House Rivals by Mike Lawson

He made a motion for Bill to stand up and Bill did, knowing what he was supposed to do. He dropped his towel on the bench where he’d been sitting, and made a slow turn so Murdock could see he didn’t have anything taped to his back. Then Murdock did the same thing, after which he looked under the bench to make sure Bill hadn’t hidden a recorder there.
    Murdock looked exactly as he had the last time Bill saw him six years ago. It didn’t appear as if he’d aged a bit. Apparently killing people was good for his constitution. And like the first time Bill met with him, he couldn’t help but think the guy just didn’t look like a professional killer. He should’ve had barbed-wire tattoos circling his arms or those teardrop tattoos the gang guys had to show how many people they’d killed.
    Bill told him what they needed him to do: take care of Sarah Johnson. He said, “It doesn’t have to be an accident this time because we’re in a hurry. Make it look like a robbery gone bad or maybe a rape.”
    â€œI don’t rape people,” Murdock said—and he said this like he was offended. Apparently killing people didn’t bother him but he considered rape to be repulsive.
    â€œSorry,” Bill said, not sure what else to say. “All I’m saying is, we don’t need something fancy. Just make it look like it’s part of some other crime, but not like she was singled out. You know what I mean?”
    â€œYeah,” Murdock said.
    Jesus, he couldn’t believe what he was doing and saying. His hangover was almost gone thanks to the steam, but when he left the gym he was going straight to the airport and start tossing back drinks until the plane landed in Bismarck. They were going to have to carry him off that plane.
    DeMarco was in a deep, dreamless sleep in his room at the Star Lodge in Glasgow, Montana, when someone began to pound on the door. He looked at the bedside clock: six a.m. He got out of bed dressed in boxer shorts and his favorite Nationals T-shirt and opened the door. Not surprised, he found Sarah standing there, looking impatient.
    â€œWhat are you doing, still sleeping?” she said. “We need to get going.”
    â€œSarah, it’s six in the fu . . . It’s six. Are you insane?” Before she could say anything, he added, “Go away. I’ll see you at eight, then we’ll go have breakfast—or I’ll have breakfast—then we’ll take off.” He shut the door, trudged over to the bed, and fell on to it. What a nut!
    She spent the first hour of the drive to Great Falls sulking and he was in no mood to cajole her. Finally he asked, “Who are we going to see in Great Falls? Another judge?”
    â€œDo you really care?” she said.
    As he was trying to decide how he should answer that question, Sarah said, “I’m going to talk to a lawyer. She represented a group of ranchers suing Curtis for well water contamination caused by fracking. If she’d won, it would have been a huge blow to Curtis. Like this year, forty plaintiffs sued a natural gas company in New York and the gas company, after fighting the case for years, finally settled with them for millions and that’s what could have happened to Curtis. Anyway, the lawyer involved was a woman named Janet Tyler. She’s really good and it looked like she might have been able to beat Curtis. Then she backed out of the case and after she did, the whole case fell apart.
    â€œI went to see her because it was obvious that Curtis had done something to get to her. I didn’t think he’d bribed her because Tyler has money, and when I saw her speak on some local news program, I could tell she had a fire in her belly about the issue. I called her office and when she wouldn’t speak to me, I hung around outside her office until she went out to lunch and—”
    â€œAh. So you stalked her.”
    â€œYou’re not