Justifiable Means

by Terri Blackstock

“I didn’t want him to think I was overqualified!”

  “But you were overqualified, Melissa. Why would you take a job like that in the same place where your sister’s rapist worked?”

  “Because I didn’t know he was there!”

  “According to your FBI supervisor, you did know. That’s the kind of information you got off their computer.”

  She turned and began walking again, then, sobbing, she began to run. Larry kept up with her.

  “Melissa, I have to know the truth. I’ve fought for you. I’ve defended you. I’ve taken care of you. Now you have to be straight with me!”

  He grabbed her arm, stopping her, and she swung around to face him. Her face was raging red, and she smeared the tears on her face. “All right!” she shouted. “I did know he worked there. I did have a plan. I wanted to be where he was so I could watch him. No one else was doing it! I wanted to keep him from hurting anyone else!”

  Trying to catch his breath, Larry took a step back and let her go. “Then why did you lie?”

  “Because I knew what conclusions you’d jump to! I knew that you’d believe I set him up. I never dreamed he’d come after me, Larry. I thought I could take care of myself. I thought I was smarter than he was.”

  He remembered the classes he’d seen lined up on her transcript. “You do know how to defend yourself, Melissa. You don’t get a law enforcement degree without that.”

  That guarded look returned, and more tears.

  “Why didn’t you use it on him?”

  “He took me by surprise,” she said. “I panicked. He had a knife.”

  Larry dropped his hands helplessly to his sides. “Melissa, someone heard you invite him over for dinner that night.”

  Crying harder, she turned away, shaking her head, one hand cupped against her forehead. After a moment, she turned back. “Larry, you saw me after it happened. You gathered the evidence. Are you trying to tell me you believe that I set all this up?”

  “I think you could have,” Larry admitted. “And I’m not sure I could even blame you. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing, if I’d lost a sister because of some maniac.”

  “You think I’m lying.”

  He fought the tears coming to his own eyes, and looked out over the water again. The sun was directly overhead. “I don’t know what to think, Melissa. I’m not judging you. I just have to know what really happened.”

  “I can’t believe this!” She brought both hands to her head now, crying harder. “You’re going to do it again, aren’t you? You’re going to let him go! It doesn’t matter that he’s followed me, broken into my house, threatened to kill me—you’re going to let him keep walking free so that he can rape more women! How could you?”

  One part of him wanted to shout that he couldn’t, to pull her into his arms and hold her until her crying subsided. But that other part, that part that had been a cop for too long, that part that had sworn to uphold the law, battled with him. “Melissa,” he said, his voice growing raspy with emotion, “if you set him up, you’re denying his civil rights. That’s a crime, too.”

  “As much a crime as rape?” she screamed. “What about my rights, Larry? What about my sister’s rights, or the other woman he raped? Why is it that all anybody cares about is that monster’s rights to go out and terrorize to his heart’s content, over and over and over?” She dropped back onto the sand and covered her face with her hands, and Larry sat beside her.

  After a moment of watching her cry, he put his arm around her and pulled her against him. She shook with the strength of her weeping, soaking his shirt, but he didn’t care. He could understand some of what she felt. But he wasn’t sure that understanding would change anything.

  “Melissa, I’m not the only one asking questions,” he whispered. “Tony’s a good cop. A go-by-the-book detective, like me. I took a vow to uphold the law—and that means never covering up a violation of it, even when there was a good reason for it.”

  “So what do you want to do, Larry? See me go to jail? Is that what this is about? Put the victim in jail, so the criminal won’t be harassed anymore? Some justice.”

  “No, of course that’s not what I want. I just want the truth.”

  “The truth is that Edward Pendergrast is a malicious, brutal rapist and that he deserves to live the rest of his life in prison. That’s the only truth I care about, Larry. Please don’t help him get out of this.”

  That answer didn’t satisfy him. He needed more than a rationale—he needed an honest denial. But he had pushed it as far as he could, considering that there was still a part of him that didn’t want to know the truth if the truth would hurt Melissa Nelson.

  “I need to go,” she said, wiping her face and getting to her feet.

  “We didn’t eat,” he said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He got up then, brushing the sand off his pants. She didn’t say a word as they walked back to the office.

  The silence was devastating. Larry was afraid that this good thing, the thing he had thought was a gift, was fast being taken from him, and he didn’t know what to do. He’d never been so confused.

  When they reached the building, she went in without a word, without a backward glance. And Larry, feeling more dismal than he’d ever felt, went back to his car, trying to decide where he would go from here.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The building was hazy with smoke, and some wailing country song blared on the juke box. At the bar, several cops from Larry’s precinct sat over their beers, commiserating about the day’s events. Larry spotted Tony among them and wondered once again what his partner saw in this place.

  He cut through the happy-hour crowd and reached Tony at the bar. The bartender looked up. “What’ll you have?”

  “Nothing,” Larry said. “I’m not staying.”

  Tony glanced up at him. “Must be good, to get you in here.”

  “I was looking for you,” Larry said. “What do you say we go have a bite? Talk.”

