That falseness in her father, combined with the self-reliance that sometimes comes to children with unhappy childhoods, gave her a profound affection for truth and consequences.
She put herself through Dartmouth and Harvard Law, came back to Montana, and, in a move that stunned the locals and unsettled those who expected her to join private practice, joined the district attorney’s office, where she took a deep breath and settled down to straighten the moral furniture in Yellowstone County.
One of the few vestiges left to her from the explosion and dissolution of Ballard Holdings was the crumbling edifice of the Absaroke. She put everything she had into maintaining it and spent as much time in the old redstone monstrosity as she could. She lived alone, except for a Crow woman named Mary Bright Water and a couple of mongrel mutts named Wittgenstein and Buster.
A few people, Eustace Meagher among them, knew that Vanessa Ballard had no intention of ever joining a private practice, but had set her heart on a job with the Department of Justice, in particular the position of special prosecutor with a brief to investigate corruption and antitrust violations throughout the Southwest.
She lived her professional life solidly in the here and now, even if the now part meant that Maya BlueStones of the Society for the Protection of Ethno-American Rights had drawn her deepest breath yet and seemed on the point of delivering a sulphurous polemic against Beau McAllister and Eustace Meagher of the Montana Highway Patrol.
Ballard looked away around the richly paneled room, at the portraits of The Great Men Who Made Montana What It Is Today, and spied the aged waiter sagging in a corner. She lifted her empty crystal glass and raised one delicately curved eyebrow while Maya BlueStones heated up her grievances to a cherry-red glow.
“We were told that we’d have a chance to cross—to question this sergeant personally. So where is he? I want him available, and I want that to happen today!”
She was zeroing in on Frank Duffy, who was leaning forward, his pale hands on his knees, his head down, turning his glass in his hands. BlueStones’s voice was carrying, and full of raspy subharmonics. Around the lounge, old men in fine suits shook their papers and harrumphed their harrumphs.
“Ms. BlueStones”—Duffy managed to interrupt her with a sudden sharp movement of his head—“the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Yellowstone County District Attorney’s office asked for this meeting with you, and with your associates here.” He nodded toward Dwight Hogeland and the other ACLU lawyer, Joel Sherman, who were sitting by in pained resignation, hoping Maya BlueStones would cool her jets a bit.
“With Mr. Hogeland and Mr. Sherman exactly because we share your concerns about these …”
Don’t hesitate, thought Ballard.
Too late.
“Assassinations, Agent Duffy!” BlueStones finished for him.
See?
“Ma’am, these men came into Yellowstone County armed and dangerous. They showed every—”
“Stop! I drove in here from Sheridan, and I saw so many pickups with those gun-racks in the back, with white men driving and all those guns showing, and I did not see one sheriff or state trooper try to kill them! I see that when it is a Native American who has a weapon, then suddenly it is a threat and you people bring out every means to hunt them down and kill them like dogs in a ditch. We have compiled—”
She sent a hot look over at Joel Sherman, who began to scramble through his briefcase. He extracted a red file folder and handed it across to her. She plucked it from his hand and waved it under Duffy’s nose.
“Compiled a list of the atrocities committed by this one cop you have here on the force.” She lowered her voice and began to read from the papers. “Beauregard McAllister. Involved in twenty-seven incidents of violence involving firearms in only nineteen years on the force! Involved in literally hundreds of incidents of physical abuse of prisoners! A known racist, prejudiced against Native—”
That was too much for Vanessa Ballard.
“Ms. BlueStones, Sergeant McAllister was once married to a Native American woman, a Crow woman named Alice Manyberries.”
“The fact that he once shacked up with some poor native girl and then deserted her is hardly a basis for—”
“He didn’t desert her! She—”
“I heard you say ‘once,’ Ms. Ballard.”
“She was killed in a road accident. As a matter of fact, an accident very much like the one Sergeant McAllister was trying to prevent when Joe Bell—and I stress that it was Joe Bell—shot Edward Gall.”
