Res Judicata (17 page)

I had to fight. I couldn't give up.

I got this burst of strength. It wasn't superhuman strength or anything handy like that, but it was enough. I bent Chuck's thumbs back a millimeter or two. My windpipe popped open. I sucked in this little whistle of air, looked him right in the eye and said what I needed to say.

“
Res judicata
.”

Double Jeopardy
A legal concept referring to the idea that a person charged
with a crime and found not guilty cannot be charged
with the exact same crime again. In Canada, double
jeopardy is often referred to as “one time around.”

I had to kind of croak it out three times, but it finally worked. Chuck stopped choking me. I knew he wouldn't be able to stand not knowing what it meant. “What?” he said.

I rubbed my neck with my hand and swallowed a few times just to make sure everything was still in working order. “Res. Ju-dee-cat-ah,” I said. “It means ‘the thing has been decided' in Latin.”

He growled, “Tho what?” and went to grab me by the neck again.

I got my hand in there first. “In other words,” I said, “you got away with it.”

He looked me up and down like I was trying to sell him hot watches off the street or something. He didn't believe me.

“Seriously,” I said. “It's a very important legal principle. It means you can't try a person twice for the same crime.”

He really wanted to keep strangling me, I could tell. (I'd seen that look on Andy's face before.) But I just kept talking and he managed to control himself.

“You've heard of double jeopardy?” I said. I didn't know if he had or not, but he nodded anyway. No way would he admit he didn't know something, especially to a little pest like me. “Same thing. If you get tried in a court of law and you get found not guilty, they can't try you again for the same offense even if there's new evidence. It doesn't matter that you killed Ernest Sanderson. You're a free man, Chuckie!”

He laughed at me like I was a moron. “You're wrong. Verdictth get appealed all the time.”

I sat up. “Do you mind getting off me?” I said. “My legs are going to sleep.” He moved away but kept close enough that he could still clobber me if he needed to.

“Appealing a verdict is different,” I said. I was on kind of shaky ground here. It had been a long time since I sat through a law class. I tried to remember what Atula had told me. “Cases can be appealed if the judge or the lawyer made a mistake in the law. You know, say the judge told the jury something wrong, or one of the lawyers didn't follow the rules, that kind of thing. But nothing like that happened in your case. Nobody made a legal mistake. The jury looked at the evidence and decided you weren't guilty—even though, of course, you are.”

I thought he was going to haul off and hit me, but I redeemed myself.

“I mean, you're a genius! You tricked them all. You got to kill Ernest Sanderson
and
you got off without a scratch. You won big-time, Duncan! Oh, sorry. Mind if I call you Duncan? That's your real name, right? Duncan Charles?”

I could see a smile sort of beginning to creep onto his face.

“Yeah. Fine. Call me Duncan. My mother alwayth did.”

I patted him on the back. “You deserve to be congratulated. Honest. You really got Ernest good for stealing your Gleamoccino idea...”

Chuck sort of chuckled. “You're right. I did, didn't I?”

Now I was coming to the important part. It was just a hunch, but I had to try anyway. It was either going to work or it wasn't.

“Tell me. There's one more thing I just have to know. Was killing Ernest better for you than killing Mike Reith? I mean, was it more—say—satisfying?”

Chuck thought about it. “You know, I think it wath. Killing Mike wath almotht too eathy for me. He ate a lot. Poithoning him wath a piethe of cake. I jutht thprinkled a little on hith muffin every day for a couple of month and he wath gone. But Ernie wath tho careful with hith food. He uthed to thay, ‘Fatht food will kill you!' I thought, if only! It would have made it a lot eathier for me. I could have killed both of them at the thame time.”

I tried to give him one of those, “Oh, that's too bad” looks. He shook his head and shrugged.

“Then Ernie got rich, and I couldn't get near him. I tried threatening him, but it didn't do any good. I had to come up with a new idea. In the end, killing him took yearth to pull off. Funnily enough, that juth made it all the more enjoyable. I felt like I accomplithed thomething. That all the yearth I thpent brooding and planning were worth it...”

