True Evil

“Who’s Rusk?” Chris cut in. “The divorce lawyer?”

“Yes. Andrew Rusk Jr. His father’s a big plaintiff’s attorney in Jackson.” More tears joined the raindrops on her cheeks. “Fuck, it’s a mess! I need your help, Doctor. I need your medical knowledge, but most of all I need you, because you’re the next victim.” Morse’s eyes locked onto his with eerie intensity. “Do you get that?”

Chris closed his eyes. “Nothing you’ve said today even remotely proves that.”

Her frustration finally boiled over. “Listen to me! I know you don’t like hearing it, but your wife drove two hours to Jackson to meet with Andrew Rusk, and she lied to you by not telling you about it. What do you think that adds up to?”

“Not murder,” Chris said stubbornly. “I don’t believe that. I can’t.”

Morse touched his arm. “That’s because you’re a doctor, not a lawyer. Every district attorney in this country has a list of people who come in on a weekly basis to plead with them to open a murder case on their loved one. The deaths are recorded as accidents, suicides, fires, a hundred things. But the parents or the children or the wives of the victims … they know the truth. It was murder. So they work their way through the system, begging for someone to take notice, to at least classify what happened as a crime. They hire detectives and spend their life savings trying to find the truth, to find justice. But they almost never do. Eventually they turn into something like ghosts. Some of them stay ghosts for the rest of their lives.” Morse looked at Chris with the furious eyes of a hardened combat soldier. “I’m no ghost, Doctor. I will not stand by and let my sister be erased for someone’s convenience—for his profit.” Her voice took on a dangerous edge. “As God is my witness, I will not do that.”

Out of respect, Chris waited a few moments to respond. “I support what you’re doing, okay? I even admire you for it. But the difference is, you have a personal stake in this. I don’t.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, you do. You just haven’t accepted it yet.”

“Please don’t start again.”

“Doctor, I would do anything to get you to help me. Do you understand? I’d go over there in the bushes and pull my shorts down for you, if that’s what it would take.” Her eyes gleamed with cold fire. “But I don’t have to do that.”

Chris didn’t like the look that had come into her face. “Why not?”

“Because your wife is cheating on you.”

He tried to keep the shock out of his face, but nothing could slow his pounding heart.

“Thora’s screwing a surgeon right here in town,” Morse went on. “His name is Shane Lansing.”

“Bullshit,” Chris said in a hoarse whisper.

Morse’s eyes didn’t waver.

“Do you have proof?”

“Circumstantial evidence.”

“Circumstantial …? I don’t want to hear it.”

“Denial is always the first response.”

“Shut up, goddamn it!”

Morse’s face softened. “I know how it hurts, okay? I was engaged once, until I found out my fiancé was doing my best friend. But pride is your enemy now, Chris. You have to see things straight.”

“I should see things straight? You’re the one spinning out Byzantine theories of mass murder. Cancer as a weapon, a newlywed planning to murder her husband … no wonder you’re out on your own!”

Morse’s level gaze was unrelenting. “If I’m crazy, then tell me one thing. Why didn’t you call the FBI to report me yesterday?”

He stared down at the concrete rail.

“Why, Chris?”

He felt the words come to him as if of their own accord. “Thora’s leaving town this week. She told me last night.”

Morse’s mouth dropped open. “Where’s she going?”

“Up to the Delta. A spa up in Greenwood. A famous hotel.”

“The Alluvian?”

He nodded.

“I know it. When’s she leaving?”

“Maybe tomorrow. This week, for sure.”

“Returning when?”

“Three nights, then home.”

Morse made a fist and brought it to her mouth. “This is it, Chris. My God … they’re moving fast. You have to deal with this now. You’re in extreme danger. Right now.”

He took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Do you hear yourself? Everything you told me is circumstantial. There wasn’t one fact in the whole goddamn pile!”

“I know it seems that way. I know you don’t want to believe any of it. But … look, do you want to know everything I know?”

He stared at her for a long time. “I don’t think so.” He looked at his watch. “I’m really late. I need to get back to my truck. I can’t wait for you now.”

He climbed onto his bike and started to leave, but Morse grabbed his elbow with surprising strength. With her other hand she removed something from her shorts. A cell phone.

“Take this,” she said. “My cell number is programmed into it. You can speak frankly on it. It’s the only safe link we’ll have.”

He pushed the phone away. “I don’t want it.”

“Don’t be a sap, Chris. Please.”

He looked at the phone like a tribesman suspicious of some miraculous technology. “How would I explain it to Thora?”

“Thora’s leaving town. You can hide it for a day or two, can’t you?”

He angrily expelled air from his cheeks, but he took the phone.

Morse’s eyes fairly shone with urgency. “You have to drop the nice-guy routine, Chris. You’re in mortal fucking peril.”

A strange laugh escaped his mouth. “I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that.”

“Time will take care of that. One way or another.”

He wanted to race away, but again his Southern upbringing stopped him. “Will you be okay out here?”