Tax Assassin (24 page)

“
You stupid . .
.”

Blood from the wound on his forehead dripped
into Hill-three’s right eye. Like any rural person, when he felt
the moisture on his forehead, he automatically wiped the blood with
his hand. When his hand moved in front of his eyes, Hill-three
noticed the blood. The man weaved forward, only to catch himself,
and then weaved backward. Blood dripped down his cheek, onto his
shoulder, and onto the carpet with every movement. Hill-three’s
eyes fixated on one blood spot and then another. He steadied
himself and took a step forward. Seth gestured with his hand for
Ava to stay down.

“
You can’t trick me,
O’Malley. My father . . .”

Hill-three caught sight of a pool of his own
blood and crumpled to the ground.

“
What was that?” Ava
asked.

“
He faints at the sight of
blood,” Seth said.

There was a tap at the door.

“
Everything okay in there?”
Delores’s voice came from the door. “Should I call the
sheriff?”

“
We’re okay,” Seth said.
“Give us ten minutes and then call the sheriff. See if you can get
Jimmy and your husband. He’ll need someone he knows, and we need
someone we can trust.”

“
Will do,” Delores said.
“Is he dead?”

“
We’re all breathing here,”
Ava said.

“
Hill-three is wounded,”
Seth said. “It’ll leave a scar, but that’s all.”

“
Good,” Delores said. “I’ll
come back with ice after I call.”

Seth set his handgun on the table and went
around the bed to Ava. He helped her up and held her close. Her
body trembled, but she didn’t cry. He kissed her neck.

“
Shall we?” he
whispered.

“
Yes.” With her head
against his shoulder, she nodded.

He kissed the top of her head and went into
the bathroom for towels. When he returned, Ava had turned
Hill-three onto his side and taken a look at his cut.

“
It’s not bad,” Ava said.
“Did you plan on doing that?”

“
Sure,” Seth
smiled.

“
Sure?”

“
I’ve learned to always say
I planned the random-assed things that turn out well,” Seth said.
“It’s part of the magic.”

Ava laughed.

“
I wanted to wound him,”
Seth gave her a towel. “Make him bleed.”

“
This is a pretty good
job,” Ava smiled.

“
I need to check my email,”
Seth said. “Can you take care of . . . that?”

“
Sure,” Ava mopped up the
worst of Hill-three’s wound. She took Hill-three’s handgun and gave
it to Seth. “What are you getting?”

“
Ferg said the coroner sent
me . . .” Seth’s voice faded out. “Hmm.”

“
Ok, he’s coming around,”
Ava said. “Mr. Bloom?”

Seth pointed Hill-three’s handgun at its
groggy owner.

“
What . . .?” His eyes
focused on Ava.

“
I’m Amelie Alvin,” Ava
said. “This is Seth O’Malley. I believe you came to kill
us.”

Hill-three looked up at Seth, who smiled,
and then back at Ava.

“
Do you remember that?”
Seth asked.

Hill-three nodded.

“
You have a cut on your
head,” Seth said. “You’ll need a few stitches, but it doesn’t
appear to be serious.”

Ava helped Hill-three to sit up and gave him
a towel to press against his head wound.

“
Are you going to kill me?”
Hill-three whispered.

“
Hadn’t planned on it,”
Seth said. “Ava?”

“
Maybe later,” Ava said.
“I’m not wearing the proper shoes.”

Hill-three smiled at her irreverent
tone.

“
What happens now?”
Hill-three asked.

“
We have a couple of
questions,” Seth said. “I want to show you something. Then the
sheriffs will escort you to Denver to see your wife and
girls.”

“
They’re okay?” Hill-three
asked.

“
They’re alive,” Seth
said.

“
It will take some time,
but I think they’ll be fine,” Ava smiled. “Would you like to speak
to them before you go?”

Hill-three nodded.

“
Let’s take care of a few
things first,” Seth said. “Your father is dead.”

“
Impossible,” Hill-three
shook his head. Seth nodded.

“
I have a picture here of
him on the coroner’s table,” Seth said. “Can you look at it and not
pass out?”

