A Darker Justice

by Sallie Bissell

  “I wish.” Safer looked at her with rueful eyes. “If I had, Judge Hannah would still be writing opinions and feeding her horses. And we wouldn’t be parting like this.”

  For an instant, Mary didn’t know how to respond. That Safer had considered their parting at all took her by surprise.

  Suddenly his cell phone beeped. He pulled the thing from his pocket and turned his back to her. Something was happening; she could tell by the way his shoulders tightened.

  “Safer, what’s going on?” she called as the line began to inch forward.

  He shook his head, listening intently to whoever was talking. In a moment he switched off his phone and turned. “No news, but I’ve got to go just the same,” he told her. “Listen—thanks for all your help. It was a real pleasure working with you.”

  For a moment he looked at her with that all-seeing gaze of his, as if he suspected her of some subterfuge he couldn’t quite pinpoint, but she just nodded her head docilely and moved on toward the gate.

  “Have a good flight,” he called, his brows drawing down in a frown.

  “Thanks.” She gave him a small wave, then watched him walk away. As he turned the corner, a dozen people straggled off a prop-jet from Charlotte. With a hasty glance at the Delta gate agent, she ducked out of line and joined them, tromping along with them down an escalator. Ahead of her she could see Safer leaving the concourse, the sun shining on his dark hair as he hurried to the parking lot.

  As the travelers chattered along toward the baggage claim, she slipped into the women’s rest room. She knew immediately that she’d made a mistake. When that Simmons figures out I’ve gone, this is the first place he’ll look. Quickly she backed out the door. Where could she hide? They would search the restaurant and bar; everyplace else in the small airport was brightly lit and absolutely exposed. Renting a car would take too long—she’d be spotted before they gave her the keys. Shit! Where could she go? She looked back out into the terminal. This time a huge wave of people were coming down the escalator, the men sporting crimson fezzes bedecked with rhinestones and the women wearing yellow tour badges on their coats.

  Shriners, thought Mary, remembering a picture she’d seen of Jim Falkner in a similar getup. The loyal brothers of the mystic Shrine are on holiday. She ducked her head and strode into the middle of them, scooting in between Mitzi Johnson and Lorene Miles, who were gleefully discussing someone named Barbara’s liposuction-gone-wrong. Though Mary’s was the youngest, darkest head among the bunch, she was hoping the eye-catching fezzes would deflect all attention away from her.

  Walking on the heels of the two women, she skirted the metal detector and moved on to the baggage claim. A dapper young man wearing a dark green blazer stood waiting for them.

  “Good afternoon, everyone! I’m Ron, from the Grove Park Inn, and I’d like to welcome you all to Asheville! Our tour bus is outside, ready to go, and as soon as you get your luggage we’ll be on our way!”

  Mary’s heart leaped as she looked outside to see a huge bus, its diesel engine merrily polluting the air. This was even better than she’d hoped. If her luck held, she might be able to catch a ride all the way into Asheville.

  She looked around, searching for Mr. Simmons. She didn’t see him, but she knew she’d attract attention if she just stood here while everyone else grappled with their luggage. Holding her purse close to her side, she strolled casually to the souvenir shop, as if she were a woman whose husband took charge of the tiresome little necessities of travel, like tickets and bags.

  Inside, she searched for something that would help her blend in with the middle-aged Shriners. Five minutes later she emerged wearing sunglasses and a red Asheville Tourists baseball cap. It was not the greatest of disguises, but it was something. If she could just slip into the next group of Shriners headed for the bus, she might be able to sneak past Ron, who was checking off names at the door.

  She hesitated a moment to reconnoiter. Two redcaps hustled among the Shriners, loading luggage into the belly of the bus. Just inside the main entrance to the airport, a tall, gray-haired man stood unobtrusively scanning everyone who left the building.

  “Helloooo, Mr. Simmons,” Mary whispered, recognizing him immediately. “Nice to see you again.”

  She ducked behind an Asheville Chamber of Commerce display. Simmons seemed mostly concerned with the front of the airport, only occasionally glancing in her direction. If she could just worm her way into a little knot of the red fezzes . . . She waited until three men started toward the door, then scurried out to join them.

