Silent Justice (53 page)

Wait a minute. A shadow moved, down on the other side of the dock. Someone was moving toward the cabin.

Slowly, Mike lifted himself out of his private spot in the shadows of the brush on the opposite end of the dock. Slowly, he reminded himself. God knows he didn’t want to blow it now. Not when he’d come so far.

The silhouetted figure continued toward the cabin at top speed.

Mike crept along the dock as quietly as possible, trying not to attract any attention. His prey did not appear to have heard him; he was much too busy trying to get into the cabin. He was having trouble with the key; nervousness was making his fingers fumble. Which gave Mike just enough time to sneak up behind him.…

“Freeze, buddy.”

The man screamed. He whirled around, his hands flailing in the air. “Don’t kill me. Please! I’m begging you! Don’t kill me!”

Just a hunch, but Mike suspected this man was not the killer. He effortlessly blocked the man’s mostly wild and aimless blows.

“I don’t know anything! I don’t have it!” The man tried to run, but Mike grabbed him by the collar and swung him back by the door.

“Let me go! Someone call the police!”

Mike pulled out his badge. “I am the police, you nitwit. Now put your hands in the air and calm down.” He grabbed the man’s wrists and pinned them behind his back. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The man peered at Mike’s face. “You’re the guy who’s been quizzing everyone at Blaylock. Morelli, isn’t that it? What’re you doing way out here?”

“I might ask you the same question.” Mike jerked his head toward the door. “Can you open that door?”

“Well … uh … yeah.” His face was red and flushed. “I think so.”

“Do it. Then we can have a nice chat.”

He was so nervous it still took several minutes of fumbling to turn the lock and open the door, but he finally managed it. Mike shoved him inside and turned on the lights.

The interior decor was spartan, to put it mildly. A few rudimentary pieces of furniture, that was it. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.

“So what’s your name?” Mike asked as he pushed the man into a wobbly wooden chair.

“Fred Henderson,” the man replied.

“Nice to meet you, Fred. What brings you to the cabin?”

“Me? I—I just came to fish.”

Mike smiled thinly. “Nice try. But I notice you aren’t carrying any fishing gear. And I’ve also been reliably informed that the company no longer lets its employees come here. Apparently they’re trying to sell the place.”

“Really?” Fred said, trying a bit too hard. “I hadn’t heard.”

“Yeah, right. And why should you, since you seem to have your own key.”

Fred thought for a moment. “I … accidentally forgot to return it. Last time I came out here. Come to think of it, I forgot my fishing pole, too.”

Mike grabbed the nearest chair and sat himself down in front of Fred. “Look, Fred—I’m going to make this easy for you. You’re not here for any officially authorized purpose. You’re here to hide. From the killer.”

Fred’s eyebrows twitched. “How did you know?”

“That reception you gave me was a pretty dead giveaway. You obviously weren’t expecting the Avon lady.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. Well—there’s been so much killing lately, you know, back in Oklahoma. A guy has to be careful.”

“Especially a guy who knows the killer personally.”

“You—” He stopped himself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fred, don’t make yourself look more pathetic than you already do.”

“I am not pathetic!” he said indignantly. “That’s what they all used to say. But I showed—” Once again he stopped, realizing his mouth had gotten the better of him.

“How about this, Fred? I’ll tell you everything I already know, just to get you started. Then all you have to do is fill in the blanks.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t—”

Mike held his finger up to his lips. “Shhh. Listen.” He pushed himself back up to his feet. “Many years ago, you and some of the other employees discovered you had a common passion. Fishing. Maybe you knew each other from the company cafeteria. Maybe you lived on the same block. Maybe you had some special kind or way of fishing you liked, I don’t know.”

Fred’s head was bowed. “Deep-sea fishing.”

“Ah. Which would explain why you came all the way out here. I’m guessing this went on for years, and a good time was had by all. A pleasant, mindless diversion. Until one day, you stumbled across Tony Montague.”

Fred’s resistance seemed to be fading. “Harvey was the one who got it started. He was the big organizer. Mr. Social Event. Blaylock’s Hookers, that’s what he liked to call us. He and Maggie had a thing going back then, before they both married other people. Even after they married, though, they still stayed friends. Fishing buddies. Thick and thin.”

