They said their goodbyes, and Ben returned to the tasks at hand. There were stacks of files piled all around the room. If he was going to take on this huge new caseload, he needed to clear away the debris of the past. He had to decide what should go in the form files, what should be put in long-term storage, and what could be destroyed.
After a few minutes of digging, he came across a sealed manila envelope. Opening it, he found a thick stack of photocopied medical data. He stared at it, trying to figure out what it was. Oh, of course, he remembered. Barrett’s medical records, the ones he had gone to court to prevent from being produced to the prosecution. Since Ben had won the motion, he had never taken the time to review the records.
He thumbed absently through the file, looking for the records pertaining to Barrett’s psychiatric counseling. He didn’t find any.
Now that was odd, Ben thought. If there was no record of psychiatric treatment, then why …
He continued sorting through the morass of documents. Until finally, somewhere near the bottom, he found something he had not anticipated, something he had not even dreamed possible.
His heart felt as if it had stopped beating in his chest. His jaw slackened; his eyes widened.
Oh my God, Ben thought, his brain racing through the recent past, retrying the case in his mind. How could I have been so stupid?
How could I have been so wrong?
Ben found Barrett at home, at the same house on Terwilliger that he had once shared with his three family members. The house had been cleaned, scoured. Like the charges against him, all traces of the crime had been eradicated. All the sins swept away.
Barrett was more than happy to see him. “Ben,” he said jovially, arms extended. “My hero.”
Ben bristled at his touch. He did not return the greeting.
“Something wrong, old man?” Barrett chuckled. “Hey, the check is in the mail. I promise. I wrote it out this morning.”
Ben scanned the room. “Looks like you’re getting things put back in order.”
“Well, yes, of course. I mean, it’s sad, but we have to get on with life, don’t we? I suppose in time I’ll have to sell this place; it’s much too large for just me. Quite a change from the county jail. Still, in the meantime, I might as well restore some sense of order. Makes for a better home environment.”
“Makes for a better backdrop for all those interviews you’ve been giving, too.
“That’s true.” He chuckled again. “I gotta tell you, it’s nice having the press in your back pocket again. Hell, I expected that no matter how this turned out, my political career would be ruined. Now I’m beginning to wonder. This old dog might have some life in him yet.”
Wordlessly Ben opened his briefcase, withdrew the envelope, and pressed it into Barrett’s hands. “I was going through the files and I found this. It’s your medical records. The ones you sent me to court to keep away from the prosecution’s prying eyes.”
“Ah, yes.” Barrett took the file, thumbed through it absently. “And you’re probably wondering where the records pertaining to my psychiatric counseling are. Well, look, Ben, I may have exaggerated that a bit, but whether I’ve been to a shrink or not, is it wrong for a man to want to keep his medical history off the evening news?”
“You’ve had a vasectomy,” Ben said coldly, barely blinking. “It’s right there, on page eighty-two. That’s what you didn’t want the prosecution to know.” He took a deep breath and slowly released it. “It wasn’t your baby.”
“Ahh … no.” Barrett dropped the envelope and took a seat on a nearby sofa. “No, I guess it wasn’t.” His face suddenly brightened. “Although sometimes miracles do happen. Those surgeons aren’t perfect. But …” He smiled. “I suppose you’re not buying that one.”
“No, I’m not. You knew about the baby. And you knew it wasn’t yours. And you didn’t want the prosecution to know it couldn’t possibly be yours because”—another deep breath—“because it gives you a motive for murder.”
He stared down at his hands. “I guess it does, doesn’t it?”
Ben felt a cold chill creeping up his spine. “You killed her, didn’t you? You killed your wife.”
“Well, I suppose there’s no point in denying it. Not to Ben Kincaid, super-sleuth.”
Ben collapsed into the nearest armchair. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I was so wrong, so blind. I saw you with your kids. I looked into your eyes. I was sure—”
Barrett’s head snapped up suddenly. “Now, wait a minute, Ben. I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea.”
