It was now completely dark and the lamp light standing in the grass beyond the parking lot was out. He still couldn’t figure that out. Ben stepped off the back porch and down the five or six steps to the cobblestone walkway leading out to the parking lot. Just as he reached the corner of the building, he glimpsed something to his left and flinched, startled by an unexpected movement. Something black came at him from out of the bushes. He recoiled and fell back to his right, his left arm instinctively coming up. Something glanced off his wrist and struck him in the side of the head just above his left temple and Ben let out a, “Hey.”
A figure clad all in black was on him now and swinging something, striking at him with a club or large stick. Ben tried to fend the figure off, but couldn’t. In close, the figure, it had to be a man, smelled like a mixture of body odor, beer and cigarettes. He was swinging wildly now, catching Ben solidly on the left forearm, then his left cheek, then his forearm again, then with a knee into his ribs. Ben rolled on his back and tried to get his right hand up in front of his face. The blow to the ribs all but knocked the wind out of him and his left forearm burned with pain.
Ben grabbed the man’s black shirt with his left hand and took another shot above the wrist forcing him to let go. He gasped for air as he struggled to protect his face. The blows came quickly, all aimed at or around Ben’s head, but they seemed to lack the power of the initial assault. Ben lashed out with his left foot trying to kick the man in the groin and caught him weakly in the left hip. He caught the man more solidly the next time in the left thigh and the man grunted. Very few of the blows now got in solidly to Ben’s head. He picked most of them off with his left arm causing searing pain to shoot down to his wrist and up to his shoulder.
Through it all, a raspy voice grunted at him through clenched teeth. Then Ben heard a noise - a scream, followed by more screams. Then footsteps. Someone was coming. Two commuters coming from the train station, a man and a woman, had seen the attack and had yelled out, “Hey you! Stop that! You stop! Stop!” and ran at them. Another man followed behind. The attacker stumbled off Ben, who tried to grab him by the legs, tripping him slightly. The man quickly regained his balance and tried to get away. He ran around the back of the garage, while Ben staggered to one knee, then up onto his feet. He threw his briefcase, which has been around his right shoulder the whole time, down to the ground and began chasing after his attacker. Ben stumbled over a shrub in the lawn at the end of the parking lot and fell hard to one knee. One of the male commuters overtook Ben in pursuit of the attacker and Ben followed him around the garage toward the other parking lot in front of the building.
Ben tried to keep up, but couldn’t. The pain in his rib cage, coupled with the excitement of the moment made it impossible for him to catch his breath and he hobbled to a stop after rounding the dumpster in front of the garage. Up ahead, the commuter also slowed as off in the distance the attacker jumped into a waiting car and tore off into the night.
Ben dropped down to one knee and a moment later, the three commuters surrounded him, soon joined by several more. A man called 911 on his cell phone. The woman, a brunette in her mid-twenties, leaned down, looked at him and said “Jesus, what was that all about? Are you okay?”
Ben could feel the left side of his face swelling rapidly and his eye beginning to close, a hot liquid running down the side of his face, yet he looked at her and managed a weak smile. “Thanks to you guys,” he said.
41
Ben sat in the examining room of the Alexian Brothers Medical Center and dabbed at his left cheek with the ice pack, now not nearly as cold as it had been earlier. Libby stood in front of him and looked down on him, a look of anger mixed with worry crossing her face. Once the Ithaca Police had arrived, they insisted on taking Ben to the hospital. Knowing he wouldn’t be home for hours, Ben called his wife. Although he insisted that he was all right and that she should wait for him at home, Libby got her mother to baby sit, hopped in the car and hurried over to the hospital. When she arrived, the doctor on duty had just finished gluing a small cut above Ben’s left eyebrow. “About two or three stitches worth,” the doctor said.
She gasped when she first saw him. “Oh my God,” she said. “Who did this?”
