The Dead Student (17 page)

“For the shotgun, either a Remington or a Mossberg. Not too heavy. Short barrel for use in close quarters. Simple, efficient mechanism. Won’t jam. Won’t rust. Can take a lot of combat abuse.”

“I’ve got a Mossberg,” Neck Tattoo added. “It’s also got a very cool attachment for a flashlight, which is really helpful.” He didn’t say
why
it was helpful. This seemed obvious.

The clerk nodded. “True. Six- or nine-shot models. And, I think, to really be effective, you should pair that up with a Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver. Put in wad-cutters. Stop an elephant in its tracks. The Cadillac of handguns.”

Neck Tattoo started to speak, and the clerk held up his hand. “I know, I know. More rapid firepower with a Glock Nine or a .45.” He smiled. “But for this gentleman, I think old-fashioned, easiest to use, just point and shoot and not worry about fumbling around with a clip and chambering a round, that makes the most sense.”

The clerk turned back to Jeremy. “A lot of folks see the cops on TV or in the movies and they always use semiautomatics, so that’s what they want. But a damn good pistol, I mean, a quality gun—hell, you can drop it in the mud or use it as a hammer when you’re doing your weekend chores, and it’s still gonna work just fine. That’s what I’m guessing will fit you best.”

Jeremy followed the clerk down a flight of stairs into the basement along with the two other shoppers. There was a makeshift firing range below the store, with a pair of shooting galleries. The clerk set up the first of the other men, handing all of them ear protectors and boxes of ammunition. Within seconds, the other man was in a slight crouch, expertly aiming and then opening up with a semiautomatic pistol at a target barely forty feet away. A makeshift pulley system ran along the ceiling and there was a built-in table and a single sheet of drywall material that separated the two ranges. The rapid fire from the semiautomatic was deafening, and Jeremy adjusted his pair of ear protectors. They muffled some—but not all—of the reports.

The clerk was yelling instructions, first for the Mossberg 12-gauge, then for the pistol. Loading. Stance. Grip. He gently maneuvered Jeremy into position.

Jeremy snugged the shotgun tightly up against his shoulder. Positioning, the clerk yelled above the incessant explosions coming from the adjacent gallery, was crucial. Jeremy could barely hear, “You don’t want to fracture that shoulder!”

The clerk tugged on the pulley system and sent a black-and-white bull’s-eye target down to the back wall, in front of a pile of sandbags. Jeremy eyed the target. The shotgun, snugged up against his shoulder, felt like a sudden extension of his body, as if it was screwed into him. In that second, as his finger closed around the trigger, Jeremy felt younger, as if years had
fallen from his body. He suddenly felt
equal
. He sighted the target, took a breath, held it as he’d been instructed, and fired.

The weapon kicked back. It was like being punched by a professional boxer, or having the wind knocked out of him. But these sensations fled when he saw that the target had been shredded.

He cocked the weapon, ejecting the spent cartridge, and fired again.

This time the blast seemed more familiar.

He pumped the action confidently, another shell clattered to his feet, and he fired a third time.

The target was almost destroyed. It hung from an old-fashioned clothespin and twisted about, even though there was no breeze in the basement firing range.

“Not bad,” Jeremy said. “Worth every penny.” He felt a little like a child emerging from a roller-coaster ride. He wasn’t sure that the clerk could hear him, so he smiled triumphantly. “Now let me try the handgun.”

The clerk handed him the pistol.

In the adjacent gallery, the shopper with the semiautomatic he had no intention of buying paused to reload. He stole a glance at the target blasted into confetti by the shotgun next to him.

Nice shot, Doctor,
Student #5 thought.
But you won’t get that chance. That’s not how this is going to play out.

He confidently slapped in a full clip as he had done hundreds of times before and fought off the nearly overwhelming urge to laugh out loud because the man just on the other side of the flimsy barrier hadn’t recognized him, not even when they’d stood just paces apart. The idea that he’d been able to follow his target right to a gun shop, walk in just behind him, and now was only feet away while the last man on his list uselessly fired a live weapon in the wrong direction was delicious.

