Primary Justice

by Dave Conifer

  “I’m just glad to get all this out in the open. Rip Mankato hated me,” Gail reminded everybody. “He tried for a long time to get my kids and when he couldn’t, he hated me even more.”

  “It’s like the Alfred Hitchcock movie where the two guys agree to kill each other’s wives,” Joanie said.

  “Except these aren’t two strangers,” Bismarck said. “But I think it still works.”

  “Were they strangers in the movie?” Joanie asked.

  “It works, but they need a fall guy,” Willmar said. “Somebody has to take the rap for whatever they decide to do. That’s where Billy comes in. Maybe Mankato says ‘I know somebody we can pin both these things on.’ You can figure out the rest.”

  “Spell it out anyway,” Morris said.

  “Okay, sure,” Willmar answered. “Somehow they get Eileen and Billy together because they need his DNA on her.”

  “How do they do that?” Bismarck asked. “What’s in it for her?”

  “I’m not sure,” Willmar admitted. “Maybe Minot told her he’d marry her if she did one last thing for him. Maybe somebody told her she could get revenge on Minot by getting mixed up with a guy like Billy.”

  “It could be anything, but you’re just guessing here,” Morris said. “I don’t buy it. A pregnant woman doesn’t let anybody send her into a bar looking for a one-night stand. It doesn’t pass the BS test.”

  “I agree, Kevin,” Willmar said. “And just for the record, I don’t believe she was pregnant. Even the sister said she didn’t know it for sure. But just knowing that he has a mistress out there is enough, pregnant or not. If she talks, he’s sunk. Bye bye, Governor’s Mansion. There’s motive. Can we all agree on that?”

  “I just don’t see why she’d do it,” Morris said.

  “Who cares why she’d do it, if we know she did?” Willmar asked. “Minot wants her gone, he gets it done and Billy took the fall for it. What else matters?”

  “It’s crazy,” Bismarck said, “”But it sure sounds like the way it turned out.”

  “Her sister said Eileen wasn’t herself at the time,” Willmar said. “She’d always been down to earth and sensible, but all of a sudden she was erratic. Unpredictable. A completely different person. Is it possible they’d been drugging her? Maybe that was how they talked her into it. I’m just guessing. All I know is that it looks like she played ball and it. And we’re talking about some messed up people. This Rip Mankato was a monster. Everything I know about him and Minot tells me they’d do something like this.”

  Nobody spoke, so he continued. “So after Eileen and Billy are together, they grab Eileen, knock her on the head and put her body under that bridge. No marks or injuries except for her crushed skull. It’s right there, on paper. I’m surprised they didn’t doctor up the reports better about the injuries, because that’s a dead giveaway. She wasn’t thrown off that bridge the way they claimed. She was already dead when they carried her down and left her.”

  “Then the super cop with x-ray eyes shows up,” Fargo said bitterly. “He’s on the Trenton side of the fuckin’ bridge, in the middle of the night, but somehow he sees the body on the Pennsylvania side, under the bridge in the rocks.”

  “Wouldn’t drugs have shown up in reports?” Bismarck asked.

  “In a regular case? Sure. But this isn’t a regular case. Who knows how much tampering there was. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  “You’d think somebody would remember something,” Bismarck said.

  “It’s not that important a case, except to us. And it was a strange night. Remember, Colfax has already had a busy night working his miracles. Happened to be the first responder at the fire in Ewing, then he went and found that body. Later he tells the grand jury that he saw Billy driving away from the house in the same van that this guy,” Willmar said as he pointed at Morris, “says was the one involved in the drive-by shooting that made the house explode.”

  “I never said for sure that it was Billy in the van,” Morris said. “They asked me if it could have been, and I said it could have. That’s all I ever said. I never said for sure it was Billy.”