He told her the same thing he told the police. “I’m not sure. He was wearing a mask, a black tee shirt and black jeans. I even think he had black tennis shoes on. He may have been Hispanic, but I’m not sure.”
“This must be about that damn case,” she said.
Ben shrugged. “I don’t know.” Same thing he told the police. Truth is he did know. What he hadn’t told the police, and what he wouldn’t tell Libby either, was what the man said to Ben as he pummeled him.
“Leave it alone, leave it alone, leave it alone,” spoken with a heavy Hispanic accent. Ben couldn’t make it out at first, but literally had it beaten it into him so that he wouldn’t soon forget it.
Ben didn’t know whether a random assault in the middle of the western suburbs or his pending murder trial would cause more worry, but he chose to keep what the man said to himself, at least for the time being. In addition to the cut over his eye, now bandaged, more ice packs were wrapped around Ben’s left knee and his left forearm, the latter of which had already been X-rayed, along with Ben’s ribs and the left side of his face. The knee injury seemed the least significant of all, probably just a bruise sustained when Ben tripped and fell while trying to chase his assailant.
Once you got past the cut, Ben’s face was probably just bruised too, although bruised enough that he would no doubt have one hell of a shiner. The arm swelled immediately and felt broken at first, but Ben had regained most of the use and feeling in his left hand, so that too might not be as bad as he first feared. Of his injuries, the ribs clearly felt the worst and sent a throbbing pain which radiated around his side to his back. The pain worsened whenever Ben breathed, which was difficult, and sharp pains like someone was stabbing him with a knife occurred whenever Ben tried to move too quickly or even breathe too deeply. He knew the ribs would be a problem for days, if not weeks to come.
Ben sat awkwardly in the chair, pitched at an odd angle trying to get comfortable. He felt like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. A few minutes earlier, a rugged looking nurse stopped by and gave him a small paper container with two Vicodin tablets inside, together with a small cup of water. The pain everywhere but in his ribs began to deaden a little as the Vicodin took effect. The ribs still ached like hell.
“Is it getting better?” Libby asked in a soft voice.
“A little bit,” Ben croaked. He made a raspy wheezing sound whenever he breathed. As he sat there trying not to talk about the incident in too much detail, Ben kept hearing the gravelly Hispanic voice of his assailant playing over and over in his head. He could also just about smell the man’s body odor and the alcohol-soaked breath. Libby could tell that he was thinking about something, but thought better of pressing him.
They sat in silence for several more minutes before a young doctor, Ben didn’t even know his name, pushed through the privacy curtain and stepped inside. Ben studied him for a moment and said nothing. He didn’t look old enough to be out of medical school, which didn’t do much to inspire Ben’s confidence. He wore a white standard issue doctor’s coat over a yellow golf shirt and khaki pants, on which Ben noticed several drops of blood above the cuff on the right leg. Was that his blood? He didn’t know.
The doctor held a series of X-ray sheets in his left hand. He flicked on an X-ray light on the wall and shoved three of the films into place. “Let’s start with the knee,” he said, a bit too enthusiastically, pointing at the screen with his right pinkie finger. “There doesn’t appear to be anything structurally wrong from this X-ray. I think you just bruised it. If it doesn’t get better in a few days,” he said, “we might want to take an MRI. The one in the middle here is obviously the side of your head. No abnormalities indicated, which is good. You probably sustained at least a modest concussion, however. We’ll give y
ou a little handout on head injuries to look at, but the important thing is if you feel disoriented or nauseated, we might want to have you come in and take a CAT scan.” Turning to Libby he said, “You should probably wake him up every couple of hours during the night to make sure he’s all right.”
Ben groaned. “Just give me enough of the god damn Vicodin and let me sleep.”
The doctor looked at Libby as if to say not to listen to him.
“The film on the right,” the doctor said continuing, “is your left arm. I don’t see anything there either. You got whacked pretty hard and it’s badly bruised and should be tender for a few days, but you seem to have the use back in your hand and wrist so I don’t think it’s broken.”
