Robert B. Parker's Blackjack (A Cole and Hitch Novel)

by Robert Knott

  “I allow I could use a drink,” he said.

  “Kind of early to go waving the flag, don’t you think, Juniper?” I said.

  “Not to worry, Everett, my boy,” Juniper said. “I know when and how I go down the rabbit hole and when I simply trot about and hunt and piddle with the hare . . . both I do by choice, so you can rest assured these litigious proceedings have my full and undivided interest and attention.”

  Juniper slowed to a stop and looked to Virgil.

  “And if you are asking me what I allow in respect to how this will go, I’m curious, too, because I simply do not know. If you are asking me if I believe he actually did it, I don’t know that, either. I will say on one hand he is convincing and on the other hand he is not. At moments he seems inward, irreverent, and regretful, the prime indicator of guilt. Then there are those flashes of pompous and painful splenetic conviction, indubitably erring on innocence.”

  Juniper started to walk, then stopped again, looking up at Virgil.

  “Nonetheless,” he said, “this trial by ambush is impudent and reckless nonsense. Judge Callison is reverting back to his early wild and woolly frontier days, it seems. In fact, I have to say it seems in respect to Judge Callison, there is no telling what he might do. In the past I have had great success in his room, but now his ability to disregard and miraculously transport himself into another place in time right before our eyes leads me to believe there is no reason to bank on reasoning here. The fact that this witness that has come forward with what is to be important information and he’s not allowing me the appropriate disclosure is like asking me to walk a tightrope and I do not know how to walk a tightrope.”

  When we stepped out into the courtroom foyer, Allie was sitting on a bench.

  “There you are,” Allie said as she stood. “Everett, look who I have had the pleasure of visiting with.”

  Across the foyer from Allie sat Daphne. She smiled and got to her feet.

  “Marshal,” she said. “Everett.”

  “Ms. Angel,” Virgil said.

  “Hello,” she said. “Everett, I thought I would wait for you. I hope that is okay?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Ah . . . ladies,” Juniper said with a tip of his hat and a click of his heels. “If you all will excuse me . . .” Then he looked to Virgil and me. “I have business to attend to, an appointment with an unsuspecting Lagomorph . . . Good day.”

  Juniper tipped his hat once more, then walked out.

  Allie grinned and reached out, taking Daphne’s hand.

  “We have been getting to know each other,” Allie said, holding Daphne’s hand in both of her hands.

  Daphne nodded and smiled.

  “We have,” she said.

  “That’s good,” I said.

  “It’s not every day,” Allie said, “that we have someone as smart and as beautiful as this lovely lady here in Appaloosa.”

  “Thank you, Allie,” Daphne said.

  “Mostly,” Allie said, “the new women that show up here are whores, don’t you know.”

  “Well, I . . .”

  Daphne blushed.

  “I was also thrilled as can be,” Allie said, “to find out that she works for Mr. Pritchard . . . and the new casino and, well, we have a lot in common.”

  “That’s good, Allie,” Virgil said.

  “We also, of course,” Allie said, “have had the unfortunate discussion about all this carryings-on, about all this awful matter regarding this trial.”

  “Which implores me,” Daphne said, “to ask what has happened. Why were the proceedings cut short today?”

  I looked to Virgil.

  “Seems there has been some new discovery by the prosecution,” Virgil said.

  “My God,” she said.

  “Oh, no,” Allie said. “What sort of discovery?”

  “Court business, Allie,” Virgil said.

  “What kind of court business?” Allie said.

  “Don’t know.”

  “You don’t know or you aren’t saying,” Allie said.

  52.

  I walked with Daphne as she spun the white silk parasol above her head, keeping the hot afternoon sun off her face. We strolled on for a long time without talking. Then she laced her arm around mine and we walked a while longer without talking.

  “She’s something else,” Daphne said.

  “Allie?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “She likes you, you know?” Daphne said.

  “What’s not to like?”

  “No, I mean she likes you.”

  “She likes you, too,” I said.

  “No,” Daphne said. “I’m a woman, I know.”

  I laughed.

  “No,” I said.

  I looked to her as we walked. She looked to me from under her parasol.

  “You like her, too?” she said.

  “Of course I like her.”

  “Yes,” she said. “That is evident.”

  “She’s my friend.”

  We walked for a moment.

  “Allie and I have a special friendship,” I said.

  “I know . . .”

  “No . . . not like that,” I said.

  “How is it?”

  “We have a certain kinship because we are both partners with Virgil.”

  “You have known her a long time.”

  “Long enough.”

  “I can tell.”

  “But she belongs to Virgil.”

  “You say that like she is his possession.”

  “She belongs to Virgil and Virgil belongs to her.”

  Daphne shook her head a little.

  “What?” I said.

  “You don’t have to get defensive, Everett.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I like her, too,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “And she likes me.”

  “She does,” I said.

  “What’s not to like?” she said, then looked at me and offered a delayed smile.

