by Paul Levine
"… going to kill you," Chrissy Bernhardt said.
A man's gravelly laugh. "Don't think so."
I walked through the open door. Same varnished pine walls. Same boar's head on one wall, a rack of antlers on another. The jalousie windows were open; the paddle fan whirred overhead. Chrissy stood to one side, ten feet from me, another ten feet from Guy Bernhardt, who sat on a leather chair.
She was holding the Beretta 950 in a shaky hand. Her hair was a mess of tangles, her dress wrinkled, and her eyes puffy. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.
Guy Bernhardt was holding a bourbon in one hand, a 12-gauge shotgun cradled across his knee with the other. The barrel was pointed at Chrissy's midsection.
"Glad you're here, Lassiter," he said, without taking his eyes off his half sister.
"I want both of you to put down your guns," I said. "You first, Guy."
He laughed again. "Me first? With this homicidal maniac pointing a gun at me? I don't care if you did get her off. She shot Pop, tried to kill him, even if someone else finished the job."
"You're going to take the fall for that," I said.
"No way, Lassiter. I had nothing to do with it. How was I to know crazy old Larry Schein was a killer? Twice, in fact."
"Bullshit! You put him up to it, first with Chrissy, then you told him to get his ass to the hospital and finish the job."
"Prove it! You think I'll crack like that fruity shrink?"
"I remember everything now, Guy," Chrissy said. "Every detail, the way your voice sounded, the smell of your breath, the pain, the nightmares. Over and over again." She sobbed. "I'm going to kill you."
"No, Chrissy!" I shouted, taking a step toward her.
"Stay back, Jake!" She wheeled the gun toward me.
I stopped, and she swung the gun back toward Guy.
"As I recall," Guy said, "Sis is not a very good shot. And that peashooter holds what, twenty-two shorts? Whadaya think, Lassiter, should I let her get off the first one like the good guy in a western?"
"You're not a good guy. You're a bucket of slime."
"Or should I just splatter her guts on the wall? I've got a right to defend myself, and I've got my witness. This deranged woman shows up at my house, waving a gun, threatening to kill me. I know her propensity for violence. What's a man to do?"
"You kill her, you'd better kill me, too," I said.
His eyes flicked toward me. "Ah, chivalry. Chrissy, here's a man who didn't run out on you. That's a first, isn't it? You see, Lassiter, Sis has trouble holding on to men. Freaks out sooner or later, and they take off. Pop always thought she was high strung. But we know the truth, don't we Sis? You're wacko."
"You ruined my life," she said, eyes filling with tears.
"You had every break, so don't blame me," he said bitterly.
"I don't get it, Bernhardt," I said. "Why'd you set her up? Hadn't you done enough to her?"
"Fuck you! You don't know how it was. You don't know how Pop spoiled her. Nothing was too good for little Chrissy. And her mother was even worse. I was a barnyard animal to Missus hoity-toity Emily Castleberry Bernhardt. While she was having high tea, I was up to my ass in manure. But Pop's the one I couldn't forgive. His only son, his own blood, and he treated the migrant workers better than me. My hands would bleed from cutting cane, while darling Sis was on the beach with her rich friends, making fun of me."
"I never made fun of you. Never."
"Shut up! Pop tried to make it up to me later. Brought me into the business. What else was he going to do with it? But I always remembered. Every insult. Every abuse. And I'd already made Chrissy pay, hadn't I, Sis?"
"Why did you kill him?" Chrissy cried. "You would have gotten the money anyway."
"Pop couldn't see the future with his bifocals. I gave him the facts. The well fields are running dry, and there's no other answer but to desalinate. I'm building the biggest reverse-osmosis plant in the country. Hell, with advanced membrane technology, I can turn brackish water into drinking water cheaper than a conventional system, and I can sell it for whatever I want. If you're dying of thirst, Lassiter, how much will you pay for a glass of water?"
"That's why you're dumping all the water into the bay," I said. "You're trying to dry up the South Dade wells."
"Supply and demand, Lassiter."
"Daddy never would have gone along with it," Chrissy said.
Guy barked a laugh. "You're right. The damn fool wouldn't. Didn't think it was right to get rich selling water. Be like some Arab sheik, he said, only worse, selling water to his fellowman. Quoted Isaiah to me: 'Every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye and eat.' That old hypocrite. I told him I knew my Bible, too. What about Proverbs? 'Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' "
Still pointing the shotgun at Chrissy, he sipped at his bourbon and said, "I've had my secret bread, haven't I, Sis? Now it's time for stolen waters. Hell, it's all free, seven hundred feet down. All the water you want. And I can turn it into dollars. Hundreds of millions of dollars."
"What about the brine?" I asked. "What do you do with millions of pounds of salt laced with mercury, arsenic, and heavy-metal ions?"
"I'll be a son of a bitch," Guy said. "You've been doing your homework. We could use deep well injection, but it's expensive as hell. We could dump it in the ocean, but the EPA would be all over us. Or we could buy every politician in Tallahassee and just dump the stuff."
"Where?"
"Limestone quarries, swamps, anywhere."
"That's crazy. It would pollute the groundwater."
"So then they'd need us pulling up water from the Floridan Aquifer even more than before, wouldn't they? A nice symmetry there, don't you think?"
"You're out of your mind," I said. "You'll never get away with it."