  She stayed a half-step back from the trio, walking with her head up, but turned away from Simmons. As the group moved into the pale afternoon sun, she caught snatches of the men’s conversation—something about getting in some good golf and trying to avoid the Christmas Tour of the Biltmore Estate. As they approached the bus, Ron of the green blazer looked up and grinned.

  “Hello, folks. Welcome to the Grove Park Inn. Could I have your names so I can check you off my list?”

  “Perry,” the first man said. “Say, buddy, is there any golf around here?”

  Mary glanced over her shoulder as Ron replied. Simmons was staring in her direction.

  “Griffin.” The second Shriner pointed to his name on Ron’s list.

  Mary looked again. Simmons was walking her way! She had to make a move, and make it now.

  “Montgomery,” the last man said. He started to point to his name, then Mary bumped into him.

  “Excuse me,” she said sweetly, beaming at Ron as she squeezed past Mr. Montgomery. “My husband’s already checked us on the bus. I’ve got some medication for him that he needs to take right this minute!”

  Ron looked at her for a moment, then smiled. “Of course, go right on board.”

  She skipped up the steps. A few people looked up at her curiously, but most chattered away with their seatmates, happy to be on vacation. She walked down the aisle, looking out the smoked-glass windows to see where Mr. Simmons had gone. He was still headed her way.

  “Come on,” Mary urged as she sat down in a seat by herself. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  More Shriners boarded the bus. Simmons drew closer, now peering in the windows. Mary shrank down in the seat and pulled her cap low, pretending to be napping. She felt a jolt and opened her eyes. An overweight couple had plopped down in front of her. She saw that the bus driver was ready to go, but Mr. Simmons was now talking to Ron. With her heart beating madly, she watched as Simmons gestured, indicating someone’s height. Ron shook his head. Simmons said something else and nodded at the bus. Ron pointed to the passenger list and shrugged. She shrank down lower in her seat. If Ron let Simmons on this bus, she would be a goner. . . .

  Mary peered toward the front of the bus. Ron hopped on board, his cheeks rosy from the wind. She braced herself, knowing Simmons would follow, and she would be discovered. But the doors closed. She lifted the brim of her cap and peeked out the window. Simmons was walking back to the airport as the bus driver released the air brakes and began to roll toward the highway.

  After a half-hour ride where several bottles of Scotch were passed up and down the aisle, they arrived at the inn. As the bus pulled up to the sprawling old resort, Ron stood up and again welcomed everyone to Asheville. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you will gather in front of the stone fireplace to the left of the lobby, the concierge will direct you to your rooms.”

  As the Shriners got to their feet, Mary once again tugged the cap down low over her eyes, then attached herself to the first group getting off the bus. Ron had already hurried inside the building, weary, no doubt, of the vacationers’ increasingly tipsy good humor. Still, she stayed with her little cluster of red fezzes as they entered the building. The lobby was cavernous. Two fireplaces, each big enough to barbecue a steer, commanded both ends of the room, each burning a long, fat log of aged oak. As her fellow travelers wobbled over to the wide hearths, Mary quietly slipped away, slinking down a hall that offered
a long row of split oak rockers in front of a bank of pay phones.

  Grabbing a directory, she flipped to the Yellow Pages. In a moment she’d found what she was looking for—a used-car dealership that advertised rentals. It wasn’t the most surreptitious way to go, but it was the best she could do. When Safer found out she’d given him the slip, he would think Hertz or Avis. By the time he came up with Bingo’s, she would have long since driven to her destination. She wrote down the address, then called the first of Asheville’s half-dozen cab companies.

  “Ten minutes,” the dispatcher said.

  “I’ll be waiting out front.”

  She hung up the phone and walked back out to the lobby, where the Shriners were squabbling over their rooms, a covey of scarlet fezzes massed in front of one fireplace. Swiping her baseball cap off her head, she sat down to wait for her cab. So far she had escaped being deported to Atlanta. Now, if she could only make it to her destination before Safer tightened the net around her.

