Perfect Justice

by William Bernhardt

  “How do you know?”

  “I was there.”

  “Wha—!” Ben sat up straight in his seat. “You?”

  “Yes. John and I had decided to get out of the office for a bit, so we walked down to the Bluebell for a drink.”

  “And you saw them talk? And fight?”

  “Couldn’t miss it. During the fight, Vick’s head got slammed down in the middle of our table.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

  “I told the DA. I didn’t know it would be important to your case. Frankly I thought you’d want to mention that fight as little as possible.”

  Ben nodded. “If I were smarter, you’d probably be right. But that’s a big if.”

  Belinda glanced at the papers scattered across his desk. “Do you have much more trial prep to do?”

  “Tons. I keep bashing my head up against the same unanswered questions. There’s too much I don’t know. I haven’t had the time I need to investigate this mess.”

  Belinda took his hand and pressed it to her breast. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in taking a little break. …”

  Ben removed his hand. “Belinda … I’m really swamped.”

  She put her head in the crook of his neck and nuzzled his earlobes. “Not even a little break … ?”

  Ben pushed her head away. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

  Belinda tried not to look hurt. “Have I done something … wrong?”

  “Have you—? Of course not.”

  “You seem different today.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. You seem … withdrawn.”

  Ben looked away. “Belinda … last night … was …”

  “So that’s how it is.” She rose suddenly. “Don’t bother trying to let me down easy. I know how to take a hint.”

  “Belinda, wait.”

  “Have fun with your trial prep. Lock up when you’re done.” She strode out of the office.

  Ben emitted a long sigh. What the hell was wrong with him? Belinda was a spectacular woman and he was—

  That was the problem, of course. As strong as his feelings for Belinda were, they only served to remind him of what had gone before. The specters of the past.

  And suddenly he was back in Toronto again, and the snow was on the ground and he was bundled to the hilt and he was with—

  Ellen. And he was in love.

  The images flashed through his head like a montage from an old black-and-white movie. Queen’s College, the church, the exchange student from Scotland, the snowball fight in the quad. And the futon in the attic and the ring and Ellen’s radiant brown hair.

  He closed his eyes, trying to stop the flow of images, but they just kept coming. Finals, big plans, the Harbourfront carnival. And then he was at the subway station, and there were tears and shouts and blood was everywhere and—

  Ben pressed his hand against his face. Tragedy beyond imagining. And worst of all, he had not kept his promise. He had failed her.

  He stood up and kicked the desk. It was years ago, he told himself. Grow up already! Get over it!

  He’d been telling himself that for a long, long time, though, and it hadn’t worked yet.

  But it would. He pounded the desk, clearing the clutter from his brain. He closed his eyes again and mentally erased all the horrible images, all the wasted moments, all the inescapable consequences from his brain.

  He didn’t have time for this. He had to get on with this trial.

  And he had to get on with his life.

  49.

  COLONEL NGUYEN FOUND HIS way home by starlight, following the path illuminated by the twinkling sentinels of the night. In the old days, he recalled, he used to look to them for guidance, for a sense of permanence, for answers. Now they were just white lights in the sky. Silent. Unresponsive. Nothing more.

  Lan sat on the front porch Nguyen had only recently reconstructed. Her feet were propped against the railing; her eyes gazed up toward the heavens.

  She was as beautiful as the Vietnamese flower for which she was named. Her smooth, tranquil face warmed his heart. It was almost as if there were no danger at all, as if that same porch had not been riddled with gunfire only a few days before.

  He sneaked behind her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “The children?”

  “In bed.” She took his arm and pulled it close around her.

  “Was it difficult?”

  “It is worse every night. They are afraid monsters will come in the night. And what can I tell them?” She shook her head sadly. “The monsters do come in the night.”

  “How did you get them to sleep?”

  “I told them their father would protect them, of course. As he has always done. As he always will do.”

  “Perhaps the monsters will not come tonight,” Nguyen said as he sat beside her in the same chair. “Perhaps tonight will be calm.”

  “Why do you say that? What have you been doing?”

  He paused a moment, then decided it would be better to tell her than to let her imagine something worse. “I strung a trip wire across the entrance to Coi Than Tien.”

  “Do you think that will stop them?”

  It would be so much easier to lie to her. But he found he could not do it. “No. But at least now, if the black pickup returns, we will hear it coming.”

  “Perhaps the conflict is over. Perhaps they will let it die.”

  “No,” Nguyen said. “I have overheard Dan Pham and his associates. I do not know exactly what they plan, or when they plan to do it. But I know they contemplate another assault on ASP.”

  “Perhaps this trial will quiet their fever.”

  “How so?”

  “Perhaps the trial will make Dan realize we are not alone, not so desperate as he thinks. Perhaps the trial will make the men of ASP realize they cannot commit these atrocities without paying a price.” She paused, then slowly brought her vivid brown eyes to meet his. “If Vick is convicted.”

  Colonel Nguyen looked away. “You think he will be convicted?”

  Lan’s face became resolute. “I pray to God that he will be.”