You could just turn ninety degrees, Doctor, and solve your dilemma right here, right now.
He raised the weapon and aimed.
Of course, so could I. But that’s far too easy.
He fired and clustered four shots dead center in his target.

13

The two of them were aware the toxicology report was negative. But typed words on a paper form weren’t the same as knowing firsthand. Moth had directed them to the street in front of the high-end hotel.

“Are you sure?” Andy Candy said. “I can go in, ask around. You stay here in the car.”

She suddenly believed that part of her job was protecting Moth from Moth. This was a new realization that had just taken root within her.

“No. I have to do it,” he replied.

“Okay. Then we’ll go in together.”

He didn’t disagree.

She saw that Moth was already quivering slightly when they entered the hotel’s bar. It was dark inside, low light, welcoming textures, soft jazz playing in the background, the sort of place that combined fancy with familiar, paddle fans circling slowly, mirrors, comfortable leather-bound chairs, and low-slung tables. The bar itself was a deeply polished, glistening mahogany, smooth to the touch. Rows of expensive liquors were lined up against the wall, like soldiers on parade. It was a sophisticated place, where
the martinis were shaken in gleaming containers and poured into chilled cut-glass goblets with a flourish. It was not the sort of bar where one ordered a Bud Light. It was a spot where wealthy folks came after big deals and celebrated, or where sports stars bought high-priced escorts to sit behind roped-off security barriers and flash jewelry and cash, but without the hype and energy of a South Beach nightclub. Andy Candy knew immediately if she’d asked for champagne, the bottle would be Dom Pérignon.

It was—Moth told her—where Ed had nearly drunk himself to death. He had pointed the bar out to his nephew once, driving by slowly and saying, “Who really wants to die in the mud and dirt with a bottle of rotgut? Might as well go out on silks and diamonds, waving a magnum of Chateau Lafite Rothschild.”

Moth and Andy Candy were immediately out of place.

They walked up to the bar uncomfortably. Tending the bar were two young men wearing bow ties, probably a few years older than Moth, and a woman wearing a tight white cotton shirt that was cut low enough to show off an ample cleavage. One of the men rapidly approached them.

“Kind of a dress code in here, guys,” he said in a not unfriendly way. He leaned forward. “And it’s expensive. Like way expensive. Black-card expensive. There’s a pretty nice sports bar two blocks away that’s more for college-age types.”

Andy Candy leaned forward. Moth seemed tongue-tied, staring at the arrays of liquors.

“Not drinking,” she said. “Just a quick question or two and then we’re out of here.”

She smiled, trying to be as attractive and enticing as possible.

“What sort of questions?” the bartender asked, a little taken aback. “You don’t work for TMZ or some sort of gossip site, do you?”

“No,” Andy said quickly, waving her hand and shaking her head. “Not anything like that.”

“Well?”

“Our uncle …” she guessed it would be easier if she adopted Ed as a
relative, “… has gone missing. Many years ago, this was his absolute number one favorite place. We’re just wondering if anyone had seen him in the last month or so.”

The bartender nodded. He was experienced at the notion of
missing
and what it really meant. “Got a picture?”

Moth handed over his cell phone, which was opened to a recent photo of a grinning, poolside Ed Warner. The bartender stared at it for a moment, shook his head, then gestured to the other two behind the counter. The three of them craned over the picture.

Three shrugs.

“Nope,” the bartender said.

“He would have been drunk,” Andy said quickly. She could feel Moth stiffen beside her. “A drunk psychiatrist. And probably not a quiet drunk, either.”

Again the bartender shook his head. “One of us would remember,” he said. “And one thing you really get to know back here,” he added, gesturing the length of the bar. “Faces. Preferences. Regulars. That’s part of the drill in serving up drinks. As soon as that first taste of fifty-year-old Scotch hits the lips, no one is a stranger. Even in here. And when folks have too much … Well, let’s just say we’re very discreet. But we remember.”

