The room was blanketed with silence. None of the parents spoke, or even moved. They all looked as if they’d been slapped in the face by a baseball bat.
Christina had a pensive expression on her face. She was biting her knuckle, a sure sign that she was troubled. But she, too, held her tongue.
At last Cecily broke the silence. “May I ask you a question, Mr. Kincaid?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“Have you raised any children?”
“No.” He frowned. “Well, I helped raise my nephew for several months, but—”
“Did you love your nephew?”
“Of course I did. Do. But—”
“How do you suppose you’d feel about this if your nephew had been one of the youngsters who died?”
“Ms. Elkins—”
“For that matter, you’re still young. You might have children of your own. How would you feel if your own flesh and blood had died—for no reason? Because some corporation didn’t have the decency to keep their poison out of the water well?”
Ben drew in his breath. “I’m sure I’d feel just as you do. Devastated. But these are all emotional appeals. They won’t get us past a summary judgment motion.”
One last time Cecily’s hand dipped inside her purse. “This is a picture of my boy. Billy. He was such an angel. He never did anything wrong. He never hurt anybody. He liked soccer and Robert Louis Stevenson. When he grew up, he wanted to be a doctor. But not to get rich, he told me, time and again. He wasn’t going to be a "swimming-pool doctor." He wanted to help people who really needed help, maybe go to a third-world country or something. And you know what? He would’ve done it. He would’ve made a difference.…” Her lips began to tremble. “He would’ve done some real good in this world. But all that potential is gone now. It’s all been wiped away by an act of corporate callousness. Is that right? Is that acceptable?”
Before Ben could respond, Ralph opened his wallet and withdrew a photo. “This is my Roger.” He laughed slightly. “He wanted to be an astronaut.”
“My Donald,” Margaret said, laying her photo atop the stack. “He talked about being an architect.”
One after another, the tattered photographs fell into place. Jay Kinyon. Brian Bailey. Tracy Hamilton. Kevin Blum. Colin Koelshe. Finally, Ben saw eleven sets of eyes looking up at him, eleven youthful faces that passed from the world well before their time.
And above those, all around him, Ben saw many more eyes staring at him. Waiting to hear what he would say next.
He found Harvey hidden in the clothes closet behind some fishing gear and a lifetime supply of shoes, just where his wife had said he would be. It was a walk-in closet, very spacious, with more clothes than a man could wear in a year. Harvey always had been obsessed with his appearance. He pushed the clothes to either side and found a hidden inner closet door. When he opened that, he found a private hidey-hole, just big enough for one. Harvey was cowering inside.
Harvey, a fiftyish balding man with a speckled turnip of a nose, was crouched in a near-fetal position, his hands covering his face. “Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me.”
He stared at Harvey with undisguised contempt. “Jesus Christ, Harvey. You ran off and left your wife to face the executioner?”
“She’s crippled,” he said, his voice quivering. “She had an accident last year. She couldn’t move fast enough to get away.”
He shook his head with disgust. “Pathetic.” He grabbed Harvey by the scruff of his neck.
“Please don’t hurt me!” Harvey screamed again. “I can’t help you. I don’t have what you want!”
“I wish I could believe you, Harvey. But of course, there’s only one way to know for certain.” He dragged Harvey forcibly back into the bedroom.
Upon arrival, Harvey saw his wife lying motionless in their bed. There was a red circle in the center of her forehead, and a pool of blood around her right leg. Her arms and legs were grotesquely splayed. “Oh, my God!” he screamed. “You didn’t—you didn’t—”
“Heck, no, Harvey. I didn’t do anything bad. I just killed her.” He threw Harvey onto the bed beside his wife’s corpse. “What did you think, that I’d become some sort of rapist? Geez, Harvey. I haven’t changed that much.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a roll of duct tape. “Not that there was any need, anyway. Didn’t you know, Harvey? I had your wife years ago.”
Harvey’s eyes widened, but just before he could shout, the man plastered a strip of duct tape right over his mouth.
