Baker saw the fire. A part of the house was burning and there was another pool of flame in the driveway. Macduff was in that one. He was in it and he was frying, and his hind legs were only now ceasing to kick. Oh, Macduff. Oh, God. Look what you did to Macduff, you bastard. Take a good look. Look close. Put your face right in there and look.
They found Baker at the hospital. In Tina's room. He was stroking her hair while she slept. The detectives watched as he paused to brush away a bit of charred gauze that had fallen on her pillow. Tina twitched once and winced as her leg stabbed at her from under the tent that covered it. But she did not awaken.
Baker wished the detectives would go. They seemed afraid, he thought, and that might frighten Tina. But Detective Kinney asked about Tina and that was nice. The other one didn't. What was his name? Gurdik. Gurdik stood off to one side, just watching.
Detective Kinney wanted to ask questions, but they were hard to answer. The questions were about a dream he'd had and the dream was fading. What's the use, Baker wondered, in talking about a dream? He put his fingers to his lips to hush them.
The detectives wanted to talk more, but not there. Could they go to Detective Kinney's office and talk awhile about the man who threw the gasoline and how Mr. Baker made him stop? Yes, Baker nodded, but only until Tina wakes up. Would he mind wearing handcuffs just until they got there? It was a rule. Baker nodded again. Detective Gurdik began reading something from a white card, about remaining silent. But why should I remain silent, Baker wondered, after I said I'd talk to you in your office? Kinney told Gurdik to put away the card.
Baker thought he remembered other men in the corridor. He thought he remembered flashing cameras and questions. But he wasn't sure. He did remember that his hand had stopped hurting.
3
There was another dream. Baker dreamt he was in jail and the devil was standing outside the bars, watching him. There was hatred on the devil's face and he wore a black suit. A devil with white hair and eyes that burned. The devil hissed some words at him that Baker couldn't hear but that made his eye hurt, and Baker felt himself moving closer to the bars. That seemed to frighten the devil, but it didn't stop the hating. The devil spat at him and then walked away.
“Mr. Baker?” The guard called his name for the third time, tapping now against the bars with his club.
The man in the cell did not look up. He was unshaven and his shirt was torn. He sat on a cot, staring down at a newspaper spread at his feet. Baker saw himself there, much as he looked now except somebody had washed the black soot from his face. Maybe he'd done it himself. He didn't know. The last two days were lost to him. Baker saw his house in the paper. There was a scar of black and blistered paint that rose up from one bay window and mushroomed out beneath the roof line. Even the house looked dead. Like Sarah.
Near the picture of his house was the face of the young man who threw the gasoline. He barely recognized the face. It was a high school picture, more than four years old, and the name under it was Andrew Bellafonte. Baker studied the photograph more closely. It was there. The same mocking cruelty and arrogance must always have been there. But not anymore. The paper said he no longer had a face. It said that Baker had done it. It said that Baker had impaled him. Impaled him? And it said that Baker was insane.
“Mr. Baker.”
More on page 5, it said. Baker turned the pages and he saw the devil looking back at him. The same devil. But this one had a name: it was Lawrence Bellafonte and the devil was a judge.
Baker heard the cell door opening and looked up. The guard seemed reluctant to step closer.
“I'm sorry,” he said, ”I didn't know a lot of this.” Baker waved his hands toward the open paper.
“You had a tough time,” the guard answered. ‘Tough break, Mr. Baker. Anyway, your lawyer's here to see you.”
“What lawyer?”
“Name's Meister. You have to see him here in your cell. I'm going to bring him in, okay?”
”I didn't call a lawyer.”
“Somebody did. Talk to him, Mr. Baker. You're going to see a judge soon.”
Baker picked up the paper at his feet and held it up for the guard to see. “This man.” Baker pointed. “Has he been here?”
