Naked Justice

by William Bernhardt

  “Yes,” Ben agreed. “I was.” His forehead creased. “If my behavior was inappropriate, I apologize.”

  “No, no, it was entirely natural, given the circumstances. What was unnatural was”—she glanced over her shoulder again—“your worthy opponent. Mr. Bullock. Did you notice him?”

  Ben shook his head. “I guess I didn’t.”

  She nodded. “As I said, you were astonished. But he was … not. Which seemed very odd to me. And the other odd thing was that, when your investigator tracked Buck down and brought me his full name so I could issue the subpoena, I was almost certain I had heard it before.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “That’s what I wondered. It took me a while, digging through the file, before I figured it out.” She paused, frowned. “It was on the prosecutor’s preliminary witness list. You’ve never seen it. It was something they filed with the court in camera to get warrants and subpoenae issued. I checked it myself. Sure enough, Bradley J. ‘Buck’ Conners’s name was on it.”

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. “He knew.”

  Judge Hart nodded. “He did. I don’t know how exactly, but somehow in the course of the investigation, after Bullock had already charged Barrett, he tumbled onto Buck. Brought him in. Interviewed him. And did nothing.”

  “He knew Barrett was innocent?”

  “I don’t know about that,” the judge said. “It’s possible he thought the Buck connection was unimportant, that he couldn’t get Buck to admit he’d been out to the mayor’s home, and that he still thought Barrett was guilty. Probable, in fact. But what’s unforgivable is that he withheld Buck’s name from you—the defense. Buck’s testimony clearly would tend to exculpate Barrett. He had a duty to inform you. But he didn’t.”

  “He wanted to win that bad.”

  Judge Hart agreed. “So you can understand why I’ve been somewhat … well, less than charitable to Mr. Prosecutor today. I considered calling a mistrial, but since the information had come out, and we were so close to a resolution, I decided against it. If the jury had voted to convict, I would’ve declared a mistrial sua sponte, but since the man has been acquitted, and since the eyes of the entire world are upon us …”

  “I understand,” Ben said.

  “Still, I wanted you to know. And I wanted to congratulate you. Sincerely. This business of treating trials like they’re intramural scrimmages—us against them, shirts against skins, anything to win—it’s just repugnant to me. Practicing law is not about winning. It’s about justice. Simple, naked justice. It’s about finding the truth. People like Bullock and his police cronies who disregard leads that don’t point the way they want them to seem to have forgotten that”—her eyes met Ben’s—“but you haven’t.” She extended her hand. “Thanks, Ben.”

  “My pleasure, your honor.”

  Judge Hart returned to chambers, and Ben was confronted by a barrage of reporters shouting questions. He tried to be cooperative, for his client’s sake, but his heart wasn’t in it. These people had made it virtually impossible for his client to get a fair and impartial trial. He wasn’t going to play nice-nice now.

  Ben pushed his way through the reporters to the back of the courtroom. Christina was waiting for him; when he approached, she threw her arms around his neck. “Congratulations, champ. I knew you’d come through.”

  Ben grinned. “Thanks. Couldn’t have done it without your help.” He noted the many boxes of files and documents beside her. “Let me help you with some of that.”

  She held up her hands. “No way, hero. Jones and I can manage. You deserve a rest.”

  “Well, if you insist.” He grabbed his coat. “I’ll meet everyone back at the hotel room in half an hour, okay? We should celebrate. Room service, maybe even. I’m buying.”

  “You’re on.”

  Ben pushed through the remainder of the courtroom into the hallway. He managed to clear a path to the elevators, waited the usual interminable length of time for one to come, then stepped inside.

  Just as the elevator doors were about to close, a tall young man Ben didn’t recognize darted between the doors.

  “Just made it,” the man said. The doors closed behind him. “Going down?”

  “All the way.” The man punched one.

  Conforming with usual elevator etiquette, they stood on opposite sides, folded their arms, and didn’t speak. Until, as they dropped below the fourth floor, the other man said, “Bet you’re glad that’s over.”