He removed the three X-rays from the wall and slid in the last two. “These are your ribs. This one here on the left is the view more or less from the side, while the other one is a view from the rear.” He pointed to a small dark spot on the second rib from the bottom on the left picture. “You see this here?” he said. “This looks like it may be a slight fracture. There is not much we can do for it except help you manage the pain. The course of treatment is pretty much the same whether it’s a fracture or not. Be careful with that area. I would minimize stretching, lifting, anything that could provide strain to your ribcage area. This will probably hurt for a while. Assuming all things go well, you should probably have a follow-up visit with your doctor in about a week to make sure you’re healing on schedule. Other than that, I think you can go home, but I would let your wife drive. I’d probably also take tomorrow off, maybe the day after as well, unless you feel a lot better, which I wouldn’t expect.”
Ben struggled to his feet. “Just give me my Vicodin and let me get outta here.”
It took another half hour or so before they finished with the doctor, the paperwork and all of the other stuff associated with a trip to the Emergency Room. He shuffled out to the car with a sample pack of Vicodin and a prescription for even more in his right hand. It hurt to walk and Ben moved very slowly across the parking lot. He pulled the door open to Libby’s minivan and gingerly folded himself into the passenger seat. She slammed the door behind him.
It was now past midnight and the drive home was a pretty quiet one, which suited Ben just fine. He mostly gazed out the passenger side window into the vague middle distance as they made the trip home. Periodically, he sensed Libby looking over at him as if to make sure he hadn’t lapsed into a coma. The events of the day swirled around in Ben’s head as the minivan sped through deserted streets. Leave it alone, leave it alone, leave it alone. He couldn’t get those words out of his head. What did they mean? Leave what alone? Did he know something and not know he knew it? Was he on the right track without realizing it? And who was it that attacked him? He didn’t think it was the killer, that didn’t feel right. It had to be a hired thug, he thought. There were more questions now, more than he had six hours ago looking at that easel in the garage. More questions, but no more answers, maybe fewer answers even. More for his mind to think about as he slept.
Soon they were home and Libby parked in the driveway. She ran around to help him out of the car, but he shooed her off. “I can make it,” he growled. “I’m not an invalid yet.”
Truth be told, the Vicodin had finally taken full effect and although the ribs still ached, everything else felt better. He felt fuzzy and out-of-focus, probably from the pills. He made his way up the steps and into the house finding his mother-in-law dozing on the couch in the family room. Rather than give her a fresh look at the evenings’ horrors, Ben padded through the kitchen and went upstairs. In the bathroom, he struggled to remove his shirt and pants. He looked at himself in the mirror. His face was a mess. This must be about what a car accident looks and feels like, he thought. He popped another Vicodin, one for the road or at least the bed. How many was that? His brain was in a fog. He wasn’t sure. He crawled into bed and drifted off to sleep before Libby even got upstairs.
Hours passed and Ben rolled over and opened his eyes. He immediately felt the ache in his left arm and a sharp pain in his ribs and back. It really had happened. His face and eye felt puffy, but didn’t really hurt that much. Neither did his knee. His throat was dry. He pushed Libby’s pillow out of the way to see the clock - five minutes ‘til nine. “Holy shit,” he rasped. He dragged himself out of bed and felt a little shaky. He started to call for Libby and then stopped. The house felt empty. Libby must have taken the kids and gone already. The ribs hurt worse standing up and the knee didn’t feel quite as good either.
Ben walked into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. If possible, he looked even scarier than the night before. His face looked swollen and puffy on one side and the area from his left cheek up into his forehead over his eye was beginning to turn a dark purple. A similar purple bruise began near his left elbow and extended down almost to his wrist. He slowly peeled off his shirt to reveal similar bruising in his lower left rib cage. He turned on the shower and brushed his teeth. Maybe it would feel better to be clean, he thought. He stood for a long time in the hot shower letting the water rush down his neck and soothe his back and ribs. When he got out of the shower, he felt a little better, but didn’t want to look in the mirror. He dried himself off only with great difficulty. With the tenderness and bruising on the left side of his face, Ben decided not to shave. He laughed, which caused stabbing pains in his left side. It would probably give him a more rugged appearance.
