Cruel Justice (8 page)

“Who’s handling it at the district attorney’s office?”

“Last I heard Myrna Adams was prosecuting.”

Ben heaved a sigh of relief. “I was afraid Bullock might get it.”

Mike switched his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “I heard about your little run-in with him this morning.”

“Already?”

“Gossip travels fast. After all, Ben, we’re government employees. We don’t do any real work.”

“Right. So what evidence does the state have?”

“Don’t you think you should ask Myrna?”

“I will. And I know what she’ll tell me, too. As little as possible.”

Mike stood up and stretched. “Well, I suppose I could help a bit. After all, the state is duty bound to come forth with exculpatory evidence.”

“That’s what the books say. But I usually have to file a ton of motions to get anything, and frankly, I don’t have time for that rigmarole.”

Mike ran his finger through his curly black hair. “Fair enough. Do you know how this crime was committed?”

“I know the victim was a woman. And—she was killed at a country club?”

“Correct. Utica Greens. Near the golf course, in the caddyshack.”

“And the victim was …?”

“Maria Escondita Alvarez.”

“Where was she from?”

“Peru. About six months before she had applied for a visa to the United States. I guess red tape in Peru is even thicker than it is here. She didn’t get it until about a week before the murder. Then she flew to Tulsa.”

“But why?”

“We never found out. We investigated, both here and in Peru, but it all came a cropper. She had no family to speak of, and few friends. She spent almost every cent she had just to get here. And as soon as she did, she got axed.”

“Speculation?”

“You’re asking me to guess?”

Ben nodded.

“Well, a lot of illegal drugs come to the United States via the Peru connection. Especially cocaine. She might’ve been involved. They say the average life span of a drug trafficker after he—or she—starts running drugs is less than ten years. God knows those country-club types are probably the only ones who can afford to be addicted to cocaine anymore.”

“How was she killed?”

Mike stared at him. “You really don’t know
anything
about this case, do you? You haven’t heard?”

“Not the details.”

“I keep forgetting you’ve only lived in Tulsa a few years. Anyone who was around ten years ago would remember. Maria got beat over the head with a golf club. A nine iron, as I recall.”

Ben’s eyebrows rose. “And that killed her?”

“No. She died when the broken shaft was driven through her neck.”

Ben’s hand reached tentatively for the nearest chair.

“Nailed her to the wall,” Mike continued. “Like she’d been crucified in some grisly satanic ritual. She was still hanging upright—clothes torn, blood splashed all over her sagging body—when I arrived. The location and the weapon suggested that the crime wasn’t premeditated. A spur-of-the-moment murder by an angry assailant with a deadly violent temper.”

The words in Leeman’s psychiatric report came back unbidden to Ben. A sudden, explosive temper. Hmm.

How long can you go on representing the scum of the earth?

“Why did the police arrest Leeman Hayes?” Ben asked.

“Leeman worked as a caddy at the country club. He’d been there for a couple of months. He wasn’t the most brilliant caddy in the world—mentally retarded, you know—but by all accounts, he tried hard and managed the essentials. Everyone liked him. Until he turned up at the scene of the crime, in the middle of the night, and they found his fingerprints all over the murder victim. And the murder weapon.”

“But if he was a caddy—”

“That wouldn’t explain why he was there after midnight.”

“But surely the fingerprints—”

“Granted, Leeman might have held the club before the murder occurred. But if so, where were the murderer’s prints? If he had wiped the club clean, he would’ve wiped away Leeman’s prints as well. And why would his prints be all over the victim? No, it just doesn’t make sense. And there was more evidence—I forget the details. I think they found some of the woman’s possessions in Leeman’s locker.”

“So that’s the prosecution’s case?”

“That—plus the confession.”

Ben felt a sudden heaviness on his shoulders. “He
confessed
?”

“In a manner of speaking. We brought him in for questioning, but he wasn’t capable of answering the questions. Not verbally, anyway. But then one of the officers asked him to
show
us what happened. He did that—pantomimed the whole scene.”

“And?”

“You can see for yourself. It’s on videotape—one of the first our department ever made. But I can tell you what you’ll see. You’ll see a reenactment of Leeman Hayes clubbing Maria Alvarez to death.”

Ben decided to get that tape as soon as possible. “Thanks for the inside scoop, Mike. I won’t forget it.”

