Benefit of the Doubt

by Neal Griffin

  Alex felt an anger like none she had ever experienced. She thought of her husband risking his life. Her son losing his mother. Her father alone. Alex lunged forward; her hands shot between the bars, and her fingernails connected with the flesh of McKenzie’s face. He sprang back, but not before she left a three-inch gouge in his cheek. “You bitch.”

  McKenzie wiped the blood from his face. “I don’t give a shit who killed your boyfriend, Alex, but within a week you’re going to be a murder convict. I figure your old man will last about a month in a state hospital. And that boy of yours, what’ll we do with him?”

  McKenzie’s loud voice grew maniacal, and Alex began to back away.

  “Maybe I can line up a foster family down on the east side of Chi-town. One of those big-city arrangements, with fourteen rug rats runnin’ around. He’ll have three or four brothers named Leroy and a couple little girlfriends who go by Shanana. He’ll be fine, don’t you think?”

  Alex put her hands over her ears and retreated to the corner of her cell. McKenzie gave a second swipe at the still oozing blood and once again approached the bars.

  “You’ll see, Alex. You’ll come around. Then maybe if you treat me right I’ll work out some special visiting arrangements for you and your boy.” McKenzie grabbed his crotch and winked. “But remember, degenerate piece of shit that I am, I don’t do nothin’ out of the goodness of my heart.”

  Alex sobbed, defeated. McKenzie threw his lit cigarette through the bars and headed for the exit. “Don’t forget. Court in the morning, Alex. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Standing in the darkness, Ben stared at the minivan’s rear tire, which was buried to the axle—and sinking in thick, oozing mud. The rain had started falling hard two hours earlier, making the already difficult road leading into the Nicolet National Forest even more treacherous, and now that narrow track was swallowing the minivan whole. Nine miles down the road sat a modest parcel of land that, according to the records at the county seat, was all that was left of the one-hundred-sixty-acre homestead that had been owned by the Lee family for three generations.

  The towering pines and hardwood trees of maple and hemlock were part of a vast forest that surrounded the roadway for thousands of acres in any direction. Looking again at the listing van, Ben realized he had no other alternative. He wrapped the forty-caliber and extra magazines in a sweatshirt, then tucked them into his backpack and strapped it on. He gingerly tested the leaf-strewn floor of a forest that had last been thinned by lumberjacks a hundred years ago and since then never altered in any substantial way. The surface felt slick, but he could keep his footing, and it seemed safer than the road. He patted the hood of the minivan as if saying farewell to a loyal horse, tightened the straps of his pack and headed into the forest at a fairly brisk pace, trying for a comfortable eight minutes per mile.

  He soon fell into a good rhythm. Deeper in the forest, the canopy of trees served as a roof and his footing became more solid. Feeling strong, he opened up his gait. He’d left Newberg forty hours before and driven close to seven hundred miles. After his run-in with the trooper, Ben had made his way back to Florence County using less-populated roads. He’d snuck into the library, a stone’s throw from the sheriff’s office, thirty minutes before closing and convinced the librarian on duty to give him an extra half hour after that. The one-room country library didn’t have computers, but Ben still knew how to work a microfiche.

  In that hour he found a brief newspaper account of a drug-related murder, and that led to a good bit of information about a young man named Harlan Lee. Sure enough, nearly eighteen years ago Lee had pleaded guilty to murder and been sentenced to twenty-five years. With time off for good behavior, Ben figured Harlan could be out by now. Ben also found the obituary for Harlan’s father, Jedidiah, who died several years after Harlan was locked away. County land records indicated there was a parcel of land a few miles south of the Michigan border that was owned by the Lee family. Ben imagined that would be the best place to look for Harlan Lee.

  In two days Ben had slept less than two hours, but fatigue was not a factor. His mind was clear and he’d get plenty of sleep if he ended up dead. But until then, there was work to do.

  An hour into his run, guided only by his instinct and the stars, Ben heard the sound of a revving engine. He stopped to listen more closely. By the sound of it, it was a truck, probably a four-by-four, and it was hard at work. The engine cut off. Silence, then the crack of gunfire from the same direction. One shot, a pause, then several more. Ben knew he was close to the scene. A few hundred yards away, maybe less.