  CHAPTER 28

  Mary steered the rental car through a series of hairpin curves. A bright red taxi cab had picked her up at the Grove Park Inn, and she directed the driver to take her to Bingo’s Used Cars on Tunnel Road. Half an hour later, Bingo Davis handed her the keys to a 1985 gray Celica with an odometer that read over 225,000 miles.

  “This is it?” The car looked like it had finished dead last in a long line of demolition derbies.

  “You said you didn’t want nothin’ flashy,” said Bingo, a beefy, red-haired man who wore a short-sleeved Nascar T-shirt even though it was spitting snow. He patted the car’s hood. “She ain’t purty, but she’ll go like a sumbitch.”

  Mary got in the car. Though it stank of cigarette smoke and old french fry grease, the engine was surprisingly quiet. “I’ll have her back in a couple of days.” She waved once at Bingo, then she turned onto I-240, merging into the westbound traffic.

  Now, as the little coupe buzzed deeper into the mountains, Mary cracked the window and greedily breathed in the Nantahala’s winter smell. Cool pine and damp cedar overlaid the pungent tang of iron-rich earth. She knew it as well as she knew the jumble of aromas that made up Little Jump Off Store. Jonathan, she thought. Why is Ruth Moon here? Is it truly finished between us?

  A rabbit bounded across the road. Skidding around a curve, Mary followed the Little Tee River for a hundred yards, then the store’s single electric sign illuminated the darkness as if it were the last outpost of civilization before the world reverted to its true self of wildness and unrestrained growth.

  Mary pulled into the parking lot. Two battered pickup trucks nudged against the building, one with North Carolina license plates, the other with Oklahoma. Ruth Moon, Mary thought, dread weighting her chest. She and Jonathan were probably eating supper right now, no doubt cooing at each over a basket of bean bread Ruth had baked herself.

  She got out of the Toyota and crossed the lot, her footsteps crunching in the gravel. Lights blazed from inside the store. Maybe Ruth Moon and Jonathan keep it open all the time now. Organizing the Cherokees into political action committees. That wouldn’t be so bad, a cold voice whispered inside her head. At least they would be upright and clothed. Not naked and touching each other.

  She shook that image from her brain and walked up the steps. She hated dropping in on anybody unannounced, but tonight she had no choice. She peeked in the window. Inside, she could see the fireplace and the Christmas tree and Ruth Moon’s REPIC poster, but there was no one behind the counter. Softly she tapped on the door, her fingers like icicles.

  Nothing happened. She tapped again, louder, hoping she wasn’t interrupting another Hugh-and-Irene moment. All at once she saw a blur of motion as Jonathan came down the stairs, barefooted, but dressed in jeans and a light blue work shirt. She almost laughed in relief at the sight of him. Given Ruth Moon’s political proclivities, she had almost expected him to appear in buckskins and war paint. But he looked much the same as when she’d seen him last—tall and lean, his dark hair tied in a ponytail. She watched his face through the glass panes of the door, smiling as he registered shock, then gladness, then a new, hesitant emotion she couldn’t identify. He unlocked the door and pulled it open. The light and warmth from Little Jump Off enveloped her like a cloud.

  “Mary!” he cried. “Ruth said you’d come by. Why didn’t you leave a number where I could reach you?”

  “Hi, Jonathan.” She watched as his old familiar smile once again crinkled his eyes. He was surprised to see her, but very pleased, too. How well she could read his face. How deeply did she miss it.

  “Come on in!” He held his arms out to her. She stepped forward, was almost about to touch him, when another voice resounded through the room.

  “Jonathan? Who is it?”

  Before either of them could say another word, Ruth Moon appeared at the top of the stairs, clutching a white napkin in one hand. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw Mary, but then she smiled as she hurried to stand beside Jonathan.

  “Mary,” she said, her voice like honey. “How wonderful to see you again. Jonathan was so happy that we’d finally gotten to meet!” Her eyes glittered. “How’s your old friend?”

  “Yeah,” Jonathan said. “I couldn’t figure out who you would spend Christmas with.”

  “Irene Hannah,” said Mary.

  Jonathan’s brows lifted. “You spent Christmas with Judge Hannah? Over at Upsy Daisy?”

  Mary nodded. “I need your help, Jonathan. Something terrible has happened.”

