Perfect Justice (7 page)

“Really. It’s for the best.”

“But what about—”

“Ben, just
leave
!” Belinda pulled back suddenly, as if startled by the strength of her own voice. “It’s best for everyone.”

Ben held his breath. “What about tonight?”

“Tonight? You have the audacity to think—Forget it.”

“But—”

“I’m sorry. You may have all your rationalizations down pat. But I can’t condone what you’re doing. And I can’t socialize with someone who’s helping those people.”

“Oh.” Ben shoved his hands in his pockets. “Then I’ll go.”

“And Ben.” Belinda walked to the door with him. “Don’t come back.”

“If you do,” Frank added, “I’ll be waiting. You’ve been warned.”

Ben clamped his jaw shut and pushed himself out the door.

A
BOUT AN HOUR LATER
Ben arrived at the Sleepy Hollow Inn. From polite inquiries directed at people who hadn’t read the morning
Herald
yet, he had learned that the Sleepy Hollow was the best, the finest, and incidentally, the only hotel in town. It was an oversized house basically, a bright yellow Victorian A-frame. It couldn’t possibly have more than ten rooms, but then, unless the Virgin Mary was spotted at the Bluebell Bar, Ben doubted it would ever need more than ten rooms.

A bell rang as Ben passed through the front door and approached the registration desk. The man sitting on a stool behind the counter appeared to be in his late sixties. He wore gold-rimmed bifocals that threatened to drop off the edge of his nose at any moment. Ben saw to his dismay that the man was reading
The Silver Springs Herald.

“Excuse me,” Ben said. “I’d like a room for—”

“You’re the one!” the elderly man said. He slid off the stool, then flipped back to check the front-page photo. “You’re that young lawyer fella on the front page.”

“Lucky me.”

The man made a snorting noise and tossed the paper down on the counter. “I’ve lived in Silver Springs for sixty-seven years, and I ain’t
never
had my picture in the paper. Much less on page one.”

“Go to law school,” Ben suggested. “It happens to me all the time.” He glanced at the
Herald.
“They must’ve gotten my photo out of the bar directory. I never liked that picture.”

“Too late to complain,” the man pronounced, hooking his thumbs under his suspenders. “Everyone in town’s seen it by now.

“Swell. Look, I’d like a room for the night. In fact, I may need it for a week or two.”

The clerk made a tsking noise with his tongue and teeth. “Sorry, son. Can’t do that.”

“You’re full up?”

“Oh, no. Haven’t been full since that Bigfoot sighting in seventy-two. But I can’t let a room to you. Everyone in town would take my head off.”

“I’m not asking you to help me overthrow the government. I just want a place to spend the night.”

“No can do. Maybe you should set up at a campsite in the hills.”

“I already have a campsite. I need in-town accommodations.”

“Sorry. If I put you up, I’ll start getting the Silver Springs brush-off. No one will stay with me, and no one will trade with me. Can’t run a hotel without supplies.”

“I can’t believe an entire town would be so narrow-minded—”

Ben saw the man’s face scrunch together; his shoulders rose half a foot. “Lookee here, son. This is a good town, and don’t you be sayin’ otherwise. We never asked for all this trouble. We never asked your people to come in with their big guns and bombs and—”

“They’re not my people,” Ben said adamantly. “I’m just a lawyer who made the mistake of taking a case in this two-bit town.”

“This—!” The clerk’s wheezing became more rapid. “Until your people came here, we all lived quiet, peaceful little lives. Nothin’ too excitin’, mebbe, but we liked it. Even after they showed up, we tried to be friendly; Mary Sue took some of them into her boardinghouse on Maple. Pretty soon we got graffiti, and fires, and brawls. And now murder.” The clerk licked his lips. “We just don’t like all this trouble, see? So you ain’t going to be very popular in this town.”

“But—I didn’t kill Vuong!”

“Maybe not, but you’re sure as tarnation going to try every trick in the book to set the killer free.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh?” The clerk grabbed the paper and spread it across the counter. He pointed to the page-one article below Ben’s picture and read. “ ‘District Attorney Swain said he would make every effort to circumvent the courtroom antics and big-city maneuvers of lawyer Benjamin Kincaid, who was quoted as saying that he would try every trick in the book to put Donald Vick back on the streets.’ ”

Ben snatched the paper away from him. “I never said that. I’ve never even met this reporter.”