“Oh, yeah, Harvey, it’s true. It’s been … what? Ten, eleven years now. We did it several times. Tried many different positions. Some pretty kinky stuff. One time you were in the house, sleeping. We did it right under your nose.” He grabbed Harvey’s arms and held them together, then wrapped tape around them and tied them to the bedpost above his head. “Not that it was any great thrill for me, if you want to know the truth. She was a bit pedestrian in the sack, wasn’t she, Harvey? Too conservative for my taste.” He smiled. “Although I did like that thing she did with her tongue. You know, during foreplay? Ooh-la-la.”
He wrapped tape around Harvey’s ankles, binding his legs together. Once Harvey was motionless, he clapped his hands together, as if celebrating a job well done.
“One last chance, Harvey.” He ripped the duct tape off the man’s face, taking bits of skin with it. “Where’s the merchandise?”
“I don’t know,” Harvey said. Sweat poured down the sides of his face. “I don’t have it. I never did.”
“Wrong answer.” Bending over, he grabbed a pair of dirty underwear lying on the floor and stuffed it into Harvey’s mouth. Then he began systematically undressing himself.
“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing, aren’t you, Harvey? Wondering if maybe I really have changed, if maybe I have something perverse in mind. Well, you can relax.” He removed the last bit of his clothing, folded them in a neat stack, and carried them to the edge of the room. “I’m not going to molest you or your wife’s corpse. I just don’t want to get any blood on my clothes.”
He reached one more time into his coat, now folded in the pile, and withdrew a large hammer. A ball-peen hammer.
Harvey lurched forward, as much as he was able. His eyes bulged out of their sockets. He squirmed and twisted and made muffled cries for help.
“Oh sure, now you want to talk. But it’s too late now, Harvey. Now you have to pay the consequences.”
Harvey’s muffled screams grew louder, but there was nothing he could do to help himself. The man drew back the hammer and smashed it into Harvey’s left leg, shattering his kneecap.
“Wonderful. Now you and your wife are a matched set.” He crouched down beside Harvey’s spasming body, leaning forward against the side of the bed. “All right now, Harvey. Can we talk?”
Ben remained in his office after the parents departed. He had a lot to think about. He didn’t emerge from his office until sometime after five. Jones was sitting at his desk, waiting for him. “Well?”
A crease formed in the center of Ben’s forehead. “Well, what?
Jones fell back in his chair. “Damn everything! You took the case! I can see it in your eyes.”
Ben cleared his throat. “I … uh … did agree to represent them, yes.”
“Damn! I should’ve known. What am I saying? I did know! I just couldn’t stop it!”
“Now, Jones, calm down.…”
“Do you have any idea what this kind of litigation costs?”
“I certainly do.”
“Do you know what the odds are against you recovering anything?”
“Well … I think it’s too early to say with certainty.…”
“Don’t play coy with me. This is a trillion-to-one shot and you know it. We’ll run up thousands in expenses and have no hope of recovering it.”
“We’ve been through tough patches before.”
“Do you know what our current financial situation is? I do. We’re already on the
edge. And this is just what we need to push us over!”
Ben nodded. “And since you’ve raised that issue, I’d like you to run downtown tomorrow and have a talk with The Brain.”
“Aw, no, Boss. Not me!”
“You’re the office manager. It’s your job.” The Brain was the nickname they gave Conrad Eversole, the financial whiz at Nations Bank who handled the firm’s accounts. He had loaned them money in the past. And he would have to loan them money again, if they were going to manage this case.
“What am I going to use as collateral?”
“Tell him about the lawsuit.”
“Oh, right. Like he’ll go for that pig in a poke.”
“Well, use whatever you can. Take the title to my van.” Jones shook his head. “Ben … listen to me. This is a mistake. A big mistake.”
“You’re probably right. But it’s already done. I’ve taken the case.” He turned and started toward the door, then stopped. “Jones, I want you to know—” He paused. “I think we’re doing the right thing here. Not the smart thing. Certainly not the safe thing. But the right thing. I think.”