He smiled. “Now, about that dress code …
Business casual,
they call it, and you guys …”

Andy Candy took Moth by the elbow. “Thanks,” she said.

She steered Moth back through the entrance. She felt like some rehabilitation nurse helping a soldier who’d lost a leg in war take a tentative step on a prosthetic device. Moth had not spoken inside.

“I think I need to go to Redeemer One,” was all he said.

She hummed familiar lyrics:
If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues …

It was Susan Terry’s habit to arrive at Redeemer One a few minutes after each meeting had begun. This was a curiosity to her—she was doggedly punctual for any prosecutorial conference or court session. But the addic
tion meetings at the church triggered such complicated feelings within her that she invariably shuffled her feet outside before heading in.

Delay
wasn’t her usual style.

Impulsive
was.

It was the most difficult part of her addiction, she thought, harnessing desire and compulsion—just enough so that she did not indulge in the cocaine she adored, but still had some leftover ferocity for arguments in courtrooms and processing crime scenes. She sometimes wished that she could be just
a little bit
addicted. That might have kept her happy, married and not alone.

She stood by the door to her car. Often in Miami the first few hours of night seem weakly apologetic, as if unsure about replacing the brilliant blue skies of day. She waited a few minutes, watching the other meeting regulars enter the church doors. She was parked near the back, deep in shadows, almost hidden. The church parking lot lights stopped a good two dozen feet from where she had parked. This was antithetical thinking: Most women knew instinctively to pull in close where the lights were strong and where no lingering, faceless threat—even in a church lot—could hide. It was as if Susan enjoyed daring some ski-masked rapist to jump out of the bushes at her.

Defiance
and
risk
were another two words that she thought fit her.

Architect. Engineer. Dentist. She watched the others heading into the meeting. Most had a quick pace, bounding up the front steps. They all were feeling the same thing, she realized:
a need to release that big insistent voice held fast deep within.
She kicked at some loose gravel by her feet and watched a pebble nearly strike a tiny lizard, which fled instantly into a nearby tree stump.

She had lost that morning.

Lost,
of course, didn’t really describe the cascade of emotions that accompanied certain court defeats. Throughout the day she’d had the sensation that she had exited some terribly dire theater, where, as in
Hamlet,
everyone was dead onstage at the end. It had been the denouement of an awful case. A thirteen-year-old boy—fuzzy-cheeked, his voice barely
changed—had shot and killed his father with the old man’s prized Purdey shotgun. The gun was a $25,000, custom-made-in-England weapon that was supposed to be used in the rubber boot and tailored tweed pursuit of game birds on high-roller ranches and farms set aside in Texas or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It wasn’t supposed to be used for murder.

At the family’s mansion in the exclusive, gated Cocoplum section of Coral Gables, she had been distracted by an uncontrollably sobbing wife and a terrified younger sister who kept screaming over and over in a keening, high-pitched voice, like a record needle stuck in a groove. In the chaos, Susan had failed to realize that two detectives had taken the teenager into a side room and were questioning him aggressively. Far too aggressively. They’d read the juvenile killer his Miranda rights, but should have waited until some responsible adult was able to accompany him. They did not. They’d simply launched into one of the oldest tricks in the police detective’s arsenal:
“Why’d yah do it, kid? You can tell us. We’re your friends and we’re just here to help you. Your dad, he was clearly a bad guy. Let’s get it all straightened out right now, and then we can all go home …”

Right. Fat chance.

It was a fine legal line and the detectives had not just crossed it, but trampled on it.

They had seen
killer.
The legal system saw
child
.

That was the precise distinction she had been on the scene to identify and the exact problem she had been there to avoid and she had failed. Dramatically.

So a judge in circuit court that morning had tossed out the kid’s cold confession, even though one of the detectives had dutifully videotaped it. And without that confession, proving what had actually happened that deadly night
beyond a reasonable doubt
was going to be hard, if not impossible.

The mother wouldn’t testify against her son.