BlueStones shook her head, her short shock of black hair flaring, her voice cutting through.
“If you’ll let me finish!” she snapped, in a tone all too familiar to Ballard; the syncopated cadence of the true believer.
“For example, we find that on the fifteenth of August in 1979, this man without cause stopped and detained a car filled with young Native American males and used excessive force, as per a civilian complaint filed by—”
“Every cop gets complaints. And if you’re talking about the Roan Horse boys, two of them are currently serving time in Deer Lodge for deliberate homicide and cocaine importation. So it seems to me that—”
“Not my point, if you can give me a moment! You said you were here to listen to our legitimate grievances, and as officials of this state you are required to answer for these actions of one of your employees, as I am sure I don’t have to remind you. I want an answer to my basic question—”
“Then ask it, goddamn it!”
Everyone froze and stared at her. Ballard tried to get her temper under control, the effort as visible as her anger.
“Forgive me, Ms. BlueStones, but you really seem to be more interested in making political speeches than in listening to our findings. Heat is not light, Ms. BlueStones, nor is oratorical brilliance necessarily illuminating. You have the written report of our shooting board. It includes the depositions of all the officers involved in the shootings, as well as civilian witnesses and my own assessment. We considered carefully whether charges ought to be laid against any of the officers—”
“And decided not to. What a shock!”
“Based on the information at hand, and on our experienced assessment of the matter, not just my own but two trained investigators from the Criminal Bureau—”
“More cops! Cops investigating cops! Bullshit! As a woman, Ms. Ballard, as a sister, you might have been expected to have more insight into the mechanics of male oppression! I find it regrettable that you seem to have mislaid your spiritual obligations—”
“Ahh, Ms. BlueStones, if I can speak?” said Dwight, breaking into the conversation. His nose was covered with a stretch of surgical tape and his left eye was raw-looking, but he seemed to have recovered his consonants.
“Go ahead, Dwight.”
“Yes, well. Joel and I—and Ms. BlueStones—speaking for the American Civil Liberties Union, we strongly feel that only an independent civilian review board, composed of—correct me on this, Joel, if I go wrong—composed of qualified lawyers, defense lawyers in order to ameliorate the natural bias of the prosecutorial function—and a representative from SPEAR—perhaps Ms. BlueStones—and a person from the Justice Department—not the local FBI people, but someone from Washington who has skills in these kinds of issues and inquiries … and someone from the Civil Liberties Union—Joel has provided some names … and the whole sitting under a retired jurist perhaps, charged with powers of subpoena—”
“Charming. Under a tricolor flag, perhaps? With a front row full of old crones knitting? Haywains packed with manacled coppers, trundling toward the guillotine while somebody tootles La Marseillaise on a tin flute? That’s an ACLU wet dream!”
Sherman blanched and immediately reddened, glanced fearfully at Maya BlueStones. Dwight raised his voice.
“After all, Vanessa, surely we here, all of us, are united in our desire to see justice done and to prevent any possible repetition of the dynamics that lead to such terrible consequences. We a
re all of us here—and in this I intend no slight to you, Agent Duffy”—here Dwight nodded indulgently toward Frank Duffy, who, like many members of the FBI, had a law degree of his own, a fact that had eluded Dwight completely—“but we are all of us lawyers, members of the bar and dedicated to pursue clearly, without let or hindrance, to let slip the hounds of justice, so to speak—”
“And the bitches,” added Vanessa, sweetly smiling.
“Sexist!” snorted Maya BlueStones.
“We are sworn to uphold the law as something higher and cleaner and—”
“Christ, Dwight. Stop before you blow a metaphor.”
Dwight blushed under his bandage. His unblackened eye was bright with anger. “Oliver Wendell Holmes said that it is a lesser evil that some lives should be damaged than that the state should play an ignoble part! All we are trying to get you to do is make damn sure that your particular state, that Yellowstone County, hasn’t allowed murders to be committed by men wearing the shield and carrying the name of justice.”
