Deadly Justice (33 page)

“Not bad. Sore enough to give me an excuse to retire from the High Course forever.”

“Retire? Just when you were getting the hang of it?”

“Believe me, I was awful.”

“Ben, last week you couldn’t complete the High Course in full regalia. Two days ago, you completed it without any belay support. I’d call that significant progress.”

“Well, my progress was forced somewhat by the circumstances.”

She grinned. “Are these meetings always so gloomy?”

“Only when the main topic of conversation is how one member of the staff murdered another member of the staff and five other people as well.” During the past hour, the staff had been informed of the horrible secret buried inside their department. Mike was the official leader of the meeting, but Ben was filling in most of the details. Ben had tried to explain the whole plot as he now understood it—how Fielder had formed the Kindergarten Club, how he’d enlisted Hamel as secretary, and how together they had raked in the dough.

Ben noted several macho grins and sneers as he talked about teen prostitutes and kinky group orgies, but the snickers faded when he began describing the multiple strangulations and dismemberments. He told them how Fielder panicked and began killing off the girls, one after the other. How that had caused Hamel to download the address list so he could turn state’s evidence. How he’d been caught in the act by Fielder, which had caused Hamel to become Fielder’s next victim.

Christina nudged Ben’s shoulder. “Look at Shelly.” Shelly was solemn and silent, even more so than usual. “She really seems to be taking this hard.”

There may be a good reason for that, Ben thought, but he kept it to himself. “Herb seems a bit upset, too.”

“Yeah, but that’s probably because all these orgies were going on and he never got invited.”

Ben smiled, but again he could think of another possible explanation. He noticed that Herb and Candice were not seated together, and had not spoken to (or shouted at) one another since they entered the room.

Crichton was sitting at one end of the long conference table opposite Mike. Crichton appeared to be taking the news worse than anyone. Understandable, Ben thought. Not only had he lost another member of his staff; he’d been made to look a blundering fool. He was staring down at the black enamel table. His coffee cup was empty, but he hadn’t even called for Janice.

“If you don’t mind,” Mike said loudly, “I’d like to finish this up.” Mike had looked better himself. Despite everyone’s entreaties, he still hadn’t checked into the hospital. He insisted that he wanted to “put this case to bed” before he took any time off.

Everyone resumed their places around the table.

“There’s one detail we omitted,” Mike continued. “When Fielder spotted Ben on the streets searching for Trixie, he went after him. He didn’t find Ben at home, so he tore the place apart, just to send a message. Maybe he thought he might find the picture Ben and I retrieved from Hamel’s attic. I don’t know. He didn’t find anything. But of course, that’s because there wasn’t anything to find.

“As you all know,” Mike continued, “Fielder was killed in his fall. That concludes this investigation. Chief Blackwell has declared this matter closed”—he looked pointedly at Ben—“a fact that will no doubt come as a considerable relief to many of you.”

Amen to that, Ben thought.

“I have a question,” Chuck asked loudly. “I understand everything you’ve said, but what I don’t understand is who cut Mr. Crichton’s belay line? That’s the creep I’d like to take apart.”

Count on Chuck to be the one who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, Ben mused. Especially when an opportunity to do some quality sucking-up presented itself. “I’d rather not go into that right now,” Mike replied.

Chuck pounded on the table. “Damn it, I want to know. If someone’s after our mentor, we need to take action.”

Ben scanned the faces around the conference table. He saw a mixed array of reactions. All of them were uncomfortable, just in different ways.

“Well, Chuck,” Ben said, spreading his arms across the table, “if you must know who cut Crichton’s belay line—I did.”

“What?”
Mike almost rose out of his chair. “
You
cut his line?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” Chuck bellowed. “You just started here. What beef could you have against Crichton?”

“I was trying to flush out the killer. Everything was too relaxed, too pat. I wanted to stir the batter up, to throw a wrench into the killer’s complacency and get himself to expose himself.”

“So you tried to kill Mr. Crichton?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill him. I was right behind him all along. The distance from the giant’s ladder to Crichton was only about five feet—an easy jump, especially since I knew what was coming. He was never in any danger.”