  “Definitely.” Ben smiled politely. Who …? Must’ve been in the courtroom, although Ben didn’t recall seeing him. A journalist, perhaps? He hoped not.

  “I have to say, I was surprised. I thought your client was guilty as sin.”

  “A lot of people made that mistake.”

  “In fact, I would’ve bet on it.”

  “Well,” Ben said cheerily, “you would’ve lost your money. Barrett isn’t a killer. He isn’t the type.”

  The elevator glided past the third, then the second floor. “Isn’t he?”

  Ben turned his head slowly. “No, he isn’t. He doesn’t have the killer instinct.”

  “Oh, I never thought he had that,” the other man said, just as the elevator touched down on the first floor. “I just thought he had a … sick heart.”

  Chapter 67

  BEN FELT THE HAIRS prick up on the back of his neck. “What did you say?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “I think you heard me.”

  The bell rang and the elevator doors began to part. Ben threw himself toward the doors, but he was too late. The other man knocked him to the side and hit the close button.

  Ben scrambled up and found himself face-to-face with a pistol. “Don’t think I won’t shoot,” the man said. “I will. I want to. I’ve been dreaming about it for weeks.”

  “What is it you want?” Ben asked, gasping.

  “For the moment, I want you to walk out of this building, without attracting any attention, and to get in your car. Your rental car. I’ll be your passenger. Do it right, and I won’t shoot you or anyone else. Do something stupid and I’ll shoot you and everyone else in sight. And there are a lot of people in this courthouse right now.”

  Ben eyed the young man carefully. He didn’t doubt for a moment that he was capable of carrying out his threat. “I’m parked downstairs. Near the city building.”

  “I know.”

  The man holding the gun released the close button, and the doors slid open. A crowd was waiting to get on. One of them, a reporter probably, recognized Ben and shouted something at him. Ben ignored him and walked on by.

  “That’s it,” the man said. He had concealed his gun in his coat pocket, but Ben knew it was still trained on him. “Just stay quiet and keep walking.”

  Ben walked through the doors onto the plaza outside the courthouse. It was dark now. They walked to his rental car without passing anyone Ben knew. He had secretly harbored hopes that they would meet someone who would realize something was wrong—Mike, perhaps, or Sergeant Tomlinson. But it didn’t happen.

  Ben slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. The man with the gun in his pocket took the passenger side. “Good so far,” he said. “Now drive to the River Parks. And don’t try to be clever, understand? Don’t wave at a cop car or drive into a telephone pole. Try anything like that and you’ll find a bullet in your brain. And then I’ll take out your friends back in the hotel room and everyone in that goddamn boardinghouse of yours. Understand?”

  Ben’s lips thinned. “I understand.”

  “Good. Drive.”

  Ben pulled out of the parking garage onto Fifth Street. His brain was racing. What was he going to do? There must be some way out of this, but for the life of him—literally—he couldn’t think what it was. What would Mike do? he wondered. Mike would probably refuse to cooperate, would throw himself at the man. Mike might get away with it, too. But Ben knew perfectly well that if he tried it, he would just end up a bloody blot in a Thrifty rental car.

&nb
sp; “You know you’ve had it wrong from the start,” Ben said easily, never taking his eyes from the road. “Barrett isn’t guilty. He never was. There was no chicanery or deceit in that courtroom, at least not by me. Barrett was acquitted because he was not guilty.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the Barrett case,” the younger man spat out. “I’ll leave that to the tabloids and housewives. The world obsesses on some stupid celebrity trial while important trials, things that matter, are totally forgotten.”

  What? Ben was confused. If Sick Heart wasn’t stalking him because of the Barrett case, then what the hell was it?

  “I don’t understand,” Ben said as he pulled onto Riverside Drive. “Why me? Why are you doing this?”

  The young man’s eyes glistened. They seemed detached, manic. Ben had the unsettling feeling that his companion might not be entirely together. As if that should come as a surprise.