  “I saw some reports,” Willmar said. “That house was rigged with an ammonium nitrate bomb. Part of the house was completely incinerated, but the rest of it’s still there. In fact, Gail moved back in after it was repaired. It wasn’t any ordinary fire, like they told everybody. It was a carefully planned bombing. Now, of course they somehow knew to go straight to Billy’s place. After they grabbed him, supposedly for the rape, they just happened to find a bomb lab in his apartment. Ammonium nitrate all over the place.”

  “Like I even knew what that was,” Fargo said. “They didn’t find shit there except what they put there themselves.”

  “They needed the law to put in the fix,” Bismarck said. “Is one cop enough?”

  “When it’s a guy like Billy, it is,” Willmar said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Billy. But if this is somebody who could afford a decent lawyer, somebody that a judge actually gave a crap about, all these obvious questions would have been asked and they couldn’t have pulled it off. That’s why they thought of Billy in the first place. He never had a chance. He’s completely defenseless. Hell, Billy himself will tell you he hadn’t been sober for months when this happened. He was an easy mark. He didn’t have a friend anywhere near the court, and they knew it. Whoever it was that set this up, well, they’re smart people who know how things work.”

  “The cop played along because he was promised all those promotions, right?” asked Bismarck. “And he got ‘em.”

  “Yes he did,” Willmar said. “Trooper Colfax rode this all the way to where he is now, a big cheese in New Jersey Homeland Security. Thanks to an appointment from Governor Minot.”

  “What do you think, Morris?” asked Bismarck. “Enough for you?”

  “Look, I’m not a crazy Minot head. I don’t know why you’re getting on me about this. I voted for him. That’s all.”

  “You’re the only guy here who doesn’t hate the man,” Bismarck said. “So what do you think?”

  “It looks pretty bad,” he agreed. “But just so you know, I never said it was Billy at the fire.”

  “I believe every friggin’ word of it,” Fargo said. “I said I was framed all along. But there’s one thing I never understood. Why would they do it all the same night?”

  “Maybe that was the only night they could rent the cop,” Bismarck said.

  “Maybe,” Willmar said. “But I think there’s more to it than that. The night was carefully planned that way for a reason. Think of it this way – there were going to be two murders that night, but only one fall guy. They had to make it look like he did both. So even when he gets nailed for what happened to Eileen, they spread it around that he’s also the guy who burned that house. And if he didn’t get convicted for one, he’d get convicted for the other. They probably didn’t know or care which one they’d get him on, as long as he gets blamed for both. See? It’s a perfect plan. He gets nailed for one crime and nobody tries to solve the other one since they’re telling everybody he did that, too.”

  “Especially when the fall guy is somebody that nobody gives a shit about,” Bismarck said.

  “Right. Don’t forget, if he was already in custody for one of the crimes,” Willmar added, “he couldn’t be a suspect for the other if it happened later, could he? It had to be all on the same night.”

  “Billy didn’t do time for murder,” Morris pointed out. “Just rape.”

  “So what? Is that all you got?” Bismarck demanded.

  Morris shrugged. “Yeah, that’s all I got. And I’m not the enemy here.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?” Bismarck asked. “Can Billy just stay lost? Is it all over if we just drop it?”

  “I can’t know for sure,” Willmar said. “But I doubt it. There’s a warrant out for his arrest. Sooner or later they’ll find him and act on it. It didn’t help that he bucked parole and fled. If I was a betting
man? I’d bet they’ll put him on trial for murdering Gail’s girls if they get him. That’s why the probation officer was calling him in that day. He was going back to jail, where nobody’s going to hear anything he says. Same as the last eleven years,” he added, glancing at Fargo.

  “That sucks balls!” Gail said, causing everybody to snicker. “I know he didn’t do it!”

  “It’s not up to you,” Willmar said. “It’s up to the state of New Jersey. And right now it appears that the people we’re up against are the ones who’ll make the call.”

  “That one part’s a sticking point,” Bismarck said. “The campaign worker. Why would she help frame Billy? What’s in it for her? Especially if she was pregnant.”

