Aftershock (42 page)

“So—how does this apply to MaryLou McCoy? In every way possible! She knew, for a
fact
, that the gang known as Tiger Ko Khai specialized in gang rapes of underage girls. She also knew, for a
fact
, that not a single one of them had ever been brought into a courtroom just like this and put on trial.

“How could she be so sure? You heard Detective Lancer. You heard the testimony of all those other girls. You heard them tell you virtually the same set of facts: They were lured to a certain place occupied and controlled by Tiger Ko Khai. And every one of them was gang-raped.

“You saw the hospital records.
You
know all those girls were raped. And
you
know that nothing was ever done about it! You’ve heard MaryLou state that she herself believed that going to the authorities would be a waste of time. In her position, wouldn’t you have believed the same thing?

“MaryLou didn’t hide behind some ‘insanity’ defense. She got up there and told you exactly what was in her mind
at the time this all happened
.

“Why else would MaryLou have done what she did? She didn’t
know any of the Tiger Ko Khai gang. Not personally, I mean—she most certainly did know their reputation. A reputation they
earned
.

“Are we looking at a girl who
planned
what happened? I don’t think it’s necessary for the defense to put on an ‘expert’ to tell you that a .22 revolver is hardly guaranteed to kill
anything
, not even a squirrel. So why did MaryLou use such a weapon? Because it was there, that’s all. If MaryLou’s father hadn’t let everyone in the house know where he kept his pistol, what would she have done on that fateful morning at school? The truth is that we don’t know. And we never will.”

Swift spun on his heel, as if allowing the audience to get in on the action.

“I never thought we would have to parade a whole list of school shootings before you to prove that what MaryLou did—and why she did it—had
nothing
whatsoever in common with Columbine. But, even so, we did put on an expert, an expert who had been retained for the specific purpose of evaluating and analyzing the events at Columbine. And he told us what we already knew. Comparing
our
town to Columbine is not merely a dirty trick—it slanders every one of us who lives here.”

That brought Fat Face to his feet. “Judge, I have to object. We never made any such comparison.”

“The jury heard whatever it heard, counsel,” the judge said, making it clear what
he
heard. “And it may draw any inference from what it heard that it chooses. Summations are not evidence. The defense did not interrupt the prosecution’s closing; please provide them with the same courtesy … especially as you still have a final opportunity to rebut anything you believe was wrongly stated.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Swift said, as if the judge had already personally acquitted MaryLou. “Ladies and gentlemen, the case for the defense is no more complicated than this: MaryLou’s belief that her baby sister was in imminent danger of gang rape at the hands of Tiger Ko Khai in general and Cameron Taft in particular
was a
realistic
belief. It was based on what MaryLou knew. On what
everybody
at her school seemed to know. All that adds up to just one thing: what MaryLou did was
justified
.

“I said that MaryLou’s belief that only the most drastic action could save her baby sister was also a realistic belief, but the word I should have used is ‘real.’ That is, her beliefs were utterly rational, completely supported by everything she knew from all sources of information available to her.

“That information included the
collaboration
of this very DA’s Office in the ongoing acts of vile criminality by Tiger Ko Khai. Am I saying the DA’s Office actually participated? Of course not. But I am saying, and I am saying the evidence
proves
, that the failure of the DA’s Office to ever prosecute one single case of that gang’s
practice
of gang-raping minors makes their office responsible. And, yes, I
am
holding the DA’s Office responsible for the reasonableness of MaryLou’s belief that the rape of her little sister would be treated no differently. That is, ignored!

“And if you believe that MaryLou’s act was an attempt to save her little sister from what she reasonably believed was going to happen, happen imminently, perhaps no later than that very night, then you
must
find that her conduct was justified. Indeed, it was
compelled
.”

Swift’s voice was louder, more theatrical, but still well under control.

“This is America. We don’t have dictators. We don’t have rulers telling us what to do. This is a democracy. And that makes each of us responsible for our own acts. MaryLou has taken responsibility for what she did.

“But MaryLou also had an absolute right to look you in the eye and
explain
what she did. And you have an absolute right to do what Americans have fought and died for since this country was founded—the right to vote, the right to cast a ballot, the right to make your voice be heard. But you don’t just have those rights, you have those
responsibilities
, too, don’t you? Don’t you
all
?”

Swift swept his left hand in a wide arc, sending the message—whatever that jury decided, their verdict was going to be a judgment of the whole town.

“It comes down to this: You can vote that MaryLou McCoy was a cold-blooded killer, like the prosecution claims … even though they can’t give you one single reason for that claim. Or you can cast a vote for the truth.

“
Now
you know about something very dark and very dangerous lurking in our town. If
you
had known about this gang, and its special immunity, would
you
have tolerated it? You know you wouldn’t. You know
none
of you would!

“There’s one way to tell the whole world what this town
really
stands for, and now you know what that is. Vote for MaryLou, ladies and gentleman. Vote for a young woman you have always been proud of. For a young woman who has brought nothing but honor to her hometown. Vote for a young woman whose only crime was trying to protect her baby sister.

“MaryLou McCoy sacrificed everything to do that, and now all the prosecution can do is taunt her with the fact that her sacrifice was in vain.

“You know how towns get a reputation? By word of mouth. By what people
say
about them. So we know that some towns are notorious for their speed traps, others are known to be places that look the other way when certain kinds of illegal activity take place … and other towns are known to be just the opposite: Places where decent, law-abiding citizens can live decent, law-abiding lives—clean, friendly, beautiful places. Places people want to visit. That’s always been
our
reputation, hasn’t it? Don’t we depend on the tourist trade for much of the business here? We have a
clean
town, and I’m not just talking about the environment when I say that.”

Swift’s voice dropped, and his tone darkened, covering the whole courtroom with the same blanket.

