“But he left a few details out. Like, for instance, the fact that Donald Vick had access to the crossbow and personally picked up the bolts the day before the murder. That he was found wandering around the crime scene shortly after the murder occurred—with blood on his shirt.”
Swain picked up the crossbow and waved it in the air. “Has Mr. Kincaid forgotten that Vick’s own hair and blood was found on this crossbow?” he shouted. “I think not. But he’s hoping you will.
“This crime could not have been committed by just anyone. Who else attacked the victim? Who else specially ordered the ammunition? Who else told the sheriff that Tommy Vuong deserved to die? No one else!” He whirled around and pointed at the defendant. “No one else! Only Donald Vick!”
Swain returned to counsel table, closed his eyes briefly, then looked one more time at the jury. “There is only one possibility, one alternative, one way to set the world right again. I ask you to find Donald Vick guilty of murder in the first degree.”
The judge instructed and cautioned the jury, then the bailiff led them to a room in the back of the courthouse. Judge Tyler told them to begin deliberating immediately, rather than waiting till the following morning.
It was clear to Ben, from the judge’s tone, that he didn’t think the deliberation would take long.
PART THREE
THE RESIDUE OF HATE
58.
JUST AFTER SUNSET COLONEL Nguyen and Lan walked hand-in-hand through the loblolly pine trees outside the perimeter of Coi Than Tien. The night was still and peaceful; they could almost forget all the turmoil that surrounded them.
Colonel Nguyen left the courtroom after the jury was dismissed. They still had not returned. Nguyen told himself repeatedly that no one could be certain what the jurors’ thoughts were. But the evidence at trial had been strong, almost overwhelming. He had little doubt but that the jury would find him guilty, and the death sentence would be rendered against Donald Vick.
A man he was almost certain had not committed the crime.
“We came here to escape,” Lan reminded him. “But I sense your troubles have followed you.”
He smiled as best he could. He wondered if all this had not been hardest on her, all his trauma, his moodiness, his indecision. At least he was in control—he could chart his own course. She was at the mercy of the decisions of others.
“Are you still thinking of the trial?”
He nodded.
“Surely they will convict the man. Surely there is no other choice for us. For Coi Than Tien.”
There was truth in what she said. Nguyen knew that even as they spoke Dan Pham and his followers were gathered in the barn, waiting for word of the jury’s verdict. They had made it clear they expected Vick to receive the maximum sentence. And that if the courts did not deliver justice to their satisfaction, they would do it themselves.
That was the choice that lay before them. A guilty verdict would mean the conviction of an innocent man. And a not guilty verdict would mean strife, violence, rioting—probably death to Coi Than Tien.
Lan took his hand inside hers. “Is there nothing I can do to soothe your worries, husband?”
“No. We will just have to wait and see what—”
He was interrupted by the sound of clattered tin cans inside the fence surrounding Coi Than Tien. Someone had triggered the trip wire he’d strung across the front entrance. A few seconds after that he heard gunshots firing in rapid succession. Automatic weapons.
“Stay here,” he told Lan.
Without waiting for a response, Nguyen ran toward Coi Than Tien. It would take him at least another minute to make it to the front gates. Instead he ran to the fence and leaped up against it. He rose at least four feet into the air and was able to grab the top. Pushing against the fence with his feet, he hoisted himself up and swung over into Coi Than Tien.
It was the black pickup with the smoked windows, returned once again to wreak death and destruction on Coi Than Tien. Gun barrels extended from both the driver’s and the passenger’s windows spraying a steady stream of bullets in all directions.
Nguyen ran as fast as he could toward the pickup. He passed terrified neighbors running in the other direction, desperately trying to get themselves and their families away from the danger.
He dashed around the barn and bolted toward his home. The pickup spotted him. Its engines roared; it pivoted around and began firing at him. A bullet ricocheted off the porch just inches above his head. Nguyen dropped to the ground, then crawled on his knees and elbows toward the front door. He flung the door open, crawled inside, and slammed the door behind him.
Holly was standing in the living room beside Mary’s cradle. Mary was crying loud and hard.
“I stayed with the baby, Daddy,” Holly said. Tears were streaming from her eyes. “Just like you said.”
“Get down!” Nguyen grabbed his daughter and knocked her against the wooden floor. Another volley of bullets rained through the windows. Holly screamed.
Nguyen took his baby from the cradle and hugged her close to him. He pressed both daughters flat on the planks and prayed that the danger would pass them by. He could hear the pickup moving outside, circling the barn, keeping everyone pinned inside their homes.
Another round of bullets pierced the front doors and windows, the ones he had only repaired two days before. Anger boiled up inside Nguyen’s breast. To attack them in their own homes—to endanger his children! His body tensed and filled with hate. If he could just get out of here, he would tear them apart. He would destroy them. But he could not leave the children—
“Go,” a voice behind him said.
It was Lan. She must’ve cut through the rear of the settlement and come in the back door.
“I will see to the children. Go.”
As soon as he was sure the pickup had momentarily moved away from his home, Nguyen moved a chair beside the bookshelves he had constructed in the front room. From behind two books on the top shelf, where the children could not possibly get it, he withdrew a gun.