“Untiiiilll …”

“Right. Until a dead man interrupted our lives, for barely more than half an hour. But after that, everything changed.”

It was after dark before Ben made it to the hospital, and visiting hours were almost over. He only had about twenty minutes with Mrs. Marmelstein before the nurses chased him out—twenty of the most unsatisfying minutes of his entire life. Mrs. Marmelstein was entirely blind now, and her hearing was far from perfect. Conversation was a chore, not a pleasure. Probably the only reason she put up with it was that she hoped he would have some news about her son. And he didn’t.

He couldn’t even get that right.

After Ben left her room, out in the hallway, he was met by Loving and Jones.

“Any word?” he asked Loving.

“No luck. Paulie won’t budge. Asshole.”

“Language,” Jones said, making a tsking noise. “Language.”

“When a guy won’t go see his own mother on her deathbed, I say he’s an asshole.” Obviously, this was something Loving felt strongly about. “Language or not.”

“Is there no chance?” Ben asked.

“Not unless you want me to go to New York and haul him back by force.”

It was tempting, but Ben suspected Loving probably would be arrested before he made it back. “I guess that’s it, then.”

Jones cleared his throat. “About … what happened in the courtroom today.”

“You’re not going to say, "I told you so," are you?”

“No,” Jones replied. “I’m not. I saw Cecily Elkins when she came back to the office and—” He pressed his lips together, plainly frustrated. “Look, Ben, I just wanted to say—I was wrong. Sure, maybe we lost and maybe we got cleaned out. But you did the right thing.”

“It’s nice of you to say that, Jones, but—”

“I mean it. Sure, I pinch pennies. That’s my job. But I know I’m free to pinch pennies, because in the end, you’ll do the right thing, whatever the cost.

“I appreciate this, Jones, but I know what I’ve done. I know what I’ve done to all of us.” He drew in his breath. “Is there anything left, back at the office?”

“Not much. I tried to get the sheriff to give us an extension until the verdict came back, but—” He drew up his shoulders and adopted a pitch-perfect imitation of Sheriff Conway’s voice. “Sorry, son, but the law is the law. For everyone.”

Ben nodded. “I’ll see you two later. Don’t expect me in the office tomorrow. Maybe not … for some time.”

“Ben.” Jones grabbed his arm. “Don’t beat yourself up like this. It isn’t your fault. You did everything you could. You have no reason to be depressed.”

“I lost, Jones. I lost, and I’m broke, and my landlady is dying. And I let down all those parents.” He shrugged Jones’s hand away. “They depended on me. And I let them down.”

“A
DEAD MAN ENTERED
your lives?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” Fred answered. He walked to the north side of the fishing cabin and fidgeted with the shabby drapes over the window. “A dead man named Tony Montague. A few of us, myself included, had known him before, but remember—we all thought he was dead. Even after Blaylock’s goons finally managed to track him down, they kept their discovery to themselves. One of the advantages of not reporting the theft to the police was that they had no need to make a report when they found him. Believe me, when I walked into this cabin and saw him, I just about lost it.”

“What was he doing here?”

“I think he just came to get away. He had to go somewhere, right? And there aren’t that many places for a man who’s officially dead to hang out. Didn’t have much money, either. Maybe Blaylock made this place available to him. At any rate, we didn’t know he’d be here—till we saw him.”

“So you found him after the Blaylock boys had recovered their money?”

“Ye-eah …” For some reason, the question seemed to make Fred uncomfortable.

“What kind of shape was he in?”

“Bad. He was dying. And he knew it.”

“Dying?”

“Yeah.” Fred pushed aside the drapes and gazed absently onto the placid waters of the gulf. “Heart attack. Not his first. He’d been under some major strain—and I don’t think he really wanted to live anymore. He could’ve called 911; he didn’t. When our little crew arrived, he was almost gone. He barely had enough time to tell us about the money.”

“The money? I thought Blaylock got it all back.”

A slow smile spread across Fred’s face. “That’s what he wanted them to think.”

After he finished feeding his cat, Ben crawled into bed and tried to pretend that he was interested in something on the television. It was hard work. He channel surfed for more than ten minutes, but nothing caught his attention.
Xena
was a rerun; Lifetime had Markie Post in yet another life-affirming drama as a struggling something-or-other. Was it possible Pamela Anderson Lee had another series?