"Oh, we'll make some show of lining the dumps, do some solar evaporation, play around with some new techniques to keep the boys at DERM happy. But if I were you, I wouldn't want to drink any well water in the county once we get started."
"You're nothing like Daddy," Chrissy said. "He was a good man." Shakily she raised the gun, then steadied it with both hands.
Guy's drink crashed to the floor and he raised the shotgun until it was pointed at Chrissy's head. "You're a witness, Lassiter. She's gonna shoot me!"
"No!" I shouted.
Neither said a word.
Total silence except for the whir of the paddle fan and the whoosh of the irrigation towers in the fields.
Chrissy's hand shook.
A sly grin spread across Guy's face. "Sis, you may be crazy, but you're still the best piece of ass I ever had. Tight and juicy."
"You bastard!" she cried.
The gun danced in her hand as she sobbed.
The rest took just a few seconds.
Guy Bernhardt steadied the shotgun with both hands.
I watched as his finger tightened on the trigger.
I took two steps and dived for him. Startled, he swung the gun in my direction.
The first explosion was soft, a car backfiring behind me.
The second explosion was a mountaintop exploding with volcanic force.
I ended up on the floor, the discharged shotgun in my hands, a hole the size of a cantaloupe in the knotty pine ceiling, I looked up at Guy. His eyes were open. Dead between them was a dime-sized black hole. Behind us, Chrissy was saying something, but my ears were ringing. I turned in time to see her eyes roll back and her knees buckle. I caught her just before she hit the floor.
36
Committed to the Truth
You can't be her lawyer!" Charlie Riggs thundered. "You're a witness."
"Socolow said he wouldn't object to my representing her in front of the grand jury," I said.
He harrumphed and packed his pipe with cherry tobacco. He was pacing on my back porch. "If I were you, I wouldn't take that as a compliment."
"Haven't we had this conversation before?"
"Lord yes, and I thought you'd have learned your lesson."
"Abe's gonna let me testify in front of the grand jury and represent Chrissy, too. I'll tell my story, she'll tell hers, and we'll try to head off an indictment. If they indict her, I'll get Ed Shohat to handle the trial."
Charlie aimed some smoke in my direction. "Let's take inventory," he said as usual. "She went to the house with a loaded gun, intending to kill her half brother, correct?"
"Yep."
"Guy armed himself with a weapon of his own?"
"Yep again."
"Which he had every right to do, correct?"
"Under the doctrine of self-defense, sure," I said.
"She stated she would kill him, didn't she?"
"Sure did," I admitted, "but he threatened her, too. And he tried to provoke her."
"Oral provocations are no defense to murder."
"That's true, Charlie."
"Two shots were fired, one by each of them, right?"
"Right again."
"Then it seems to me," Charlie said, "that your client is innocent only if she didn't fire first."
"Go on, Charlie."
"Well, if she had backed down from her threats and Guy became the aggressor, she would be justified in using deadly force to defend herself. But if she fired first, well, she just assassinated him, and it would be first-degree murder."
"You may be right," I said.
"So which way was it?" Charlie demanded.
I didn't answer.
"Jake! The grand jury's going to ask you, so you might as well tell me. And don't forget you'll be under oath. I always taught you to be committed to the truth."
"You also taught me to do what I believed was right."
"That advice was not contradictory," he said.
"Charlie, I've always sought the truth. I've never lied to the court."
"And never will?"
It took me a moment to answer. "Charlie, have you ever had a situation where the truth and justice don't coincide, where the truth will do more harm than good?"
He pointed his pipe at me. "That's not for us to judge. We speak the truth and let the system handle it."
"The system doesn't work, Charlie."
"Balderdash! It just worked. You walked your client out of a murder charge when it seemed you had no chance."
"You think I can do it twice?"
"That's not my concern. The truth is the ideal we strive for. The truth is all that matters. Veritas vos liberabit."
"No, Charlie. Sometimes the truth will imprison you."
Chrissy wore an ivory linen suit with a fitted jacket and fabric-covered buttons. The pleated skirt stopped just above the knee. It was an innocent outfit if I've ever seen one.
The clerk of the grand jury asked if I promised to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
I allowed as how I would. My palms weren't sweaty and my nose didn't grow. Lightning didn't sound in the distance and the wind didn't rattle the windowpanes.
I sat on the witness stand and marveled at the different view, looking toward the gallery. Abe Socolow approached me and asked a bunch of preliminary questions, including whether he could call me Jake, inasmuch as we'd known each other all these years. I said he'd called me a lot worse, so he got down to business.
"And when you entered the home of Guy Bernhardt the night before last, what did you find?"
"Guy Bernhardt was aiming a shotgun at Chrissy Bernhardt, and she was aiming a Beretta 950 at him."
Abe had me identity the two weapons, the massive shotgun and the little pistol.
"Did either party threaten to shoot the other?" Abe asked.
"They each threatened the other," I said.
"What did you do, Jake?"
"I asked Guy to put down the shotgun, and he refused."
"Then what happened?"
"Two shots were fired, one by each of the parties."
"Who fired the first shot?"
Chrissy looked at me with haunting green eyes. Seeking, pleading. Abe Socolow stood a foot away, his hand resting on the witness chair. Twenty-three grand jurors, solid citizens all, waited for me to answer.
So I did.
I followed Charlie's advice.
Half of it, at least.
I did what I thought was right.
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