“
It’s only blood,”
Hill-three said.

Seth passed his phone to Hill-three. He took
a look at the photo, hiccupped, and began to cry.

“
Is that your father?” Seth
asked.

Hill-three nodded.

“
You’ll see that your
father was shot in the head,” Seth pushed the button on his phone
so another photo came up.

“
Who? You?” Hill-three
asked.

“
He was shot while in the
commission of an attempted murder,” Seth said. “Éowyn
Alvin.”

“
I got a message from him,”
Hill-three’s hands moved toward his pockets.

“
Slowly,” Seth gestured
with the handgun.

Hill-three took a phone from his pocket.

“
Give it to Ava,” Seth
said.

Ava took the phone and looked at it.

“
What’s the code?” Ava
asked.

“
081573,” Hill-three’s eyes
filled with tears. “Phillip’s birthday.”

Ava listened to the message from Hillery Jr.
She pressed some buttons and listened again.

“
The message was recorded
early this morning,” Ava said. “But wasn’t delivered until this
afternoon.”

“
Probably when they moved
the body to Denver,” Seth said.

“
I’m sure you’re right,”
Ava said. “We always have trouble with cell service when we’re up
at the ranch.”

“
He’s really dead?”
Hill-three leaned back against the motel room door.
“Wow.”

Unsure of what Hill-three would do, Seth and
Ava stood very still and watched.

“
Sorry for trying to kill
you,” Hill-three gave a partial smile.

“
We have a couple of
questions,” Seth said.

Hill-three nodded.

“
Your father,” Seth said.
“He ran the murder-for-hire business?”

“
When we were kids, he and
Grampa would leave for the summer,” Hill-three said. “When we got
older, they would take us with them. Howie and I would hang out; go
to museums . . . We had no idea.”

Hill-three shook his head.

“
No idea,” Hill-three
repeated.

“
When did you find out?”
Seth asked.

“
Mom found out,” Hill-three
said. “Howie and me, we got home from school one day, and she was
furious. I’ve never seen her so mad. She was the sweetest, nicest
person you could ever meet, but not that day. She’d been in town,
and the postal clerk had told her that Dad’s mail box was
overflowing. She had no idea he even had a mailbox. She went right
away and . . .”

“
Discovered what he was up
to,” Seth said.

“
She was livid,” Hill-three
said. “She thought we knew, Howie and me.”

“
She didn’t go with you on
your trips?” Ava asked.

“
No,” Hill-three said.
“Ranch life is hard, especially for women. There’s so much work all
the time and . . . She used the weeks we were gone to go
to quilting retreats, deep clean the house, or just sleep. When
we’d get back, she’d be rested and happy to see us.”

“
Did your father kill your
mother?” Seth asked.

“
We were there,” Hill-three
said. “He did it right in front of us. He told us we needed to
harden up to take over the family business, but I . . .
and Howie, he . . . It was all about the land, and we
didn’t give a crap about the land. I wanted to be a teacher. I love
science. And Howie, he was brilliant – so smart. He wanted to
change the world.”

“
And the killing?” Seth
asked.

Hill-three squinted at Seth and then glanced
at Ava.

“
You’re sure he’s dead?”
Hill-three asked.

Seth flicked his phone a bit and held it up
again.

“
That’s an MRI of his
brain,” Seth said.

“
Oh,” Hill-three said. “It
doesn’t look quite right.”

“
He had severe lead
poisoning,” Seth said. “Probably as a child. His brain is riddled
with scars and damage from it. Of course, the bullet made a
mess.”

“
He’s really dead,”
Hill-three said. “Wow.”

“
This, right here?” Seth
pointed to an area in the middle of his brain. “That’s brain
cancer.”

“
Lead poisoning enhances
antisocial tendencies,” Ava looked at Seth. He nodded. “The cancer
is in an area that would reduce his ability to make good decisions.
Can I see it?”

Seth gave her the phone.