  This is it, he thought. The confrontation was at hand. Ben hunkered low to the ground and headed toward the sounds of the battle.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  It had been thirty minutes since the exchange of gunfire. All man-made sounds had faded away, replaced by the night chorus of ten thousand types of wildlife and the residual rain hitting the canopy of trees a hundred feet over his head. Ben had been in the forest for over an hour, and his eyes had achieved a keen nocturnal dilation.

  The small house of stone and timber stood dark. Ben imagined the builder had intended it to last, and though long ignored, the structure stood firm in the deep uncharted forest that probably predated Columbus. With only the waning moon to betray his position, Ben crept close enough to the cabin to peer through one of its many broken windows. It was hard to make out anything in the dim interior.

  Ben climbed the three steps to the cabin entrance and pushed the door open, holding the trooper’s forty-caliber handgun at the ready and surveying the part of the room he could see from the doorway. There seemed to be no signs of recent human activity or occupation.

  He stepped fully into the small room and, in that instant, sensed movement behind him. Instinctively he spun to confront whoever it was, but the darkness was replaced by a brilliant light that burned away his night vision. A hard blow caught him in his chest, and Ben fell to the floor in a heap.

  The blinding light remained in his eyes, and a voice came from somewhere in the brightness. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on out here, but drop the piece.” The voice carried authority.

  Ben peered into the light, trying to shade his eyes with one hand, and caught a glimpse of a large figure. He slowly lowered his weapon to the floor; the light followed the gun. Though his vision was still light dazzled, Ben made out the shape of a man in uniform, the glint of metal on his chest.

  “Shove it away. Give it a good push.”

  Ben did as he was told. The gun skittered away and, by the sound of the impact, hit the cabin wall.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell ya now what,” the man said. “You’re going to tell me who the hell you are and what you have to do with this.”

  The flashlight beam shifted until it partially illuminated a dead man stretched out on the cabin floor. Ben’s eyes still burned, but he could see that a good amount of blood covered the wood plank floor. The dead man, dressed in a flannel shirt and trousers, had been stoutly built and well muscled. In the dim gray light, he could tell little more about the scene. He turned back to the man currently in charge.

  The man shifted and the white light once again shined in Ben’s face. Ben raised a hand to shield himself.

  “I’m Ben Sawyer. I got nothing on what happened here.”

  “Ben Sawyer.” From the man’s tone of voice, Ben felt that he was being studied. He knew he must look frightful—covered with fresh blood that still seeped from his head wound, soaked from old blood, sweat, and rain, pasty white with exhaustion. “You look like you’ve gone a few rounds. What brings you to the middle of nowhere?”

  Ben studied the other man, picking up on the brown uniform of county law enforcement. He had few reasons to trust a cop. “Am I under arrest, officer?”

  “Say what now?”

  “I said, am I under arrest? If I am, I’d like to know the charge and you can get me to an attorney.
”

  “You aren’t from around here, are you, Sawyer?”

  “Am I arrested or not?”

  The voice turned serious. “Let me tell you how it is. I’ll be damned if that son of a bitch right there, who by the way died at my hands in case you’re wondering whether or not I mean business, ain’t none other than Harlan Lee.

  “Harlan ain’t been seen around here for more than fifteen years. Last I heard he was doing life in the state penitentiary, but apparently there was a change in living arrangements and no one bothered to tell me. Then you come slinking in here armed with a hand cannon. I suppose I could probably just go ahead and oblige you, take your ass into custody until I figure it out.”

  Ben swallowed hard at the news that the dead man was Harlan Lee. Would he still be able to prove Alex’s innocence? His better judgment and instinct still told him not to trust the cop, but sooner or later, Ben knew, he had to rejoin the world of law and order. He squinted into the dark, trying to see his captor. “You’re a deputy, I take it?”

  “Sheriff, actually. Sheriff Scott Jamison, Florence County.”

  Ben cringed, remembering McKenzie’s reference to his friendship with Jamison.

  “Sheriff Jamison.” With his head, Ben motioned to the body. “You say you know this guy? This is Harlan Lee?”

