Gideon, Robin - Desire of the Phantom [Ecstasy in the Old West] (Siren Publishing Classic) (55 page)

“I’m about to cross a line. It’s a thousand times more illegal than anything I’ve ever done before.”

The men looked at each other, Fields fearful for his life, Garrett fearful for his soul. Could he, a respected attorney with political aspirations, really follow through
with the plan even he concluded had been poorly thought
through?

“I need another drink,” Fields said, beginning to rise from the sofa.

“Sit,” Garrett snapped, and Fields dropped back onto the
sofa as though he’d been shot. “Pamela didn’t kill Richard Darwell.
Angie Darwell did.”

Garrett watched as Fields’s expression evolved, first re
flecting shock then doubt then a modicum of understanding. Anyone who knew Angie would not be overly
surprised to discover she was a murderess.

“I’m telling you this for a reason,” Garrett continued after giving Andy Fields enough time to fully digest the information. “There aren’t many people who know that
Angie killed her brother. I know. You know. Angie knows, of
course, and so do her father and brother.”

“Why are you telling me this? If you know it, why
haven’t you brought it up in court?” Andy Fields knew he was not
an overly bright man, and the twists that had so recently taken place had thoroughly confused him. When he had accepted the five hundred dollars from Jonathon Darwell to
ensure a guilty verdict in Pamela’s trial, Fields had accepted
the money without concern. The facts, at that time, all pointed to Pamela.

“I’m the Midnight Phantom,” Garrett said quietly, just a hint of a smile now curling his mouth.

Andy Fields recoiled in his chair, wanting desperately
to run from the room, knowing in his heart he didn’t have
a prayer of escape. How had everything gone so wrong when all had, just minutes ago, seemed so right?

“I was on the balcony the night of the celebration of the hospital’s opening, and I watched you take Jonathon Darwell’s bribe,” Garrett continued. “I know Judge Dahlmann is
also taking money under the table from Darwell. I know that
Angie killed Richard because Michael told me.”

“But…but—”

“Silence!” Fields began to shiver. It was a pathetic sight. “I’ll be letting the Darwells know that you’re aware of Angie’s guilt. Of course, by doing this, I’ll be putting you in jeopardy. If I were to hazard a guess,
I’d say Jonathon Darwell will probably hire a gunman to kill
you. You and I both know how protective he is of his only
daughter.”

Andy Fields at last was able to tear his eyes away from
Garrett’s revolver. He stared at the carpeted floor in front
of him, his mind working feverishly. There had to be some
way for him to get out of this mess. Perhaps Garrett was lying about everything. Perhaps it was all just a bluff.

“I’ll tell him I don’t know anything,” Fields said suddenly as though this was a great revelation.

“How can you
convince Darwell that you don’t know his daughter is a mur
derer? By bringing the subject up, won’t you be proving
that you do know it? And we both know what Jonathon
Darwell is like. Just to be on the safe side, he’ll have you killed. Face it, Fields, you’re expendable, any way you look at it.” Garrett moved closer, so that he was standing
over the seated man in a most intimidating manner. “How
does it feel to be a dead man?”

“I’m not dead yet!” Fields said, suddenly looking
around the room as though to determine what he would take with him when he rode away from Whitetail Creek without
a backward glance.

“Going to leave town?” Garrett asked, curious as to
whether Fields would leave his wife and children so
abruptly.

“Tomorrow,” Fields answered, nodding vigor
ously. “Right after the bank opens.”

Garrett smiled bitterly. It took a cold man to abandon his
wife and children and a thoroughly heartless one to leave
them penniless. “You don’t want to do that just yet,” he
said quietly.

When Fields started to fidget in his chair, Garrett raised his revolver just a little more. Fields froze. “Listen care
fully because I’m only going to tell you once. You’ll be
leaving town, all right, but not tonight and not tomorrow
morning.”

“That’s what you think!” Fields replied, spittle flying from his lips. He was infi
nitely more frightened of Jonathon Darwell, whom he knew
to be a murderer, than of Garrett Randolph.

Garrett stepped closer and very lightly touched the muzzle of his revolver to the tip of Fields’s nose. Andy Fields’s
eyes crossed as he stared at the barrel. His Adam’s apple
bobbed up and down as he tried to remain calm, proving
he couldn’t.

“You’re going to convince me that you’ll do everything
I’m about to tell you. You see, when I’m finished talking,
I’m going to look into your eyes, and if I believe that
you’ll do what I tell you, I’m going to let you live. How
ever, if I have my suspicions about whether you’re
able to follow my instructions, then I’m simply going to kill you right here and now, and be done with it.”