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” the man said.

  “No, but don’t you want to? Don’t you want me to know what I’m being punished for?”

  “Pull over here.” With his gun hand, the stranger motioned toward a sloping driveway down into the River Parks. The River Parks were one of the loveliest parts of Tulsa—miles and miles of unspoiled land on the east bank of the Arkansas River. Jogging and bike trails lined the area between the river and Riverside Drive, as well as parks and band shells and exercise parcourses.

  Ben parked a few slots down from another car; it was dark, but he saw two heads inside, both facing away. Making out? Whatever it was, they seemed to take no notice of him.

  “Get out of the car.”

  Ben obeyed. He stepped out, eyeing Riverside Drive. It was only a few feet away. If he made a run for it—

  He’d be shot dead. It was that simple.

  He followed the man with the gun to the bank of the river. They stood in the middle of a jogging trail. Unfortunately, at this time of night, there were no joggers. Even in a relatively safe city like Tulsa, smart people didn’t jog at night. The area was deserted.

  “I still don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Ben said. “Can’t you even give me a hint?”

  The young man brushed his dark, curly hair out of his eyes. “Don’t you recognize me?”

  Ben peered at the face, the wavy hair, the cold, bitter eyes. There was something about them … but what was it? He couldn’t make the connection.

  “Think back,” the man said. “Think back a long time ago. Eight years ago, to be precise. Think back to another controversial trial in which you played a pivotal role. Another time justice was thwarted.”

  “Eight years ago?” Ben said. “But I wasn’t even out of law school then.”

  “That’s right,” the man said coldly. “You weren’t.”

  The truth struck him like a thunderbolt. “You’re talking about my father’s trial.”

  “Damn straight. Don’t act as if you don’t remember it. I know you do. I know you were there. I saw you.”

  “You—but—” Ben stared into that face, trying to make a connection. He was sure he had never seen this face before. Maybe not this face exactly, But that would have been eight years ago …

  “You’re the little boy,” Ben said, the light slowly dawning. “The little boy at the courthouse.” The one who spat in Ben’s face. The one who swore he would never forget. “Your father died.”

  “My father was murdered!” His hand clenched tighter on the pistol. “Murdered by that defective cardiac valve. That sick heart that was sewn into his chest.”

  Ben felt his knees sag. Sick heart. The clues had been right in front of him all along. And he had been too stupid to see them.

  “My dad was wonderful,” the young man said, his voice trembling. “The best man I ever knew. The only one who ever really gave a damn about me. Was it his fault his heart was bad, that he hoped for a miracle cure? Did he deserve what happened to him?”

  “No, of course not,” Ben said. “But if his heart failed—”

  “He should’ve gone to Houston. They do heart transplants fairly regularly now. They have a success rate better than fifty percent. He would’ve lived. I would’ve had a father.” A dark cloud covered his eyes. “But no. Instead, he let those doctors convince him to go with the EKCV. The Kincaid special. And it killed him.”

  “That’s horrible,” Ben said. “But surely you realize that no one intended to kill your father.”

  “Of course they didn’t intend to!” He was shouting now, screaming. Ben could only hope he would attract some attention, even though he knew the odds were long. “They just didn’t care! They didn’t give a damn!” He swung his pistol wildly through the air, gasping, crying out. “They were more concerned about getting rich than they were about my daddy!”

  Ben took a deep breath and tentatively extended his hand. “Look, I know how you must feel. It was a terrible thing. But it has nothing to do with me.”

  The young man glared at him, eyes cold. “It was the Kincaid valve.”

  “That was my father. He—”

  “You were all in it together.”

  “I wasn’t in it at all. Hell, I worked for the prosecutors.”

  “You’ve lived off it. You’ve wallowed in the profits.”

  “I haven’t wallowed in anything. I’ve never accepted a cent of my father’s money, from this project or anything else.”

  “Don’t make your stupid excuses to me!” His eyes were blazing, wide as they could possibly be. “You killed my father!”

