead, a public shooting-it's gonna be a circus. We'll have to do things very methodically." He looked at Tim as if unsure he was registering this. "Plus, your FLEOA lawyer is on his way over. He'll help you with your statement, make sure you're all lined out."

"Okay," Tim said. "Thanks."

"I'm sorry about this c.r.a.p. This is just the way things go down these days. But we'll cover all our bases. You can't turn a bad shooting into a good shooting, but you can turn a good shooting into a bad one."

"It was a good shooting."

"Then let's make sure it stays that way."

*Dray was curled up on the couch in the gloom of the living room when Tim returned. The blinds were drawn, as they'd been when Tim had left that morning, and he wondered if she'd bothered to open them all day. She was wearing ripped jeans and a sweatshirt from the academy and looked as though she hadn't gotten around to a shower. At arm's length from her repose sat a half-eaten bowl of cereal, beside two empty c.o.ke cans that had been knocked over.

It was too dark for Tim to see whether she was asleep, though he sensed she wasn't. He checked the clock on the VCR: almost eleven. "Sorry I'm so late. I got-"

"I know. I watched the news. I thought you might've been able to find a phone."

"Not the way things went."

With effort Dray propped herself up on her elbows, her face rising into visibility. "How'd it go down?"

He told her. A thoughtful frown appeared on her face halfway through.

"Come here," she said when he was done. He crossed to her, and she made room on the couch between her legs. He sat, leaning against her, her body sleep-warm and firm. She'd been working her triceps last month, and they stood out like p.r.o.ngs on the backs of her arms. She played with his hair. She pressed his head to her chest, and he let her. As he relinquished control, it became clear how much he'd retreated into protective rigidity to drag himself through the past few days. He lay back, breathing Dray in, relishing her touch.

After a few minutes he turned and kissed her. They broke apart, hesitated, then kissed again.

Dray brushed his bangs back from his forehead, running a finger over the thin scar at his scalp line where he'd been struck by a rifle b.u.t.t outside of Kandahar. He kept his hair combed down on the right side to hide it; Dray alone could study it without making him uncomfortable. "Maybe we could, I don't know, go back to the bedroom," she said.

"Are you hitting on me?"

"I think so."

Tim stood and leaned over her, sliding his hands under her knees and shoulders. She let out an anomalous giggle and looped her arms around his neck. He exaggerated his trouble picking her up, groaned, and dropped her back on the couch. "You're gonna have to lay off the weights."

He'd intended it as a joke, but it came out sharply. Her smile dimmed, and he felt his insult bank and come back a vicious self-loathing. He crouched and cupped her face with both his hands, letting her read the remorse in his eyes.

"Come with me," he said.

She stood, and they regarded each other. They hadn't made love since Ginny was killed. Though it had been only six days, the fact hung disproportionately heavy between them. Maybe they were punishing themselves, denying themselves intimacy, or maybe they feared the closeness itself.

Tim felt first-date nervous, and he thought how odd to be so fragile at his age, in his house, with his wife. She was breathing hard, her neck sparkling with remembered sweat, and she reached out and took his hand, a touch awkwardly.

They walked back to the bedroom, pulled off their shirts, and began to kiss, tentatively, tenderly. She lay back on the bed, and he moved gently above her, but then her noises shifted direction and gained edge. He stopped, realizing she was weeping. Her fingers splayed, her palms finding the b.a.l.l.s of his shoulders, and she pushed him back and off. He sat on the bed, naked and confused as she grappled with the sheets to pull them over herself. Ginny's empty room across the hall silently made itself known, like a deep vibration.

Dray tucked one arm across her stomach and pressed her other hand to her trembling lips until they stopped. "I'm sorry. I thought I might be ready."

"Don't be sorry." He reached out and stroked her hair, but shedidn't respond. He put on his clothes quietly, unsure whether she perceived his dressing as an insult or as his move to gather his pride; he'd intended neither.

"I guess I just need some s.p.a.ce."

"Maybe I should go back to...?" He pointed down the hall, then retreated slowly across the room. He paused for a moment at the door, but she didn't stop him.