“But you said—”
“I said I killed my wife. Yeah, true enough. But the kids? Never. No way in hell.” He edged forward in his seat. “Don’t you get it, Kincaid? She killed the kids. She did it.”
Ben stared across the tiny expanse of carpet. “But I don’t see—”
“It was her, Kincaid, believe me. If you search through those medical records long enough, you’ll find that she was the one who had psychiatric treatment—though not nearly enough. There were times when she completely lost control, became absolutely insane. And violent. She hit me so many times I can’t even count them all. I lost a tooth, thanks to her. She jabbed me so hard in the solar plexus once I almost lost consciousness.” He took a deep breath. “We heard all that chatter throughout the trial about my so-called temper. But she was the one who had the temper. Sure, I got mad sometimes, but she went insane. I mean, totally out of control, violent, psycho-mommy. You’re damn right the kids got bruised up a time or two. People always assume it’s the man, that the male is the violent one. But it wasn’t. It was her.”
“But why kill them?”
“To get back at me, of course. In the only way she could. She hated me; she had for years. Why do you think she told those horrible stories to her sister, among others? She was jealous, cruel. Complained that I didn’t spend any time with her, that all I cared about was my career, my image. She was tired of living in a goldfish bowl, of being known only as Mayor Barrett’s wife. As an ornament. I’m sure you’ve heard this all before. The truth is, she was not well. Not well in the head.”
“But there was never any indication—”
“Wasn’t there? Do you remember what that clown at the ice-cream parlor said? He remembered the words, he just forgot who said them. It was her, not me. Hell, Fisher remembered her saying the same thing. ‘The children are the only weapon I have against you.’ I guess that was right. And finally she used that weapon. She played her last card.”
Ben stared at the man, unable to come up with an intelligent comment.
“That was why she had the affair, too. To punish me. It was that creep Fisher, as you’ve probably guessed. Small wonder I don’t much care for him. Remember that unmatched trace of blood the prosecution expert said he found in Caroline’s bedroom? Fisher, I guarantee it. Apparently Caroline and her lover liked it rough—rough enough to draw blood. Anyway, after carrying this affair on right in front of my nose for weeks, she got pregnant, probably intentionally, to humiliate me. To give me an unwanted little public relations problem.
“But that wasn’t enough. She didn’t get what she wanted. Instead of flying off the handle, I calmly told her she could sleep with any piece of shit she wanted, what did I care? That infuriated her. That’s what we fought about that fateful afternoon. She was desperate to get to me, and she couldn’t do it. I just walked out on her and, well, I guess she decided to play her trump card, the only weapon she had left. She took away the only thing that would really hurt me. My children.”
Ben gripped the sides of his chair. He wished he could doubt, could make himself disbelieve. But this was the truth. He knew it was.
“It was a shame she’d been reading Medea. I wonder if that was where she got the idea? People as unbalanced as her shouldn’t be allowed Greek tragedy. Imagine if she’d read Oedipus Rex. What a mess that would’ve been.”
He smiled, but soon saw that his attempt at gallows humor had fall
en flat.
“I hit Caroline a few times, I have to admit. Locked her out of the house, all that. But what do you do with a wife who becomes a raving maniac at the slightest provocation, huh? I wish someone would tell me. The whole world is geared up to protect women from men. What happens when a man needs protection from a woman? Nothing, that’s what. Don’t bother going to friends, family, police. They’ll laugh in your face.”
“But—” Ben groped for words. “It was so … bloody.”
“Yes, she did rather make a mess of it, didn’t she? Caroline had been a nurse, you’ll recall. She knew how to kill someone efficiently. She managed it with Annabelle—one direct thrust to the heart with a thin knife. Instantaneous death. But something went wrong with Alysha. I don’t know what. Perhaps Alysha saw her kill Annabelle and tried to struggle. Perhaps she fought back. Anyway, things got out of control, and Caroline made a huge bloody mess. Poor Alysha—no wonder she cried out for her daddy. What she must have thought when her own mother came to kill her. At least it was quick. Still, Caroline’s purpose was accomplished. She punished me. She took away my children.”