“Well, that's great, Chuck. You're no doubt an inspiration to deranged murderers everywhere. So—is your little killing spree over now? Can you finally relax?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Juth about.”

“You must be looking forward to putting your teeth in again.”

He laughed. “No kidding. I'm looking forward to going to the all-you-can-eat rib night at the Flamingo. I hear it'th very good!”

I went, “Oh, yeah. It's great.” As if I would know. Like we could afford to go to the Flamingo. I got up to leave. No use staying around chatting. I had what I needed.

He grabbed me by the arm. “Hold on there,” he said. His face had gone back to its old creepy Chucky self. “What are you planning to do with that video?”

“Oh, this?” I said. I took it out of the camera. “Here. You can have it. I'm not doing anything with it.”

He had the
CD
in his hand, but he still wasn't happy. “I thought it wath for thchool. What are you going to turn in if I've got it?”

“Don't worry. I'll use something else. I just wanted to show this to you. I'm kind of like you that way. I just like to know that I'm right.”

His face sort of loosened up at that. He reached over and patted me on the shoulder. Oh, yeah. We were great buddies.

“Sure you don't want thome pete-tha before you go?” he said.

I shook my head. I was dying to see if Kendall got it all on video.

Battery
Physical contact intended to harm someone. Unintentional
harmful contact is not battery, no matter how careless the
behavior or how severe the injury. A fist fight is a common
battery; being hit by a wild pitch in a baseball game is not.

Kendall was still crouched down by the basement window when I came out. He picked up his camera and just, like, beamed at me. I can't remember the last time I saw him so excited.

He went, “You just got an A on your video project, my friend!”

Having oxygen cut off from my brain for a few minutes seemed almost worth it. “Excellent,” I said. “That's all I want. An A for me—and twenty-five years to life for Chuck.”

I thought we could get it too. My plan had worked. We had Chuck confessing to the murder of Mike Reith on video. We could probably get him a few years more for trying to kill me too.

I was feeling pretty good. My only problem now would be breaking this to Andy. She wasn't going to be too happy with me for pooching her big malicious prosecution suit. I figured I better start buttering her up now.

We found a pay phone that actually worked a couple of blocks from the apartment, and I called her. I expected Andy
to be really mad at me for not being home in bed after I told her how sick I was, but she sounded fine.

Not surprisingly, it was because of food.

She went, “Oh, hey, Cyril. You on your way home? Better hurry. You're not going to believe this, but Chuck sent us over a pizza this afternoon. You know, to thank me for all the work I've done for him. It's sooooo good.” She loved taunting me. “Railroader special. Mm-Mm-Mm. Your favorite. Yummmm yum...Hear that, Cyril?” She started chomping right in the phone. “That's me digging my teeth into its choo-choo-chewy crust. Nyah-nyah-nyah. I'm going to eat it all. Better hurry if you want...What the
beep
?”

Suddenly she was screaming at someone at the top of her lungs. She dropped the phone. I could hear plates smashing and chairs falling over and her screeching and a man's voice.

I'm used to Andy's mood swings, but this seemed a little extreme even for her.

I dropped the phone and took off.

The whole way home all I could hear was Chuck's voice.
He ate a lot. Poithoning him wath a piethe of cake
.

Extenuating Circumstances
Surrounding factors which make a crime appear
less serious or without criminal intent, and thus
deserving a more lenient punishment.

Biff had Andy in a headlock, but she wasn't giving in easy. She was kicking him and punching him and screaming, “Give me back my
beeping
pizza!”

I didn't want her to have the pizza—but I didn't want Biff to get her either. Kendall and I both piled on top of him. I could tell by the look on Andy's face she was worried she was going to have to fight all three of us for the pizza.

Next thing I knew there were sirens and police barging in, and the neighbors were all craning their necks to get a good look at what was happening.

The cops picked Kendall and me off the pile like we were lint on a sweater. I figured they were going to arrest Biff— I mean, he was a stalker after all—but they just helped him up and dusted his jacket off.

Andy was standing there, rhyming off the list of charges that should have been brought against Biff: break and enter, theft, assault and battery, libel, disturbing the peace, treason... She was just starting to make them up now.