Mike and Chuck stared at him, mouths gaping. Ben couldn’t tell who appeared more outraged.

“That is the most lame, bullheaded, irresponsible plan I’ve ever heard,” Mike said, incredulous. “What if you had missed?”

“I didn’t.”

“You sorry sack of shit.” Chuck was on his feet now, swaggering toward Ben. “I want this prick out of here, Mr. Crichton. I want him fired.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Crichton said, staring intently at Ben. “Does anyone else have any questions for Lieutenant Morelli?”

No one spoke. Chuck planted himself, arms folded across his chest like Mr. Clean, and glared at Ben.

“If there’s nothing else,” Crichton said, “then this staff meeting is adjourned. Mr. Kincaid, I would like to see you in my office.”

“I have to meet a friend who’s waiting for me,” Ben said, checking his watch. “I’ll drop by when it’s convenient.”

The other lawyers stared at him. He’d come see Crichton…when it was
convenient
? For
him
?

Crichton smoldered without comment. “As you wish, Mr. Kincaid. I’ll be waiting for you.”

A
BOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, Ben strolled into Crichton’s office, a manila folder tucked under his arm. Crichton was leaning back in his chair, dictating.

“Glad you could make it,” Crichton said, peering over his reading glasses. “Hope I didn’t interfere with your plans.”

“Don’t worry about it. What did you want to discuss?”

“I’ve spoken to Harry Carter about your work on the new assignment. He’s not pleased with your performance.”

“Well, that’s what he does best, isn’t it?”

“Harry is a very important member of our staff. When he makes a negative recommendation, well…that’s difficult for me to overlook.”

Ben sat down in one of Crichton’s chairs. “Let’s not pussyfoot around, shall we?”

Crichton stiffened slightly.

“I’ve been talking to a friend of mine named Loving. He’s a private investigator. At my request, he undertook a search for Al Austin, the long-lost member of the XKL-1 design team.”

Crichton’s feet dropped to the floor. “You did…
what
?”

“Loving had a long conversation with the man. He’s a funny dude. Seems he didn’t like some of the corporate policies being implemented here at Apollo, so he quit. More than just quit, actually. Disappeared. Seemed to think it would be best if no one at Apollo had any idea where he was.”

“Austin was always a borderline crazy. Paranoid. Probably an alcoholic.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what he said you’d say. Anyway, he claims that after the XKL-1 was manufactured and distributed, a design defect was discovered. A defect that made any vehicle using that suspension system unsafe. Especially on rough or bumpy terrain.” He looked directly into Crichton’s eyes. “Such as the dirt field outside a football stadium.”

“Austin was fired because he was accused of sexual impropriety by several female employees. We had no choice.”

“Uh-huh. He said you’d say that, too. He said all four women who filed complaints disappeared before he or his lawyers could even talk to them. Apparently, they were bestowed with rather lucrative retirement plans.”

“We had no choice. If we hadn’t made them happy, they would’ve sued.”

“I think you were creating a smoke screen, Crichton, just as you’re doing now. The point is that the XKL-1 was and is unsafe.”

“That has never been proven.”

Ben reached into his manila folder and began withdrawing documents. “Loving had a heck of a time finding Austin. He was holed up in western Oklahoma—don’t bother asking, I won’t tell you where. Bought a chicken farm, and that’s what he does for a living now. Says he’s much happier. Which I don’t doubt.”

Ben passed the top document to Crichton. “I guess Al thought that since Loving had gone to so much trouble, he deserved to be rewarded. So Al dug up his personal copies of these reports, copies you didn’t know he had.”

Ben pointed to the top page. “I bet you’ve seen this report before, haven’t you? Your initials are on it. After the first field reports came in suggesting there were problems with the XKL-1 design, Apollo ordered a series of tests. The testing was quite extensive. No doubt about it: the XKL-1 was unsafe. And you, and Bernie King, and everyone on the design team knew it.”

“The testing was inconclusive. Improper control group, wild extrapolations from insufficient data—”

“Don’t bother, Crichton. I’ve already read the report.” He passed across the next document in his stack. “Here we have the minutes of a series of meetings held by the Apollo Board of Directors. It seems they learned about the safety problems, too. And they had to decide what to do about it.”