  Nguyen gazed out into space, into the immutable tranquillity of the stars. How he wished to be among them, to be soaring through the void, to be anywhere but where he was. “It would be wrong to convict an innocent man.”

  “I know nothing of this,” Lan said. “But I know what is best for my children. And my friends. And my husband.”

  She could not have stated it any plainer. There was nothing else for them to say, then. Nothing else at all.

  “You will go to watch the trial again tomorrow, my husband?”

  He took her hands. “I feel I must.”

  “Do you not have duties at the farm?”

  “The farm will survive without me for a few days.”

  She nodded slightly, then removed her hands from his. “I will await your return in the evening. We all will.”

  Without even thinking, Nguyen took his wife into his arms and placed his head upon her chest. She was so warm, so good. He would be nothing without her.

  “I only wish … to do what is right,” he said, after a long time.

  “You will,” Lan replied. “You always do.”

  “I am not so sure.”

  “You are a fine man. Your heart is good.”

  “Even a good man can grow … old. Tired.”

  “Is this the hero of the 112th National Brigade? Is this the man who saved Maria Truong so recently?”

  “Still, I worry. … I am not sure I can trust myself.”

  “Trust me, then. I know you will do what is best. Best for me. And your children. Best for us all.”

  Colonel Nguyen stared up into the blackness, unanswering. A cold wind blasted his face, stinging his eyes. If only he could be certain. If only he could know. If only—

  He hugged his wife close to him, and braced himself against the long cold night.

  50.

  THE CROWD I
N THE courtroom the next morning had not diminished in the least. Apparently the first two days had only whetted their appetites. Most of the faces Ben identified the day before had returned for Day Three.

  Vick was escorted into the courtroom by four deputies. Ben wondered if a particular event had inspired the sheriff to beef up security, or if the lawmen were just having a slow day. Fortunately none of the escorts was his good friend Deputy Gustafson.

  As Vick walked down the main aisle, Ben heard a crash. A window shattered into tiny pieces that crumbled to the floor. A few seconds later a large rock sailed through the new opening. The crowd shrieked and ducked.

  Whoever threw it had a strong arm and good aim; it just barely missed Vick’s head.

  Ben ran to the window and saw two figures in bib overalls racing around the corner. Given the distance and the fact that he only saw them from the back, it was impossible for him to be certain who they were. But one of them bore a sharp resemblance to Garth Amick.

  The bailiff swept the debris away and the crowd gradually quieted. But whatever false sense of security the courtroom may once have conveyed was shattered along with the window.

  A few minutes later Judge Tyler reentered the courtroom and the trial resumed. Swain called Sheriff Collier to the stand.

  After Collier was sworn, Swain identified him as the local sheriff and laid the proper foundations for his testimony.

  “When did you first learn of Tommy Vuong’s death?”

  “Almost immediately after it happened. We got lucky that night,” Collier said, although his manner suggested that more than mere luck was involved. “Two of my deputies were patrolling out that way and spotted the smoke rising from that burning cross. They drove in and investigated.” Collier described the crime scene for the jury. “Soon as my men saw the body, they got on the radio and called me.”

  “What did you instruct them to do?”

  “Well, first of all, I told them to put out the damn fire, which they did. Then they determined that the victim was dead. By the time I arrived, they had pried the man’s wallet out of his pocket. Luckily the boy had a tough cowhide wallet and his driver’s license wasn’t entirely incinerated. The writing was all melted, but I could still make out the picture. I recognized Vuong, of course, from that trouble he was in last year.”

  “Yes, well, tell us how your investigation proceeded,” Swain said hastily. Naturally he didn’t want anyone suggesting that the victim was anything less than saintly.

  “Since I knew Vuong lived out at Coi Than Tien, we banged on some doors and talked to some of them folks. None of them seemed to have much to tell us, though.”

  “What led you to the defendant?”

  The corners of the sheriff’s lips turned upward slightly. “In a sense, he led himself to us. We were driving back to town and I saw him wandering around on the side of the road. I asked him what he was doing out at that time of night.”

  “And what was Mr. Vick’s alibi?”

  “Objection.” Ben jumped to his feet. “The use of the word alibi suggests that the statement was false and that—”

  “Oh, fine,” Swain said testily. He rolled his eyes so the jury could see. He was working double time to portray himself as the seeker of truth and Ben as the man hiding it. “I’ll rephrase. What was Mr. Vick’s explanation for his presence not far from the murder scene shortly after it occurred?”

  Thanks, Ben thought. Much better.

  Collier faced the jury. “He said he was out getting some mountain air.” Several jurors smiled. One flat out chuckled. Their thinking was obvious: only a liar would have such a lame alibi. Ben was apparently the only one in the courtroom who thought its very lameness probably proved it hadn’t been invented.

  “Why are they laughing?” Vick asked. Ben was startled; it was the first time Vick had spoken to him since the trial began. “I was just out walking. I did that every night.”

  “We’ll bring that out later,” Ben assured him. Not that anyone was likely to believe it.

  “Was there anything unusual about the defendant’s appearance?” Swain asked.

  “You better believe it. While we were talking I noticed a big splattering of blood on his shirt.”

