Indefensible (18 page)

“No, Dad. She doesn't
just
work for you.”

Quiet again. She curls into the seat, and a minute later, I hear
the rhythmic breathing, and she is gone. I wonder how much longer she'll be content to spend weekends at the lake with her dad.

•  •  •

Later. My cell rings. I see it is Kendall. I could ignore it, but he probably wants to tell me how impressed he was with Lizzy and how much Kaylee liked her. I answer. “Hi, Kendall.”

“Listen,” he growls, then he says something about Scud Illman, but I can't make it out. He sounds wrong; his voice is gravelly and choked. I ask him to repeat it. “Scud Illman didn't kill anyone,” he says.

I hadn't pegged Kendall as a drinker, and I haven't heard anything about it on the grapevine, but in an instant everything I think about him changes. The swagger, the calculating professionalism, the sanctimony: They're all cover for a soul in pain, and it must be getting to the critical point for him to let his guard down like this—to call opposing counsel after-hours, not with a legal argument or new evidence but with some empty claim of innocence.

“Kendall,” I say as compassionately as I can, “Kendall. Friend. It's okay. You're doing a good job for him. Better than he deserves, no doubt. And Tamika Curtis. Man! I'm betting the jury will hang on that. Yes, sir! So why don't you go get some sleep, and we'll talk in the morning. Okay?”

“What have you got against Scud? Why are you so convinced?” he moans.

“Kendall . . .”

“It wasn't me. Why are you convinced it was me? I'm just a guy trying to feed my family, same as you. So leave me the fuck alone.”

Something is amiss. This isn't Kendall. “What do you know?” I ask to keep him talking.

He says something, but the cell connection is poor, and I miss it. “Couldn't hear you,” I say.

“I'm innocent,” he yells. “I'll tell you. Tell you everything. I know everything. Jesus H. I know and I'll tell, but everybody says it's your call.”

“Everybody who?”

“Upton, for one. And my worthless lawyer, for another.”

“Scud,” I say, “did you steal Kendall Vance's phone?”

“I borrowed it.”

“You shouldn't be talking to me.”

“Then who the hell should I talk to? I need immunity.”

“I'm hanging up now.”

“No! Listen to me.” He's sobbing. “There's things I know.”

“What do you know?”

“I know who I fucking work for, for one thing.”

“Who do you work for?”

He answers, but again the cell phone blinks out. “Scud, who do you work for?”

“Mercy,” he begs in his garbled, drunken voice.

“Mercy? What mercy did you show Zander Phippin or Cassandra Randall?” I say quietly, not intending him to hear.

“I need immunity,” he sobs. “I mean, Seth was going to tell you, but he wasn't a two-time loser. No skin off his ass. But I can't do the time, man. Let me talk. I'll talk your fucking ear off. Upton said he'd take care of it, and now he says no.”

“Upton? How do you know anything about Upton?”

“We do some business?”

“What the hell . . .”

“You got to fucking protect me, man.” He breaks down. I wait. He composes himself. “Will you?” he asks.

“Will I what?”

“Give me protection? Immunity?”

“It isn't that simple, Mr. Illman, and even if it were, no, I wouldn't agree.”

“You son of a bitch,” he screams, “I know you. I know where you live, I know your car, I know that little sexpot daughter of yours.”

Now he has my attention. I reach over and put a hand on Lizzy's knee. “Daddy,” she says without waking up.

“Scud,” I say, “you're drunk, and you're saying things you shouldn't say. Here's what I want you to do, okay? You know what I
look like, right? We've met, right? So I want you to picture my face. Right now. Close your eyes and picture my face. Okay? You got me? Scud, have you got me?”

“Yeah,” he says warily.

“Good. Now look at my right eye. See my right eye?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, now make it wink. Did it wink? Scud, did you see me wink at you?”

“What's this about, asshole?”

“Answer the question, scumbag, did I wink at you?”

“Okay, asshole, so I tell you I saw it. I saw you wink. Now what?”

