Res Judicata (16 page)

My heart kind of sank. She'd fallen for Chuck's big act too.

She kept going. “I have two theories. Chuck Dunkirk honestly tried his best to save Ernie. He couldn't find a fire extinguisher and didn't know any better than to throw that stuff on the fire. If that's the case, then I think we should be suing the university. I've looked into it. I found a couple of legal sites on the Internet—thanks to you.” She reached over and patted my hand. I tried to concentrate on what she was saying anyway. “Unless I misunderstood something, it's the university's job to make sure their employees are trained and their buildings are safe. There shouldn't even have been any Power Powder around.”

That didn't help me much. “What's your other theory?” I said.

“That this isn't all it seems to be.” She did that “woo-hoo spooky” thing with her hands and laughed. “I know that sounds foolish. My lawyer looked at me like I'm some airhead when I said that to him. Maybe I am. I didn't actually finish high school—and if you need any proof I'm an airhead, there it is. Quitting school to go into a beauty contest! That's about as dumb as you can get...Anyway. That's beside the point.”

She looked at me. “You really want to hear my crackpot theory?”

I nodded.

“Well, you're the first, kiddo. Okay, here goes. I think someone wanted to kill Ernie because of Gleamoccino. They planted that Power Powder there or started the fire or something.”

“Who?” I said. “Why?”

“Who? I don't know. Why? Well, it's a stretch, I guess—but I think it has to do with patent protection. You know what a patent is?”

I did but I wasn't going to admit it. She didn't need to know how much I knew. “No, not really,” I said.

“I'm not a lawyer—ha, ha, no kidding, eh?—but how can I explain this? A patent, I guess, is just sort of proof that you invented something. If you've got the patent for something, it means you're the only person who can make it or sell it or make money from it. If you've got the patent for something good, you can get really rich off it. Like Ernie and his partner Mike did. Unfortunately, when that happens, all other people see is the money. They don't see all the hard work it took to bring Gleamoccino to market. Ernie told me it took them years before they got something that whitened your teeth without making them fall out first.”

I pictured Chuck's gummy mouth going, “He could get himthelf in real trouble if he'th not careful.” Something was beginning to come together for me.

Shannondoah told the receptionist that she'd like a cucumber infusion after all; then she kept going.

“Anyway, Ernie had been getting crank calls and letters from some guy for years, claiming he was the real inventor of Gleamoccino and that Ernie had just gotten to the patent office first. Ernie didn't like to worry me about that kind of thing, but I know he ran into him again here in Halifax.”

“Really,” I said. “Where?” I had a pretty good idea what she was going to say.

“Ernie got in a little trouble for speeding...” She did that sort of “oops” thing with her face and laughed. “He was a bit of a health nut, you know. He wouldn't touch fast food, but he loved fast cars! Anyway, he had to go to traffic court. He came back really, I don't know, agitated. I thought he was just upset because the judge got so mad at him—but it was something else. I found out later that a man had kind of, you know, accosted him. Said something to him. I think it must have been the guy. The guy who wrote the letters. If he knew when Ernie was going to be in traffic court, he could have known when he'd be alone in the lab too.”

Missing teeth. The “Patently False” website. Traffic court. It made perfect sense.

Shannondoah was looking down at her hands and twisting her wedding ring around. “I wish I realized earlier how much trouble Ernie was in. Maybe I could have saved him somehow. It's upsetting me so much I can't sleep. I can barely eat. I'm a mess.”

She scrunched her face up to keep from crying.

“You're not a mess, Shannondoah,” I said. I meant it too. I wasn't just saying that to make her feel better. She wasn't a mess. She was pretty, and she was nice, and she was smart too. Nobody else had figured out what actually happened. I was willing to bet she had.

“You're so sweet,” she said. “Almost as sweet as my Ernie.” She was squeezing my hand and sniffing back the tears when Lawrence came in.

“Should I come back?” he said.

Yes.

Shannondoah shook her head. “No, no, that's fine. We were just chatting.”