The guard made a face. “He came by. It's the kid's father.” The guard looked around him and leaned closer to Baker. “Listen,” he said softly, “that kid was a shit and he ran up a pretty good bill before he finally got his. The old man ain't much better. I'm not saying everything you did was good, but you better start protecting yourself. See this guy Meister. If you don't, the court's going to appoint someone else anyway.”
Baker thanked him with a nod.
The lawyer was a fat man who seemed to be about fifty. It was hard to tell. He wore a youngish gray poplin suit and his shoes were by Gucci. His hair was light brown, probably dyed, with a few wisps of gray at the sideburns. The eyes were at once sharp and mirthful. It seemed to Baker that they should have been baggy, but they were not. The lawyer carried a briefcase in one hand and a canvas garment bag in the other.
“Benjamin Meister, attorney,” the man said. He jiggled the garment bag. ”I brought you some clothes for court.”
“Court?” Baker rose to his feet.
“Arraignment's in less than two hours. You don't want to look like a wild man when the judge hears me ask for bail.” Meister held out the bag until Baker took it. “There's a comb in there and an electric razor. Wash up while we talk.”
Baker saw that the clothing was his own. There was a dark three-piece suit and a soft blue shirt. The suit had been freshly pressed.
“Your neighbor across the street got them for me. What's his name?”
“Sam Willis?”
“Yeah. Pal of yours?”
“We get along pretty well.”
“That's good. The guy's going to be a witness and he'd better be our witness.”
Baker studied him. “Your name is Meister, you said?” Baker seemed to place emphasis on the name.
The lawyer rolled his eyes upward. “You're going to make some Meister the Shyster crack, right? Go ahead. Get it out of your system. We got work to do.”
Baker had to smile. “No, it's just that I don't know you.”
“You have a friend,” Meister answered. “For now, he wants to keep his name out of it. But your friend has retained me and has authorized me to post bail if they'll grant it.”
”I can pay for my own lawyer.”
“Don't argue with Santa Claus, Baker. In the first place, I'm not one of your local hacks who does divorce cases and real estate closings. My bill would cost you your house. In the second place, you're in reasonably deep shit. The charge is atrocious assault with intent to maim. Guess who you maimed.”
”I read.” Baker gestured toward the newspaper. “It says his father is a judge.”
“Not just any judge, Baker. Andrew's father is Lawrence Bellafonte and he's a judge in the Stamford Superior Court. Guess where I have to go asking for bail.”
“I'm appearing before the father?”
“No, they can't do that. But I have to tell you that Bellafonte has clout with the others. The guy knows whose hand has been in whose pockets because Bellafonte's hands have been in most of them. The way to bet is you won't find a friendly judge and the prosecutor will try to nail you with a felony rap no matter what your plea is. Your plea, by the way, is not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.”
”I wasn't insane.” Baker's face darkened.
“Then you'll do five years.”
“If I was insane, they'll still put me away.”
“Temporary, Baker, temporary. You acted under extraordinary stress while your judgment was diminished by prescribed medication. The guy, Bruggerman, pumped some Demerol into you. When the jury hears all that, they have to let you walk.”
Baker rinsed his hands in the small stainless steel basin and watched the water run down the drain. There was something about the drain. He couldn't remember. But
whatever it was, it was making him angry.
“They won't let me see my daughter,” he said.
“You'll see her. First we have to get a judge to set bail. You want to call her?”
“Can I?” Baker brightened.
“Get dressed. There's a phone in the Attorneys' Room.”
She knew who it was. Even before the muted ring pushed through the narcotic fog that kept her body heavy and warm, Tina knew that her father was calling.
The phone stopped ringing and she heard a woman's voice. It didn't sound like her mother. A nurse, maybe. No, it couldn't be her mother. Her mother was sick too. She was someplace else in the hospital.
”. . . keeping her sedated, Jared,” the voice said.
See? It is Daddy. I know why he isn't here. He's visiting Mom first.
“No, Jared. No one's talked to her. I don't think she knows.”
Oh, Tina thought. That's Mrs. Carey. I remember. She's been sitting here since . . . since I don't know when.