He peeked out the window to check the weather and discovered a sunny cloudless day and bright blue skies. He carefully got into a pair of jeans, running shoes and a white golf shirt. On his way out, he grabbed a root beer from the fridge and called Nancy on his cell phone. “Are you okay?” she asked. “The Ithaca Police called this morning and said you were mugged outside the building last night. What happened?”
Ben took thirty seconds to fill her in and then asked whether Mark was in the office yet. Nancy told him that Mark had just arrived and Ben asked her to assemble the trial team for a meeting in the garage in a half hour.
They were all in the garage already when Ben arrived. As he pushed through the door, all eyes turned his way and there were audible gasps and jaws dropping. Ben gave a weak smile and hobbled over to the end of the table and sat down. Just as he started to say something, the door to the garage opened and Phil, Casey and Nancy came in.
Ben looked up and Phil said, “Holy fuck.”
Nancy put her hands to her mouth and Casey said, “Look at your fucking arm,” with an amazed look on his face. The others around the table had similar expressions.
Ben shrugged. “But you should see the other guy,” he said.
“What happened to him?” Phil asked.
Ben grinned. “Not a scratch. He got away Scot free. I may have kicked him in the balls though. Obviously not hard enough.” Ben shifted awkwardly in his chair. “The worst part,” he said struggling to get his breath, “is that they think I have a cracked rib on this side. I think he caught me with a knee.”
Ben briefly relayed the events of the evening as best as he could remember them. “Most of the damage was done in the first five or ten seconds or so,” Ben said. “After that, it was mostly just flailing around until the commuters came and scared him off.” Ben gestured to Nancy to shut the door. “Now,” Ben said, “this doesn’t leave this room. But yes, he said something which leads me to believe that it almost certainly relates to this case.”
“What was that?” Phil asked.
“He said, ‘leave it alone, leave it alone, leave it alone’, whatever that means.”
“He must think you know something or have figured something out,” Casey said.
Ben nodded. “It sounds like it, but for the life of me, I don’t know what it is we know or have figured out. The only thing I can think of is that maybe he thinks we know something or we do in fact know something, but either don’t realize it or don’t realize the significance of it.”
“Or this is all bulls
hit and you were just mugged by some guy who just happened to be there waiting for you,” Phil said.
Ben cocked his head to one side. “Maybe,” he said, “and that’s more or less what I told the cops because for now, I’d just as soon not let on what the guy said. So let’s just leave it here. My wife doesn’t even know and I don’t want her to know for that matter. Are we clear?” Ben looked from one face to another.
They all nodded, even Phil, who said, “It’s your call I guess.”
Phil, Nancy and Casey left, leaving the trial team alone in the garage. Ben spoke to them about the things he thought needed to be done between now and the trial, coming up sooner than they wished. Ben knew from experience that what seemed to be a long way away would arrive in the blink of an eye. He divided up tasks and made sure that every part of the trial preparation was covered by someone who would thus accept responsibility for it.
The others felt an increased energy level and sense of urgency in their lead counsel in the wake of the beating, which would serve to focus them on the tasks that lay ahead. After he finished his pep talk, he didn’t really intend it to be that, but that’s how it turned out, Ben pushed away from the table and slowly rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Mark asked.
Ben’s jaw was set and a determined look crossed his features. “I’m going out for a while,” he said in a raspy whisper. “There’s someone I need to see.”
42
Ben found a spot on the street and parked. His destination was a couple of blocks away and as he hobbled up the sidewalk, he received an odd mixture of responses from passers by. Some looked away; others couldn’t help but stare. He would have to get used to it.
Final Exam: A Legal Thriller Page 28