“No problem. Put in a good word for me next time you see your sis.”

Ben raised a finger. “Speaking of whom—” He briefly told Mike what had happened that morning in his office.

Mike listened to Ben with astonishment. “I can’t believe it!”

“Yeah. Hard to believe she’d leave her baby behind like that.”

“Oh, I can believe that,” Mike replied. “That part is pure Julia. I just can’t believe she’d leave him with you.”

Ben lowered his chin. “And what, may I ask, is wrong with me?”

Mike slapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Oh, you’re nice enough, in your own stiff, mildly neurotic way. But you’re hardly what I’d call a family man.”

“I resent that.”

“Come on, Ben. You’ve never gotten along with anyone in your family. Certainly not your sister. And when was the last time you visited your mother? Most guys would trip over themselves kissing up to a mommy with as much moolah as yours. But you see her, what? Maybe once a year. If there’s no snow on the turnpike on Christmas Day.”

“My mother and I have an understanding.”

“And what about your dad? You upset him so badly he wrote you right out of his will!”

All traces of good humor disappeared from Ben’s face. “You really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Mike.”

Mike held his hands out. “Did I hit a sensitive spot? Sorry, chum. I was just attempting to explain my mystification that Julia would choose you to be her indentured baby-sitter when you’ve alienated every member of your family. Is there some family member I’ve omitted?”

Well, Ben thought, there was someone I thought of like a father, but that was hardly worth bringing up now.
I’m so disappointed, Ben. How could you let this happen to you?

“Julia will be back soon,” Ben said. “I’m sure she will. I bet she’ll be back before nightfall.”

“You’re deluding yourself,
kemo sabe.
”

Ben fidgeted with his briefcase. “I remember you told me you saw Julia not too long ago. Did she seem … distraught? Stressed out?”

Mike shrugged. “No more so than usual. But that was over a year ago. Becoming a mother changes women.”

“If you say so.” Ben started to leave, then stopped. “If worse comes to worst, I don’t suppose you’d care to do some baby-sitting?”

“For my ex-wife’s new baby?” Mike’s look of amazement slowly faded into a soft smile. “There was a time when I would’ve done anything in the world for Julia. Anything. If she just would’ve stayed with me one more night.”

He took a deep breath, then slowly released it. “Sure thing, pal. I can help look after the little booger. Just tell me when to show up. I’ll bring the pizza and beer.”

C
ARLEE CRANE WATCHED AS
her husband, Dave, introduced their two sons to the joys of whittling.

“It’s like this,” Dave said, carefully demonstrating how to open and close their pocketknives. “Put your knife in your right hand, and hold the block of wood in your left. Always stroke away from you, not toward you. Understand, Ethan?”

Ethan, who had just turned six, peered up at his father with his usual inquisitive, somewhat skeptical expression. “Why?”

Dave’s eyes soared toward the heavens. It was an inquiry Ethan had made with increasing frequency during the past year.

“Because you don’t want to hurt yourself.”

Their other son, Gavin, an elder sage of eight, volunteered an answer. “If you stroke toward yourself, Ethan, you’ll end up cutting off your hand or poking a hole in your stomach. Knowing you, you’d probably kill all four of us with a single blow.”

“Gavin,” Carlee said, “don’t talk to your brother like that.”

“I’m just trying to keep him from slaughtering us, Mom, like that guy who kills all the campers in those
Friday the 13th
movies.”

“Gavin,” Dave interjected, “your brother is not Jason.”

“I don’t know,” Gavin said. “He looks pretty scary in a hockey mask.”

Carlee smiled. This was her family, God help her. It was too late to trade them in now.

She reached over and turned on the portable radio they had brought with them. It was tuned to the NPR station. Terry Gross was finishing an interview with yet another jazz musician.

“Let’s continue the whittling lesson,” Dave said.

“Aw, gee, Dad,” Ethan said. “Do we have to?”

“Yes, you have to,” Dave said emphatically. “You don’t want to hurt yourself, do you?”

There was no immediate answer forthcoming.

“Of course you don’t,” Dave answered for him. “Smart campers don’t hurt themselves.”