“All you want to do, Dwight, is to fuck over a good cop.”
Maya BlueStones took a deep breath and started to say something, but Vanessa rode over that, angry now, her voice low and steady but resonant and compelling.
“No, you look. You arrived here with your minds set in concrete and your ears stuffed with dried bullshit. All you’re interested in is making political points with this issue. I don’t think you, Ms. BlueStones, Ojibway or no, I don’t think you give one high-pitched rat-fart what really caused these deaths. If you were successful in getting this review board set up, all you’d use it for is to grab some headlines and spout divisive jargon about the plight of the red man. You’re as much of a racist pig as any Ku Kluxer, Ms. BlueStones, and perhaps more dangerous, because everybody knows what they are, while you walk around wrapped in your self-righteousness and use your obvious talents and intelligence to spread hatred and reduce everything to considerations of pigment and racial origin. If you’re up on your Rise and Fall, lady, you’ll remember that the last crowd of thugs who saw life only in those terms were the goddamned Nazis.” Ballard stood up, shook her blond hair out, and smoothed her skirt. “As for Joel here, and you too Dwight, all you want is a ticket to glory on her skirts. So if you don’t mind, I’m going into the bar there to drink a toast to absent friends and I’ll remind you that this is a private club and none of you are members. Come along, Frank. The air’s better in there, anyway.”
She smiled at them all, a bright smile full of sweetness.
She turned and stalked off toward the bar, Duffy following along behind her, looking back over his shoulder as he left.
“Well,” said Joel Sherman. “What an extraordinary performance, Dwight. Where do we go from here?”
Maya BlueStones was standing apart from them, a short spiky bomb hissing at every rivet.
“We are going straight to the governor’s office! And to the Bar Association! We are going to nail that little cunt!”
The word floated up into the air between them and hovered there. Dwight and Joel Sherman stared at the woman in stunned silence.
Finally, Dwight sighed and shook his head.
“We?” said Dwight. “As in, you and me? We don’t go anywhere. I understand your anger, but Ms. Ballard is a respected prosecutor in this county, and you aren’t giving her a chance to use her office to help us at—”
BlueStones cut him off. “You are on a retainer and under professional obligations, Mr. Hogeland.”
Dwight looked pained, struggling with conflicting emotions. BlueStones was right, but when all this had blown over, she’d be off on another crusade and Dwight would still have to work with the legal community in this town. He gathered himself.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid I’ll have to return your retainer. Joel, I hope you’ll understand. The level of acrimony here—it’s entirely unreasonable. Ms. BlueStones is far too confrontational for my tastes.”
“Dwight!” bleated Joel Sherman. “This is an ACLU issue. There are more important matters at stake than a personality conflict.”
“Yeah,” said Dwight, looking past them and out toward the bar, absently stroking his bruises. “I’m getting that idea myself.”
“Vanessa?”
Duffy had seen him coming and turned around on the barstool to confront him. Vanessa, who had seen him in the long, smoked mirror behind the oak bar, turned her empty glass upside down on the copper bartop and gestured to the silvery old man in the red jacket.
“You even fucked up the Holmes quote, Dwight.”
“I did not. May I sit down?”
“Depends on what you sit on. Duffy, you have a jackknife or an ice pick or something?”
“Look, both of you. I think we need to talk.”
“Frank needs a drink. I need a drink. You need a high colonic.”
The old bartender brought them their drinks. Dwight asked for a Laphroaig and branch water.
The barman drifted off. Dwight lowered himself onto a barstool and sighed loudly. “I’m a wreck, Vanessa. Ease up on me.”
“Ease up on you? From where we sit, you have it far too easy.”
“I wish I understood where all this enmity is coming from. Is this all over Beau and Maureen?”