Lawrence went, “Your facial treatment's going to take some time, Shannondoah. Mind if I do your friend first? A hot lip waxing should only take a second, especially with the little bit of peach fuzz he's got.”

Cui bono
(Latin)
Literally, “To whose benefit?” The phrase is used to suggest
that the person or people guilty of committing a crime may
be found among those who have something to gain from it.

For the next hour or two, I was more interested in getting a jail sentence for Lawrence than for Chuck. I mean, what sadistic maniac came up with that waxing idea? You pour boiling hot wax on someone's face, tear it—and most of their lip—off, then charge them ten bucks for the pleasure? The guy's an evil genius.

I'd deal with Lawrence later. Right then, I had to figure out what to do about Chuck.

I was sure now that he was behind it. I mean, it all made sense. Chuck had worked with Ernest and that Mike Reith guy. One of them came up with the idea for Gleamoccino. Who knows? It could even have been Chuck. He was the one missing the teeth.

In any event, Ernest and Mike patented the idea. They got rich. Chuck got mad. It took him years, but somehow or another he wangled things so he was alone in a lab with Ernest. He got his hands on some old Power Powder. He knew it would blow up good. He threw it on the fire and made it look like it was all a big accident.

The obvious thing for me to do now would be to call the police.

And admit I'd broken into the guy's place, rifled through his stuff, checked his Internet history?

No, I don't think so. I wanted them to arrest Chuck, not me.

And, anyway, what proof did I have that he did it? Like, real proof? All the pieces fit together, but so what? People make up stories every day that fit together. They still aren't enough to convict a man. I didn't have any fingerprints. I didn't have any blood spatters or eyewitness accounts. All I had was a pretty good hunch.

Generally speaking, judges don't take too kindly to hunches.

And there was another thing that was bugging me too. Even if I had evidence—good, solid evidence—proving that Chuck did it, I wasn't sure it would make any difference. Something I remembered from law school was sort of coming back to me. Some legal principle.

Res Judicata
. That was it.

If it meant what I thought it meant, we were too late. No one could convict Chuck of killing Ernest, even if we'd captured it live on
CNN
.

I couldn't stand it.

I had the sinking feeling that Chuck was going to get off scot-free.

Search Warrant
A court order issued by a judge or magistrate that authorizes
law enforcement to search a person or location for
evidence of a criminal offense and seize such items.

Kendall didn't like my idea, but he went along with it anyway. That's what I liked about him.

“You're sure Chuck did it?” he said.

I nodded and put a
CD
in the camera.

“And you're sure this is the only way we can get him?”

No, I wasn't sure. Some brilliant legal genius could maybe have come up with something else, but this was the best I could do. I nodded again.

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm sure. There's no way he'd be convicted. I called Atula and asked.”

Kendall's eyeballs nearly bugged out of his head. “You told Atula what you're planning on doing?! And she let you?”

I snorted. “No! What? You think I'm crazy! Of course I didn't tell her. I just kind of, you know,
hypothetically
explained the situation as if I had some big school project to do on lying homicidal maniacs. I asked her if, under the circumstances, the principle of
res judicata
would apply. She said yes, hypothetically, that is.”

Kendall shrugged and went, “Well, I guess we have no choice then.”

We did have a choice, of course. We could have called the police and hoped they'd believe some fifteen-year-old kid. Maybe they'd just pretend not to notice I got most of my so-called evidence when I illegally broke into Chuck's apartment.

We could have just given up. We could have said, “That's the way it goes,” and forgotten all about it.

We could have done a lot of other things, I guess, and part of me really, really wanted to, but I just couldn't. I couldn't let Chuck Dunkirk get away with murder. I had to get him while I could.

“Nope,” I said. “We've got no choice. So—should we just do it or what?”

Kendall lifted his hand like, yup, go ahead.

I tried not to shake. I tried to act as cool as Kendall. I picked up the phone and called Chuck. I asked him if he minded if I came by and showed him my project again. I needed his advice. I had a few questions I wanted to ask him.

