A Darker Justice

by Sallie Bissell

  “Mary, if I got FBI protection every time someone threatened me, I couldn’t do my job. Once you give in to fear, you’re not worth a damn on the bench.”

  “But the Feds think this is real. They drove me up here to convince you to accept their protection.”

  “So that’s why you’re here? To talk me into having a bodyguard?” Irene started laughing.

  “They suggested I bring this.” Mary unzipped her jacket and exposed the Beretta. “That’s how seriously they’re taking this.”

  “My God.” Irene stopped laughing as she saw the black pistol nudging up against Mary’s left breast. “You actually go armed now?”

  “Not usually. But after I convicted a guy whose family kept waiting for me in shadowy parking lots with piano wire up their sleeves, my boss gave me this. Said it might go against my moral code, but it would sure help him sleep better at night.”

  “I can’t believe this. This is not like you, Mary.”

  “Irene, Rosemary Klinefelter was decapitated. It was horrible. I saw her picture. The Feds would like to spare you that fate.”

  “I’ve got plenty of protection around me.” Irene’s dark eyes flashed. “I’ve got thirty acres on a county road in the middle of the thickest forest in the Carolinas. I’ve got horses and chickens and—”

  “Give me a break, Irene!” cried Mary. “Klinefelter got nailed in her own courtroom. One New York judge was stabbed in front of a Manhattan apartment. Another seemingly dropped dead at a Steelers game. They’ve killed eleven judges, Irene. One from every district except the Fourth. A flock of chickens and that stupid goose aren’t going to save you.”

  “I don’t care what will or won’t save me, Mary.” Irene’s cheeks flamed with anger. “I’m a stubborn old woman, and I refuse to be part of a judiciary that has to be guarded. And Lucy is not stupid!”

  With that, Irene stomped past her into the stable. Mary watched as she disappeared into the shadows, Napoleon and Lucy on her heels. With a helpless shrug of her shoulders, Mary followed. She needed to reason with Irene, not yell at her from the middle of a barnyard twenty feet away.

  Inside, the stable was warm and dark, the air sweet, like hay. “Walk down here with me,” Irene said softly, her anger already forgotten. “I want you to see something.”

  Mary followed her to a double-sized stall at the end of the corridor. Inside stood a small brown mare with a white blaze on her face. She raised her head and pricked her ears at Mary. Her belly was swollen as if she’d swallowed a truck tire.

  “She’s beautiful,” Mary said. “But isn’t she a little fat?”

  “She’s pregnant.” Irene dug a lump of sugar from the pocket of her jeans and held out her hand. The mare thrust her long neck forward and nibbled it from her palm. “This is the brood mare I bought from Hugh. Her name’s Lady Jane. Any day now she’ll be having her sixth foal.” Irene handed Mary a lump of sugar. “Here. Make friends with her.”

  Mary held out the sugar. Lady Jane stretched out again and sniffed Mary’s palm. Her lips felt like velvet as they gently lifted the sugar cube from her hand.

  “Shouldn’t you be calling a vet or something?” Mary had never seen a pregnant horse before. She barely knew the protocol for whelping puppies, much less colts or fillies.

  “Not unless we have problems. Hugh will be helping me out. Lady Jane will be safe here.”

  “That’s great for her.” Mary seized the chance to turn the conversation back in the direction she wanted it to go. “But what about you?”

  Irene frowned. “Oh, Mary . . .”

  “Do you know how many places you could be attacked from? What about—”

  “Look around you,” Irene interrupted. “I’ve got a footbridge that makes one person sound like a Roman legion. The guineas in the front yard shriek their heads off every time a cloud passes in front of the sun. Lucy follows me like a dog and Napoleon sleeps across the back door most nights. I have more bodyguards than I know what to do with.”

  Mary picked at a sliver of wood from the top of the stall door. She hated to mention it, but Irene left her no choice. “I walked across the bridge this morning. The guineas shrieked like banshees and Lucy honked right along with them. I banged on your front door three times. When nobody heard me, I came around and peered in the back door, Lucy honking the whole time.”