  “I have to agree,” I said.

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “But I’m glad you do.”

  “Pleasure is all mine,” I said.

  “Not entirely,” she said. “But thank you for walking with me.”

  “It’s quite difficult.”

  She looked down as she walked. She kept looking down, then . . .

  “Can I tell you something, Everett?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s a confession of sorts.”

  “I’m right here.”

  “I’m very . . . concerned with what is happening with this trial . . .”

  “I can understand.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Well, not fully. I’m not sure you do understand, not completely, anyway.”

  We walked a bit, and she waited until she spoke again.

  “Before, when we talked,” she said, “I was not fully honest with you.”

  “About?”

  “Well, let me rephrase that, I was not dishonest, but I was not forthcoming.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You know when you asked me previously if I were ever married?”

  “So you have been?” I said.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s not it, and no, I have never been married.”

  “Okay.”

  “When I told you before that I was engaged, I left out that it was . . . Bill Black that I was engaged to.”

  I stopped walking, and then she stopped and turned back to me, staring at me from under the silk of her parasol.

  “Not that you owe me any details of your diary,” I said. “Or need any kind of explanation or accounting
of your past, but under the circumstances, that’s, well . . . I’m not sure what that is.”

  “I know,” she said. “That’s precisely why I felt I should confess this to you.”

  “Glad you did.”

  “It was a long time ago,” she said.

  “And you changed your mind,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why?” I said.

  “Because . . . he frightened me,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “Not by one particular action,” she said. “But there was something about him that was ultimately frightening.”

  “Why did you warn him?”

  “What?”

  “You let him know,” I said. “He said it was you that told him he was being accused of the murder.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Just part of his baring up . . .”

  She nodded.

  “I care for him,” she said.

  “Obviously.”

  “No,” she said, “not like that, not anymore.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “How could I not?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “And I’m not judging you for doing so.”

  “In many ways he is like a little boy.”

  “Far from little.”

  “No, he is,” she said. “He’s a child, really.”

  “Do you think he killed her?”

  She thought for a brief moment, then shook her head.

  “No,” she said.

  53.

  The following day in the courtroom was a hot one. By ten in the morning it was sweltering. After Judge Callison got settled and the trial got under way, the prosecutor, Dickie Simmons, wasted no time. He called a man by the name of Lawrence LaCroix to the stand.

  LaCroix was a medium-build fellow in his forties. He was fairly nice-looking, with a strong face and wide bright blue eyes. He was lean and muscular, and his skin was tanned from the sun. His clothes were British military, made of khaki, and he carried a straw hat in one hand and a flat object covered with a cloth in the other. After he took the stand and was sworn in, Dickie Simmons went after him like a thirsty dog.

  “Mr. LaCroix, do you know that man over there?”

  Dickie pointed to Boston Bill.

  “I do not,” LaCroix said.

  LaCroix was, in fact, a Brit, but his manner did not in any way give him the air of affluence. There was nothing smug or superior about him. In fact, he seemed completely pleasant and unassuming.

  “Have you seen him before?”

  “I have.”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “At the Bloom’s Inn near the South Platte River in Denver, Colorado.”

  “Bullshit,” Black said as he rose from his chair until Juniper pulled him back into his seat.

  Judge Callison banged his gavel and Juniper stood quickly before Callison said anything.

  “Won’t happen again, Your Honor,” Juniper said, and then sat back and looked at Black, shaking his head.

  “See that it doesn’t,” Callison said.

  Black was red-faced and his eyes were steaming mad as he leaned in close to Juniper and mouthed Bullshit as he shook his head. Bullshit.

  Callison turned in his chair and looked behind him, then looked to the bailiff.

  “What is that noise?” he said.

  “Your Honor?”

  “What?” Judge Callison said.

  “I . . . I don’t hear anything, Your Honor.”

  Callison turned back and looked out at the courtroom, staring blankly. He was very calm looking out as everyone remained looking at him, waiting for him to say something. Then Callison turned in his chair and looked out the window to his right. Everyone in the room followed his look, as if he were focused on something that we should see, but there was only the side of the adjoining building across the way. Callison remained looking, as if he were lost in thought. Whispering conversations could be heard, but Callison did not respond to them, he just kept looking toward the window.

  “What in the hell is the ol’ boy up to?” Valentine said quietly to Virgil and me.

  Virgil didn’t answer Valentine as he watched the judge.

  “Your Honor?” Simmons said.

  Callison tuned and looked to Simmons.

  “Yes,” Callison said.

  “May I proceed?” Simmons said.

  Callison looked at him for a moment, then, as if he were back in the room after a brief journey beyond, he nodded.

  “You may proceed, Mr. Simmons.”

  There were murmurs in the room.

  Callison rapped his gavel a bit.

  “Quiet,” he said, then nodded to Simmons.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Simmons said, then turned his attention to the stand.