  “Wait right there,” he said, turning immediately to the check-out counter. “I’ll get my coat.”

  “No, it’s not like that. Let me explain. . . .”

  “Have you had supper, Mary?” asked Ruth Moon.

  Mary shook her head.

  “Then come join us,” she invited, looping her arm through Jonathan’s. “I’ll set an extra place and you can tell what kind of trouble you’re in.”

  * * *

  An hour later, with a pile of delicate trout bones making a slender modernistic sculpture in the middle of the kitchen table, Mary had told the story of Irene Hannah’s abduction. She told them about waiting in the truck for Irene to return with her medicine, then going inside to find her gone.

  “So this Agent Safer doesn’t know you sneaked back up here?” Jonathan had listened to her without interrupting, while Ruth Moon had questioned her at every turn, as if testing the veracity of her story.

  “He’s pretty smart. I imagine he’s figured it out by now.”

  Ruth Moon put three slices of lemon pie on the table. Mary noticed she’d fixed it without meringue, the way Jonathan liked it. She asked, “And the only clue you have is a black feather in the bathroom?”

  Mary nodded. “That’s all they had this morning.”

  “And they have no idea who might have taken her?” Jonathan took a bite of pie.

  “Somebody with a case against a sitting federal judge.” Mary didn’t mention that eleven other judges had already been murdered and that some group might be saving Irene for a bizarre New Year’s Eve celebration. “The FBI is afraid that it might be part of a much broader conspiracy.”

  “And wouldn’t that be just too bad?” Ruth Moon’s words were so laced with acid that Mary and Jonathan both looked up. Long seconds passed in awkward silence, then Mary spoke.

  “Look, Ruth. I’ve sworn to defend the U.S. Constitution and the federal government. If you’ve got a problem with that, then maybe I’ve come to the wrong house.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ruth rearranged the knife and fork on her plate. “That came out wrong. It’s just that I’ve got a few issues of my own with the U.S. government.”

  For a moment Mary gazed at her in reluctant admiration—the upward tilt of her dark eyes and the defiant jut of her chin were undeniably attractive. Ruth Moon was pretty, intelligent, passionate, and diametrically opposed to everything Mary represented. Suddenly she realized she’d been a fool to come here. Jonathan belonged to this woman n
ow, and she wasn’t going to loan him out as a white knight on demand. Mary wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin and rose from her chair.

  “Thank you so much for dinner,” she said, smiling. “It was delicious. But I think it’s time for me to leave.”

  “No, Mary, don’t go.” Jonathan grabbed her hand. “Ruth is from Oklahoma—she doesn’t understand how much Irene Hannah means to you.”

  Ruth Moon read the expression on Jonathan’s face and instantly retreated. “Mary, I’m in favor of rearranging Congress. Not of abducting innocent people. If Jonathan wants to help you, of course I will, too.” Ruth smiled as if her shoes had grown suddenly too tight.

  Mary studied her, not totally convinced by her quick change of heart, but she sat back down. As much as she mistrusted Ruth Moon, what else could she do? She was stuck. She had to find Irene Hannah, and she desperately needed Jonathan’s help to do that. If he and this woman now came like a matched set of earrings, then she’d just have to deal with it.

  “Anyway,” Mary looked at Jonathan and began again, “I figured if anything was going on up here, you’d know about it.”

  “Where does this judge live?” asked Ruth.

  “About fifteen miles away,” said Jonathan.

  Mary pressed on. “Do you know of anyone who might have a grudge against Judge Hannah? Legally, she’s come down hard on the timber industry, and the NRA certainly doesn’t regard her as a friend. Any Second Amendment storm troopers around here?”

  He shrugged. “Everyone with a squirrel gun spouts that ‘pry my gun from my cold, dead fingers’ line every chance they get.”

  Mary sighed. That macho boast rang hollow for her—she’d seen too many weeping mothers kissing the cold, dead fingers of their murdered children.

  “Any militia groups or white supremacists in the area?” Unconsciously Mary fell into the voir dire rhythm she used when she questioned prospective jurors.

  Jonathan shook his head. “None that I know of. But it’s the mountains. Strange individuals riddle these hills.”