“There's a priest coming over this morning from St. Paul's, Jared. Father Lennon . . . Well, she's asking, Jared. Someone has to say something ... All right, Jared. We'll wait until you can get here.”
Jane Carey held the phone against her breast and looked down at Tina, who was watching her sleepily. Jane's eyes were damp.
“It's your dad, honey. Do you think you can just say hello?”
Tina smiled and nodded. Jane placed the receiver on Tina's pillow against her ear. Then she turned her head away.
“Hi, Daddy. Where are you?”
“I'm with the police, babe. There are a lot of questions about the accident. How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she answered. “But it's a kind of yummy tired. Have you seen Mom?”
Jane could not help but watch Tina's face as she asked the question. Tina blinked. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed into an expression of confused concentration. Slowly, Tina's head began to move from side to side and color rose toward her pale cheeks.
“No,” she whispered, and the first tear came.
“No no. Mom, oh, no,” she cried less softly. Jane Carey shuddered and reached for Tina's hand. Tina's nails dug at her and her head turned away. The phone fell away from Tina's cheek. Jane paused, unsure, then took the phone and put it to her ear. Baker was still talking as if to Tina.
“It's me, Jared.” There was a chill of anger in her voice. That was stupid, she thought. A stupid and cruel way to blurt out to a child that her mother was dead.
“Jane, what happened there?” Baker's voice was anxious.
“She's crushed, naturally. What did you think would happen?”
“Jane, I don't know what you're talking about.”
Jane Carey dropped her voice even further and stepped as far away from the bed as the cord would permit. “Jared,” she asked, “didn't you just tell her about Sarah?”
“All I said was that Sarah's pretty sick. That's all I said. Then all of a sudden she wasn't listening to me. She was listening to someone else.”
Jane clamped her eyes shut and placed her fingers against her forehead. “Jared,” she said, shaking her head, “then I don't know what happened.” Tina was sobbing now. “Jared, I have to go to Tina. Please get here as soon as you can.”
Jane hung up the phone and climbed into Tina's bed, holding her, kissing her, now in tears herself. Jared must have said something, she thought. He must have told her something. “Honey? Your . . . your dad told you?” she asked.
“He said . . .” Tina's chest heaved against her. “He said she was only sick. The other man said it.”
Jane lifted her head to look into Tina's eyes. “What other man, honey?”
”I don't know.” She sniffed. “Just some man who was talking while Daddy was talking. And why do they have Daddy locked in jail?”
Jane Carey suddenly felt cold.
Baker held the telephone for several moments before laying it down. He could still hear Tina's soft cry of “No!” as he choked on the lie that Sarah was only sick. It must have been his tone. There must have been something in his voice that told her the truth about her mother.
“Meister,” he asked, not looking at the lawyer, “did you hear me say anything about my wife just now?”
Ben Meister had been studying him. The mirthfulness of his expression was gone and his eyes seemed to bore through Baker. “That she was sick,” he answered. “You said that she was sick.”
“That's all?”
“That's all, son.”
“Can you get me out of here?” Baker whispered.
”I think so,” he said. “Let's go see what kind of judge they give us.”
The hour that followed was a blur to Baker. And throughout that hour, he wondered for the first time whether he was indeed insane and whether it was temporary.
First, there were the reporters again. A swarm of them waited on the sidewalk outside police headquarters, cameras clicking and flashing, microphones thrust at his face, voices calling questions. There were so many. Far too many for this town.
Meister's big hand was on Baker's neck, bending his head low and pushing his body toward a waiting car while the lawyer's free hand held a briefcase across Baker's face and his own. Baker struggled to shake off the hand, but the fat man held more tightly. He winced as a thumbnail bit into his neck, and he felt a sudden flash of rage and the coiling of his own body as well as the odd floating sensation he'd felt twice before. He might have struck out at Meister had not the wave of voices crashed upon him. So many voices, shouting, calling, whispering. A trim black woman caught his eye. In her hand she held a microphone with a network news emblem on it. Her lips moved as her eyes met his, but her words had already started before that, Baker was sure. He was hearing her before she spoke.