  Irene looked at her quizzically for a moment, then she understood. “You saw us? In front of the fireplace?”

  Mary nodded.

  At first Irene said nothing, then she threw her head back and laughed so hard that Lady Jane gave a sharp whinny, her ears flicking in alarm.

  “Caught!” Irene howled. “In flagrante delicto, at the age of sixty-two!” Tears rolled from her eyes. “At least it was you, and not one of those FBI thugs!”

  Although she wanted desperately to laugh with Irene, all Mary could think of was Rosemary Klinefelter. “Irene,” she said softly, “if someone had wanted to kill you this morning, neither Lucy nor Napoleon could have saved you. You and Hugh would have died, and died horribly.”

  Slowly the laughter faded from Irene’s brown eyes. “You really believe this might happen, don’t you?”

  “I’m scared that it could. Please let them guard you. If nobody gets killed during the holidays, they will have at least broken the pattern.”

  Irene gazed at Lady Jane as if pondering some point of law, then she turned back to Mary and shook her head.

  Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mary. I’d like to do it, if only to please you, but I can’t. I can’t live this long on principle and then fold my hand just because the game gets dicey. Please tell your friends that I’m a stubborn old goat who’s probably not worth guarding, anyway.”

  “Irene, you don’t understand—”

  “I understand perfectly. Don’t you see? For me to turn away from the rule of law in favor of rule by the gun would make me a coward. Worse—a fraud.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “Sorry, Mary. You and I both know it would.”

  “Wait!” Mary insisted. “Let’s reason this out.” She walked to the stable door, frustrated, searching for a compromise. Suddenly she found it. She ran back to Irene. “If you won’t let them stay with you, then let me. I’ve got a gun. I can guard you as well as they can.”

  “Absolutely not!” cried Irene. “If I’m in any jeopardy at all, I certainly don’t want you here!”

  “Too bad!” Mary crossed her arms and glared at her. “If you can live by your principles, then I can live by mine.”

  “That’s unfair.” Irene’s voice sharpened in anger. “And unacceptable.”

  “How is it unfair? Unless you call Stump Logan to come out and remove me from your property, I’m here and I’m staying. And you can plan on me for the Rose Bowl Parade, ’cause me and my Beretta aren’t budging anywhere till you go back to Richmond.”

  Irene looked at Mary. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, but each time she stopped. Finally she smiled. “Nice work, counselor. You’ve just beaten your old teacher at her own game.” She gave a deep, courtly bow. “O-stah.” She congratulated Mary in Cherokee.

  “I learned from the master,” Mary replied quietly. “But I’m not playing games.”

  “I know you aren’t. I’ve seen that look on your face too many times before. I know when I’m licked.” She reached over and took Mary in her arms. “Okay, darling girl. Merry Christmas. I won’t sic Sheriff Logan on you. You can stay here and bodyguard me all you want. Bodyguard me until you feel safe again.”

  “Thank you,” Mary whispered as she buried her face in the silvery softness of Irene’s hair.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Anything going on?” Safer’s voice broke the silence of the towering pines.

  Mike Tuttle, a man reputedly well accustomed to the tedium of stakeouts, replied. “The boyfriend’s still there. He slept over last night. Otherwise, the only new visitor is our little civilian helper.”

  Tuttle lean
ed against a tree and lit a cigarette. With his shaved head and green camouflage suit, he looked more like a Marine on maneuvers than an FBI agent staking out a target, but Finch, Safer’s boss, had pulled him out of the Boise office expressly to help in this operation. Tuttle was supposed to be one of the Bureau’s best.

  “If there are any psycho groups within a hundred miles of you,” Finch told him, “Tuttle’ll sniff ’em out like a truffle hound.”

  To Safer, Mike Tuttle seemed arrogant, bandy-legged, and not at all pleased with being assigned to the mountains of western North Carolina.

  Tuttle glanced at Safer through his cigarette smoke. “Heard anything from her yet?”

  “No.” Safer pulled his collar up around his neck, suddenly aware of the silent cell phone in his shirt pocket. Mary Crow had had more than enough time to reason with Judge Hannah. She should have called an hour ago.