  “I don’t know yet,” Willmar answered. “I was about to get into that with her sister yesterday when the cops showed up and staked out my truck. That’s when I got on the river and hauled ass.”

  “I’m glad I gave the cats some extra food,” Joanie said. “Sounds like we’re going to be here a while.”

  “So what are we gonna do? You got any ideas?” Bismarck asked again.

  “Yeah I got a few. Want to hear them?”

  ~~~

  Colfax had to stifle his laughter as he watched Senator Ron Marshall try to glad-hand Minot when the two exchanged positions on the stage. He knew Minot hated Marshall, a thirty-year senator from Georgia who, as a Washington insider, represented everything that Minot often railed against. The brief handshake and Minot’s indifference were so noticeable that Colfax wondered if the press would pick up on it. They noticed everything. They had to. How else could they fill page after page with their bullshit campaign stories?

  Once Minot was backstage, he spotted Colfax and made his way through the hordes as quickly as he could without putting off the local politicians that filled the room. “Anything new?” he asked in a hushed tone.

  “Nothing,” Colfax said. “No sign of any of them. They could be anywhere in the country by now.”

  “You almost make that sound like a good thing, but it isn’t.”

  “Maybe it is,” Colfax said. “Maybe they’re scared and they just want to go away. Which is just what we want.”

  “We can’t take a chance,” Minot said firmly. “We committed to this a long time ago, Colfax. You and me both. I want them found.”

  “It’s not as easy as it sounds.”

  “But you can do it. And once you find them, let me know. I’ll take it from there.” Minot’s campaign team had finally found him and was approaching fast. They’d come to whisk him to his next appearance. This meeting was over. “I’m not letting a bunch of punks stop me. It’s all for the greater good. Don’t forget that.” Colfax found himself wondering if Minot had been this crazy all along. Crazy with ambition. Maybe he thinks the same thing about me. Am I crazy too? How did I ever buy into this?

  ~~~

  “It’s worth a shot,” Fargo said. “Damn well worth it from where I’m at. But I got nothin’ to lose. It seems pretty risky for you all. I don’t feel so good about you stickin’ your necks out.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Willmar said. “I don’t like what these people are up to. Not at all. I’m in. And we picked a pretty good day to do it.”

  “Me too,” Bismarck said. “So when do we start?”

  “Right now,” Willmar answered. “Anybody got a phone?”

  -- Chapter 20 --

  Ryne Colfax had a sick feeling in his stomach after taking the call while on his way back to the office after the backstage meeting with Minot. Until then he’d planned on a long, uneventful ride on the New Jersey Turnpike, getting to the office in West Orange by mid-afternoon. The phone call changed everything. He got off the turnpike at exit 8 near Hightstown and headed west. You live in New Jersey? What exit? Normally when he was on the turnpike he cracked himself up by repeating that infamous but hilarious Joe Piscopo line, but not this time. There was too much else on his mind.

  The caller hadn’t identified himself, and caller ID was no help either. What the caller had said, however, was that there was going to be an important meeting at three o’clock that afternoon, and Colfax had to be there. When Colfax had asked, the caller had told him that “the governor” would absolutely be there as well.