Here we go again, Carlee thought. Since they had arrived at their Turner Falls campsite in the Arbuckle Mountains two days before, Carlee had heard Dave indoctrinate his children on his own personal code of forbidden camp conduct, which could be titled
What Smart Campers Don’t Do.
Don’t swim for an hour after eating. Don’t build a campfire without a protective ring of rocks. Don’t pitch your tent on a slope. All these lessons and more were reinforced with the injunction “Only stupid campers do that.” Presumably, Dave believed that nothing would mortify the boys more than being thought stupid campers. In truth, Gavin and Ethan would probably be more attentive if he threatened to take away their Game Boys.

Fresh Air
ended, and a local news update began. Carlee turned up the volume. “… commenting on the impending trial of Leeman Hayes ten years after the heinous killing occurred. Hayes is accused of murdering a Peruvian woman in the caddyshack at the Utica Greens Country Club.”

“Hear that?” Carlee said. ‘That’s where I used to work.”

No one heard her. The menfolk were all focusing their full attention on their knives and blocks.

“A murder at Utica Greens,” she murmured. “I’m surprised I don’t remember it.” Even as she said it to herself, though, something struck her as not quite right.

She glanced at her watch. It was almost time to fix supper, which meant deciding which of several cans she was going to open. Dave had made some noise about “roughing it” and learning to cook such campfire delicacies as steak Diane and foil taters. When all was said and done, however, she was the cook, and the cook was on vacation. There was a reason God made canned food, the cook announced, and this was it.

She knew she should get started, but somehow, she couldn’t quite work up the energy. It was so peaceful here, watching her family, feeling the wind toss about her long hair, seeing the sun slowly dip behind the Arbuckle Mountains.

Nah. The cans would keep.

“Now, first,” Dave continued, “you need to decide what you’re going to make. What are you going to make, Gavin?”

Gavin blinked several times. “Gosh, I dunno.”

“Well, what does your block of wood look like to you?”

“Well …” Gavin stared at it intently. “It looks like a square.”

“It is a square, but—” Dave’s face tightened. “Don’t you have an imagination?”

“I guess not,” Gavin replied. “Least not when it comes to blocks of wood.”

“It’s Nintendo that’s done it,” Dave said, glancing at his wife. “Nintendo and MTV. Pollutes their minds. Feeds them everything. Before long, they’ve forgotten how to use their imaginations and they can’t tolerate anything that takes longer than three and a half minutes.”

“Maybe you could teach them by example,” Carlee suggested.

“Wow, what a concept,” Dave murmured. “I see now how you got that degree in secondary education.” He picked up his knife and block. “Okay, craft lovers, watch this.”

“Will it take long?” Ethan whined.

“Why, have you got a date or something?”

“No … but I am getting kinda hungry. …”

Dave bit down on his lower lip. “Just watch for a minute, okay? Good. Now, I think my block of wood looks like”—his eyes wandered about, then lighted on Carlee—“… your mother.”

“Mother!” Both Gavin and Ethan cackled with laughter. “Dad thinks you look like a square block of wood!”

“How flattering,” Carlee said.

“It’s not that it looks like her
now,
” Dave said. “But see what happens when I do … this.” He sliced his knife through the block, curling off a sliver of wood.

“Hey,” Gavin observed, “shouldn’t you be stroking away from—”

“Shush and watch,” Dave said. He continued cutting. “And then I do this … and this … and—
ow!
”

Dave shouted, then dropped the knife and block. Both boys jumped into the air, startled.

“What happened?” Carlee asked. “What did you—”

The answer was evident before she finished the question. Violating his own code, Dave had stroked toward himself and cut his hand.

“How bad is it?” Carlee blanched. Blood was spurting from the wound. Dave squeezed down on it with his other hand, but the blood spilled out through his fingers.

“Get the first-aid kit!” Dave shouted.

Carlee continued staring at the blood streaming from his wound. It smeared his arms and dripped onto the ground, making gruesome dark puddles. A sickly sweet odor permeated the air.

Carlee felt a wave of nausea sweeping over her. She put down a hand to steady herself, but was unable to take her eyes away from him. She saw her husband clutching his hand, covered with blood, and—

And then she saw something else. Some …
where
else. She was still outside, but she was … looking through an open window. She was looking into a building. No, a room. She was looking into the corner where a woman stood against the wall. The woman was covered with blood, blood was spurting everywhere, blood was soaking her clothes and the walls and the floor. …