  “It wasn’t me!” Ben screamed back. “It was my father! It was your father and my father. It doesn’t have anything to do with us!”

  He placed the barrel of the gun against Ben’s chest. “The sins of the fathers are visited on the sons.” His hand was trembling, including the finger curled around the trigger. “Your father escaped the hands of justice. You won’t.”

  Ben stared down at the cold steel pressed against his chest. “Why now? After all these years.”

  “I didn’t know where you were!” Ben knew the man was losing control. The only question was whether he could stay alive long enough to take advantage. “After your father died, I looked for you. But I couldn’t find you. You left the DA’s office, disappeared from Oklahoma City. It seemed I had been robbed again, or so I thought. I grew up, I joined the army, but I never forgot. And then one day, I turned on the television and there you were. God had delivered you to me. The coverage of this Barrett case was everywhere; you were on almost every day. How could I miss it?” His voice dropped; his eyes narrowed. “So I came to Tulsa. And I started laying my plans.”

  “Your plans have caused me a lot of grief. And my friends as well.”

  “Good. That makes me happy.” He smiled. “The grief is about to intensify.”

  With his free hand, he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small, hand-sized black box with an antenna extending from it. There was a red light on the top, not currently illuminated, above two red buttons. “Do you know what this is?”

  Ben shook his head. “Some sort of radio signal transmitter.”

  “Right the first time. As you may have gathered, I have a certain facility with explosives. A gift from Uncle Sam, courtesy of my army days, before I departed prematurely from my distinguished career of service.” He paused. “I know where you live. You and the kid.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Ben muttered.

  “And that whore babysitter, and the landlady, and everyone else in your happy little extended family. Guess what? The building is wired. Plastic explosives.” He looked down at his box. “This is a very good transmitter. Even though the house is almost a quarter of a mile away, this will trigger the detonation almost instantaneously.”

  “Don’t do it,” Ben said. “It isn’t worth it.”

  The man ignored him. “I think you’re familiar with some of my previous work, so you know I’m not bluffing. I can do this. I have done this. All I have to do is push this button. An
d they all die.”

  Ben carefully eyed the distance between his hand and the transmitter. Could he knock the thing out of this lunatic’s hands before he could push the button?

  Probably not.

  Was he going to throw dice with the lives of everyone in the house?

  “What is it you want?” Ben said evenly.

  “I read in the paper that you were hoping to get some exercise when the trial was over. So I’m going to accommodate you. That’s why we’re here, in the park. On the jogging trail. You’re going to run.”

  “In my street shoes?”

  “Already making excuses? I wouldn’t. My fingers are very antsy tonight.” He placed his gun in his coat pocket, keeping his left thumb poised over the deadly red button. Then he gripped the transmitter with both hands. “There’s another device like this one, a transmitter, taped to the side of the bridge, about a mile south on this trail. If you get there and push the button, the little light on my transmitter will light and I’ll know you made it. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  “What? I don’t get it.”

  “What do you say, Kincaid? Think you can run a five-minute mile?”

  “No!”

  “Pity. If this light doesn’t shine inside of five minutes, I’m pushing the big red button. And they’ll all die.” He withdrew a stopwatch, keeping his thumb poised over the red button. He clicked the top of the stopwatch. “Go.”

  “This is crazy. I can’t—”

  “Your time is ticking, Kincaid. Your friends and your nephew are five minutes from doomsday. Less now.”

  Ben ran. He barreled down the jogging path, the wind whistling in his face. He wasn’t a particularly fast runner, especially in a suit, tie, and street shoes. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to run; he had to make it. One thing he was absolutely sure of—this maniac meant what he said. He would push the button if Ben failed. What’s more, he was hoping Ben would fail.

  Ben blitzed down the path into the darkness. It was hard running at top speed when he could barely see two feet in front of himself, but he pressed on. He glanced back over his shoulder; the crazy was behind him, keeping him in sight. Ben knew if he detoured from the path or tried to run for help, he’d push the button.