  “When did you see him?” Simmons said to LaCroix.

  “I saw him there, at Bloom’s Inn a few times.”

  Black shook his head dramatically from side to side and wanted desperately to get to his feet again, but Juniper kept him seated.

  “Were you staying at the inn?” Simmons said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why did you see him? Let me phrase that differently. How was it that you had seen him there at Bloom’s Inn on numerous occasions?”

  “I’m a painter,” LaCroix said.

  “You were there painting the Bloom’s Inn building?”

  “No,” he said with a smile. “Well . . . yes, I was, in part, painting the building.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Juniper said. “Let’s get to it . . . either he was painting the inn or he was not painting the inn. Obviously Mr. LaCroix has no clue.”

  “Sit down, Mr. Jones,” Judge Callison said to Juniper with a stern expression on his face. Then he looked back to Dickie. “You may continue, Mr. Simmons.”

  Dickie smiled, and for dramatic purposes he looked to the ground and paced a bit before he spoke. Then he said, “Go on, Mr. LaCroix. Please explain for the court what you were doing there at Bloom’s Inn, where Mr. Black was residing.”

  “As I said, I was painting . . . I paint landscapes.”

  “You paint landscapes?”

  “Objection,” Juniper said.

  “Overruled,” the judge said. “Continue, Mr. Simmons, and Mr. Jones, let’s let him get on with this business here.”

  The judge nodded to Dickie.

  “Please,” Dickie said. “You were saying?”

  LaCroix nodded.

  “Bloom’s Inn,” LaCroix said, “was the subject of one of my paintings.”

  “Your Honor,” Dickie said. “I would like to place into evidence the painting of which Mr. LaCroix is referencing here.”

  “Objection,” Juniper said.

  “Overruled,” Callison said.

  Dickie turned back to LaCroix. “May I?”

  “Oh, sure,” LaCroix said, and unwrapped the covering from a painting.

  “Is this the painting?” Dickie said. “The painting of Bloom’s Inn, the residence of Bill Black?”

  “Yes,” LaCroix said.

  Dickie showed the painting to the jurors. He walked slowly by each one of the jurors, letting them have a good look at the painting. Then he presented it out to us in the courtroom. It was a side-angle-view painting of Bloom’s Inn with the South Platt River in the background. The sign in front of the Inn clearly spelled out Bloom’s Inn.

  “I call this painting Bloom Where You Are Planted,” LaCroix said proudly.

  The courtroom reacted with laughter.

  “Objection,” Juniper said. “The name of this painting has no significance, no credibility to—”

  “Oh, on the contrary,” Dickie said, interrupting Juniper. “The very
fact this painting says Bloom’s Inn, right here.” Dickie pointed to the sign in the painting. “Gives this painting credibility as to Mr. LaCroix’s whereabouts the evening Ruth Ann Messenger was brutally murdered by Bill Black.”

  “Objection,” Juniper said. “Mr. Simmons is trying to lead the jury and the people of this court to believe this painting has bearing on the fate on my client’s future. Well, it has no credence in this case whatsoever. This painting could be any number of inns. And though I am not at all suggesting that, I will give Mr. LaCroix his due, but there is nothing substantial—”

  “Overruled, Mr. Jones,” the judge said. “Continue, Mr. Simmons, but get to the point.”

  Dickie smiled, then took his time as he homed in on Lawrence LaCroix.

  “Tell the jurors and this court the last time you saw this man, Bill Black,” Dickie said, pointing over to Black without looking at him.

  “Well, as you can see, the painting is an evening rendition and I painted this painting, Bloom Where You Are Planted,” he said, “over a number of evenings and . . . well, I set up my easel at the same spot every evening, and on this particular evening I saw Mr. Black . . .”

  LaCroix stopped and looked to the judge.

  “Go on,” Judge Callison said.

  “I saw Bill Black dragging Ruth Ann Messenger down the path directly in front of me toward the South Platte River.”

  54.

  That’s a goddamn lie!” Black shouted as he towered up out of his chair, knocking over the table in front of him.

  Callison banged his gavel.

  “A goddamn lie!” Black said.

  A boisterous eruption of gasps and shouts echoed loudly in the courtroom as Callison continued to bang his gavel over and over.

  “Quiet,” he said. “Silence . . . Sit down, Mr. Black . . . Quiet. Sit down, Mr. Black!”

  “It’s a goddamn lie,” Black said as he pointed a rigid finger at Lawrence LaCroix and moved toward him. “A goddamn lie!”

  Chastain and Book were quick to get in front of Black. They got ahold of Black and moved him back away from the stand.

  “A goddamn lie!”

  “Mr. Jones,” Callison said. “Sit him down and shut him up. Right now!”

  Juniper practically climbed aboard Black, trying to get him down in his chair with the help of Chastain and Book.

  The noise in the courtroom was still at a loud level, and Callison banged and banged his gavel until everyone stopped clamoring.