Ben pointed to the bottom of one of the pages. “Evidently some of those meetings were a bit on the dull side—notice all the doodling in the margins. I particularly enjoyed that cartoon with the small child being mangled by the XKL-1 suspension system. You Apollo guys sure have some sense of humor.”

“I see nothing incriminating about this,” Crichton said unevenly. “On the contrary, this seems to me to be the work of a conscientious corporation trying to discover the truth.”

“Trying to discover the truth? Yes. The question is: what did they do with the truth?” Ben tossed the final document in his stack to Crichton. “This document outlines the cost-benefit analysis performed at the behest of the Apollo directors. They determined that the cost of redesigning the system, implementing the new design, altering the manufacturing equipment, recalling the XKL-1 and marketing the new product would be almost two hundred million dollars. Not enough to sink Apollo by a long shot, but a sizable chunk of change nonetheless.

“As you can see, if you’re reading along, Apollo then analyzed the costs attendant to retaining the current design. The only real cost item was the lawsuits that would predictably arise as people were injured by the defective system. They estimated that approximately twenty lawsuits a year would be filed, and that the average plaintiff could be bought off—excuse me, that a settlement could be reached for about a quarter of a million bucks. A quiet settlement, before any publicity got stirred up. In short, even if this went on for forty years, it would still be cheaper to retain the old design.”

Ben looked at Crichton sharply. “Guess what they decided to do?”

Crichton cleared his throat. “The business of a corporation is to make money. If business suffers, everyone suffers.”

“Spare me the trickle-down rationalization. This corporation decided that it would be cheaper to allow people to be mutilated and killed than to spend money implementing a new design. So they just sat back and counted their millions while people like Jason Nelson died.”

“There’s no need for sanctimonious—”

Ben flung the report into Crichton’s face. “These ten pages are the documents you removed from the production to the Nelsons and their attorney. You misrepresented the contents of the documents to me, and based upon that misrepresentation, I got summary judgment against them. If the Nelsons had received these documents, as they should have, they would have blown me out of the water.”

“Litigation is a cutthroat business. We play hardball at Apollo. We have a duty to our shareholders—”

“This is the most cynical, cold-hearted exercise in unrestrained greed I’ve ever heard of! Corporations should use their vast resources to help people. Instead, you let this anything-for-the-bottom-line mentality fester until it creates monsters like Rob Fielder and the XKL-1.”

Crichton pushed himself out of his chair. “You’re so goddamn naive. This is corporate America, Kincaid. Everyone does it! Why do you think soft drink companies still use those bottle caps that poke people’s eyes out? Why do so few cars have airbags? Corporations don’t exist to contribute to the common good. They exist to turn a profit.”

“Well,” Ben said, “since you feel so righteous about this, you won’t mind if I take my information public.”

Crichton folded his hands in his lap and settled down. “All right. What do you want?”

“First, I want you to go before the Board and tell them the XKL-1 has to be scrapped, and all existing models must be recalled.”

“That would cost millions—”

“And you’ll do it! Or I’ll go public with these documents, and you’ll have consumer groups, government agencies, and probably a class action suit breathing down your neck.”

Crichton’s teeth rattled together. “Very well. What else?”

“Five million dollars to the Nelsons. No strings.”

“That lawsuit is over.”

“That lawsuit is over because you lied to me. If you hadn’t misrepresented the nature of the missing documents, we’d still be in court, and they’d be in line for one of Apollo’s quarter of a million dollar Christmas presents. Five million won’t make up for the loss of their son. But it’s better than nothing.”

“All right. What else can we do for you, Kincaid?”

“You can pay Gloria Hamel’s medical bills. Including her plastic surgery. And give her some money to carry her through this period of mourning and recovery. Two hundred thousand ought to do it.”

Crichton’s eyes widened. “Surely you’re not suggesting Apollo is responsible for what happened to her?”

“No, not directly. But she needs help and you can give it to her. Consider it compensation for all the misery you’ve inflicted since the XKL-1 was implemented.”