Vanessa set her glass down hard. “Dwight. If you are trying to find a way to tell Frank here about what you tried to do yesterday morning, you should know that Frank would probably share my sentiments on the subject and you’ve only got one nose.”
“I wasn’t, Vanessa. I have some ethics. Besides, that’s a dead issue. I have spoken to the principal, and she takes the point.”
“What about Joe Bell?”
“I haven’t been able to reach him yet. I think I’ll have to drive out there.”
“Bell’s in for a very bad time, Dwight.”
There was a silence.
“Where’s Beau, Vanessa?”
“How should I know? I assume he’s at home.”
“No, he’s not. Maureen tried to reach him there. Tom Blasingame answered the phone. He said Beau was out and didn’t know when he’d be back.”
“Then he’s out. He’s on a medical leave right now, anyway. Maybe he went for a drive on his bike.”
“There are—there are things happening, aren’t there? Things I don’t know about.”
“You ought to be used to that, Dwight.”
“Will you tell me what they are?”
“You’ll hear about it.”
“Can I hear now?”
“No. Anything else?”
Dwight picked up his glass, drained it, and nodded to the bartender for a refill. “How did I screw up the Holmes quote?”
“It was in Olmstead versus the United States. Justice Holmes’s actual words were, ‘I think it is a lesser evil that some criminals should escape than that the government should play an ignoble part.’ ”
“Oh, yes. I recall it now. But his point, the principle is a good one. You need to talk to Beau about this. There are higher goals in the law than simple enforcement concerns.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the good of the state. The protection of liberty and freedom, which is, after all, the ultimate goal of the legal system.”
“The ultimate goal of the legal system, Dwight, is to expand. To get more laws passed so that more lawyers can get jobs arguing about what the laws mean.”
“If you have no faith in the criminal justice—”
“I have as much faith in the criminal justice system as I do in any other device built by men, which is to say that whenever I fire it up, I stand back a bit to make sure it doesn’t explode and get grease all over my alligator pumps.”
“The protection of innocence is the first calling of any society, Vanessa.”
“I’d say the first calling of any society is to survive, and it’s not going to survive long if it allows abstract legal niceties to overpower a clear and crying need for arrest and swift punishment.”
“That’
s a classic fascist argument. Even a murderer deserves every protection under the law.”
“And in the meantime, the relatives of his victims suffer terrible dreams and their lives corrode with unresolved hatreds. Where’s the justice for them?”
“As Holmes said, it’s a lesser evil.”
“Okay, I get you. So in the end, the preservation of legal process justifies the means, which include the damage to victims and the ruinous delay of criminal trial?”
“Plainly, crudely put—yes.”
“Do you think justice is equal in the real world?”
“Well … there are variables, Vanessa. Sometimes things go wrong. It’s a fallible system.”
“So, in effect, people are being hurt and victims are going begging for justice to protect our right to the possibility of a fair trial?”
“Yes. You’d have to say that.”
“And you’d have to say that there is also the possibility of an unfair trial?”
“Sure, that’s a possibility.”
“So what you’re saying is that we are supposed to allow the courts to function as haphazardly as they do, to bog down in plea bargaining, to lose track of cases, to fuck up prosecutions, to favor the rich over the poor, to mismanage the prisons and parole dangerous sociopaths and generally screw up royally—for the right to make a personal gamble that we, as a single case in the court, that we have a chance at a fair trial?”
“Maybe. It’s better than no chance at a fair trial, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
“Why? That’s a stupid question, Vanessa. We all want a fair trial, don’t we?”
“Do we? I’ve prosecuted hundreds of people, and the only ones who wanted a fair trial were the ones I kind of thought might be innocent. Innocent people want a fair trial. It’s the guilty bastards who want to plea bargain, who want to avail themselves of every evasion and delay they can get their lawyers to use. Because they know that in a fair trial, their ass is grass and their next full-time position is bum boy in the prison shower.”
Lizardskin Page 31