“
This kind of cancer grows
really fast,” Ava said. “It would impair his judgment,” Ava’s voice
indicated that it should be obvious. Seth looked at Hill-three and
he shrugged. “He’d have become more irritable, angry, and
irrational. You must have noticed that.”

“
I got sick last school
year, really sick. The docs said I couldn’t work anymore so we
decided to move so I could get treatment. We were supposed to all
live together – me and Phillip and Meldy and the kids, in
Albuquerque,” Hill-three said. “Dad didn’t like it, but he accepted
that was what had to happen. He was getting too old to live at the
ranch and . . . Dad was going to live in the apartment
over the garage. Then, Phillip showed up with his brother one day
and . . . all hell broke loose. So, yeah, I noticed when
he became more irritable and irrational.”

Seth nodded.

“
He didn’t grow up on the
Houghton Ranch, your Mom’s ranch, did he?” Seth asked.

“
No,” Hill-three said. “He
grew up on a ranch where the Army Maneuver Site is now. The Army
used imminent domain to take the ranch. They got paid but
. . . ‘Some hurts, you never get over.’ That’s what my
grandfather used to say.”

“
I saw a report that parts
of the Maneuver area were riddled with lead from old mining
claims,” Seth said.

“
Can we get it?” Ava asked.
“They’ll need it for their defense.”

“
I’ll ask when we’re done,”
Seth smiled at her kindness and turned back to Hill-three. “You
wouldn’t have been like your father or grandfather.”

“
We weren’t,” Hill-three
said. “They tried to toughen us up, but Howie and me,
we . . . weren’t like them. We were such a
disappointment to our father. But Mom, she was great, really great.
She went behind Dad’s back to set up her will like that. We got the
land; he didn’t. She loved us, sure – she was our mom. But she
really liked us as people. It made having a weird dad all
right.”

“
Why did he kill Howie?”
Seth asked.

THIRTY

“
Howie was going to sell,”
Hill-three said. “I was living in town and working at the high
school by then. I hadn’t really lived at the ranch since Mom had
died. I was willing to keep a piece of my land so that Dad could
live there. We were going to sell the rest. Dad always blamed Howie
for everything, mostly because he got away. But Howie had Meldy.
Together, they could do anything. So Dad killed him.”

“
How do you know?” Seth
asked.

“
He told me,” Hill-three
said. “Proved it with pictures. Then he found out that Meldy
inherited the land. That’s when Dad went totally crazy. He told me
he would kill her and the kids if I didn’t marry her. ‘Keep the
land in the family,’ he said. I know it sounds stupid, but you
don’t know what he could be like.”

“
You’d also seen him kill
your mother,” Ava said.

“
Your brother,” Seth
said.

“
I love those kids,”
Hill-three said. “I’ll never have kids of my own. Howie and Meldy
always shared them like they were mine, too. And they’re amazing
girls, so sweet and smart. Meldy and those girls were my brother’s
whole world. Mine too. I had to do something to . . .”

Hill-three shrugged.

“
Why did Meldy go along?”
Ava asked.

“
My dad put the fear of God
into her,” Hill-three said. “She had control of his land and
. . . She was absolutely terrified of him. She married me
and took that job in Albuquerque. We practically grew up together.
It wasn’t hard to pretend to be in love, not for either of us. We
love each other. We’re a family.”

“
How many people have you
killed?” Seth asked.

They heard sirens in the distance coming in
their direction.

“
None. I was supposed to
kill you.” He pointed to Seth. “And you.” He pointed to Ava. “You
can see how well that went.”

“
And my mom? Vivian Alvin?”
Ava asked.

“
I was supposed to kill her
too, but I saw Meldy being released,” Hill-three said. “On the
television. I saw it, so I figured it was all over, but then I got
that message and . . .”

Hill-three shook his head.

“
No sir,” Hill-three said.
“I haven’t ever had the stomach for the family business. My brother
neither. The truth is that I’ve always been sickly. I’ve never been
very strong. I used to make jokes about it or pretend to make it
happen, but I’d just get sick. Damned inbreeding in this stupid
valley. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals. It’s what interested
me in science in the first place.”