Plain Heathen Mischief

by Martin Clark

  “I know. The police don’t seem to care one way or the other. Sa’ad’s guilty, so what does it matter?”

  “It doesn’t, not to me,” she said.

  “You’re certain about the money?” Joel asked.

  “I’m certain about my decency and my values.” She sidled nearer so they hit at the hip. “But I love you for trying. Sometimes, my sweet son gives me a birthday gift or a present for Mother’s Day that is so homely I’ll never use it. I put it right in the closet and adore him for the sincerity.”

  “Will you just consider it for a little while longer?”

  “Nope, I won’t. I’ve already made up my mind, and I told Lynette the same thing.”

  “So this is simply another foul-up for me? Another X on my ledger?”

  “It’s nothing, Joel. A cipher. It’s like you’ve built a toothpick castle or a ship in a bottle—an inordinate amount of effort for a worthless, Rube Goldberg result.”

  “Ouch.”

  “If it makes you feel better, you have been helpful to me. Yes you have.” She looked at him and double-squeezed his hand. “It’s nice to be loved and appreciated. It makes coping easier, and your being here for the last several months has gotten rid of the venom in me. Well, most of it at any rate. No matter how much I pound the shit out of you, your heart never goes cold. There’s goodness in you; you just haven’t been in the everyday world long enough to know how to set it loose. You’ve never flinched where Baker and I are concerned. You’ve screwed up, sure, but you’ve always been constant. Now I have a boyfriend—God, that sounds adolescent—and I probably wouldn’t if you hadn’t come, hadn’t shown me every foundation’s not rotten or floating on quicksand and silt.”

  “But wouldn’t it be better to have happiness and a healthy bankroll, too? The Lord’s virtually dropped the sweepstakes winner off at your doorstep. I can tell you the details if you’d like, how I—”

  “I’ve gotten all I want from your pursuits. I’ve decided. Hush. I’m done discussing it.” She hooked her arm around his waist. “Let’s go inside. I’ve got a pot of stew cooking, made it with the beef you brought home from work. And a pie, a chocolate pie.”

  “Okay.”

  She hugged him.

  “You’re remarkable,” he said, joining the embrace.

  “Do you want me to claim the money and give it to you?” she asked. “I would.”

  “Huh. Well, I hadn’t even considered that. Wow.”

  “I’m not entitled to it, but you did a bunch of legwork for them. I don’t know why you should be disqualified.”

  “What do you think? Should I?” Joel tried to search her expression, but it was too dark to read the subtleties and crinkles that usually companioned her thoughts.

  “I wouldn’t, but, you know, that’s me.”

  “You’re probably right,” he agreed. “Perhaps letting it go will boost my virtue quotient, huh?”

  “Can I make one other suggestion, Joel? My gift to you?”

  “Yeah, please.”

  “Dr. Piece of Shit and I went to Las Vegas for our wedding anniversary, and we stayed at the Mirage, saw—”

  “I’ve been there,” he blurted. “It’s where I played cards with Sa’ad and Edmund. I’d forgotten you and Neal went. And I’m glad to hear you haven’t lost all your dander; I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that.”

  “Saw the magic show,” she continued, “the gay guys, Siegfried and Roy, before the tiger ate one of them. It was a great show, and it seemed amazing, impossible. They made an elephant disappear, and no one could quite figure how they did it. It was so phenomenal because you had no idea how they pulled it off.”

  “I saw those tigers,” Joel said. “In their habitat next to the lobby.” He could anticipate her advice, some warning about loitering with the wrong crowd and steering clear of temptation.

  “Word of caution from your sister. Those guys were two showmen with gold lamé suits and face jobs, and we couldn’t solve their illusions. You sure you have a lock on the creator of the planet? His motives? You have his briefing book? His finished maps and charts? I thought part of the equation, the Baptist preacher equation, was that God moves in mysterious ways, and we’re too damn simple to comprehend what’s happening. How else can you continue to explain all the frightful plane disasters and still-born babies? I’d be careful about assuming too much, Joel, claiming I’d connected each and every dot.”

  “Oh,” he said, bemused and surprised.

  “Yeah. End of sermon.”

