Linda Howard - Kill and Tell

"You… bitch!" he howled. Blinded, he struck out with his fist and caught her on the cheekbone. The impact bounced her head on the mattress, blurred her vision. She wasn't aware of pain, only of the stunning force of the blow. She hit him across the nose with the can, splitting the skin and sending blood spraying across her and the bed. She managed to get her legs up and kicked out with both of them as hard as she could, one foot hitting him in the stomach and the other lower, almost in the groin. He staggered back, his breath exploding out of him. Karen rolled off the bed, scrambling on her hands and knees for the door. He pulled the trigger then, enraged, cursing, but he couldn't see, and the bullet punched a hole in the wall above her head, sending plaster flying.

The carpet burned her knees as she lunged through the door. Panting, her vision still blurred, she staggered to her feet and lurched for the front door. Another shot exploded through the wall.

She wrenched the door open as he stumbled out of the bedroom. Wiping his sleeve across his streaming eyes, he raised his arm. Karen dove out the door, sprawling in the hallway and rolling as she hit. The shot splintered the door. She surged to her feet, stumbled for the stairs, and ran into two policemen who were coming up the steps with their weapons drawn, faces white.

Dizzily, she sank to the floor. Down the hall, she saw a blurred face in the doorway of one of the other three apartments on this floor. "Get down!" she gasped.

Hearing her voice, the burglar staggered through the door, arms extended, pistol in a two-handed grip. Both policemen reacted instantly, firing so close together that the two shots sounded like one. The impact of the bullets slammed the burglar back against the wall, and for an instant a look of mild surprise crossed his face. He looked down at the red stain spreading across his chest, blinking his streaming eyes as he tried to focus them.

"Drop the gun! Drop it!" both policemen yelled.

The burglar laughed. The sound gurgled in his throat, but it was a laugh. "Fuck you," he said, and lifted his pistol, pointing it in Karen's direction. He pulled the trigger just as both policemen fired again.

Chapter 14

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McPherson punched in a number on his secure cell phone. "This thing is getting curiouser and curiouser," he said when the call was answered. "Dexter Whitlaw was killed the same day in New Orleans, which isn't all that far from where Rick's body was found, same caliber weapon. The detective working the case is a sharp son of a bitch; he made me the minute I walked in his office. He put in the request for info on Rick on a hunch. I'd say he's got a hell of an instinct."

"Who's Dexter Whitlaw?" said the voice on the other end. "I don't know him."

"He was a Marine sniper in Vietnam, damn good one. Sneaky son of a bitch. Patient. He could outwait the second coming of Christ. Anyway, we got acquainted with Dex in Saigon, and he and Rick were…

well, I don't know that I'd go so far as to say friends, but they respected each other, you know?"

"So he and Dad met up in New Orleans."

"Seems like it. Don't know why, though. But it made someone nervous, someone who didn't want the two of them together."

"That means it was someone who knew both of them." The voice was cool, unemotional.

"I'd even say it was someone who knew them from Nam. As far as I know, Dex dropped out of sight after he got back from Nam. Couldn't handle it; went native. The detective said he'd been living on the streets but evidently had a source of income because he was healthy and well fed."

"His family probably sent money to him. I'll check out his next of kin. Has Vinay found his leak yet?"

"No, and he's damn pissed."

"I'll stay outside channels when I talk to him. About this detective. He made you. Does this need taking care of?"

"Only if you're thinking of recruiting him—which wouldn't be a bad idea, by the way. He looked at my shoes and pegged me for NSA or the Company. He's that sharp, that quick. He doesn't need two twos to come up with four."

A sigh came over the line. "Those damn Guccis."

"I couldn't see buying wingtips for the occasion."

"So you think we should use him as an asset?"

"Unless you recruit him outright."

"He might be more valuable where he is."

"Agreed."

The Gulf Coast cities were prime gun-running ports. Knowing when and where the weapons were going could give their analysts valuable insight on where the next brush-fire war was going to pop up. Sometimes the fire needed to be lit, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes the shipments would be intercepted, sometimes they wouldn't.

"The funeral is at two tomorrow. Will you be here?"

"Unless you need me to do something else." With John, you never knew. He was like a spider, pulling on six invisible threads at the same time.

"It will be interesting to see who's around."

Meaning who would be surveilling the funeral to ID John. Just getting a photograph of him would be worth a lot of money to a lot of people and quite a few governments. There was always the possibility that Rick had been killed for no other reason than to draw John into a public situation. Not that any photograph of him tomorrow would be worth a shit. McPherson had known John most of his life, and he probably wouldn't recognize him tomorrow even if he was standing right next to him.

"Will Vinay have a net on the area?"

"I'd like an extra set of eyes. Someone closer in."

And that meant John hadn't ruled out an inside job. At this point, he hadn't ruled out anything, though the information about Dex Whitlaw meant the possibility that Rick had simply been the victim of a robbery/murder was just about down the tubes. As Detective Chastain had said, that was straining coincidence a little too far.