  Colfax guessed that the man on the phone was one of the roughnecks that Minot had been using for his dirty work, dirtier even than what he used Colfax for. He wanted no part of any meeting with these types. He didn’t even want to be in the same building. It was crossing a line. But if Minot was going to be there, well, that made it sound mandatory. In a way the impromptu meeting was a blessing, because he’d already made an important decision between exits 2 and 8 before the call came in. This would be the perfect time to tell Minot that it was all over between them. It was going to be difficult. Minot wasn’t going to take it well, and he knew he’d better be prepared for the threats. Or worse. But at least he could get over with.

  ~~~

  Early in the afternoon Fargo and Morris sat in silence in the main room of the cabin, while Gail and Joanie gabbed at the table in the kitchen. Bismarck passed through several times on his way to and from the front porch, where Willmar was camped out with a cell phone and a few files. It was cold on the porch, cold enough to hurt, but he was out there anyway so nobody could hear what he was doing. Something was up, and it had all started with Willmar’s phone calls. Morris didn’t seem to know any more than Fargo did, and Bismarck didn’t look like he was interested in sharing what knew. Whatever was going to happen, Fargo didn’t think it would be long before it started. To pass the time, he got up and walked into the kitchen.

  “Can I see that dairy farm note again?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Gail answered. “Did I put it away?” She rummaged through her purse and dug out an oversized wallet, which she pawed through.

  “Are those your girls?” Joanie asked when a strip of photographs bounced out like an accordion. “They’re beautiful, Gail.”

  Not anymore, Fargo thought. They been food for worms for a long time now.

  Without a word Gail detached the pictures from her wallet and passed them across the table to Joanie.

  Fargo cursed himself. He hated when his mind popped off like that. Prison had made him a hard man. “They were great girls,” he said, trying to cancel out the bad karma. “I remember them like it was yesterday, even though I was drunk most of the time.” He fingered the envelope and the words that had been so carefully printed on it, wondering what they could mean.

  “They liked you, Billy,” Gail said.

  Joanie finished studying the pictures and looked up. “How old would you say they are here in this one?”

  Gail got up and walked around the table. “That looks like it was just before Erin’s birthday party. So she was still five, not quite six. Emily was two.” She smiled, but there was pain in it. “I only remember that because it was just before the fire.”

  Bismarck walked into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of milk. “Billy,” he said. “Ricky wants you to disappear into the back. Don’t come out until we call you.”

  Fargo watched Joanie fold up the display of pictures and leave the room with it. “What the fuck’s going on, Russ?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. Now go on,” he said. “And Billy? Ricky said to remind you to keep your cool. Don’t blow your stack when we have company. You’re probably gonna want to. But don’t,” he warned. He took a healthy swig of milk, but immediately sprayed most of it back out onto the floor. “Aagh! This milk is spoiled!”

  “We just bought it last night,” Joanie said.

  “It went bad,” Bismarck insisted as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  “You know it’s raw milk, right?” Joanie asked.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Raw, like straight from the cow into the jug. Tastes a lot different.”

  “What? That’s disgusting!”

  “I buy a few gallons a week at a farm in Freehold,”
Gail said. “It’s a lot better for you than the dead milk you get at the supermarket.” She was already on her feet searching for something to clean up with. “It’s all I drink.”

  “Oh yeah? Well you can have it,” Bismarck said as he walked out of the kitchen while wiping at his mouth with a sleeve. “Awful,” they heard him mumbling even after he was gone.

  Fargo didn’t say anything as he followed Bismarck out and headed for the bedroom as he replayed Bismarck’s words. There was only one person that Willmar and Bismarck would say that about. Maybe two, if the other was still alive. They were right. It was going to be tough to stay calm.

  ~~~

  It was too late now, but Colfax wished he’d found a way to tell his wife about his relationship with Minot, and all the things he’d done. She probably saw Minot on TV all the time, but had no idea how intertwined her life was with his. The insurance, his will and everything else was in order. If he dropped dead or was gunned down at this meeting, his family would live on comfortably without him. But she should know why it had come that that, if it did. Yeah, she was aware that he knew the man, and that the friendship had been beneficial for them. She, of course, never complained about the perks, like the huge house, extravagant vacations and the luxurious lifestyle of the family of a well-connected man who always seemed to be moving up. But he wished he’d told her more about how it had all come about, and what the cost had been. Because after this meeting and the announcement of the election results, the cost was likely to go up, especially if the meeting went the way he expected it to. Minot was on a roll, and he wasn’t going to take kindly to anything that might slow him down. Or anybody.