  “Not all the dots,” he answered, regaining his composure. “The Lord does act and sometimes it’s not for us to understand. But He also answers prayers, reveals bits and pieces of His kingdom. Heck, you see Him manifest—”

  Sophie pinched him at the waist. “I didn’t mean to invite a lecture. I’m not interested in the zillion canned responses you memorized at seminary. I wanted you to know what I was thinking—use it as you please. I’m the heathen in the family, remember? You’re the theologian.”

  Lynette had assured Joel repeatedly that Karl Dillen and his swaggering lawyer were posturing and would cave before the trial. On the eve of the hearing, however, her office called to remind him he needed to be present at the Missoula County Courthouse, prepared to testify. When he arrived at the courtroom, it was full of defendants and cops and clerks carrying stacks of files to the bench. The four policemen in attendance had butch haircuts and formidable government-issue shoes, and most of the defendants were wearing jeans and scruffy shirts and appeared permanently dazed or disheveled.

  Court began at nine in the morning. Joel smelled alcohol on the man beside him in the gallery, and one poor fellow was so impaired that he never seemed to blink, just sat with his eyes scotched, opening and closing his mouth like a guppy. A pale, fleshy mother had to leave her seat because her baby was crying, and the court’s business hummed and pinballed at the front of the room, the law a pedestrian amalgam of quick pleas, lies, pompous soliloquies, remorse, convenience and spur-of-the-moment promises. Excepting the attorneys, Joel was the only man wearing a suit, and he immediately started to fret and perspire, dreaded having to testify and hated sitting with the low-grade criminals who reminded him of his stint at the Roanoke jail.

  It was early June, but heat was inexplicably being pumped into the courtroom, making the atmosphere stagnant and sweltering. There was no sign of Karl, Lisa or their lawyer, and Joel attempted to attract Lynette’s attention, but she never saw him, was too busy talking to the police, checking warrants, questioning witnesses and dealing with a parade of attorneys seeking concessions for their clients. After an hour, she whispered to a bailiff, who then gruffly advised Joel that the “big-shot dentist’s” case was the last one on the docket, wouldn’t be heard until eleven-thirty. Joel looked at Lynette, and she raised her hand to acknowledge him before resuming her business. He left and bummed around the town, bought a cold soda and a bag of Cheez Doodles, was so bothered that he smeared the greasy orange powder from the snack on his white shirt.

  He was back at the courthouse fifteen minutes early and stumbled into the Dillens and their attorney huddled near the door to the courtroom. Karl appeared sheepish, timid, and he didn’t speak. Their lawyer recognized Joel, thrust five spread fingers toward him. “Reverend King,” he said. “Chris Hudgins. We met at the Station.”

  Joel shook his hand. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Spare a minute?” Hudgins asked. “By ourselves?”

  Joel glanced at Lisa. She was petite and frail, the color sucked from her twig arms and bird face. There was a purple-and-black, dime-size bruise on her forearm, and when Joel spotted it, he instinctively isolated Karl, stared down at the hairy ogre in his expensive country-club blazer. “Sure,” Joel said, still glowering at Karl.

  They walked down a flight of marble steps and stood underneath the building’s high ceiling, and Hudgins repeated his spiel, this time much more politely, warned Joel of the dire consequences coming his way if
the case didn’t go well for the Dillens.

  “Your guy’s a loser,” Joel told him. “He’s on tape, Mr. Hudgins. I’m not going to lie, not going to help him, not going to retreat. I’m convinced you and your clients are blowing smoke.” He noticed the pillars were painted, not real marble, and he saw an empty red-and-white Coke can discarded on a wooden bench.

  “And you observed Karl hit her?” Hudgins probed. “That’s what you’re prepared to say?”

  “Yes. I’ve already told you.”

  “I see.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Joel said, thinking he sounded firm and self-possessed, like Cary Grant or Gregory Peck, a handsome man in Beau Brummell suit and conservative tie, walking off unafraid, his head held high, the villain courteously rebuffed.

  The crowd inside had thinned, and Joel took a seat near the railing that separated the spectators from the judge and the court’s formal domain. A skinny girl with bad grammar was describing to the judge how her husband “had came home drunk as a hoot owl” and kicked her in the stomach. The husband sat with his head bowed as his lawyer listened and scribbled notes. When the case finished, Christopher Hudgins maneuvered behind Lynette and pecked on her shoulder, bent close to her and whispered. She gazed at Joel while the lawyer chewed her ear, and she shook her head before Hudgins finished talking. Joel could read her lips: “No,” she said.