But John was a cool, subtle thinker, which was what made him so dangerous and so valuable. He weighed probabilities, percentages, possibilities, saw shadows and details others missed. Jess McPherson didn't completely trust many people, but John Medina was one of them. Frank Vinay was

another. And Rick Medina had been on that list as well. Losing him hurt.

"I'll be there," he said gruffly, and disconnected.

Marc checked his watch: nine forty-five. The small, pitiful body on the autopsy table was telling a tale of horror, of a short life spent in pain and terror. He had checked the area hospitals and come up with a list of visits to the emergency departments that made him cringe. Little James Blake Gable had already had ten "accidents" this year, accidents serious enough to warrant medical attention. The Gables had avoided attention by using a different hospital each time. One of the doctors should have picked up on the signs of systematic abuse, but no one had.

What about the families? Hadn't either Mr. or Mrs. Gable's family noticed something was wrong? Hadn't they noticed their grandson was slowly being murdered or that Mrs. Gable had become reclusive? Sure they had. What Marc couldn't understand was how they had just let it go, ignored it, probably hoping things would get better. Well, things never got better unless someone did step in. Now it was too late for the little boy, and Marc had a sinking feeling that time was running out for Mrs. Gable, too. He checked his watch again. Even with everything he had going on right now, he needed to call Karen. The urge to do so tightened his stomach, knotted his nerves. It wasn't just that he wanted to get things settled between them; he felt uneasy, restless.

He hadn't talked to her in twenty-four hours, and suddenly, he thought it was twenty-four hours too long. He wanted to know she was all right, tell her how he felt, get her back to New Orleans, somehow. Maybe it was because the CIA, in the form of Mr. McPherson, had come sniffing around after he had Shannon put out the feeler on Medina. All the details about Dexter Whitlaw's murder that had struck him as unusual—the neatness of the hit, the lack of noise that indicated silencers, the expensive pistol in Whitlaw's possession—took on a lot more importance when teamed with the information that he had known the other murder victim, who just happened to have worked for the CIA. A simple street murder had become complicated.

No, it wasn't that. He struggled to pay attention to the autopsy, but the tension in his gut wouldn't go away. As soon as this was over, he would call her. He should already have done it. Never mind needing to calm down; what he needed was to talk to her. This was two mistakes he'd made, he thought grimly. The first was leaving her alone yesterday morning, the second was not calling until he finally got her instead of the answering machine.

His radio crackled to life. Dr. Pargannas looked up and scowled at the interruption. Marc listened to the code for a suspected murder in the Garden District. The address was very familiar to him. "Ah, shit! The son of a bitch has killed his wife!" He spat the words out as he ran from the autopsy room. Defeat was a bitter taste in his mouth. He'd been afraid of this. He had been caught between the need to have everything right so the bastard couldn't get off on a technicality and the need to hurry, to do something now . In another two hours, he would have had an arrest warrant, and Mr. Gable would be safely locked away. For Mrs. Gable, two hours was now a lifetime too long. When he got to the house, the wide, tree-lined street was choked with patrol cars. The heat and humidity wrapped around him like a blanket as he walked up the sidewalk and into the cool, high-ceilinged elegance of the house. He was sick with fury and helplessness, but he shoved his feelings aside so he could do his job—for all the good that would do Mrs. Gable now.

"Where?" he asked one of the patrol officers.

"Upstairs." The woman looked rattled.

He climbed the wide, curving stairs and followed the commotion to a bedroom. The room was huge, probably thirty by thirty, and decorated like Hollywood's idea of European royalty. The big bed was draped with white net that hung from the ceiling. Ornate mirrors and original oil paintings decorated the walls, and furniture was arranged into two formal conversation areas. Tall alabaster vases held arrangements of irises coordinated with the color scheme of the room, which was white and gold with accents of peach and blue. A new color had recently been added to the room: red. A lot of red. Red that sprayed, red that pooled, red that was turning rust-colored as it dried. Mrs. Gable sat on one of the sofas. The back of her head was gone. She hadn't fallen over, simply slumped back against the cushions as if now she could relax. Her eyes were open, empty with death. Death wasn't peaceful; it was just nothing. Everything gone. No more sunrises, no more hopes, no more fears. Nothing.

She wore a white silk gown and negligee, low-cut, sheer. Sexy. Marc crouched in front of her, his gaze cataloging the mottled bruise on her neck he had glimpsed yesterday, as well as all the other marks. There was a small purplish mark on the upper curve of her breast, the sort of mark lovers left on each other. He suspected that the autopsy would find Mrs. Gable had had sex not long before her death. The bastard had probably thought making love to her, treating her tenderly for a change, would keep her quiet about how their little boy had died.

Maybe that was what had pushed her over, the fact that he had killed her son and then come to her for sex. Maybe she had planned it anyway.

Marc turned his head and looked at Mr. Gable's body, or what was left of it, sprawled in the bathroom doorway. She must have waited until he was about to step into the shower, then walked into the ornate bathroom and emptied a pistol into him. From the looks of it, she had then reloaded and kept shooting until the gun was empty again. The remnants of body parts were splattered around him. She had been very particular in what parts she shot off. Then she had reloaded once more, walked to the sofa, sat down, put the gun barrel in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.