“That's great,” I say gently. “You've seen the future. Because when you're strapped to the gurney and they open the curtains for the happy spectators who've come to see you die, you look over, and I'll be right there in the front row, and you watch. When they hit the button, you watch me. I'll wink. And that'll be the last thing you ever see in your miserable excuse for a life. Our inside joke, okay?”

We're off the highway, winding through the hills alongside the Aponak River, which is swelling and rushing with all the runoff.

I hang up and pull off the road into a wayside. There is a sheltered picnic table. I leave the car running and stand under the shelter. The air is cold.

I call Upton and get his voice mail. Though I was calm and rational with Scud, as I say the words “threatened my daughter” on Upton's voice mail, the idea of it spreads through me like an electrical jolt. “Threatened her,” I say again, and I hear the note of hysteria rising in my voice. “I'll kill him,” I say, my voice trembling. “If he ever comes within ten miles of Lizzy, I'll kill him with no more thought than squashing an ant. I'll wipe him off my shoe like dog shit.”

I hang up. The frustration of getting Upton's voice mail and not Upton himself fuels this rage. I call Chip. He answers, and as I repeat the story, I can see Lizzy in the car. In her sleep, the incipient adulthood disappears from her features, and she is again my blameless child. She looks so much like Toby. Her cheeks and forehead are smooth and free of cares, and her slightly parted lips silently speak
of a child's vulnerability. She sleeps so soundly because in her childlike way, despite the horrors of Cassandra's murder and Zander's exhumation, she still unconsciously assumes that the ferociousness of Flora's and my love for her is an invincible swaddle that will keep her safe. There is nothing I wouldn't do to protect this child.

“Calm down, Nick,” Chip says. “Take some breaths.”

I yell—no words, just sound.
Aaaaaaa,
in revolt against the idea of anything that would trespass on her perfect innocence.

“Take a breath.”

“Don't tell me to calm down,” I yell. “I don't care if I spend the rest of my life in jail. I'll finish him.”

“Breathe with me, Nick,” Chip says. “Breathe slowly: in, and hold, and out, and hold, and in, and hold.”

Because Chip is so calm, and because I trust him, especially knowing that he is emerging from his own dark night of the soul, I do breathe with him, and the mindless rage and hysteria start to diminish.

Chip is silent. My ragged breathing smooths out. I am embarrassed.

“It's okay, Nick,” he says in his laconic way. “It's okay.”

“Yes.”

“Scud just committed a federal crime, didn't he? By threatening you, I mean. We'll go pick him up. Do you want protection meanwhile?”

I think about this. The moment of hysteria has passed, leaving me a little dopey. I know Scud isn't really a threat to Lizzy or me. Besides, he has no idea where we are. “No,” I say to Chip, “Lizzy and I are on our way to the lake. And he was just spouting.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure,” I say. “And Chip, that stuff I said about killing Scud . . .”

“What's that, Nick? I remember nothing of the sort.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Do this,” Chip says. “Let's make a record. Call me back, and I won't answer, and you get my voice mail and recite the exact particulars
of your conversation while it's fresh. We've got the son of a bitch.”

I ask Chip to inform Kendall of Scud's new crime, and of the whereabouts of Kendall's cell phone, then I settle back in for the drive.

Two things are bothering me. Not Scud's threats—I don't take those seriously. He's the kind of guy who considers intimidation and threats of violence to be standard conversation, right along with “What's happening?” and “How's the weather out your way?” Not that I'm excusing it, especially since he committed the unforgivable sin of bringing Lizzy into it, and especially since he's done his homework on me with the intent of getting some leverage. One thing that bothers me is what Scud said about Upton—that they talk and they're involved in something together. I decide to keep this to myself and talk to Upton about it later. But the main thing bothering me is that when he sobbed out his innocence, when he begged for mercy, he
sounded
innocent. I kind of wanted to believe him. If it weren't for the blood in his car and the tire prints at the reservoir . . . Hell, maybe he
did
loan the car to someone. Maybe I should at least have the conversation with him about immunity.

