True Evil

the big buck could ever have hoped for-no running miles through the brush with half his heart blown out or his stomach filling up with blood-just instant paralysis and death.

Late that afternoon, Rusk had found himself gutting his own trophy buck outside. As though sent by fate, Eldon Tarver had walked up and offered to show him some time-saving tricks for dressing a deer. After Rusk gave over his skinning knife, he witnessed a demonstration of manual dexterity and anatomical knowledge that left him in wordless awe. He'd barely followed Tarver's words, so fascinated was he by the man's deft knife-work. And that part of his brain not wholly occupied with the bloody spectacle before his eyes was turning over an idea that had been born some years ago in the dark recesses of his soul, an idea born from need but unrealized due to moral scruple and a lack of opportunity. But the more years he practiced law, the more those scruples had eroded. And morality, Rusk had known even then, was not a component of Eldon Tarver's personality.

'Two problems,' Tarver said, taking a slice of tenderloin from the skillet and dropping it into his mouth. 'That's what you said.'

'Yes. And they might be related.'

Tarver chewed slowly, like a man accustomed to making his supplies last as long as possible. 'Does anyone know who I am, Andrew?'

'No.'

'Does anyone know that you and I are connected in any way?'

'No.'

'Does anyone know what you are doing?'

'No.'

'Does anyone suspect it?'

Rusk licked his lips and tried to appear calm. 'I can't rule that out. Not with a hundred percent certainty.'

'Who?'

'An FBI agent.'

Tarver stuck out his bottom lip. 'Who is he?'

'It's a girl. Grace Fennell's sister. Her name is Alexandra Morse.'

A strange smile touched Tarver's lips. 'Ahh. Well, we knew she was a risk. Why is this girl suspicious of you?'

'Bill Fennell thinks his wife may have said something to Morse just before she died. Morse was very upset by her sister's death, remember? She kidnapped Fennell's son.'

'But she returned him before the funeral, yes?'

'Right. They'd had a lot of trauma in that family even before we stepped in. The father was shot during a robbery. The mother is dying now, ovarian cancer. Morse was almost terminated from the Bureau a couple of months after her father's death, for getting a fellow agent killed.'

'Has she talked to you directly?'

'No.'

Dr. Tarver's eyes bored into Rusk's with relentless intensity. 'The question, Andrew, is how does she even know you exist?'

'I don't know that.'

'Would Fennell have told her anything about you?'

'He could have…but would he? I don't think so. He's not stupid.'

'Is he fucking her?'

'I don't think so,' Rusk replied, asking himself this question for the first time, which was pretty sloppy in a divorce lawyer, he realized. 'I mean, not that I know of.'

This answer obviously did not satisfy Tarver.

'She'd never screw Bill Fennell,' Rusk said more confidently. 'She's too goody-goody for him. Too hot, too.'

'She has a vagina, doesn't she?'

'Point taken.'

'Why isn't she his type?'

'You remember the file on the Fennells, don't you? He's a snake, basically.'

'You malign that creature by your comparison,' Tarver said with strange severity.

Nonplussed, Rusk blinked a few times, then continued. 'I checked Morse out before the operation, remember? She's a by-the-book agent, always plays by the rules. Or did, anyway. That's why she joined the FBI and not the CIA.'

'But you know nothing about her deeper psychology.'

'I guess not, when you put it that way.'

'It could be the business connection,' Tarver said thoughtfully. 'The real estate deal between you and Fennell.'

'Yes.'

'You should have stuck to diamonds.'

'This deal is better than diamonds, Eldon. Way better.'

'Not if it kills you.'

Rusk instantly noted two highly disturbing things: first, Dr. Tarver's use of the singular pronoun; second, he had not said anything about prison-he had gone straight to death. Do not pass go, do not collect two million dollars.

Tarver was watching Rusk with fresh interest. 'What has Agent Morse done to upset you so? You're obviously worried.'

'I think I might be being followed.' The understatement of the year. No mention of the Crown Vic or the chase along the Pearl River…nothing to trigger Eldon Tarver's overdeveloped instinct for self- preservation-

Tarver had gone still. 'You might be? Or you are?'

'It's possible. I'm not sure.'

'Who do you think is following you? The FBI?'

'Honestly, I don't think so.'

'Leave out the adverbs, Andrew. Give me facts.'

Rusk resisted the urge to cuss the pathologist. 'If Alex Morse is digging into her sister's death, she has to be doing it on her own time. Morse is already in deep shit with her superiors. Why would the FBI investigate Grace Fennell's death? It's a state crime.'

'You're the lawyer. Look into it.'

'I will.'

'What else has Morse done?'

Here goes…'She may have broken into my office.'

Tarver stared without blinking. 'Are you certain of anything, Andrew? Or are you simply afraid to tell me the truth?'

'I'm not afraid,' he said, which was the height of absurdity. 'Even if she did break in, there's nothing in my office to find. Nothing incriminating, I mean.'

'There's always something. I know your type, compulsive about writing things down. Come on…'

'If she got into my computer, she might be able to trace some business relationships. Nothing illegal, though. Everything's aboveboard.'

'But the connections,' Tarver said softly. 'Connections to other corpses. Spouses of corpses.'

'Only the earliest jobs,' Rusk said. 'The latest three years ago.'

'If you discount Grace Fennell,' Tarver reminded him.

'Right.'