“The papers don’t lie,” the clerk said indignantly.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “So there’s a town the
National Enquirer
doesn’t reach. That’s reassuring.”

“Get on out of my place, son. I don’t have room for you. And I never will.”

“But this is the only hotel for sixty miles!”

“Git!” The man’s entire torso shook as he pointed toward the door.

“I’m going, I’m going.” Ben flung open the door, ringing the bell. “Have a nice day.”

I
T TOOK HIM ALMOST
an hour, but eventually Ben managed to find Mary Sue’s boardinghouse. It was a two-story Victorian home, with bright blue shutters and gingerbread gables. A sign on the front porch confirmed Ben’s belief that she would have rooms to let. There should be at least one vacancy now that Vick had taken up residence in the city slammer. And that gave Ben two reasons to be here.

Ben knocked, then pushed open the front door. He saw an interior Dutch door that restricted access to the parlor—probably the hostess’s version of a registration desk.

Ben glanced up the staircase and, to his surprise, saw Christina standing at the head of the stairs. “Christina! What are you doing here?”

“I’ve taken a room.” Her face was stiff and solemn. “I don’t feel safe out at the campsite.”

“You’re afraid of muggers?”

“No, I’m afraid you’ll bring your Nazi pal back for a client conference.”

“Then you’re sticking around for a while?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not going to let you ruin
my
vacation.”

“Boy … if you’re going to be in the neighborhood anyway … I could really use some help with—”

“Forget it.” She turned and marched away from the staircase.

Ben sighed. He rang a small bell on a table in the foyer. A few moments later a petite woman in a pink frock came to the other side of the Dutch door. She was wiping her hands on her apron; she looked as if she had been baking. Ben assumed this was Mary Sue.

“ ’Morning,” Ben said, putting on his best smile. “I see you have rooms to let.”

“Indeed we do. Will you be staying long?”

“Probably a couple of weeks,” Ben said. “Maybe more.” Thank goodness. She didn’t appear to recognize him.

He spotted the morning
Herald,
folded down the middle, on an end table by the Dutch door. His likeness was facing straight up, although the paper did not appear to have been opened. All the better. Now, if he could only keep her from looking at it for another two minutes.

“Bunch of trouble in town these days,” Ben said casually.

“Don’t you know it,” Mary Sue replied. “Sometimes it seems more than a body can bear.” She leaned conspiratorially across the Dutch door. “He stayed here, you know.”

Bingo. “You mean …?”

She nodded. “Donald Vick. Took the room at the top of the stairs. Of course, I had no idea.”

“No. Of course not. Was he … difficult?”

“Oh, no. He was the nicest boy you could imagine. Sometimes I forgot he was from out of town. Very polite, well mannered. Opened the door for the ladies. Never took seconds. Respected the other tenants’ privacy. In fact, he rarely spoke to anyone.”

“Well,” Ben said, “it’s always the quiet ones.”

“Isn’t that the truth? You know, it wasn’t until the last week—the week before the, well, you know—that he even had visitors.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes, sir. That was when I got my first hint that he might be planning something. ’Course I never guessed—”

“No. Who could’ve?”

“Normally I don’t even take notice of my tenants’ visitors. But when that woman came by”—she raised her chin—“well, that was a different kettle of fish.”

“I can imagine.”

“If Donald Vick thought I was going to let him go sparkin’ with that woman in
my
boardinghouse, well, he had another think coming. I don’t run that kind of place.”

“I’m sure.”

“I was prepared to march right in there and boot her out myself if necessary. Fortunately she left on her own just a little after eleven.” Mary Sue took a white guest book from the end table and opened it to the current page. “If you’ll just sign in, please.”

Ben took the feather pen and signed.

“ ’Course, I will have to ask for some … you know … in advance. Since we don’t know each other.”

“Naturally.” Ben reached into his wallet and withdrew a fistful of twenties. “Will this do?”

“Oh, my, yes.” Mary Sue reached eagerly for the money, but one of the bills slipped through her fingers. A draft from the front window caught it, nudging it to her side of the Dutch door. It slowly drifted downward … and lighted on the end table on top of the morning
Herald.