“Yessir, yessir, sir,” Fields stammered.

* * * *

“It’s nearly three o’clock, damn it all. Can’t we come
to a conclusion? We’ve been sitting in this room for four
hours, and there’s not a breath of air in here.”

Robert Simms was the juror who was doing the com
plaining, though he wasn’t the only one to protest their frustrating inability to arrive at a verdict on the murder
charge against Pamela Bragg.

All eyes in the room turned toward Andy Fields. He
was staring at his own hands, which were folded before
him on the table. A dribble of sweat ran down the back
of his neck, to be soaked up by his collar. He’d very nearly
sweated through his clothes, though it wasn’t hot enough
to warrant that.

“You’re the only vote of dissent,” Simms said, biting the words off, glaring at Fields. “Damn it all, you know
she killed Richard Darwell. All the facts point to her.”

Fields looked up, didn’t like the accusing eyes staring
back at him, and then looked down again. Never in his life
had he felt so trapped, so thoroughly caught by forces
stronger than himself.

“Everybody in this room knew Richard Darwell,” Fields said, searching for some way of justifying his ar
gument that Pamela was innocent. “Hell, at one time or an
other, we’ve all thought of putting a bullet in his back.”

That comment drew a chuckle from several of the ju
rors. Richard had had friends only as long as he was buying
the drinks or the women at Lulu’s for his friends’ enjoyment. The minute that stopped, nobody wanted to be in
the same room with him.

“Maybe so,” Simms said, clearly not at all amused.
“But none of us in
this room killed him. Pamela Bragg did. Now why can’t
you see that?” Simms leaned across the table, glaring fu
riously at Fields. “I have much better things to do with this day than argue with you.
Unless, just maybe,
you’ve got a
reason
for not seeing the facts the way the
rest of us do?”

Andy Fields wanted to die when he heard those words.
He had taken money from Jonathon Darwell to guarantee a
guilty verdict, and he’d taken money from Garrett Randolph
to guarantee a not-guilty verdict. Fields had sold his soul,
and now, he suspected, someone was going to pull his
heart right out of his chest.

He had always known he wasn’t a truly popular man,
but he had become a successful businessman in Whitetail Creek, and he threw lavish parties that were attended widely and
praised by all. Now he was being accused, perhaps in a
roundabout fashion, of having a vested interest in seeing to
it that Pamela Bragg was found not guilty. Most frightening
for Andy Fields was that this accusation, put forward by
Simms out of sheer frustration, was dead on the mark, and
a serious investigation might possibly probably reveal as much. If
these men turned on him, they’d go for the jugular like a
pack of hungry wolves, and Fields knew it.

“Well, say something,” Simms demanded.

Fields closed his eyes and tried to block out every voice so he could hear his own thoughts. The previous night
he’d been frightened right down to his boots when Garrett
Randolph had suddenly appeared out of the shadows, holding a revolver, threatening to kill him while his family slept
upstairs. Garrett’s bargain, if that was what it could be
called, was really quite simple. Andy Fields was to make
sure that Pamela Bragg was to be found not guilty of the mur
der of Richard Darwell. As soon as the trial was over, he was
to take the money Garrett had given him—money that had
been stolen from Michael Darwell, Fields had been in
formed—and ride out of town immediately, never to return.

It had seemed a pretty good deal last night. Easy enough
to accomplish, and Fields would be many thousands of
dollars richer when it was over.

Except every man in the jury believed that Pamela was
guilty, and no amount of arguing on her behalf could con
vince even one of them to agree with him.

“Well, Fields, what the hell have you got to say for
yourself?” Simms demanded.

Andy Fields tilted his head up, looked Simms straight
in the eyes, and said, “I say we vote again.”

The men all sat down at the long table, and fresh white
slips of paper were handed out. Each man, pencil in hand,
scribbled upon one, folded it in half, and then placed it in the hat handed around the table. The hat ended up with Andy
Fields, the head juror.

Fields looked around the table one last time. These men
would destroy him if he continued to oppose them on the
verdict, and he knew it.

He reached into the hat and began pulling the slips out
one at a time, unfolding each and reading off the vote, which he tallied on a piece of paper.

“Guilty…guilty…guilty,” Fields read, saying the
words slowly, as though he actually had to read them to know what the count would be.

This time the count was different. This time it was unan
imous—Pamela Bragg was guilty of the murder of Richard Darwell.

“At last!” Simms exclaimed, pushing back his chair, almost leaping to his feet. It had taken six votes to reach
a unanimous decision. “Now I can get back to my office.
I’ve wasted too much of my day here as it is. Hang the wench. That’s what I say.”