“She says I gotta kill them. And, fuck, you get the picture. I do what she says.”
“You knew about the house in Paradise,” Jesse said.
“Sure, I was there a few times. So that night, I brought them up to do a walk-through,” Lutz said, “and talk about their plans, and where the kid’s room would be, and when they got there I shot them outside, on the beach, at low tide, and let them bleed out, so when the tide came in it would wash away the blood. But I fucked up, I guess.”
Jesse nodded.
“You found some blood in the cold room?”
Jesse nodded.
“Should have bled them longer,” Lutz said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t care,” Lutz said. “I’m not sure I really cared then. It was the last thing. Then it was over and we’d be together.”
“And you kept them in the cold room to screw up the ME,” Jesse said.
“Yep.”
“And you hung him from a tree to confuse us.”
Lutz nodded.
2 8 2
H I G H P R O F I L E
“Figured you’d be chasing wild geese all over the place,”
Lutz said.
He made the cough/laugh sound again.
“He was a public figure, you know,” he said.
“And the girl in the Dumpster?”
“Another fuckup,” Lutz said. “I wanted her to just go away. I covered her up, but some dump picker must have uncovered her and panicked and run off. Or sea gulls, maybe, or a dog . . . or maybe I was fucking up on purpose, you know?
Like the shrinks say?”
He emptied his glass and stared at it and added some ice and poured more scotch.
“It ain’t working,” he said. “Scotch ain’t working. Nothing’s working.”
Jesse nodded.
“And then . . .” Lutz said.
He drank and made his choking laugh sound.
“Just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water . . . here comes Hendricks.”
“And she needed to be with him to carry on the franchise and solidify your position.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lutz said. “I didn’t know we were both doing her the same day until you told me.”
Jesse nodded. Lutz drank.