Don’t look!
Ben found himself issuing mental commands, for all the good it would do. Just pick up the money and—

“Oh, my gracious. Is this you?”

Ben’s eyes rolled to the back of his head.

Mary Sue picked up the newspaper and unfolded it. “You’re this—Benjamin Kincaid?”

Ben briefly considered a story about an evil twin, but decided it was probably futile. “It’s me.”

Mary Sue scanned the article. “Then you’re—good Lord!” She threw down the paper. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ben shrugged. “It didn’t come up. …”

“You’re one of them!”

“I’m not one of anything. I’m just a lawyer—”

“Do you have any idea what you people have done to this town? I don’t feel safe walking the streets anymore.”

“I’m just representing a man I believe may be innocent—”

“Innocent!”

“You know Donald. You know how harmless he is.”

“I saw him nearly beat a man senseless!”

That slowed Ben down. “What?”

“I was at the Bluebell Bar that afternoon, before the murder. I was shocked; I had never seen Donald act like that. For no apparent reason, he attacked that poor Vietnamese boy. From behind, with no warning. He liked to have killed the boy before he even knew what was happening. A few of the boy’s friends pulled Donald away, then laid into him. When they threw Donald out, he was bleeding in half a dozen places, screaming about how he was going to kill him. And the next morning that Vietnamese boy was dead. That’s pretty conclusive evidence as far as I’m concerned.”

“That’s strictly circumstantial—”

“Circumstantial? What’s that—some big-city lawyer word?” She threw Ben’s money back at him. “You just get on out of here. I don’t want anything to do with you and your kind.”

“Please listen to me, ma’am—”

Mary Sue bent down, then came up with a double-barreled shotgun almost as big as she was. “You get on out of here, understand? Now!”

She held the shotgun steady and ready; Ben didn’t doubt for an instant that she knew how to use it.

“Last chance!
Scram!
”

Ben knew it was pointless to argue, and probably highly dangerous. He grabbed his money and hurried out the front door.

H
OURS LATER ALL BEN
had accomplished was several repetitions of the same old scene. No matter where he went,
The Silver Springs Herald
had been there first. No one would talk to him; no one would even take his money. Overnight he’d become a local pariah.

By nine
P.M.,
Ben had covered both Main and Maple streets from one end to the other and managed to find absolutely no one who would talk. They didn’t pretend that they didn’t know anything; they just weren’t telling him. What Judge Tyler had said was absolutely true; the whole town was on edge—expecting the ticking time bomb to explode at any moment.

The only lights on Main Street that still flickered were the ones inside the Bluebell Bar. A red neon sign in the front window boldly announced that they had Coors on tap. At this point Ben was ready for a drink. And more importantly he recalled that this was where the fight between Vick and Vuong took place on the afternoon before the murder.

Ben spotted a scuffle in the alley just outside the bar. Both combatants were beefy, tough-looking men in blue jeans and T-shirts. Fortunately they appeared to have imbibed a fair amount of beer. More punches were connecting with empty air than any part of either body.

Ben pushed open the front door and stepped inside. The Bluebell was small, simple, laid-back—and packed. The bar had six stools, all but one of them currently occupied. A pool table in the corner was flanked by two pinball machines, both of which Ben judged to be at least fifteen years old. Four booths in the back provided space for couples who wanted to get snuggly.

Ben took the available bar stool and flagged the bartender. The jukebox was wailing a country-western tune, a bit of homespun philosophy courtesy of Mary-Chapin Carpenter. “Sometimes you’re the windshield,” she sang, “sometimes you’re the bug. …”

“I’ll have a longneck,” Ben said, pointing at the label on a bar coaster.

The bartender peered at him, eyes narrowed. He was an older man, but the pronounced wrinkles lent his face an air of distinction and world-weariness. “You’re the lawyer.”

Ben had heard it too many times today to be surprised. “That’s right. And now that the introductions are out of the way, could I have my beer?”

The bartender hesitated. “I don’t want no trouble in my place.”

“I don’t plan to cause any,” Ben replied. “Unless you don’t get me that beer.”

The bartender gave a small, lopsided grin. “What the hell! I suppose Satan himself has to take a drink now and again.”