The big cop—or should I say, the bigger cop—must have known her from court or something. He went, “Excuse me,
Andy, but I think you owe Deputy Sheriff Fougere here an apology. I believe the man just saved your life by taking that pizza from you.”

Andy was in no mood for this type of stuff. “Yeah, right. The trans fats were going to kill me or something? Please.”

“No,” I said, “your client was.”

Actus reus
(Latin)
Literally, “Guilty act.” The actual crime that is committed
rather than the intent leading up to the crime.

Res Judicata
. It was true what I said to Chuck. You can't be tried for the same crime twice.

I admit, though, I was wrong about a lot of other stuff.

Like Biff, for instance. He wasn't stalking us. He was protecting us. He'd figured this whole thing out long before I did.

He had met Chuck in traffic court, like I suspected. He was the deputy sheriff who saw Chuck accost Ernest Sanderson there.

By the time Biff came over to see what the matter was, Chuck was walking away from Ernest. All he heard Chuck say was, “Don't you worry. You'll get your just desserts.” Ernest looked shaken up, but he waved it off. Biff figured it was no big deal. He sees worse than that every day in court. He forgot about it.

Then, months later, Chuck came to dinner at our place. Biff didn't know where he'd seen him before, but there was something sort of familiar about the guy. He didn't know what it was.

It wasn't until he brought out the cheesecake tha something clicked. Chuck made some joke about “your just desserts.” It's not an expression you hear all the time. It all came back to Biff. He remembered the guy in traffic court who'd got all huffy with Ernest. The guy definitely had teeth and a decent suit on too, but that didn't fool Biff. He was suddenly sure the guy was Chuck.

Biff remembered the look on Ernest's face too. How white he was. That sold him. Biff realized Chuck wasn't just some Good Samaritan. He guessed that Chuck might have had a reason to kill Ernest. Biff waited until everyone went home before he told Andy his suspicions.

She didn't take it well. Typical Andy. She decided Biff was just another officer of the court who figured if you're poor, you're guilty. She threw him out.

Biff did some research. The more he looked into Chuck Dunkirk, the less he liked the guy. Biff knew his way around the Internet. None of Chuck's stories about growing up in rural Nova Scotia panned out.

Biff worried about us. He started hanging out around our place just to make sure we were all right. He made sure Chuck saw him. Biff wanted him to know he was being watched. He couldn't let us know though. Andy would have had a bird.

All the time, Biff was living on take-out pizza. At first, that's why he thought he was feeling sick. Too much junk food. Then he noticed he got the same delivery boy every time he called Railroader's. Biff recognized him from his days as a sheriff in juvie court. Biff also noticed the kid was suddenly sporting a fancy new watch and some grills on his teeth.

Biff followed the money.

He figured out which window was Chuck's faster than I did. He watched the delivery boy come, saw Chuck switch the pizza into a new box and send it out.

Biff noticed the oven mitts, same as me. It made him wonder why the delivery boy was always wearing gloves too. (Up to that point, he'd figured it was just another one of those weird teen trends.) Biff didn't know what was up, but he sure thought it was suspicious.

Meanwhile, I was getting suspicious too. Of Biff. That chicken dinner had made me sick. Those missing toe rings sure looked like his work. I called the cops on him.

Best thing I ever did.

Biff shared a cell with a murder suspect. They got to talking. The guy couldn't believe how stunned Biff was. “C'mon! Think like a criminal!” he said. “What's the matter with you? The boxes are poisoned!” It didn't make sense to Biff at first. I mean, why wouldn't Chuck just put the poison right on the pizza? But Dino “The Widow-maker” Chisholm had an answer for that too. “Probably has something to do with aftertaste. When you're offing someone slow-like, you can't have them getting suspicious...Or so I'm told.”

Things started falling into place. Biff realized that Chuck would have killed me ages ago, but we were too poor for take-out pizza. That's why he made it look like Biff was killing me instead. He sent the chicken dinner over. He rigged that robbery to seem like Biff was behind it too. He got me off the scent.