Naked Justice (25 page)

A cat in a microwave? The demented mind behind this was probably just the type who would enjoy seeing a sick urban legend brought to life.

His eyes barely open, barely willing to be open, Ben reentered the kitchen. This time he checked the microwave. It was dark inside, but—something was in there.

Ben closed his eyes and slowly, not wanting to but knowing he had to, opened the microwave door.

There was a large shoebox inside. Closed. Taped shut. Just barely fit.

Not breathing, Ben edged the shoebox out of the tight space. He closed his eyes, said a quick and quiet prayer, and opened the box.

Giselle leaped out of the box, claws extended, and clutched onto Ben’s shoulder. Ben cried out in surprise, not to mention pain. A piece of cloth had been jammed in her tiny mouth and held in place by adhesive tape. Ben carefully cleared the cat’s mouth and a forlorn howl followed.

“Giselle!” Ben reached for her, but she eluded him and bounced down onto the floor.

“Giselle! Are you all right?” Ben held out his arms, but she had already scampered across the floor to the open can of Feline’s Fancy. She lowered her nose and attacked the food as if she hadn’t eaten for days.

“Well, you don’t seem to be in any immediate pain.” What a relief. For a moment there, he had been certain …

But he was wrong, thank God. He lowered his head to the table. He could feel his blood circulating again, his heart lurching back into action. Who the hell was behind this, anyway? What sort of game was he playing? As if the Barrett case wasn’t complicated enough already, now he had some psychopath tormenting him. Someone who had managed to find his office, his apartment, and his cat, with no problem.

And if he could get to Ben’s cat, how hard could it be to get to his friends? Or his nephew? Or Ben himself?

And what did the rest of the tape mean? The explosion. And the final words.

You’re next.

Joni rushed into the kitchen, Joey in tow. “You found her!”

“Yeah.”

“Thank goodness.” She sat in the chair opposite him. “You really had me worried there for a moment. What’s with the new jewelry?”

“Jewelry?”

“Yeah. Around her neck. Did you buy her that?”

“I didn’t buy her anything.” Ben rose out of his chair and walked to Giselle. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed it before—but everything had been happening so fast. Giselle had a bright red ribbon tied around her neck in a bow. And dangling from the ribbon beneath her chin was a coin-size gold heart engraved with two words.

SICK HEART
.

It took Ben twice as long as normal to get Joey to sleep that night. It was as if the boy could sense how worried Ben was, how ill at ease. Ben tried to conceal it, at least until he could do something about it, but he apparently wasn’t doing a very good job. His mind was racing. Would this stalker continue with the sick pranks, or would he eventually try something serious? Maybe even deadly. Was it safe for them to stay here, and if not, where would they go?

Joey finally closed his eyelids, but only after Ben had run through “Annabel Lee” twice and sung the “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” more times than he cared to count. It was just after ten; he decided to turn on CNN.

“Our top story this evening is our continuing coverage of”—a graphic image formed over the newscaster’s left shoulder—“Horror in the Heartland.”
HEARTLAND
appeared in large red letters, with what appeared to be blood dripping from them. The picture cut to video of the Utica neighborhood where Wallace Barrett lived. There was a sudden explosive noise—a gunshot—followed by two more in rapid succession. “Can you trust your neighbors? Are you safe? That’s what the citizens of the usually sleepy town of Tulsa, Oklahoma, have been asking themselves in this upper-class neighborhood, since their sense of security was shattered by the hideous murder of a mother and her two tiny, defenseless children. The people of this neighborhood thought they were safe; they thought violence couldn’t find them here. Little did they know that this illusion would be shattered by a hideous melodrama featuring their own mayor in the starring role.”

Ben shut the television off. This he did not need. Obviously, Barrett’s decision to speak to the media had not profoundly influenced the general tenor of the news coverage. He thought about playing the piano, always relaxing, but he was afraid to risk waking the baby. He retrieved his box of childhood treasures from under his bed, but somehow, given his current mood, a Magic 8-Ball and a bag of marbles just wasn’t going to help. He considered reading; it seemed as if there was some book he was halfway through, but he hadn’t read a page since he became embroiled in this case and now he couldn’t remember what it was.