  Tony reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of bills, and tossed them on the bar. Then, bidding good-bye to some of the others, he followed Larry outside.

  The fresh air washed over them, and Larry took a deep breath. “That’s real similar to how I picture hell,” he said.

  Tony chuckled. “You know what they say. One man’s heaven—”

  “They don’t say that,” Larry said irritably. “No one ever said that.”

  Tony got into the passenger side of Larry’s car and waited for his partner to get in. “So what’s going on?” Tony asked as Larry slipped behind the wheel. “I waited for you to come back all afternoon. Where were you?”

  “I had some thinking to do,” Larry said. “You could have reached me if you needed to.”

  Tony kept his eyes on his partner. “Did you talk to her?”

  Larry didn’t answer right away. Instead, he cranked the car and pulled out into traffic. For a moment, he was quiet.

  “Bad news?”

  Larry hesitated, then said, “Just suppose—”

  Tony moaned. “Larry, police work is not about supposing.”

  “Yes, it is. To get where we’re going, we have to start somewhere. Just suppose that Melissa did lie about part of it.”

  “All right. Which part?”

  “Well, maybe she did know that Pendergrast worked there. Maybe she deliberately got a job there so she could watch him, follow him, that kind of thing. Maybe she figured she could put her law enforcement know-how to work.”

  “So her job was sort of like an undercover detective?”

  “Yeah. Only she was her own client.”

  Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what she told you?”

  “I told you, this is supposing. Can you just suppose for a minute?”

  “All right,” Tony said. “I’m listening.”

  “Suppose it backfired, and Pendergrast came after her. She expected to be able to defend herself if that happened, but she fro
ze. This man, who had terrorized her sister and her family, who had become this huge monster in her mind, finally came after her, and she couldn’t use any of what she knew.”

  “She knew she shouldn’t shower. But she did. How do you explain that?”

  “Trauma,” Larry said, his face turning red. “Maybe she was so traumatized—”

  “She wasn’t too traumatized to tell us details about Pendergrast, where we could find the evidence we needed, and what we needed to do to make sure he didn’t get off on a technicality.”

  Larry got quiet again.

  “Besides, Larry, when she testified before that grand jury, she didn’t tell them any of what you’re suggesting. She never said he was the one who had raped her sister. She never said she had hunted him down to catch him at something.”

  “She wasn’t asked, Tony. If this is what happened, she didn’t lie on the witness stand. No felony was committed.”

  “No, it wasn’t. If this is what happened. But if it’s not—if she wasn’t really raped, if she really set out to set him up by claiming he did, then she did lie. Did you talk to her or not?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “And?”

  “And I believe in my heart that he attacked her. I believe that she is telling the truth about that. And if she only lied about the other part, I guess the question is, what difference does it make? She wasn’t under oath when she talked to us about her job and how she got it. She was afraid of how it would look to us if we knew the truth. She knew how apt we were to blame the victim.”

  “You should start writing screenplays, man. You’ve got a great imagination.”

  Larry slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Why couldn’t it have happened that way? Why are you so intent on making her out to be the criminal here?”

  “And why are you so dead set on defending her?”

  “Because I don’t think she’d lie to me, Tony. I think when it came right down to it, she couldn’t do it.”

  “She already lied to you, Larry. More than once. How do you know this latest story is the truth? I told you she was manipulating you. What did she do, Larry? Tell you she’s in love with you? Make you think that you have a future with her, if you just overlook the obvious?”

  “No!” Larry shouted. “As a matter of fact, she isn’t even speaking to me right now!”

  “Good. Maybe you’ll have time to get your head clear.”

  Larry turned his car around and headed back to the bar where he’d found Tony. Pulling back into the parking space in front, he waited for him to get out.

  “You’re not going to let this woman ruin our partnership, are you?”

  Larry didn’t even look at his best friend. “That’s up to you, man.”

  Without another word, Tony got out of the car and slammed the door behind him.

  Justice, Melissa thought. Everything she’d done had been done in the name of justice. She lay in her bed in Lynda Barrett’s house that night, staring at the ceiling and wondering what Larry was going to do next. Would he turn her in? Would he make her out to be the criminal, just because she had tried to set things right when no one else had cared? The police had let Sandy down, and then the court system had made a mockery out of the whole ordeal. They had torn the heart out of her sister, leaving her without even the will to live.

  So Melissa had taken matters into her own hands. She had tried to provide justice when no one else was offering any. But they would never understand.

  She got up and went to the glass doors overlooking the patio, and stared out into the night. Lynda and Jake had gone to a movie, and they weren’t home yet. They had invited her, but she’d been too upset. This was eating at her, just as it was eating at Larry.

  He had wanted her to go to church with him. Was that because he knew how far she’d drifted from God?

  She stared up at the stars, searching them, as though she could see God’s face, angry and dark, looking down at her. Shivering, she closed the curtains and went back to bed.

  But she couldn’t hide from him, and her sins shone out like neon signs under God’s heaven.

  She’d read, many times before, “‘Vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord.” But she hadn’t trusted his vengeance, so she’d tried to provide it herself. Now she could neither face God nor hide from him. Now, when she needed him most. Now, when she was most afraid.

