The Kill Clause Part 8

"'Deputy Rackley,'" Tim repeated, troubled by her formality.

"I just wanted to warn you."

"Thank you." Tim tapped Bear on the ribs. "How's the bruising?"

Bear tried not to wince. "Don't hurt at all."

Tim started back for the lounge. When he turned around, Bear was still watching him.

*The big brick of a tape recorder shushed hypnotically in the center of the elongated table. Tim's chair, with its middling size and cheap upholstery, was no match for the high-backed black leather numbers his interviewers commanded on the opposing side. Tim jiggled the handle beneath his seat inconspicuously, trying to elevate it.

With painstaking detail they'd covered every inch of Tim's account of his shooting of Gary Heidel and Lydia Ramirez. The Internal Affairs guy wasn't so bad, but the woman from Investigative Services and the gunner from Legal were attack dogs in knockoff suits. Tim's forehead felt moist, but he refrained from wiping it.

The woman uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, her finger tracing something in the file before her. "You claim you emerged from the alley and saw Carlos Mendez reaching for his weapon?"

"Yes."

"Did you issue a warning to Mr. Mendez?"

"The firing of warning shots is against agency regulation."

"As is firing at fleeing suspects, Deputy Rackley."

The Internal Affairs inspector shot her a look of irritation. He was an older guy, probably switched over to IA to log a few more years of service before retirement. Tim remembered he'd introduced himself as Dennis Reed. "This was not merely a fleeing suspect, Deborah. He was armed and intent on firing."

She made a calming gesture with her hands. "Did you issue an oral oral warning to Mr. Mendez?" warning to Mr. Mendez?"

"We'd been issuing oral warnings for the preceding seven minutes to no avail. Two people were already dead as a result of the fugitives' failure to heed those warnings."

"Did you issue another oral warning immediately before you fired on Mr. Mendez?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"There was no time."

"There was no time for you to issue a final command of any sort?"

"I believe that's what I just said."

"But there was enough time for you to draw your weapon and fire three shots?"

"The final two shots were irrelevant."

If Reed's smirk was any indication, he liked Tim's answer.

"Let me rephrase my question. There was enough time for you to draw your weapon and fire the first shot but not to issue an oral warning of any kind?"

"Yes."

She feigned immense puzzlement. "How is that possible, Deputy Rackley?"

"I'm a very quick draw, ma'am."

"I see. And were you concerned that Mr. Mendez was going to fire at you?"

"My primary concern was for the safety of others. We were on a street filled with civilians."

"So I can take that to mean that you weren't concerned he was going to fire at you?"

"I thought he was probably going to shoot one of the police officers in front of him."

"'Thought,'" the lawyer said. "'Probably.'"

"That's right," Tim said. "Only I used them in a complete sentence."

"There's no need to get defensive, Deputy Rackley. We're all on the same side here."

"Right," Tim said.

The woman flipped through the file, then frowned, as if she'd just discovered something. "The crime-scene report indicates that Mr. Mendez's weapon was still tucked into the back of his jeans when they a.s.sessed the body."

"Then we should be grateful he wasn't given the opportunity to draw it."

"So he wasn't trying to draw the weapon?"

Tim watched the wheels of the tape recorder spin their lethargic circles. "I said he wasn't given the opportunity opportunity to draw it. He was, in fact, to draw it. He was, in fact, attempting attempting to draw it." to draw it."

"We have mixed eyewitness reports regarding that fact."

"I was the only one behind him."

"Uh-huh. On the alley side."

"That's right." Tim let out his breath through his teeth. "As I said, he was a clear-"

"Threat to the safety of others," she said. His textbook recitation of the deadly-force policy inspired a note of disdain, almost parody.

The lawyer perked up in his chair, evidently sighting a lead-in. "Let's talk about the 'safety of others.' Did you have target acquisition?"

Reed grimaced. "I'd say from the looks of the body, he had pretty d.a.m.n good target acquisition, Pat."

Pat ignored him, continuing to address Tim. "Are you aware that there were civilians in the backdrop when you took that shot? A whole crowd, in fact?"

"Yes. Those civilians were my concern. That's why I elected to use deadly force."

"If you had missed, your round would almost definitely have struck one of those civilians."

"That's highly debatable."

"But what if you had missed?"

"Our pre-op briefing made clear the fugitives had nothing to lose, as it made clear their unwillingness to be taken alive. Mendez's behavior, from the time he aided in taking me hostage, only reinforced this intel. He, like Heidel and Ramirez, was willing to kill any number any number of people to evade capture. It was a clear calculation: My chances of taking him out were vastly greater than the chances of his not killing someone once he got his weapon free and clear." of people to evade capture. It was a clear calculation: My chances of taking him out were vastly greater than the chances of his not killing someone once he got his weapon free and clear."

"You still haven't answered my question, Deputy Rackley." Pat slid his pen behind his ear and crossed his arms. "What if you had missed?"

"I shot a consistent twenty out of twenty on the pistol qual course as a Ranger, and I'm a six-time qualified three-hundred shooter as a deputy marshal. I wasn't planning on missing."

"Well, bravo. But a deputy marshal in the field has to be willing to consider every every potentiality." potentiality."

Reed rocked forward and thumped his elbows on the table. "Just because he agreed to submit to questioning does not give you the right to drag him over the coals. There's a subjective element to every decision to engage with deadly force. If you'd ever toted a gun, you'd be aware of that."