  “So what’s she like?”

  “Who?”

  “Pocahontas.”

  “You read her jacket.”

  “But what does she look like? I hear these hillbillies marry their own siblings up here. Come up with some pretty weird-looking offspring.”

  “She doesn’t have that problem.” Safer turned his back on Tuttle and looked into the forest, remembering the brightness of Mary Crow’s eyes and the straightforward way those eyes had studied him. She’d been attractive enough until she’d walked out of that gas station and handed him that peach tart thing. Then she’d looked up and smiled, and suddenly it was all he could do to get back in the truck and drive them where they were going. Mary Crow was just another pretty woman until she smiled. Then she became radiant, making the truck seem smaller, leaving him sitting far too close to her.

  “Think she can talk the judge into letting us on the property?” Tuttle took a deep pull on his cigarette, making the tip glow orange.

  Safer shrugged, wincing at the memory of what a jerk he’d been about the peach tart. “She seemed pretty determined. But so’s the old lady.”

  “I never knew any woman who wasn’t determined about something.” Tuttle didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in his voice. “Usually it’s grabbing money that doesn’t belong to them.”

  Safer made no comment. Tuttle had complained more than once about an ex-wife who hauled him into court on a regular basis. His cell phone chirped and he pulled it from his pocket. “Safer here.”

  He frowned as the transmission turned Mary Crow’s low timbre into a squawk. “Can you meet me at the bridge?” she asked. “I think we may have reached a compromise.”

  “What bridge?” Safer felt his heart beating faster. Idiot, he thought. All she’d done was smile, for God’s sake. It meant nothing.

  “Turn up Irene’s driveway. You’ll see me waiting for you.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said, then clicked off the phone.

  “Make any headway?” Tuttle flipped his cigarette butt into the trees.

  “Maybe,” Safer replied as he strode back to the Dodge. “I’ll let you know.”

  * * *

  He drove back to Upsy Daisy Farm, turning up the clay drive and bouncing over the bumps and potholes in the road. He rounded a sharp curve, and suddenly Mary Crow came into view, standing under a huge, bare sycamore tree growing beside one end of a suspension bridge that spanned a shallow rushing river. Slowing, he studied her as if he had a second chance to see her for the first time. She carried her medium-tall height proudly, her head held high. Her glossy black hair just brushed her shoulders, and though she sported the upscale jeans-and-down jacket look of a city woman on a country vacation, she seemed totally at ease leaning against a rickety bridge in the middle of a mountain farm.

  He nosed the truck under the tree and turned off the engine. Before he could unbuckle his seat belt, she was standing beside the door. She looked different from when he’d dropped her off. Still serious but playful, like a tiger freed from the constraints of a cage.

  “Hi, Safer.” Once again she smiled that smile.

  “What’s going on?” He got out of the truck feeling like a schoolboy with his first crush, unable to take his eyes from her face. This was nuts. Who was this woman?

  “There’s good news and bad news.”

  “Start with the bad.”

  “She still won’t allow you guys to guard her.”

  “So what’s the good news?”

  “She’s allowing me to stay.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re supposed to protect her!”

  “That’s the plan. She doesn’t want me here any more than she wants you. But she’s agreed not to have me forcibly evicted from her property.”

  “That’s the plan?” He slammed his hand down on the hood of the truck. “Jesus! Where does this crazy old bird get off? Didn’t you explain to her how bad this could get?”

  “I did. But she won’t budge from her principles. And she can’t make me abandon mine.”

  “Budge from her principles? Christ, you two make this sound like Judicial Ethics 101. Don’t you know this is real? You saw that picture. Maybe I should have sent you in there with it!”

  “It wouldn’t have done any good.”

  “A nice long look at Judge Klinefelter’s head in her lap might have convinced her that she needs somebody around with more than bright eyes and a target pistol.”

  “This Beretta is hardly a target pistol, Safer.” Mary patted the gun nestled beneath her arm. “And I’m no stranger to criminals.”