“But there’s been a foul, evil underbelly to this town. One that,
before this all happened, none of us even knew about.
But our children did!
And that’s wrong. All wrong. Because children always believe that adults know what’s going on. Oh, they may not know
where
kids might go to smoke pot, but they know that kids
are
smoking pot. So, from this moment forward, the ‘we had no idea’ excuse isn’t going to fly. The curtain has been pulled back, and we have all seen the depravity behind it. The monsters can’t hide from us anymore. They can stay among us only if we
let
them stay.

“MaryLou had every reason in the world to believe she was saving her baby sister from a gang of rapists. She did what any of you would do in the same situation. Am I saying MaryLou was a hero? No. No, I’m not. But I
am
saying she did what she believed was the right thing to do, even at such great cost to herself.

“Remember that mother charging into a burning building? Risking everything? If it turned out that her baby was actually in no danger despite what she believed, are you going to call her a ‘criminal’?

“So—what do
you
want others to say about our town? That’s up to you, right now. It’s time to tell the world who we are. What we stand for. And we can’t do that unless we stand
up
.

“What more could MaryLou ask of you?” Swift wrapped it up. “Just do what you know is right. MaryLou can ask for no more than that. And she should
expect
no less. Not from
our
town.”

F
at Face must have been consulting a manual on how to be stupid. His entire closing was devoted to pointing out that MaryLou’s beliefs were all wrong. She wasn’t saving her baby sister from anything. In fact, her baby sister was a psychopathic little monster—“And that’s from the mouth of the defense’s own witness!”—who wasn’t even worth saving. If MaryLou had a brain in her head, she would have known all this, he snidely repeated. Again and again.

Unlike Swift, who kept himself in motion, drawing the jury and the courtroom audience together, making himself one of them, Fat Face was as rooted to a single spot as he was to that single line—MaryLou was a killer.

One of the games the enemy liked to play with captives in the jungle was to make them dig their own graves before they were put in them. If a captive did a very good job, they promised to kill him quickly. Men who’d lived through that were never the same afterward.

Fat Face couldn’t have known any of that. But if digging your own grave was a job, he would have been highly qualified for it.

T
he jurors were sent out right at the lunch break. Apparently, they were all slow eaters—it was almost three hours before they came back in.

And pronounced MaryLou McCoy “not guilty” on all counts.

Dolly ran over from her seat and hugged MaryLou like her own mother never had.

I walked over to Swift. Held out my hand. “You just helped this whole town raise the stakes,” I said.

Then I walked away quick, before he could ask me what I meant. Good thing, too—he was getting mobbed by everyone.

Whatever Bradley L. Swift, Esq., had been before this started, he’d never be that again.

Or this town, either.

“I
don’t know how to thank you,” I told Dr. Joel late that night. We’d just returned from reclaiming his car. I saw that Martin had
managed to put well over a thousand miles on it since we swapped him for his Mini Cooper. If T.D. noticed, he either didn’t care or kept it to himself.

“No thanks necessary, hoss. It’s been fun.”

“Sure. What I wanted to tell you was—”

“—that if I ever needed something … done—something more in line with your own skill set—you’d take care of it.”

“Was I that obvious?”

“Just to me, hoss. Just to me. If you’ve guessed that I heard that same kind of promise a hundred times in my career, you’d be right. But if you guessed that yours is the only one I ever believed, you’d be a hell of a lot smarter than you want folks to know.”

“You know how to reach me,” I said. I left him standing out there by the garage, alone in the darkness.

I
wasn’t surprised when Dolly told me that T.D. had decided to make a little detour and drop Debbie off on his way back home. I wasn’t even surprised at her sly little grin.

I
found Franklin the next morning. He and Spyros were removing dead trees from some waterfront lot.

“I hate doing this,” Spyros said. He was a short man, with a big chest, long arms, and a sun-darkened complexion.

“I thought you loved it.”

“Saving trees, sure. But the numbskulls who bought this land don’t realize it’s all going to be out in the ocean the next heavy rainy
season we get. And you can’t buy mudslide insurance on this part of the coast.”

He seemed more upset about the trees dying than about the rich people going broke. It didn’t surprise me.

“Does Franklin know about the verdict?” I asked him.

“Sure does.”

“It was on the news, huh?”

“MaryLou called him herself. He’s going to see her tonight, because she’s leaving tomorrow,” he said quietly. “But that’s tonight,
after
work!” he shouted over to Franklin.

“Q
uelle est la meilleure façon de dépouiller un rat?”
I asked, over the encrypted line.

“Le brûler. La peau brûle avant les os.”

The code hadn’t changed. Not the best way to skin a cat: the best way to skin a
rat
. Nor the answer: If you want to take all the skin off a rat, the best way is to set it on fire. Then only the charred skeleton would remain.

I thought that through for a split second. Then I told the man I’d never meet the name of the man I was looking for. And added everything else I knew about him.

Ryan Teller could never find a man with such expertise. No professional would even talk to slime like him, not without a better story than any he could concoct.
And
the right introduction, from the right people.

But the man who made seeing-without-being-seen his life’s work could find any new set of documents Ryan Teller had bought
“chez un amateur”
as easily as striking a match.

I
t was late the next spring when “John Norman Wilson” walked down an alley between two bars in Denver, whistling softly to himself, full of blooming optimism.

Both bars were too old for students, too déclassé for yuppies, not hard-core enough for bikers … so he was certain they’d become a good hunting ground. All he had to do was make the necessary investment of time.

Besides, they were both close to where the former Ryan Teller now lived. He wouldn’t even need a car to reach his new operating table.

He was as free as any man could be. A man who had shed his past as a snake would shed its skin. What lay underneath would be unchanged inside, but it would look brand-new. Fresh and glistening. Ryan Teller was looking forward to his new life.