Paul Levine - Flesh and bones

Still pointing the shotgun at Chrissy, he sipped at his bourbon and said, "I've had my secret bread, haven't I, Sis? Now it's time for stolen waters. Hell, it's all free, seven hundred feet down. All the water you want. And I can turn it into dollars. Hundreds of millions of dollars."

"What about the brine?" I asked. "What do you do with millions of pounds of salt laced with mercury, arsenic, and heavy-metal ions?"

"I'll be a son of a bitch," Guy said. "You've been doing your homework. We could use deep well injection, but it's expensive as hell. We could dump it in the ocean, but the EPA would be all over us. Or we could buy every politician in Tallahassee and just dump the stuff."

"Where?"

"Limestone quarries, swamps, anywhere."

"That's crazy. It would pollute the groundwater."

"So then they'd need us pulling up water from the Floridan Aquifer even more than before, wouldn't they? A nice symmetry there, don't you think?"

"You're out of your mind," I said. "You'll never get away with it."

"Oh, we'll make some show of lining the dumps, do some solar evaporation, play around with some new techniques to keep the boys at DERM happy. But if I were you, I wouldn't want to drink any well water in the county once we get started."

"You're nothing like Daddy," Chrissy said. "He was a good man." Shakily she raised the gun, then steadied it with both hands.

Guy's drink crashed to the floor and he raised the shotgun until it was pointed at Chrissy's head. "You're a witness, Lassiter. She's gonna shoot me!"

"No!" I shouted.

Neither said a word.

Total silence except for the whir of the paddle fan and the whoosh of the irrigation towers in the fields.

Chrissy's hand shook.

A sly grin spread across Guy's face. "Sis, you may be crazy, but you're still the best piece of ass I ever had. Tight and juicy."

"You bastard!" she cried.

The gun danced in her hand as she sobbed.

The rest took just a few seconds.

Guy Bernhardt steadied the shotgun with both hands.

I watched as his finger tightened on the trigger.

I took two steps and dived for him. Startled, he swung the gun in my direction.

The first explosion was soft, a car backfiring behind me.

The second explosion was a mountaintop exploding with volcanic force.

I ended up on the floor, the discharged shotgun in my hands, a hole the size of a cantaloupe in the knotty pine ceiling, I looked up at Guy. His eyes were open. Dead between them was a dime-sized black hole. Behind us, Chrissy was saying something, but my ears were ringing. I turned in time to see her eyes roll back and her knees buckle. I caught her just before she hit the floor.

You can't be her lawyer!" Charlie Riggs thundered. "You're a witness."

"Socolow said he wouldn't object to my representing her in front of the grand jury," I said.

He harrumphed and packed his pipe with cherry tobacco. He was pacing on my back porch. "If I were you, I wouldn't take that as a compliment."

"Haven't we had this conversation before?"

"Lord yes, and I thought you'd have learned your lesson."

"Abe's gonna let me testify in front of the grand jury and represent Chrissy, too. I'll tell my story, she'll tell hers, and we'll try to head off an indictment. If they indict her, I'll get Ed Shohat to handle the trial."

Charlie aimed some smoke in my direction. "Let's take inventory," he said as usual. "She went to the house with a loaded gun, intending to kill her half brother, correct?"

"Yep."

"Guy armed himself with a weapon of his own?"

"Yep again."

"Which he had every right to do, correct?"

"Under the doctrine of self-defense, sure," I said.

"She stated she would kill him, didn't she?"

"Sure did," I admitted, "but he threatened her, too. And he tried to provoke her."

"Oral provocations are no defense to murder."

"That's true, Charlie."

"Two shots were fired, one by each of them, right?"

"Right again."

"Then it seems to me," Charlie said, "that your client is innocent only if she didn't fire first."

"Go on, Charlie."

"Well, if she had backed down from her threats and Guy became the aggressor, she would be justified in using deadly force to defend herself. But if she fired first, well, she just assassinated him, and it would be first-degree murder."

"You may be right," I said.

"So which way was it?" Charlie demanded.

I didn't answer.

"Jake! The grand jury's going to ask you, so you might as well tell me. And don't forget you'll be under oath. I always taught you to be committed to the truth."

"You also taught me to do what I believed was right."

"That advice was not contradictory," he said.

"Charlie, I've always sought the truth. I've never lied to the court."

"And never will?"

It took me a moment to answer. "Charlie, have you ever had a situation where the truth and justice don't coincide, where the truth will do more harm than good?"

He pointed his pipe at me. "That's not for us to judge. We speak the truth and let the system handle it."

"The system doesn't work, Charlie."

"Balderdash! It just worked. You walked your client out of a murder charge when it seemed you had no chance."

"You think I can do it twice?"

"That's not my concern. The truth is the ideal we strive for. The truth is all that matters. Veritas vos liberabit."

"No, Charlie. Sometimes the truth will imprison you."

Chrissy wore an ivory linen suit with a fitted jacket and fabric-covered buttons. The pleated skirt stopped just above the knee. It was an innocent outfit if I've ever seen one.

The clerk of the grand jury asked if I promised to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

I allowed as how I would. My palms weren't sweaty and my nose didn't grow. Lightning didn't sound in the distance and the wind didn't rattle the windowpanes.

I sat on the witness stand and marveled at the different view, looking toward the gallery. Abe Socolow approached me and asked a bunch of preliminary questions, including whether he could call me Jake, inasmuch as we'd known each other all these years. I said he'd called me a lot worse, so he got down to business.

"And when you entered the home of Guy Bernhardt the night before last, what did you find?"

"Guy Bernhardt was aiming a shotgun at Chrissy Bernhardt, and she was aiming a Beretta 950 at him."

Abe had me identity the two weapons, the massive shotgun and the little pistol.

"Did either party threaten to shoot the other?" Abe asked.

"They each threatened the other," I said.

"What did you do, Jake?"

"I asked Guy to put down the shotgun, and he refused."

"Then what happened?"

"Two shots were fired, one by each of the parties."

"Who fired the first shot?"

Chrissy looked at me with haunting green eyes. Seeking, pleading. Abe Socolow stood a foot away, his hand resting on the witness chair. Twenty-three grand jurors, solid citizens all, waited for me to answer.

So I did.

I followed Charlie's advice.

Half of it, at least.

I did what I thought was right.