He continued to pummel Harvey’s body with the hammer. After sixty or seventy strokes, Harvey at last expired, which must have been a great relief to Harvey, under the circumstances.
The man wiped the hammer clean in the sink, dried it, then returned it to its pocket in the inside lining of his coat. He put away his gun, then walked around the room, wiping his prints off everything he had touched. Finally, he washed off in the sink and put his clothes back on.
He had not learned what he wanted to know. Harvey had told him nothing. But he was now convinced that Harvey knew nothing. At first he thought it possible Harvey might be lying, but after the fifth or sixth swing of the hammer, to his other leg, his groin, his jaw, it just wasn’t possible anymore. If he had known anything, he would have talked.
Harvey didn’t know where the merchandise was. Which, sadly enough, was what Harvey had tried to tell him from the outset.
Well, if at first you don’t succeed …
He walked downstairs, wondering which of the remaining three he would tackle first. It was tough, having to go about this business in such a random, hit-and-miss manner. But there was nothing for it. He would simply have to work his way down the list until he found what he wanted. Who he wanted.
He stepped outside, closing the door behind him. It was a glorious night. The moon was holding water, the stars were twinkling, and all was right in the universe.
All except for one thing, that was. One niggling detail.
He pushed his hands into his coat pockets and started across the street. He thought about the others, the three people who would be receiving visits from him in the near future. He smiled slightly as their faces came up in his mind’s eye, one after the other.
Bang-bang, he thought. You’re dead.
Chapter 4
AFTER HE LEFT WORK, Ben hopped into his van and headed homeward. He knew perfectly well there was nothing edible in his cupboard but cat food, so he made a stop at Ri Le’s and grabbed some takeout—cashew chicken and lumpia dogs, his favorite. Ten minutes later he was outside his boarding house just north of the university. He parked on the street and headed inside. His mood was quiet, subdued. He had a lot on his mind.
Before he mounted the stairs to his apartment, he decided to stop in and visit Mrs. Marmelstein. She had been Ben’s landlady when he first moved into this building. Technically, she still was, although since Alzheimer’s set in, she had been a landlady in name only. Ben handled all the administrative duties attendant to keeping the house running—paying the bills, arguing with repairmen, and occasionally supplementing the always-wanting petty-cash drawer.
He rapped on the door. There was no answer. He cracked the door open slightly and poked his head in. “Mrs. Marmelstein?”
She was sitting in her favorite easy chair, watching television. The volume was turned up much too loud. She had obviously dressed herself: her socks didn’t match; her blouse was reversed.
He walked to the television and turned it down. “Mrs. Marmelstein?”
Her eyes fluttered away from the TV set. “Paulie?”
Ben frowned. Her eyesight had been failing of late as well. But who was Paulie? “It’s Ben, Mrs. Marmelstein.”
“Oh, of course! Benjamin!” She pressed her hands together. Ben was pleased to see she still recognized him—and relieved. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“Nah. Tonight’s Joni’s night. I just stepped in to say hi.” He winked. “Check on my favorite girl.” Mrs. Marmelstein had been a bit dotty since the day he’d met her, but the Alzheimer’s became progressively worse with time. Unfortunately, about six months ago, she had broken her hip. Since then, she’d been all but infirm. She had no living family of which they were aware, so Ben and Christina and Joni and Jami Singleton, two other residents of the boarding house, took turns looking after her. “Everything okay?”
Her eyes drifted back toward the television. “Well enough, I suppose. I do like that Diagnosis Murder. But I can’t believe what Dick Van Dyke’s done to his hair.”
“What’s that?”
“He dyed it! Dyed it blond. Can you believe it? At his age.”
Ben glanced at the television. “Mrs. Marmelstein, I don’t think his hair is dyed. It’s just turned gray.”
She blinked. “Gray?”
“Yeah. With age. Like—” He stopped himself. Mrs. Marmelstein’s hair was currently a sort of bluish pink, courtesy of Hair Revue on Sixty-first.