  “Don’t work that way, Sawyer. I ask the questions. I know that comes off like TV bullshit, but it’s true.”

  Ben ignored the comment. “But you say this man is Harlan Lee?”

  Jamison didn’t bite and waggled his gun barrel. “On your feet. My patrol truck is parked up the road. You can sit there while I get some deputies out here to sort through this shit.”

  “All right, Sheriff,” Ben said. He decided to share a few more facts. “My name is Ben Sawyer. I’m a police sergeant out of Newberg down in Waukesha County. I’ve been investigating a string of murders that I think Lee was probably responsible for. One was a cop killed in Danville, Illinois. A second cop got shot. She works for me.” Ben was hoping that would be enough.

  “You sure you ain’t the Lone Ranger? A cop from Newberg coming all the way out here to investigate crimes that occurred in another state?”

  “You’re right, that doesn’t sound very good,” Ben admitted. “A civilian was murdered down in Newberg, and my wife has been arrested for it. Long story, but I’ve got reason to believe Harlan Lee did the killing and is trying to put it on her. A friend of mine from the PD started asking questions. She wound up shot in Danville.”

  Jamison gave up nothing. “Go on.”

  “Bill Petite? You might know him—used to be the district attorney here in Florence County. He’s locked up in Red Cliff for killing a woman, his girlfriend or something. I’m betting Harlan was good for that one too.”

  “Yeah, I heard about Petite. Did strike me as odd,” Jamison said. “Especially when you put it in with everything else.”

  “Everything else?” Ben glanced away, then back into the light. He could barely make out Jamison, who seemed to be leaning casually against a wooden table, his gun held at the low ready.

  “I mean not only Petite but also Henry Lipinski. Former sheriff of Florence County. My predecessor, you might say. Lipinski is the one who ran the scam on Harlan all those years ago.”

  Ben stared blankly at him. His dumbfounded expression must have amused Jamison, who gave a short laugh and continued. “Damn, Sawyer, I thought you were the hotshot Lone Ranger. Don’t you even know what this shit is all about? If you want to put all this on Lee, you need to get your facts straight.”

  “Sorry, Sheriff,” Ben said. “Fill me in.”

  “Back about twenty years ago, Jedidiah Lee owned a hundred sixty acres of land in the big woods. This cabin sits right about in the middle of what was the Lee homestead for more than a hundred years. I guess you could say old Jed took advantage of the remoteness of his surroundings.

  “He was known to cultivate a crop that was in very high demand by some of the folks around the state. The law—that would be the fella named Lipinski—didn’t have a problem with what Jed was growing, but he didn’t like that Jed wouldn’t cut him in on it. Time came when Lipinski and some of his crooked friends decided Jed needed to be brought to heel. They decided to hit Jed where it would hurt him the most.”

  Jamison’s demeanor had changed when he’d begun the story. Ben heard strong emotion in his voice, slowly building anger.

  “Lipinski waited until Jed’s son, Harlan, took a load of product downstate, then got into cahoots with some of his ass-bag associates down in your neck of the woods. Newberg PD pulled Harlan over on a traffic stop and planted evidence on him from a homicide case—the weapon used to kill some small-time dope dealer from just outside of Tipler, more than a hundred miles away.”

  Jamison snorted. “As if Harlan would give two shits about how that boy worked his crop. Anyway, they used that trumped-up bullshit to search the Lees’ cabin, where they found more so-called evidence, not to mention a hundred-plus acres of mature marijuana plants.”

  Ben asked, “What happened after that?”

  “Lipinski burned the grow and arrested Harlan for murder. The boy said he’d take his chances on a trial. But when Lipinski threatened to charge the old man in federal court with drug manufacturing, cultivation, distribution…” Ben heard pity in Jamison’s voice.

  “Suffice it to say the old man would’ve died in prison. Harlan took a plea, got twenty-five to life.”

  “And Jedidiah?”

  “Sold off most of the homestead trying to buy off Lipinski. Trying to get his boy an early out. Tried up until the day he died. Here in this cabin.”

  Ben studied the face that remained a shadowy outline. “So what about Lipinski?”