He'll get locked up over the weekend on charges of threatening a federal officer. By Monday or Tuesday, we'll have blood results. Then we'll talk, get a feel for what he can tell us and how involved he is. I'm available to be convinced. And at some point, when he's out of view of the security monitors and of his lawyer, I'll slam an elbow into his nose or a knee in his groin, and while he writhes on the floor, I'll lean close and whisper that if he ever mentions my daughter again, I'll kill him.

I get back in the Volvo. “Daddy,” Lizzy says, sounding more asleep than awake, “Daddy, are we in danger again?”

L
izzy and I planned to stay up north through the weekend, but it continued raining, and we both got cabin fever. Also, I decided to take care of a few things in the city, so we just stayed Friday night and drove back on Saturday. I dropped Lizzy in Turner and went home alone. Now it's Monday morning—humming printers, gossip at the watercooler. My to-do list is long. I've been letting things slide. Scud Illman has gotten the better of me. I need to have a steadier hand on the helm. Act judicious.

Tina is just arriving. I stand in her doorway with my coffee, shoulders squared, voice casual and supportive. “Good morning, how are we doing with Tamika Curtis?”

“We? We have been keeping an effing finger in the effing dike of Kendall Vance's effing histrionics is how
we
are doing.” She drops her briefcase on the desk and flops into the chair. “I tried calling him all Friday. Finally, some friend of his answered. Said Kendall was away.”

I laugh.

She eyes me suspiciously. “What?”

“Did you talk to the friend?”

“Briefly. He was quite charming.”

“Yes,” I say, “I talked to him, too. He's a prince of a fellow. Did you happen to tell him who you are?”

“Of course.”

“Anything notable in the conversation?”

“Well, he asked me out on a date, but it was just, like, banter. Not for real.”

“Oh, you seductress,” I say, putting a legal pad on her desk. “Here, write down every detail you can remember of the conversation.”

“Why?”

“Because you wooed the murdering extortionist Scud Illman, who stole his lawyer's cell phone.”

I go back to my office and dial the Bureau. Chip isn't in, but I get his fellow agent, Isler. He says Scud is still at large. They've been looking for him all weekend.

I take some deep breaths and remind myself: Steady hand on the helm. I realize I didn't get an answer from Tina about Tamika Curtis, so I get up and go back in. She's writing on the pad, as I asked her to. I wait.

Tina's office is tidy but impersonal. She has some peaceful farm-and-mountain prints on the wall, by the regional artist Sabrina, whose work (often in triptych) hangs in half the dentists' offices in the state. On Tina's desk are just two photos—one of her parents and one of Tina and a dog. To see these, I have walked around behind her, and she doesn't seem to mind. She stops writing to think for a moment, arches her back, and swings her head so that if she had hair of any length, it would toss in carefree waves. Looking around the room, I notice the absence of diplomas and bar certificates, and I read this as a good sign, indicating that the office, this job, is not her whole being.

She keeps writing.

“I'll be back,” I say, and I leave with no idea what is happening in the Curtis case.

I check Upton's office. He's not in. I call his cell. He doesn't answer. I call his home; Cindy says he worked all Sunday, then phoned last night to say he was going to sleep on his office couch.

I call Dorsey and learn the blood results aren't back from Scud's car. There are messages on my desk from TMU and Hollis Phippin, but right now I don't want to deal with either of them. It's 10:55
A.M.
I call Flora's office and get voice mail. “It's me,” I say, “can you call me between sessions?”

I try the Bureau again. Still no Chip. Isler says they're worried that Scud might have fled. Scud's wife claims she hasn't seen him, and he isn't at any of his usual haunts. They've been looking for him since I reported his threats on Friday night.

Flora calls back. “Are you okay, Nick?”

“Umm. Working too hard. As usual. Just needed to hear a friendly voice.”

“Lizzy had a nice time with you this weekend.”

“Did she? I can never tell.”

“You worry too much, Nickie.”

“How's your patio coming along?”

She laughs. “It started wonderfully. But you know Kenny. He's got it all dug up, and I haven't seen him for days.”

“I'll kick him in the butt.”

“Please do.”