Mrs. Marmelstein adjusted the lay of her blouse. “Well, it doesn’t look good on him. Whatever it is. Have you been keeping an eye on my investments, Benjamin?”
“I certainly have.” It was easy, since there was only one. This house.
“I’m glad to hear it. I depend on you. You know, that last oil well of mine was one of the biggest producers in the state of Oklahoma. Making money hand over fist.”
Ben sighed. Mrs. Marmelstein hadn’t owned any interests in oil wells since before her husband died, which was a good long time ago. They had made a bundle during the oil boom—but lost most of it in the crash.
“I’m keeping a careful eye on things, Mrs. Marmelstein. Nothing slips past me.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Don’t think what you do goes unappreciated, Benjamin. You’ll be well provided for when I’m … well, when the time comes.”
Ben wondered what that meant. Probably she was planning to leave him her salt-and-pepper-shaker collection or something.
Her rather weary eyes drifted back toward the television. Ben could see he was coming between her and Dick Van Dyke. “Well, I’ll be on my way. Joni should be here any minute.”
She nodded. “Oh, Benjamin. Are you still seeing that redheaded girl?”
“You mean Christina? She’s my friend, Mrs. Marmelstein. And coworker. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t bat an eye. “You know, Benjamin, it’s hard for an old gal like me to admit it, but … I think possibly my first impression of her was … mistaken. True, she doesn’t act the way I was brought up believing girls should behave but … she’s not as bad as I thought.”
Ben marveled. Coming from her, this was the equivalent of blessing the marriage. “ ‘Night, Mrs. Marmelstein.”
“ "Night, Benjamin. Oh, would you please turn the sound on the TV back up? I hate it when they start whispering.”
When Ben popped open the door to his apartment, there was a surprise waiting for him.
“ "Bout time you got home. Man, you shysters keep long hours.”
Draped across his sofa, staring at a football game on the television, was Ben’s former brother-in-law, Mike Morelli. On the coffee table next to Mike was a large pepperoni pizza. Two beers were chilling in cozies.
“Took the liberty of ordering dinner,” Mike said. “I knew you wouldn’t have anything here.”
Ben bent down and quietly slid his takeout bag out of sigh
t behind a chair. “Great. I’m starved.”
“Me too. It took some kind of restraint to wait till you got home, lemme tell you.”
Ben snatched a slice. “You shouldn’t’ve waited.”
“Aw, well. I hate to eat alone.”
“By the way, how did you get into my apartment without a key?”
“Hey, I’m a cop. I can get in anywhere.” Mike picked up the remote and shut off the boob tube. “So tell me about your big day.”
Ben spoke between bites. He really was famished. “Won a lawsuit. Well, settled it in a manner very favorable to my client. And … I got a new case.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Oh, yeah. Very.” Ben gave Mike a thumbnail sketch of the suit.
Mike peered at him intently. “You seem to have some reservations.”
“Jones thinks it’s going to bankrupt us. Christina thinks it’s unwinnable.”
“So you took it anyway.”
“Yeah. Stupid, huh?”
“Extremely. And extremely predictable.”
Ben grabbed his beer and leaned back against the sofa. “I kept telling the parents all the difficulties with their suit, explaining that courts aren’t equipped to handle this kind of injury. But I also kept thinking, jeez Louise, if lawyers and courts can’t help parents who have been through this kind of pain, what the hell good are we?”
“That’s what the rest of us have been wondering for years.”
“I kept telling myself there had to be something I could do. Unfortunately, now I have to figure out what that is.”
“You’ve got your work cut out for you. As soon as you file the Complaint, you’ll have the big boys from Raven, Tucker & Tubb crawling all over you.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Mike took another man-size bite of pizza, then washed it down with his Bud Light. “So,” he said nonchalantly. “Heard anything from your sister?”
Ah, Ben thought to himself. So that’s what this is about. “No. Not since she grabbed Joey and split for the East Coast.”
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