The one that had served him so long and so well in his previous life.
It would serve him again.
As he ran out the front door he once more heard the sound of gunfire, but this time from a different quarter. The front doors of the barn were open, and a steady stream of bullets poured out from within.
It must be Pham and his self-styled resistance league. Despite Pham’s denials Nguyen had suspected they were stockpiling weapons; now his suspicions were confirmed. Under the circumstances, however, he could hardly complain.
Pham’s group did not have automatic weapons, but there appeared to be many of them, and they were well hidden within the dark interior of the barn. The pickup had stopped roving and was now at a stationary location between the barely reconstructed Truong home and the barn.
Colonel Nguyen went down on one knee, held his gun in both hands, and aimed carefully. His first bullet punctured the pickup’s left rear tire. Those huge oversized tires made for an easy target. The second bullet blew out the left front tire.
Someone in the pickup noticed what was happening. The wheels spun as the pickup tried to move away. The pickup lurched into drive, doing a lopsided tilt toward the left and scraping the wheel hubs on the dirt. Just as the pickup began to move, Nguyen fired a third bullet into the rear window. The window shattered as the pickup barreled toward the front gate, leaving a trail of glass shards in its wake.
Nguyen raced after the truck, but it was out of sight before he had run fifty feet. The black pickup had struck again, and now would disappear without a trace just as it had done so many times before.
Dan Pham emerged from the interior of the barn. “What a marksman you are!” he exclaimed. “The great Colonel Nguyen has once more triumphed against the enemy.”
Nguyen’s face remained stern. “You told me you were not storing weapons. You lied.”
“Yes,” Pham admitted, “and you knew I was lying. What of it?”
“Are you still so blind?” Nguyen grabbed Pham by the collar of his jacket. “Don’t you see what is happening? With each incident, the destruction escalates. It will never end!”
“It will end,” Pham said solemnly. “It will end when ASP has been eliminated!”
His followers cheered. Nguyen scanned their faces. Angry faces, faces of men prepared to do anything, prepared to march on ASP and tear the camp apart board by board. Faces filled with rage.
The same rage he himself had felt only moments ago.
“If you march on the ASP camp,” Nguyen said, “they will mow you down like cockroaches.”
“I do not doubt that,” Pham said. “But that is not our plan. Our intelligence has provided us with an alternative approach. One that will hurt them in a way they will never forget!”
“Don’t do this!” Nguyen said, shaking Pham furiously.
“It is too late,” Pham said, pushing him away. “We were already planning to strike. We were simply waiting for the outcome of the trial. But no trial has stopped ASP before—no trial ever will.” He turned to face his followers. “It is up to us! We will make our move tonight!”
They cheered again, long and loud.
“This is insane! Suicide!” Nguyen shouted, but few could hear him over the clamor of Pham’s warriors. “I will not allow you to do this!”
Suddenly the night was split apart by a piercing scream, so loud it seemed to reverberate through all of Coi Than Tien.
“My God,” Nguyen said quietly. “What now?”
The youngest Dang daughter, Cam, ran out the front door of the newly constructed Truong home. Cam was crying and wailing; her hand was pressed against her mouth.
“Why was she in there?” Nguyen wondered aloud. “The house is not yet ready for them.” It was not finished; it was simply a wooden framework with a thin layer of boards on all sides.
Nguyen didn’t have to wonder long. Cam ran straight to him and buried her head against his shoulder. “I was checking the homes, to make sure no one was injured by the gunfire.” She paused and tried to catch her breath. “I don’t know why I went in there. I just had … a premonition. I wanted to be thorough. And I found—”
Nguyen’s eyes expanded with the horrible realization. He passed Cam to one of Pham’s men and raced toward the new home. The frame was still visible in many places; it had the fresh yellow coloring of new-cut pine.
He flung open the front door.
A body lay crumpled on the floor. A female body. With a bullet hole in her head.
A puddle of dark blood encircled her head and shoulders. The bullet had left a star-shaped hole about the size of his fist in her skull. Nguyen grabbed her wrist, but he knew he would find no pulse. She was dead; she probably died the second the assassin’s bullet struck her skull. The poor Truongs—as if they had not already been cursed enough—
He blinked and wiped the sweat from his eyes.
This woman was not one of the Truong clan. He stared down at her wrist, her hand, her pearl-colored complexion.
She was white.
What would she be doing here? He brushed away her dark hair and examined her face, what was left of it, more closely.
She was definitely white. And for some reason, she looked familiar.
All at once, tears poured out of his eyes. He could not hold them back any longer. For so long, so long, he had not allowed himself to acknowledge his own feelings. Now the tears came whether he wished them or not.
No one was safe. An innocent woman had been killed. In his rage, Pham would kill innocent men, men whose only crime was joining a club that was popular in their hometown. And in retaliation, ASP would destroy Pham and all his men—perhaps all of Coi Than Tien. No one was safe.
And in large part, Nguyen realized, it was his fault. In his concern for his own family, he had crippled the law enforcement efforts to restore peace, had crippled the court’s ability to exact justice.