*Tim slept lurchingly through a tangle of nightmares and awoke in a sweaty haze a mere hour later, his intake of dream images somehow affirming his suspicion that Ginny had died at the hands of two killers-one still an enigma.

He couldn't trust the detectives' competence. He didn't agree with the DA's take on the case. He couldn't use the service. He couldn't investigate the case himself.

He was desperate.

Desperate enough to look for help in the one place he swore he never would.

He glanced at the clock-11:37 P P.M.

He jotted Dray a note in case she woke up, left the house quietly, and drove swiftly to Pasadena. He headed through the clean suburban neighborhood, his heartbeat and anxiety increasing with his proximity. He parked at the end of an aggregate concrete walk, the stones perfectly smoothed as they were on Tim's porch. The windows sparkled-not a single smudge. The lawn was dead level and precisely trimmed, the sides lined to perfection by an edger or maybe even shears.

Tim headed up the walk and stood for a moment, taking note of the coat of paint on the front door, untainted by even one brush mark. He rang the bell and waited.

The footsteps approached evenly, as if timed.

His father opened the door.

"Timmy."

"Dad."

His father stood, as always, wedged between the door and the jamb, as if protecting the house from a Bible salesman's a.s.sault. His gray suit was cheap but well pressed, the knot of his tie seated high and hard against his throat despite the hour. "How are you holding up? Haven't talked to you since the news."

The news. An engagement. A business deal. A daughter's death.

"May I come in?"

His father inhaled deeply and held his breath for a moment, indicating the inconvenience. Finally, he stepped back and let the door swing open. "Would you mind taking off your shoes?"

Tim sat on the couch in the living room, facing the La-Z-Boy upon which he knew his father would eventually settle. His father stood over him for a moment, arms crossed. "Drink?"

"Water would be good."

His father leaned over, plucked a coaster off the coffee table, and handed it to him before disappearing into the kitchen.

Tim looked around the familiar room, unchanged since his childhood. A scattering of picture frames covered the mantel, displaying the sun-faded stock photographs that had come with them. A woman at the beach. Three babies in a kiddie pool. A generic couple having a picnic. Tim was unsure if the frames had ever housed personal photos. He tried to remember if a picture of his mother, who'd wisely left them when he was three, had ever been on display in the house. He could not.

Ginny was the last of the Rackleys, the end of the lineage.

His father returned, gave Tim the gla.s.s, and offered his hand. They shook.

Easing into the La-Z-Boy, his father shoved the wood lever on the side and leaned back, the footrest kicking up beneath his legs. Tim realized he hadn't seen his father since Ginny's fourth birthday. His father had aged, not drastically but significantly-a faint net of wrinkles beneath each eye, a slight pucker cupping the points of his mouth, coa.r.s.e white hairs threaded in his eyebrows. It distressed Tim. Another stark glance at death's encroachment-slow this time, but equally unrelenting.

It struck him that when he was little, he hadn't understood death. Or he'd understood it better. It had seduced him. He'd played war, he'd played cops and robbers, he'd played cowboys and Indians, but he'd played no game in which death had not been a partic.i.p.ant. When his first Ranger buddies had died, he'd worn his uniform and sungla.s.ses to the funerals and observed stoically, dark and tough. And he hadn't been mourning for his friends, not really, because they'd just beaten him to it. First one to get a license, first one to get laid, first one to get killed. But with falling in love, losing a daughter, that had all changed. Death wasn't seductive anymore. When Ginny died, he'd felt a part of himself break off and spiral down a void. The damage had lessened him. And left him more exposed to dread.

He found he had less and less stomach for death.

To steel himself he reached for the reliable joist of aggression. "You been shooting straight?" he asked.

"Absolutely."

"No fraudulent checks, no running fake credit-card numbers?"

"Not a one. It has has been four years now. My parole officer is quite proud, even if my son is not." His father tilted his head for emphasis, then let his smile drop. been four years now. My parole officer is quite proud, even if my son is not." His father tilted his head for emphasis, then let his smile drop.

He leaned forward, the footrest sucking into the cheap fabric and disappearing. Crossing his legs, he laced his hands across his knee. He'd always exhibited an elegance that far outpaced the people and objects with which he surrounded himself. It was hard to square his well-filed nails with a life patched together from second-rate cons.