Barrett’s hand went toward his face, covering his eyes. “Imagine if you will—imagine what I faced when I came home, an hour or so after I’d left. I hadn’t expected anything to happen. I just thought it was best to leave until Caroline’s rage blew over, to keep her from hurting me or me from hurting her. If I had stayed, I knew one or the other would happen. So I left for a lousy hour, just to let her cool off, and I come home—” The color drained out of his face; his eyes became glassy and wet. “And my children are dead!” His voice was broken, hurt. “My two precious babies, the most beautiful things in my world—dead. Murdered. By their own mother.”
He looked up suddenly. “And do you know what she said? Do you know what she said? She looked straight into my eyes and said, ‘No more babies for you, you son of a bitch. Explain that at a press conference.’ ”
He shook his head. Tears streamed from his eyes. “I lost control. Truly and utterly lost control. I don’t know what came over me. I was just enraged. I ran at her, grabbed the knife away, and just started pounding. Just started slicing away. Killing her. I couldn’t stop myself. I was so angry. So … angry.
“We fought, but she was outmatched. I’m sure that’s when she got my skin under her nail and made me bleed a little. She was no weakling. But I was stronger. And I wanted her to die. I really truly wanted her to die.”
He looked up suddenly. “And then it was over. Just as quickly as it had started, it was over. The rage passed. I regained control. But Caroline—” He shook his head. “Next thing I remember, she was sprawled backwards over that dining room chair. Not moving. I checked for a pulse, tried to do CPR— but it was no use. She was dead.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I just don’t know what happened to me. The rage—the uncontrollable rage. I never felt anything like that before. I don’t know how to explain it to you.”
“Don’t bother,” Ben said quietly. It wasn’t necessary. He knew all about it. It was a family trademark.
“I was so confused afterwards. I couldn’t get my head together—didn’t know what to do.”
“So you ran.”
“Well, I didn’t see that hanging around would do my family any good, and I knew perfectly well what the chances were of a public figure getting a fair trial. Next to zilch. So, yeah, I ran.”
“And when you didn’t make it, when they caught you, you called me. And fed me that crock of bull about the city council.”
Barrett stretched his neck, wiped away the tears. “Ben, you don’t know how sorry I am about what happened. I know what I did was wrong. I’ve felt horrible about it ever since it happened. But I was not prepared to spend the rest of my life in jail because of it.” He pressed his hand against his forehead. “I knew Whitman had some chump following me. Not to kill me. I think he was supposed to take pictures. That’s why he was following me around, stalking outside the house. He was hoping to catch me in a compromising position, capture it on film, and feed it to the press. Whitman found out I was having an affair with my secretary—who could blame me? Anyway, that’s what he meant when he told Buck to ‘get the nigger.’ He wanted color glossies he could spread across the front page. Some of my boys tipped me off to it, though, and when it became patently obvious that I needed a scapegoat, I let Whitman and his pet hood fill the role. Killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
“He could go to prison.”
“He won’t. They don’t have any evidence against him—because none exists. Besides, the DA obviously prefers to play the high and mighty part. Before they could institute further investigation, they would have to admit that they made a mistake the first time, which they appear to be unwilling to do. Whitman won’t do time. And if his reputation is ruined—fine. He deserves it.”
“But that meeting in the park. And your neighbor spotted Whitman in your neighborhood.”
“Did he? I wonder. Whitman did meet Buck in the park. I think he saw that he was about to be dragged into this thing and wanted all the incriminating evidence—especially those photographs—destroyed as soon as possible. As for Harvey Sanders spotting Whitman in the sedan, that moron—” He grinned suddenly. “You may have noticed that the first time Sanders testified, he didn’t know who it was he saw in the brown sedan. Despite his professed lack of knowledge about city government, he must’ve seen Whitman’s picture at some time in his life, or seen him in the courtroom. But he didn’t identify Whitman as the man in the car until his second time on the stand, and then only in the most protracted, melodramatic manner possible. You have to understand—Harvey is an actor. He saw his big break in this trial, and he wasn’t going to blow it. His first trip to the witness stand had gotten him some publicity. He must’ve thought, Imagine what might happen if I became a critical witness, if I altered the course of the whole trial.