He had caused great harm. And he had prevented nothing. His words had been useless—dust in the wind. The cataclysm between ASP and Coi Than Tien would proceed just as surely as if he had never been here at all.
Nguyen suddenly realized he was still clenching the dead woman’s hand, but he did not drop it. He squeezed it all the tighter. He could do one thing. He could prevent another innocent death, another tragedy like the one that now lay beneath him soaking in her own blood.
He could do that. And he would.
59.
“MR. KINCAID. MAY I have a few words with you?” Ben and Mike gazed up at the rugged Asian face, the deep-set eyes, the gray-flecked temples. “Of course. This is my friend Lieutenant Mike Morelli. You’re Colonel Nguyen, aren’t you?”
“Colonel Khue Van Nguyen.” He bowed slightly. “You have a good memory.”
“I’ve seen you in the courtroom. You’ve been watching the trial.”
“Yes. Yes I have.”
Nguyen was being strangely hesitant, as if he had something important on his mind, but couldn’t make himself say it. “Any particular reason?”
“Curiosity. The jury has not yet returned?”
“No. They’re taking their own sweet time about it. Looks like it’s going to spill over into tomorrow. At least.”
“That is unfortunate.” Nguyen wrung his hands anxiously.
“Colonel Nguyen, forgive me for being blunt, but I have the distinct feeling there’s something you want to tell me.”
“There is.” Nguyen folded his hands together. “Donald Vick did not kill Tommy Vuong.”
“What?” Ben rose out of his chair. “How do you know?”
“Because I was there.”
“You mean you killed him?”
“No. But I saw it.”
“You were with him when he was killed?”
“I arrived less than a minute afterward. The cross was still burning. I heard his last words. I saw the fire consume his body”
Ben reached across the desk and took Nguyen’s arm. “Who killed Vuong?”
“That I do not know. I saw the silhouette of a figure moving away from me as I arrived. I could not see it clearly.”
“But it wasn’t Vick?”
“No. I am certain. The killer was thinner, not as tall. It was someone else.”
Ben glanced at Mike. “You’re my witness.”
“Understood.”
“Colonel Nguyen, why didn’t you tell me this before the trial was over?”
Nguyen lowered his head. “I was concerned about the possibility of … repercussions. Not for myself. But my wife, my children. I could not allow them to come to harm.” Nguyen’s eyes were filled with shame. “I do not offer that as an excuse. It is simply … an explanation.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Have you heard what happened at Coi Than Tien tonight?”
“Not another fire?”
“No. An armed attack. Men in a black pickup with automatic weapons.”
“ASP?”
“Presumably. But we have no proof. Just like every other time.”
Ben nodded grimly. “Was anyone hurt?”
Nguyen’s face tightened. “There was one fatality. A white woman.”
“At Coi Than Tien? Again?” Ben’s eyebrows furrowed. “Who was she?”
“I do not know.”
Mike interrupted. “Is someone investigating this crime?”
“Sheriff Collier is there now,” Nguyen answered. “But I suspect he has no idea how to proceed.”
“Ben,” Mike said, “if you don’t have any objection, I’m going out there to see if I can help.”
“No. Do it. I can wait for the jury by myself.”
“Thanks.” Mike grabbed his overcoat and bolted out of the office.
“Mike is a homicide detective in Tulsa,” Ben explained. “He’ll know how to handle the situation.”
“That is good.”
Nguyen reached inside his jacket and withdrew a stack of papers about two inches thick. “I found these in the forest less than twenty feet from where Tommy was killed.”
Ben took the papers and examined them. It was all hate literature. Pamphlets and comic book tracts. The Whole White World, one was called. Keep Your Neighborhood Pure, another demanded. All of them bore the imprint of ASP; the stamps on the back indicated that they had been printed at the Birmingham ASP camp.
“Is is possible that these were dropped before the murder occurred?”
“So close to Coi Than Tien? I do not think so.”
“And you didn’t show these to the sheriff?”
“No. I was concerned … since they indicate that the killer is connected to ASP.”
“That’s what they’re supposed to do, anyway,” Ben murmured. “But I wonder.” He placed the papers inside the desk. “Thank you for your help, Colonel Nguyen. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Nguyen shook his head sadly. “There is nothing anyone can do for me. When Pham learns what I have done, he will surely demand that I leave Coi Than Tien. And when my wife learns …” He clasped his head with his hands. “I fear I will be leaving Coi Than Tien—alone.”
Loving suddenly burst through the front door. Ben had never seen the heavy-built man move so quickly.
And if that wasn’t surprise enough, just as the door closed behind him, Christina pushed it back open.
“Skipper!” Loving shouted. “We gotta talk!”
Ben looked right past him. “Christina!”
“Skipper!” Loving said insistently. “We gotta talk—”
“Just a minute. Christina, it’s—it’s good to see you. I didn’t expect—”
“I came to see Loving,” she said abruptly. She tossed her strawberry-blond locks behind her shoulders. “I was getting a snack at Bo-Bo’s when I saw him run in here. I thought he might be able to give me a lift.”
“Oh. Then it wasn’t—”
“Skipper, listen up! This is an emergency!”
Ben sadly turned his eyes away from Christina. “What’s wrong? What’s the big emergency?”
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