Nights like this, he had to admit, it would be nice to have someone else in your life. Someone to talk to, to relax with, watch a movie or listen to a CD with. Whatever. Truth was, he hadn’t had anyone like that since Ellen, and that had been an increasingly long time ago. And that had ended in tragedy.

Ben picked up the phone and was halfway through dialing Christina before he stopped and pushed the interrupt button. It wouldn’t be right. He monopolized too much of her time as it was during the day; he didn’t have any business invading her nights. She probably had a social life, unlike him. She belonged to clubs and support groups and a church and went to parties and all that stuff.

What do I belong to? Ben asked himself. He didn’t have an answer.

Without even thinking about it, he began dialing her number. Long distance to Oklahoma City. He was afraid she might not still be awake, but in fact, she answered in less than three rings.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Mother?”

“Benjamin?” There was a brief pause. “Is today a holiday?”

“No, Mother. I just thought I’d see how you were doing.”

Her voice could not disguise a certain incomprehension. “You just called … to talk?”

“Is it too late? I hope you weren’t already asleep.”

“You know, Benjamin, when you get to be my age, you don’t sleep as much as you used to. How’s my grandson?”

“He’s fine, really. All in all.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Well, he doesn’t talk much.”

“Some children don’t. Your sister barely spoke until she was three. But once she started, you couldn’t stop her.”

“Maybe it’s genetic.”

“What else would it be?”

Ben stretched out on his sofa. “I don’t know, Mother. I’m doing my best, but I don’t know very much about raising a kid.”

“No one does, Benjamin. It’s all trial and error.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I just don’t want my errors to destroy someone’s life.”

There was another long pause. “Benjamin, is something wrong?”

“Oh, no. Nothing. I’ve just been very busy lately.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You do?”

“How could I not? I see you on television constantly—scowling at reporters and refusing to comment. I can’t go anywhere without running into someone who wants the inside scoop. Majel Howard stopped me at Crescent Market yesterday and I thought I would never get away from her. She wanted to know all about my son, the famous celebrity. Can you imagine? My son, the famous celebrity. Who’d have thought?”

“I’m hardly famous. More like notorious.”

“Nonsense. But Majel kept pressing for information, so eventually I had to pretend that you and I talk occasionally and that consequently I might know something.”

“Mo-
ther
!”

“Sorry, Benjamin.”

“The trial starts soon.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard. Do you have your trial strategy mapped out?”

Ben hesitated. “Not exactly. We have a theory, but no way to prove it.”

“It must be very stressful. Handling such a high-profile case. Having reporters swarming around you every second.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Well, you’ll think of something, Benjamin. I know you will.”

“I will?”

“Of course you will. We Kincaids aren’t quitters, are we?”

“No. I guess not.”

“Was there something else?”

There was, of course. What he wanted to say, what he really wanted deep deep down to say was “Mommy, I’m scared. Mommy, I think some bully wants to hurt me and I don’t know how to stop him.” But he couldn’t say that. That would never do.

“Benjamin?”

“Yes?”

“You know … sometimes your father would get so busy with his practice and his surgeries and his research that his head would swim. He wouldn’t know what to do next. But he never let it get the best of him. He’d smile, put his arm around me, and say, ‘We’ll get through this. If the creek don’t rise.’ ”

Ben smiled a little. “That’s nice. I wish he had said that to me.”

“Didn’t he?” There was a rustling on her end of the phone. “You know, when I visited you last, I tried to tell you everything I could remember about your father. But you haven’t mentioned him since then.”

“I’m sure you already know everything I could say.”

“But I don’t. I don’t know anything about when you visited him in the hospital that last time. Or when you saw him in … in … well.”

After all these years, she still couldn’t say it.
In jail.

“There really isn’t much to tell, Mother. I barely remember myself.”