He switched the box off. It wouldn’t have distracted him, anyway. No matter what he did, his mind kept coming back to the same thing. The Elkins trial. Which he’d lost.

The sad thing was, it really was his fault. This wasn’t just errant martyrdom; he knew this with absolute certainty. After all the time, money, and effort he’d expended trying to win over the jury, he’d forgotten one important detail—you also have to win over the judge. He tried to teach that to his law students; he forgot to teach it to himself. And that was why his clients went down in flames.

He’d forced himself to go out to Blackwood, even though it was the last thing on earth he wanted to do. Could any experience of his life have been more unpleasant than facing that sea of bereaved, stricken faces? What happened? they kept asking, over and over. How could this happen? Can the judge do that? They feigned indignation, but in truth, Ben knew they were wounded, each and every one of them, wounded to the core by the suggestion that the smartest, most educated man in the courtroom did not believe in them. That he would interfere and interrupt the whole process rather than let them prevail.

Ben tried to calm their fears and assuage their insecurities. We’ll appeal, he said—the eternal battle cry of the vanquished. That’s what they all say, right? Never mind that their chances of success were virtually nil. Never mind that he couldn’t afford a new trial even if he won it. He had to maintain some glimmer of hope. Even if his clients didn’t really believe it.

Even if he didn’t really believe it himself.

Ben’s cat, Giselle, padded into his bedroom. Apparently she’d finished her Feline’s Fancy; she had that slightly fishy cat food smell that initially had made Ben nearly vomit, but over time he’d sort of learned to like.

“C’mere, sweetie,” he said, patting the sheets.

She thought it over carefully for a few moments, then consented to join him. She snuggled up close, pressing her head against his hand.

“You’re easy enough, aren’t you?” Ben said as he stroked her head. “I feed you grossly overpriced cat food twice a day, put out water, wash you on occasion, and take you in twice a year for your shots. And you’re happy. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do for you.”

Giselle made a pleasant mewling sound.

“Thank goodness for you, anyway,” Ben said as he pulled her close. “You’re the only one I haven’t let down.”

Mark Austin sat alone on the veranda outside his room at the Riverside Apartments. It was a nice place, as apartments go. The view of the river was spectacular; he had to pay extra for it. The breeze was cool and the air was clean. No traces of carbon monoxide or refinery reek or other spoilers. He was nursing a tumbler of Courvoisier, his favorite overpriced indulgence. There had been a time when he couldn’t afford things like Courvoisier. But now he could, at least occasionally. Because now he was an all-important associate at the all-important firm of Raven, Tucker & Tubb. He was a litigator. He worked with Charlton Colby, the best trial lawyer in the state. It was the job he’d always dreamed of having.

So why was he so miserable?

He was glad they’d won, of course. Sympathetic as he was for those poor parents, he was still a litigator, and litigators like to win.

It was how they won that bothered him.…

From the outset, the interaction between Colby and Blaylock had given him the creeps. He didn’t know why, exactly. There was always a sense that there was more to their conversations than was immediately apparent, that there was a subtle subtext he didn’t comprehend, unspoken knowledge hidden just beneath the surface. And he hadn’t entirely approved of some of the tactics they’d used during the discovery period—threatening employees if they spoke out, rewarding them if they toed the company line. But they hadn’t actually done anything improper, hadn’t done anything hundreds of other lawyers haven’t done on a regular basis.

What was troubling him, then? Was it just wanton guilt? An inability to experience pleasure? Some childish sense that justice—whatever the hell that was—was being silenced?

He had tried to balance the equities once before, when he anonymously told that cop to “follow the money.” He didn’t know what Colby and Blaylock had been hinting about, but he figured if it had any relevance to the investigation, the cop would figure it out.

So hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he proved he was on the side of the angels, albeit somewhat secretly? What was it that kept gnawing away at his conscience?

Whatever it was, it was all summed up for him by that damned blue report. It had been Blaylock’s principal concern since the case began. Mark suspected he was more worried about the report getting out than he was about losing the case. What was in the thing? What evil truths lurked between those blue covers?