  Hudgins stood erect and sighed and then bore in for a second round. The begging became more demonstrative this time, the entreaties accompanied by grimaces and arm flaps, and Joel heard the judge call the case and ask the lawyers if they were ready. Joel prayed he wouldn’t have to take the stand and be interrogated and get accused of something he didn’t do.

  He spied Karl seated in the middle of the gallery. He was holding Lisa’s hand and appeared terrified, his breathing nearly a pant, so furious that Joel could see his chest heaving. Lynette was now suggesting something to Hudgins, who’d dropped to one knee beside her chair. They both looked at Joel. “Okay,” he saw Hudgins say, and he pushed off the floor and motioned for Karl to meet him outside. Lynette asked the judge for a moment of indulgence, announcing that they’d most likely reached a plea bargain.

  Hudgins departed with Karl and Lisa and then reappeared to tell the judge that he and the prosecutor had indeed agreed on a disposition. The bailiff herded Karl and Lisa to the opening between the bench and the witness stand, Karl continuing to hold her hand like some giddy honeymooner. Lynette recited the deal and Hudgins and Karl accepted it: Karl would be convicted of misdemeanor assault, receive twelve months suspended on the condition he attend ten counseling sessions, volunteer a hundred hours at the Salvation Army and pay a five-hundred-dollar fine and the court costs. No active jail time, and the charge was reduced from a felony, Hudgins reiterated when the judge asked if Ms. Allen had correctly stated their understanding.

  The judge was a young man with ruddy skin, black curly hair and a wide mouth. He accepted the plea bargain, and after he sentenced Karl, he stared down from his perch and warned Karl that if he ever so much as looked sideways at his wife, he’d be spending a year in jail. In Missoula. With the drunk loggers and roustabouts, none of whom cared for soccer or sailing or opera. Joel grinned when the boy judge laid the opera reference on Karl, enjoyed seeing the lout receive his comeuppance.

  As they were leaving, Karl approached Joel—startling him—and extended his hand, said he was sorry and conceded he’d been “a pill.” He seemed contrite, and Joel accepted his apology, but he kept mashing his doughy fingers after Karl relaxed his grip, refusing to let him escape quickly. Lisa didn’t speak, but she shy-smiled at Joel and briefly touched his arm when she filed by, and she continued to look at him while she walked away, kept the smile uninterrupted and watched him until Karl parted the courtroom doors and she was gone from sight.

  Hudgins also checked in, was gregarious and voluble, told Joel “it was nothing personal.” Merely doing his job and serving his clients, he said. “I’ll treat you to a beer next time I’m at the Station,” he promised. He gestured at Joel and thanked Lynette for her willingness to help, then scuttled for the exit.

  “Lawyers,” Joel said to Lynette as she was migrating in his direction, her attention partly on him and partly on a Palm Pilot she was poking with a stylus. “This clown Hudgins attempts to destroy me, but now we’re all backslaps and buddy-buddy. No hard feelings, I hope, about the torture I put you through, those bamboo shoots and jumper cables. You guys are something else.”

  “Sort of like preachers telling us to forgive the bastard who raped our child or the homewrecker who swiped our husband,” she replied, evidently finished with the electronic calendar.

  “I’d say there’s a difference.”

  “Tell me. I’m anxious to learn,” she said. She’d stopped moving and was reclining against the partition railing. A bailiff asked her if she would be all right, and she said yes, not to worry. “Mr. King is a clergyman,” she informed the officer. The officer told her he’d see her after lunch and asked her to switch off the lights when she left. The room was empty, the morning’s justice done. “I’d assumed it would be easy for you to overlook Mr. Hudgins’s indiscretions.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever.” Joel peeked at the state flag, saw a plough, shovel and rosy mountains. An old woman with stringy gray hair stuck her head in the door, asked if anyone had seen her son, Barry Horton, who was supposed to have been in court at nine o’clock. Lynette told her to check with the clerk, that she didn’t recall anyone by the name of Barry. “I’m relieved I didn’t have to testify,” Joel said.

  “I think it’s an acceptable deal for everyone,” Lynette said.

  “Yeah. And Karl seemed chastened, humble enough,” Joel remarked.