  The sheriff laughed. The force of it shifted the light to the ceiling for a moment, allowing Ben his first good look at the man. “He got himself arrested. Just like Petite. Turns out he was a freak for kiddie porn.”

  It struck Ben as interesting the sheriff didn’t know of Lipinski’s alleged suicide.

  “Wasn’t there some guy down in Danville?” Ben asked. “Named Donaldson?”

  “Yeah. If memory serves, Donaldson was the snitch who claimed Harlan confessed to the killing while they were locked up together. It was just more bullshit the cops came up with to make sure Harlan didn’t weasel out from under the murder rap.

  “So you say your wife is hooked up for a killing down in Newberg. Is she related to that lying sack of shit Lars Norgaard? Word is that old bastard stroked out.”

  “Mind if I stand up, Sheriff?” Ben asked, stroking the back of his swollen scalp.

  The voice came out of the light smooth as polished metal. “Why not? Nobody here but us cops.”

  Ben stood, wavering on his feet, and reached for a heavy wooden chair to steady himself. “Whew. Feels like I’ve been run over by a truck. Talk about your crooked cops, I didn’t even tell you about the run-in I had with a Wisconsin state trooper. I tell you, Sheriff, it’s been a hell of a day.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” Jamison’s voice tightened. “Tell me, Sawyer. What led you to Harlan? How’d you figure he was good for all this?”

  Ben’s pulse picked up; he let adrenaline flood his body but took measures to give no outward signs. He allowed himself one last look at the body laid out nearby, not surprised to see that the man who had been identified as Harlan Lee, wore green uniform trousers and an unbuttoned flannel shirt.

  “Funny how that came about, Sheriff,” he said, then dropped his voice and added, “Guess I’d better sit down. Still feeling a little groggy.”

  He pulled on the chair as if to sit, then swung it into the light.

  Gun and light both fell to the ground. Ben heard the glass bulb break. Blackness swallowed the room so suddenly that Ben felt a wave of vertigo and tilted on his feet. The other man was unaffected and leaped onto Ben, propelling him into the sharp corner of a beam. Hot pain shot through his body and he would have fallen if not for the
other man’s boxer’s grasp.

  Ben pushed off and tried to ready himself.

  Two stinging blows struck his jaw; a third went to his cheek, and when Ben tried to strike back he caught nothing but black air. A fist smashed his ear, knocking him to his knees. A kick to the side of his head grounded him, and Ben struggled to remain conscious. He made out the shape of a boot coming toward his head. He managed to deflect the blow and heard his opponent hit the ground. Ben was on him in an instant.

  Unseen hands and fists smashed hard against his body and head. Ben pressed himself against his opponent’s chest; the awkward angle made the man’s blows glance off and largely ineffective. Ben’s thumb found his opponent’s eye socket and dug in deep. Both the man’s hands grabbed at Ben’s arm, but he managed to push deeper and felt the eye muscle grip and moisten his thumb.

  Ben took two more blows to the chin, but he kept working the man’s eye, pushing his thumb deeper. He used his other hand to deliver a blow to his enemy’s mouth, then struck him repeatedly about the face and head. Sure now of their relative positions, Ben used both hands to clamp down on the neck, concentrating on his windpipe. The ridges and the circular muscles were pronounced under the pressure of his grip.

  He squeezed harder, compressing it completely. The blows directed at his body and face grew weaker, became nothing more than flaying slaps of a desperate and dying man. This was it. This was his moment. Ben bore down, held tight, and did his best to strangle the life out of Harlan Lee.

  FIFTY-NINE

  At one minute past eight A.M., McKenzie strode into the county jail intake area. He let his hand drift to his pocket as reassurance. Yep, still there. The handmade shank was fashioned from a toothbrush, tape, and a blade from a discarded box cutter. McKenzie had made it himself and felt proud of the authentic nature of the weapon. The shank, plus the testimony of an inmate who would swear she sold it to Alex Sawyer earlier in the morning, was all McKenzie would need. He just had to be sure to get it deep enough into his gut that everyone would agree he had no other option but to shoot the fleeing murder suspect. It would be one Sawyer down, two to go.