Ben couldn’t have been more surprised when his father showed up at his apartment. He had been opposed to Ben’s moving out of the family house. Why would you want to live in some grungy old apartment, he asked, when we have one of the biggest mansions in Nichols Hills not ten miles away? He had refused to visit. But now here he was, on Ben’s doorstep, just hours after Ben learned that his mentor, his father in situ, was trying to prosecute his father in fact on charges of criminal fraud and murder.

“Ben, I need your help.”

“Um, sure, come on in.” He was embarrassed by the condition of his apartment: barely any furniture, clothes and books and records strewn all over the place. He knew his father was a firm believer in the tenet that “you can tell a great deal about a person from the way he lives.”

“It’s not for me. Personally, I think this is all a load of crap. But your mother is quite upset about it, and I know you don’t want that.”

“No, of course not.” Ben pushed some clothes off a chair and motioned for his father to sit. He didn’t. “What’s the problem?”

“Well, don’t you know? You work there, don’t you?” A deep furrow crossed his forehead. “Ben, you haven’t screwed up another job, have you?”

Ben felt his jaw clenching. “No, I’m still at the DA’s office.”

“Then you know they’re trying to railroad me.”

“I found out about the grand jury investigation today.”

“You didn’t know till today?”

“No. They intentionally kept me out of it.”

“Well, hell’s bells. And I thought you were going to be such a big help. I’ve known about it for weeks. I probably know more about it than you do.”

“Probably.” Good, Ben thought. Let his father think he’s a moron. At least he wouldn’t ask him to do anything that…

“It’s like this,” his father explained. “You remember me telling you about the EKCV?”

He did. The Edward Kincaid cardiac valve. A synthetic implant designed to regulate and stimulate the flow of blood through the major arteries. For patients with fallen arterial veins or serious heart problems that couldn’t otherwise be repaired, it would be a godsend. What made it truly special— indeed, unique—was that although artificial, it was made from new synthetic materials that were all but indistinguishable from natural organic material. Compatibility was virtually universal.

“Last I heard,” Ben said, “you were trying to sell stock in a new corporation to raise funds to market the valve nationwide.”

“Right. That was Jim Gregory’s idea. You know lawyers—they always know how to come up with some cash. Well, except you, of course.”

Ben heard himself chanting a mantra like a yogi. Don’t let him get to you. Don’t let him get to you.

“So he puts out a prospectus, finds a brokerage firm, prepares an initial offering. All that lawyer stuff. Charges me nearly twenty thousand bucks. But boy, did it work. You wouldn’t believe it. We raised almost four million bucks on the first offering. Value of the stock shot up almost overnight.”

“You must have been very happy.”

“Damn straight. It was like a dream come true. Course, then we had to prove the damn thing worked. Make it viable.” He paused for a moment, glanced down at his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe we rushed it. Some bad information got out. Suddenly there was this big rumor that the emperor had no clothes, you know? Jim kept saying we needed results. Had to stave off a shareholder derivative action. So I agreed to put the EKCV into action.”

“You mean—on people?”

“Well, that’s the only way to know whether it really works. If you want to use it on people, eventually you’ve got to try it out on people. We chose our initial subjects very carefully. All were people with serious cardiac problems, people who otherwise had very little chance of living more than a year. All were willing volunteers.”

“What happened?”

“They died. Two of them. Not right away. Hell, no. Then we would have known we had problems. No, everything seemed to be fine and dandy for the first three weeks. But then the synthetic materials began to deteriorate. We still don’t know what caused it. Maybe it was stomach acids, maybe respiratory fluids. We just don’t know.”

“People died?”

“It happens. Experimentation always has risks.”

“But … they
died
.”

“They knew what they were getting into. They volunteered of their own free will. And we had every one of them sign waivers, thank God, or we’d be up to our armpits in civil suits. With the waivers, I thought we were free and clear. Who would’ve thought the DA would try to press criminal charges? They’re making a big deal out of the fact that we didn’t get FDA approval. And the hell of it is, they won’t even say what it is they’re going to charge me with. Don’t I have a right to know the charges against me?”

“For the moment, there are no charges against you. That’s for the grand jury to decide. What the DA plans to try for is a matter of strategy.”