  “He was today. I’m sorry to say it usually doesn’t last. Maybe the counseling will help, but wife-beating’s a hard habit to break. We forced him to admit he was wrong, though, showed him he has to pay the piper. That’s something, an improvement. I’d have liked to seen him in jail, but it wasn’t going to happen, not for a first offense with a forgiving victim. And there was some risk if we proceeded to trial, more than normal. I’m satisfied.”

  “You managed the case well,” Joel said.

  “Thanks. Oh—I appreciate the quick thinking with the phone call. Hobbes gave us a transcript, and you should’ve seen Hudgins when I told him we had his client sounding like Mr. Hyde on a FBI intercept. It was priceless.”

  “I’m glad it helped. Sophie enjoyed cursing him.” Joel smiled, glanced at the ceiling and briefly recalled his sister’s diatribe. “She really gave him an earful.”

  “When is your, uh, surrender date?” she asked.

  “September,” he answered.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  “Yeah, thanks.” He hesitated. “So did they find the painting? Believe it or not, I phoned Hobbes twice to see what was happening, but he didn’t return the calls.”

  “I’m not privy to their operations. We basically gave them a three-day lag before popping Sa’ad. I understand from Winton they did in fact search Van Heiss’s home in Las Vegas and some other properties in Europe. No Chagall so far, but they did find the red sister ring at Van Heiss’s and another stolen painting. I don’t know any more than that.”

  “Huh.”

  “I don’t have any idea about Van Heiss, if he’s been charged,” she said. “Not in my bailiwick.”

  Joel swallowed twice. “What about Sa’ad?”

  “Mr. Sa’ad X. Sa’ad,” she said, exaggerating the name. “Ah, yes. The green sister was right where you said it was. I believe Officer Winton confirmed that for you a day or two following the search.”

  “He did. He called and spoke with me after Sophie phoned you, wanted to verify my information so they could get a warrant. Afterward, he was kind enough to let me know how things turned out. I was happy to get the news.”

  “Sa’ad claims he was set up, that he’s being framed because he’s outspoken and blac
k and a champion of unpopular causes. Swears the ring was planted and tells everyone who’ll listen you’re a liar.”

  “He engineered the insurance hustle. He and Edmund. That should be obvious.”

  “I doubt he’ll go without a battle,” Lynette said. “He’s no Karl Dillen. You might have to testify there, too, if they challenge the search.”

  “I know—testifying is a condition of my agreement. I’m ready.”

  “Ready to say you didn’t plant the evidence?”

  “Agent Winton searched me prior to the meeting with Sa’ad, and I was constantly with some cop or agent. They can vouch for me.”

  “So I hear,” she said.

  “Of course, I truly don’t want to go to trial and have to answer questions and so forth. You see how nervous this small skirmish with Karl has made me. I hate court. I hate the pressure. Hopefully you folks can keep my involvement to a minimum. A skilled attorney might be able to trip me up. I’m no good in this situation. Let’s avoid Joel-the-witness as much as we can.”

  There was a penny lying on the floor, and Joel and Lynette caught sight of it at the same time. She stooped and collected it, held it in a flat hand and asked Joel if he wanted it.

  “You can keep it,” he told her.

  “I do understand they’ve uncovered a number of irregularities in Mr. Sa’ad’s files. Bogus social security numbers, fictitious plaintiffs, fake medical expenses, reports from the same doctor in hundreds of cases.”

  “Wonderful. So I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “Seems so,” she said. “He was operating a regular fraud factory—a damn sophisticated one, too.”

  “I’m relieved he’s been caught. Makes my life easier.”

  “You sure you don’t want the penny?” she asked. She gave Joel an enigmatic look.

  “You found it,” he replied.

  “I shouldn’t mention it, but given your hesitancy to testify against Sa’ad—and perhaps ‘hesitancy’ isn’t the correct word—I thought I’d let you know Winton and the folks in Sin City don’t really give a flip about the ring. They simply needed enough probable cause to allow them into Sa’ad’s office, wanted to make it through the door any way they could. No matter what happens, I’d say Mr. Sa’ad’s gravy train has departed the station minus its number-one passenger. Even if he doesn’t go to jail, he’ll be disbarred and lose his law license. And there’ll be hundreds of civil suits and years of litigation once the insurance industry gets wind of his schemes. Sa’ad will never plague Harry Winton or the insurance companies again. He’s kaput, the dragon slain.”