He was most welcoming. I wasn't surprised.

He loved being the know-it-all.

And he no doubt had a few questions for me himself.

Alias
An assumed name.

Well, well, well,” I said. “I see you've redecorated.” The place was spotless. The laptop was gone.The pizza boxes must have been put out with the recycling. The pictures of all Chuck's buddies were tucked away. The place looked like a real janitor might actually have lived there. Even if I had called the police, they wouldn't have found anything now.

Chuck smiled. He hadn't redecorated his gums.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “Are you hungry? I juth had thome pete-tha and there are a few thlithes left if you'd like one.”

When had I eaten last? I couldn't remember. I'd had so much to do that day to get ready. I was starving. I could tell from the smell it was my favorite, the Hawaiian-Greek special, but I said, “No, thanks,” anyway. I was having enough trouble swallowing as it was.

“Tho, what have you got for me?” Chuck was doing his jolly department-store Santa thing. I practically expected him to ho-ho-ho and put me on his knee.

“Well,” I said, “I'm just about finished my project and I wanted to make sure I had the facts right. Would you mind checking it for me?”

Chuck went, “Gee, I'd love to. I don't know how much help I'll be. I'm juth a poor uneducated boy from backwoodth Nova Thcotia, you know.”

We both smiled at that. He wasn't even pretending that hard anymore.

I looked around for an outlet. I found one near the window and plugged in the video camera. Perfect.

“Mind if I open the window just a crack?” I said. “I'm a little hot.” I even had the sweat stains to prove it.

Chuck smiled and waved his hand like, Go ahead. We sat down on the couch. I put the video camera on the coffee table and twisted the viewfinder so we could both see it. He was a little too close for comfort, but what could I do?

“All ready?” I said.

“Roll ‘em,” he said.

It was a little different than the version he'd seen before. For starters, the opening line was: “Chuck Dunkirk—aka Duncan Charles—killed Ernest Sanderson in cold blood.”

Attempted Murder
Attempting to kill someone deliberately or recklessly
with extreme disregard for human life.

It was kind of annoying. I'd worked really hard updating my project, but Chuck didn't even bother to watch it. We barely got to the part about him changing his name and tracking Ernest down to Nova Scotia, when he leapt on me. (He was much more agile than I thought he was.)

That came as a bit of a surprise. I thought I was going to have a little more time to set up my trap.

He had his hands around my neck and was bashing my head against the floor. I tried to fight him off, but what a joke that was.

It dawned on me that I had forgotten to give Kendall a cutoff signal. Big mistake.

It was looking hopeless. I heard angel voices. I was starting to realize that I wasn't going to be able to follow through with my plan—which, among other things, had included living to adulthood.

I wasn't going to be Shannondoah's hero. I wasn't going to break that all-important five-foot-five mark. I was going to die in some grubby basement apartment at the hands of one of Andy's creepy clients.

The bump I'd given myself the night before must have looked like an ingrown hair next to the one Chuck was giving me now. That white light was starting to seem really, really tempting.

Oh well, I thought, it's not a total loss. At least we'll be able to get Chuck on a murder charge after all.

Too bad it's going to be for murdering me.

For just a second there, I felt kind of noble. You know, the ultimate sacrifice and everything. I saw the headlines in the paper, imagined Eva Jackson doing the
Breaking News
story, pictured the flag at half-mast at our school.

I was almost enjoying it until I got to the part where my poor broken-hearted mother was weeping at my grave. Then suddenly everything changed.

Did that ever make me mad! Why was I the one dying around here? Andy was the one who dragged me into this lawyer stuff. I didn't like it. I never had. I just wanted to skateboard. Hang out. Goof around. If she hadn't tried to turn me into some little legal scholar, I wouldn't be having my brain bashed in right now.

This was her fault.

All her fault.

As usual.

No way was I going to die at fifteen for a stupid little thing like justice.