  The crowd stirred. Another previously unrevealed piece of incriminating evidence.

  “What did you do then?”

  “Well, I figured I needed to ask the boy a few questions. I said, ‘Vick, I just found out Tommy Vuong is dead.’ That seemed to take him by surprise; I expect he didn’t think we’d find the body so fast. Then I said, ‘Vuong is dead, and here I find you wandering around in the middle of the night with blood on your shirt. Did you kill him?’ ”

  Swain took his time with the next question. “And what was Vick’s response?”

  “Well, there was this long silence. I didn’t think he was going to answer at all. And then, out of the blue, real sudden like, he up and says, ‘Vuong deserved to die.’ ”

  The jurors’ heads turned, checking one another’s expression. Swain paused, protracting the silence as long as possible.

  “That’s all I have,” Swain said. “Pass the witness.”

  Ben took his time approaching the witness stand. It seemed like a good strategy—build up some anticipation, make him seem confident and unconcerned. Also, it would give him a chance to figure out what the hell he was going to ask the man.

  “Did you read my client his rights before you initiated the interrogation?” Ben asked.

  “Hell, no,” Collier said. “I was just shooting the breeze with him. I had no idea he was going to up and confess.”

  “Well, now wait a minute,” Ben said. “He didn’t actually confess, did he?”

  “Sure as shootin’ sounded like it to me.”

  “Did he say, ‘I killed Vuong’?”

  “Not in as many words.”

  “Not in any words, right?”

  “Not as such, no. But why else would he say that Vuong deserved to die?”

  “Many people probably deserve to die, but that doesn’t mean Donald Vick killed them, does it?”

  “Depends on whether I find their blood on his shirt,” Collier said defiantly.

  “Well, let’s talk about that now. Did you run any tests on the bloodstain?”

  “No. Why bother?”

  “So you don’t actually know whose blood was on his shirt, right?”

  “Who the hell else’s could it be? Unless your boy killed two people that night!”

  “Move to strike,” Ben said. “Request that the jury be instructed to disregard.”

  Judge Tyler promptly did so.

  “Did Donald Vick say anything else to you that night?”

  “Not a word. Totally clammed up.”

  “So you’ve been claiming for weeks that Donald confessed, when in fact all he did was say that he didn’t like Vuong very much.”

  “That’s not how I—”

  “Thank you,” Ben said. “I have no more questions.” Ben suspected he had done all he could do with this witness who obviously sympathized with the prosecution. It was best to get him off the stand before he caused any more damage.

  There was no redirect. For some reason, Swain was procrastinating about calling his next witness.

  “Have you any other witnesses?” Judge Tyler finally asked.

  “Yes,” Swain said. He rose, then turned to face the gallery. “The prosecution calls Daniel Dunagan to the stand.”

  51.

  THERE HAD BEEN A few gasps and twitters from the gallery before, but nothing compared to the stunned reaction that occurred now. Grand Dragon Dunagan was going to testify—against one of his own?

  Ben had to amend his initial observation. Everyone in the gallery seemed surprised—except Grand Dragon Dunagan. He walked calmly to the front of the courtroom and took his seat in the witness stand. He closed his eyes as the bailiff read the oath, then answered in a booming voice, “So help me God.”

  Swain made his way quickly through the pre
liminaries and established that Dunagan was the Grand Dragon of ASP.

  “Now that’s kind of a funny title,” Swain said. “Why do they call you that?”

  “It’s a million years old,” Swain said. He seemed embarrassed. “In the early days, all the Anglo-Saxon organizations used titles like that. Frankly I’ve been trying to get them to call me President Dunagan for years. But old habits die hard.”

  Swain was nodding, as if he really bought into this. “You know, I think there may be some misunderstandings about what ASP is. Can you give the jury some background?”

  “ASP is a legitimate, fully registered, lobbying organization designed to promote political change.”

  “What changes do you advocate?”

  “First let me tell you what we don’t advocate. We don’t advocate any laws that would hurt the non-Anglo-Saxon races. My motto is ‘live and let live.’ All we favor is separation, letting people work and play among their own. I know that may not be politically correct, but it’s the way this country worked for a good long time, and frankly most people think the world was better then than it is today.”

  “How do you pursue your political goals?”

  “By lobbying the government. And by establishing camps where people can get away and live among their own kind.”

  “Do these camps stockpile weapons?”

  “Yes. And we train our people how to use them, too. But only for defensive purposes. When you live out in the wild like that, with no easy access to law enforcement, you have to learn how to take care of yourself. But we absolutely do not engage in aggressive, violent, or terroristic acts!”

  “Then ASP wouldn’t, for instance, firebomb a car?”

  Ben couldn’t believe it. Swain was actually going along with this whitewash. He must’ve wanted Dunagan’s testimony in a big way.

  “Absolutely not. We had no part in that.”

  “And ASP wouldn’t set fire to someone’s home?”

  “Of course not. I thought what happened out at Coi Than Tien the other night was tragic. Hell, I approve of Coi Than Tien—a community where the members of a single race live among their own. I think there should be more like them.”