  She hugged herself and hunched over, crying again. There had been a time when she could pray as if Christ sat in the room next to her, and he would answer. He had always answered. But after Edward Pendergrast stalked and terrorized her sister, Melissa’s prayers had been answered with “No.” At least, it had seemed that way. Pendergrast had simply walked away from punishment; what kind of vengeance was that? God had not struck him dead, or made sure that he was locked up. Sandy had been the one to die, instead.

  She lay back on the bed, balled up and crying into the pillow. Would God ever forgive her for not trusting him, for taking things into her own hands?

  Then she heard, whispering in the back of her mind, the question that reached to the root of the problem. Was she sorry? Would she repent?

  No, she thought, sitting up suddenly and wiping her tears away. No, she couldn’t repent. She couldn’t face the consequences of that choice.

  Nor, she realized, could she face having Larry turn her in. But if she left things as they had been this afternoon, he might. She needed to do something.

  Maybe, if she just explained to him what she had done and why, he would understand. Maybe he would see that she was right to do what she’d done, and that he had to keep quiet and let things run their course.

  Maybe he would even protect her.

  Trying to calm herself, she stumbled to the phone and dialed his number.

  “Hello?” His voice was deep, quiet, distant.

  “Larry?” Her voice broke, and she tried to get control. “Larry, it’s Melissa. I was wondering . . . could you come over here? To Lynda’s? I really need to talk to you.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I’ll be right over,” he said finally.

  She hung up and got dressed again, then sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Please, God, let him understand, she prayed, but then she realized the absurdity of her prayer. Even God didn’t understand. She couldn’t call on him to be her ally now.

  Maybe he had turned his back on her forever.

  I need you, anyway, Lord, her heart cried out. Can you forgive me if I don’t repent?

  The answer was clear, inscribed deeply into her heart from years of Sunday school as a child. God only required two things of his sinners. Confession and repentance. It was a simple thing, yet it had never held such dire consequences. She couldn’t confess it to God, because if she repented, Pendergrast would walk. Instead, she would confess it to Larry, hoping to make him see the necessity in what she’d done.

  Tell him the truth, explain it all—since he’d already figured it out anyway—and plead with him to keep quiet. He had feelings for her, she knew, just as she had feelings for him. Maybe he would support and protect her.

  Before long, she heard his car in the driveway and met him at the door. Though Lynda had stressed over and over that she wanted Melissa to make herself at home, Melissa didn’t feel right bringing her own company into the home when Lynda wasn’t there. So she led him back to the patio and sat down across from him, aware of the look of anticipation in his eyes, the look of hope, as if he expected her to tell him the magic words that would make this whole nasty mess go away.

  “I couldn’t just leave all this hanging,” she said finally, looking down at her trembling hands. “Too much isn’t adding up, and you’re not stupid. Neither is Tony.”

  She saw the look of dread fall like a shadow over his face, then she looked away as she said, “You were right. I did know that Pendergrast worked at Proffer Builders. I did deliberately seek him out.”

  Larry opened his mouth, instinctively wanting to help her, to give her an easy out, to te
ll her that he believed that she had been working “undercover” to catch Pendergrast at something, and that her plan had backfired when Pendergrast came after her. There had been a rape, and she had not been able to defend herself. Those facts would mean that she hadn’t lied to the grand jury, and she would be cleared. But Larry the cop couldn’t suggest those facts. Because if they weren’t the truth, it would offer her another lie. She had to say it on her own. Please say it, he thought.

  “I couldn’t believe it when they let him go, Larry, and he still knew where Sandy lived, and he was calling her and our parents and saying things . . . Oh, we couldn’t prove it was him, but we knew. And Sandy lived in fear. She saw him in crowds, in traffic, in every public place she ever went. And at night, she’d lie awake, listening for him. I don’t think she had one good night’s sleep after her rape.” She stopped, tried to compose herself, then went on. “I found her on a Thursday afternoon, in the bathtub. It was . . . the most awful . . . sight I’ve ever seen. For six months, I was a basket case. I stayed out of school for a whole year, just grieving and trying to cope with what I’d seen. It still haunts me.”

  She looked fully at him now, saw the mist of tears in his eyes. “Larry, I had to do something. I promised her that day, as I sat there holding her limp hand while I waited for the ambulance.” She breathed in a sob, and tried again. “I told her that if it was the last thing I ever did, I’d see that man behind bars for the rest of his life. And I set out to do just that.”

  She still hadn’t incriminated herself, Larry thought. It could still turn out to be what he’d suggested to Tony. It could still be something he could deal with. He waited.

  “But Pendergrast disappeared. Just moved one day, and left no forwarding address. I didn’t know where he’d gone, and neither did anyone else. It was time for me to go back to school, so I changed my major to the thing that interested me the most—not because of the nobility of the profession, but because it failed so often. I wanted to find out why, and how those failures could be avoided. I knew that I’d get him one day, and when I did, I wanted the system to work. I couldn’t allow any mistakes.”