The lawyer's hand clapped across his cheek and the black woman was gone. But the rage was coming again. He cocked an elbow to drive it hard against Ben Meister's stomach. Too late. The big man's weight was upon him and the detective named Gurdik was holding a car door open and his body was going there. Wait, Baker wanted to shout. He wasn't there yet. For the briefest part of a second, Baker thought his body would leave without him.
Now the car was moving. The voices and the shouts were fading and storefronts were whipping by. The rage he had felt was gone and the floating sensation was draining away. His body and his mind were coming together. He felt, he thought, like two images being brought together in the focusing lens of a camera.
Meister's hand patted his knee.
“Forgive me, Jared.” His voice was low and he was breathing hard. ”I didn't expect all that either.”
Baker didn't answer. He wanted to tell Meister not to shove him that way again and not to seize his neck like a schoolchild being rushed to the principal's office, but he was not angry enough even for that. Besides, he thought he understood. Meister was protecting him. Meister was keeping his face from the pages of newspapers and from evening news broadcasts. He was almost thankful when he thought of the television set in Tina's room.
There were more reporters at the courthouse. This time, though, they were kept at bay. Even then, Ben Meister shielded Baker with his own body as telephoto lenses were snapped on distant cameras. Again, Baker noticed, Meister seemed to be hiding his own face as well.
“Not a word,” the lawyer said. “When we get into the courtroom, you're to say not a word. You're to show no emotion except sadness. Look beaten. Show utter surprise when you hear the charges read. No anger, Jared.”
“Anger?” Baker answered uneasily.
“Do not let the judge see anger. Do not, moreover, be surprised at anything I might say, and for God's sake, don't argue.”
Baker nodded.
The charges did surprise him. They were read from a folder by a short, bald man who glanced once at Baker and then not again. Nor did the judge, a bored and sullen septuagenarian named Toomey.
And Baker felt anger rising in him again. It was a different anger from what he
had felt toward the biker with his gasoline and different from what he had felt briefly toward Benjamin Meister. This was his own anger. An odd thought. But it seemed a true thought. He was hearing words that described him as vicious, dangerous, bestial, senseless. He heard his own actions spoken of as horrible, inhuman, cruel. But he heard no mention of Sarah's name. Or of Tina's. He heard only “the wife” and “the daughter” and “the accident” and other words about carelessness and playing in streets. My God, he fumed, they're saying it's Sarah's fault. Sarah's lying dead and Tina's foot is crushed, and they're brushing those off as minor events in the sequence that led to his arrest.
“I'm prepared to enter a plea, Your Honor.” Ben Meister's voice boomed in Baker's ear. Baker turned his head and saw the lawyer glowering at him. He struggled to relax his expression.
“Let's have it.” The judge looked at the ceiling.
“Not guilty.”
The prosecutor, an owlish man named Bloom, waved his manila folder. “Your Honor, we assume the defendant will be basing his defense on a claim of diminished capacity. In that case, the State asks that—”
“No diminished capacity,” Meister interrupted. “Not guilty, period. He didn't do it.”
“He what?” The prosecutor seemed genuinely surprised. “Well, does counsel happen to know who did? There are three witnesses who—”
”A witness is not a witness until testimony is given. In any case, that testimony will hardly support these charges. Until the State is able to assemble anything resembling a case against Mr. Baker, he's entitled to immediate release on bond. Since Mr. Baker is an established resident of this community, since his surviving child is here, and since he has no criminal record whatsoever, a cash bond should not be necessary.”
“That's ridiculous, Your Honor. The man's clearly dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Meister shouted. “This man isn't the perpetrator. He was the victim. The man was attacked and he defended himself. The attacker, who has a long history of preferential treatment and quashed charges—”
Abel Baker Charley Page 5