“So that’s what he did. He embellished a bit, made himself important. Said exactly what you wanted him to say. And now the media drones are swarming around him, talking about how honest and charismatic he is.”
Ben stared at the man wordlessly.
“So that’s it then,” Barrett said, clasping his hands together. “Now you know everything I do. I hope you’re a lot happier for it.”
Slowly, clumsily, Ben pushed himself out of the chair. “You must realize I’m not going to keep your dirty little secret to myself.”
Barrett glanced up, a look of pure astonishment on his face. “Why, Ben, you have no choice.”
“I certainly do—”
“Have you forgotten a little thing called attorney-client privilege? Anything I tell you must be held in the strictest confidence.”
“The case is over.”
“Yes, but your representation of me is not, as you very well know. This conversation directly pertained to a legal matter which you handled on my behalf. It’s privileged.”
“I don’t care. I’m not going to be a part of this conspiracy of silence.”
“Fine. Suit yourself. Go to the press. What will that accomplish? Well, first, you’ll be disbarred, no question about that. You’ll have your livelihood taken away as punishment for—what? For telling the truth. How ironic. Meanwhile, what will happen to me? Well—nothing! Nothing at all! I’ve already been tried and acquitted on this charge, the maximum possible charge. Double jeopardy has attached! They can’t touch me. Hell, I could go tell my story to the press myself, and there would be absolutely nothing anyone could do to me.”
Barrett smiled briefly, then sighed. “But I won’t do that. I have my career to think of. And you won’t do it either. Pious as you are, I don’t think you’re stupid.”
Ben turned abruptly, feeling his way, tripping over an edge of carpet. “I can’t believe I was so blind. It was all right in front of me. People kept telling me. Bullock, Mike. And I wouldn’t listen. I looked into your eyes, decided that you couldn’t kill your children, and stupidly thought tha
t that meant you were not guilty. I’m so used to seeing things in terms of us against them, of right against wrong, defense against prosecution, that I missed the real truth. I was like a kid on the playground—I was the skins and the prosecution was the shirts. And we all wanted to win. And now, because I screwed up”—his head snapped around, and his eyes burned toward Barrett’s—“a guilty man goes free.”
Barrett nodded, eyes wide. “Life sucks, doesn’t it?”
Silently Ben gathered up the medical file and the papers that were in it.
“I’ll show you to the door,” Barrett said.
“Please don’t.” Ben opened the front door, then stopped. “Don’t come to my office again, Barrett. Don’t come anywhere near me. You are no longer my client. And for God’s sake, don’t send any of your press groupies my way for quotes. Believe me, you wouldn’t like what I’d give them.”
Ben passed through the door and slammed it so loud that Harvey Sanders could hear the crash next door, even with his windows closed.
Chapter 70
WHEN BEN RETURNED TO HIS apartment, he was surprised to find Joey crawling around on the floor, fiddling with a Fisher-Price music mobile.
He crawled on all fours to get to Joey-level. “Hiya, pardner. I stopped by the store and picked up some cool stuff for you. You’re going to love it.” A thought struck; he looked up. “Where’s Joni?”
“I told her she could go home.”
Ben whirled around. Julia!
She smiled. “Hi there, big brother. Surprised to see me?”
There she was, in all her glory. Ben’s sister seemed firm and tanned, even more so than when he had last seen her more than six months before. Her long brown hair curled around her neck and down past her shoulders; her blue eyes sparkled.
“Julia,” he said, his brain obviously not processing information as quickly as his eyes. “How—how did you get in?”
“Your friend Joni let me in.” She pointed at the jumbo-size Toys R Us bag in Ben’s arms. “Picked up a few toys for yourself?”
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