"Excellent point, Dennis. I've heard packing heat greatly enhances one's interpretation of the law."

Reed pointed at Pat. "Watch your step. I'm not having you hara.s.s a good deputy. Not in my presence."

"Moving on," the woman said. "I understand you've had a recent trauma in your personal life?"

Tim waited several seconds to answer. "Yes."

"Your daughter was killed?"

"Yes." Despite his efforts, some of his fury crept into his voice.

"Do you think this event may have influenced any of your actions during these shootings?"

He felt the heat rise to his face. "This 'event' has influenced every single moment of my life since. But it hasn't altered my professional judgment."

"You don't think that you may have been feeling...aggressive or...retaliatory?"

"Had I not been in fear for my life or concerned for the lives of others, I would have done everything in my power to bring those fugitives in alive. Everything in my power."

Pat tilted back in his chair and made a little temple with his pudgy fingers. "Really?"

Tim stood up and placed both his hands palm down on the table. "I am a deputy U.S. marshal. Do I look like a soldier of fortune to you?"

"Listen-"

"I'm not talking to you, ma'am." Tim didn't remove his eyes from Pat. Pat remained tilted back in his chair, fingers pressed together. When it became clear he wasn't going to respond, Tim reached over and turned off the tape recorder. "I'm done answering questions. Anything further, you can talk to my FLEOA rep."

Reed rose as Tim exited, but Pat and the woman remained seated. As Tim walked away, he could hear Reed start laying into them. The marshal's a.s.sistant stood as he pa.s.sed her, heading for Tannino's office.

"Tim, he's in with someone right now. You can't just-"

Tim knocked on the marshal's door, then opened it. Tannino sat behind an immense wood desk. An overweight man in a dark suit was sprawled on the couch opposite, smoking a brown cigarette.

"Marshal Tannino, I'm very sorry to interrupt you, but I really need a moment."

"Of course." Tannino exchanged a few words of Italian with the man as he showed him out. He closed the door, then waved a hand at the cigarette smoke, shaking his head. "Diplomats." He gestured to the couch. "Please, sit."

Though he didn't want to, Tim sat. His dress s.h.i.+rt was pinching him at the shoulders.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, Rackley. The press is bad. Now, I understand you weren't one of the knuckleheads throwing high fives, but you were the shooter, and we both know shooters take the scrutiny. Deserved or not, the service got a black eye on this one. Here's the good news: The shooting review board is convening next week at headquarters, and they're going to clear you."

"They don't seem like they're going to clear me. They seem like they're looking for a scapegoat for a situation that doesn't demand one."

"They will clear you. All the written statements are in and check out. They just sent out a few board members to run your statement through the ringer in-house so steps won't have to be taken out of house. We don't want any FBI involvement here. Or some state DA looking to make a name."

"What's the bad news?"

Tannino puffed out his cheeks in a sigh. "We're gonna put you on light duty for a while, get you off the street until the press calms down. In a couple of months, we'll get you qualified on a fresh service pistol."

At first Tim was not sure he'd heard Tannino correctly. "A couple of months months?"

"No big deal-you'll just do a.n.a.lytical work rather than fieldwork."

"And while I'm putting my training to use making schedules at the operations desk, what is the unparalleled service PR machine going to be putting out about me?"

Tannino walked over and examined a Walker .44 cap-and-ball sixgun that hung on the wall, encased in Lucite. A black plastic comb protruded from the back pocket of his suit pants. "That you've quite responsibly elected to enroll in an anger-management course."

"Absolutely not."

"That's it. It's a nothing thing. Then headquarters can stand behind your decision to engage with deadly force, and we're a big happy family again."

"What does this have to do with Maybeck and Denley high-fiving?"

"Absolutely nothing. But this is a bulls.h.i.+t perception game, as you'll see if you're ever so unfortunate as to reach my level. And the bulls.h.i.+t perception, because of that G.o.dd.a.m.n photograph, is that we're a bunch of bloodthirsty, gung ho loose cannons. If we indicate the shooter is acquiring a heightened sensitivity to anger issues, we cut some of that perception, and the paper pushers at the Puzzle Palace can go back to their normal job, which is doing exactly nothing. In the meantime I get the pleasure of dealing with this on all fronts and of having to ask one of my best deputies-unjustly-to take some s.h.i.+t for us." His grimace showed more regret than disgust. "The system at work."

Tim stood up. "It was a good shooting."

"Good shootings are relative. I know that what they're asking is difficult, Rackley, but you have your whole career ahead of you."

"Maybe not with the U.S. Marshals Service." Tim unhooked his leather badge clip from his belt and laid it on Tannino's desk.

In a rare display of anger, Tannino grabbed it and hurled it at Tim. Tim trapped it against his chest. "I am not going to accept your resignation, G.o.dd.a.m.nit. Not considering what you've been dealing with. Take some more time-administrative leave-h.e.l.l, a few weeks. Don't make a decision now, in these circ.u.mstances." His face looked tired and old, and Tim realized how much it must have pained him to take the kind of company line Tannino himself had always despised and thought cowardly.

"I'm not going to do it."

Tannino spoke softly now. "I'm afraid you're going to have to. Everything else I'll protect you on. Everything Everything."

"It was a good shooting."

This time Tannino met his eyes. "I know."