  “You might be able to hit somebody standing still. The killer will come at you fast, like a shadow—”

  “I’m sorry,” she interrupted, her smile fading. “But me and my Beretta are all you get. It’s still a better deal than you had when you dropped me off this morning.”

  Safer could already hear Finch roaring at him over the phone. What was it with these mountain people? Where did this idiot judge get off? Why would she allow this young attorney to put herself in such jeopardy?

  “I can’t let you do this,” he replied, the words feeling like gravel in his throat.

  Mary Crow laughed. “On what grounds can you stop me, Agent Safer?”

  She had him there. She was a private citizen, on private property, carrying a gun she was legally entitled to carry. There was nothing he or the Bureau or even the damn Attorney General of the United States could do about it.

  Rubbing his beard, he studied her. “You know she’s maneuvered us both into this corner.”

  “Irene hasn’t maneuvered anybody into anything, Safer,” Mary replied evenly. “She doesn’t want me here any more than she wants you. She’s just willing to put up with me.” She gave an impatient sigh. “Look, one of Irene’s mares is going to have a foal, so she’s not going anywhere until she flies to Richmond on the fifth of January. So why don’t you give me a ten-minute course on bodyguarding? If I’m on the inside with a gun and you guys have this farm surrounded, everything should be fine.”

  He glared at her, wanting to tell her that it wasn’t going to be fine, and that it could well get very lethal very fast, but he didn’t. What would be the point? Until he could call Washington and have them figure some way out of this, he would have to play along.

  “Okay, Ms. Crow,” he said, moving in behind her, standing so close that the spicy warm scent of her filled his nose and made him dizzy. He cleared his throat and spoke slowly, as if he were reciting the first page of a primer.

  “The simplest way to kill a man is to rip out his eye. . . .”

  CHAPTER 14

  The snow Mary had hoped for did not arrive. In fact, Christmas Day dawned an anomaly in the damp cloudiness of a mountain winter. It glittered like a shiny jewel, with a cold aquamarine sky unmarred by the slightest wisp of a cloud. The fields of Upsy Daisy Farm glowed tawny in the sunlight, and from Mary’s vantage point, just in front of the tree line that edged the woods, the whole farm looked like a page torn from a child’s coloring book—blue sky, white house, red barn, golden fields.

>   “Pretty, isn’t it?” Irene sat beside her on Spindletop, a dark brown horse that shook his head against the stricture of his bit.

  “It’s beautiful, Irene. I love it more every time I come here.” Mary rode a little gray mare named Stella and smiled. “I understand it more every time I come here.”

  “That’s because you’re getting older.” Irene chuckled. “In your twenties, you want bright lights and big cities. In your thirties, other things intrigue you. Come on. Let’s go down to the creek.”

  Stella followed Spindletop with no urging from Mary. They picked their way down the hill until they reached the flat, unfenced pasture behind the barn. Then Irene picked up the pace. Though Mary had not ridden in a long time, she quickly remembered most of what Irene had taught her. Soon she and Stella were gliding over the fields in long, ground-covering strides. Mary had not much more to do than just stay in the saddle.

  When Irene reached the stream, she gave Spindletop his head and let him drink. Mary eased up beside them to let Stella do the same. Early that morning they’d given the horses their special Christmas breakfast—an apple, pear, and molasses concoction that Irene added to their regular food. After they’d eaten their own breakfast, Hugh had returned to his farm and she and Irene had gone to the stable, saddling up Spindletop and Stella for a long ride. “They’re fat as pigs,” said Irene. “They needed a special Christmas breakfast about like I needed that extra slice of pecan pie. A little exercise will do us all good.”

  Now Irene looked at her as the horses sucked up long draughts of sweet, cold water. “So tell me. What’s Jonathan doing while you’re up here bodyguarding me?”

  Mary had known this question was coming. She’d put off formulating an answer, mostly because she didn’t know what to say—to herself or anyone else. “Jonathan and I aren’t together anymore,” she replied, the words sounding strange in her own ears.

  “What?” Irene spoke so sharply that Spindletop flinched. “When? Why?”

  “He moved out last spring. He said he wasn’t happy in Atlanta, but the fault was really mine.”