Robert Andrews - A Murder of Justice

Janowitz’s bloodless face came back to Frank. “Can’t help it, Hoser, I couldn’t keep my mind off what was underneath those bandages. Thinking about her having to tell him… about when he realizes…”

Jose shifted in his seat to get a better look at Frank. “You remember the first thing he asked?”

“No. What?”

“He asked about you. Even before he asked about his dick. And you remember the next thing?”

“Martin Osmond.”

“Yeah. I’ll ask Daddy to set it up for us to talk with his grandmother.”

“Yeah. His file…”

“Eleanor ought to have it waiting when we get back.”

By early evening, the headache had taken a recess. Two Tsingtaos, and the stitches didn’t pull as much and the bruises didn’t protest while Frank moved around the kitchen. As he opened a third beer, Monty sprang up to the counter and settled himself on the one space he’d claimed since he was a kitten. His eyes locked with Frank’s.

“What’s on your mind?” Frank asked.

You humans.

“What now?”

The way you live.

“And?”

The cause of most of your troubles.

“We walk on our hind legs?”

You make too many decisions.

“Decisions?”

You live in a way that requires too many decisions. You are so busy deciding, you don’t have time to think.

“And the way you live?”

Monty got a bored look. I have very few decisions to make. This lets me explore the universe. To travel in time. To watch the things in corners that you can’t see. To talk with God.

Frank took another sip of beer. “And what does God say to you?”

Monty drew his head back as if affronted. He leaped down and made for the front door. A second later the doorbell rang.

When Frank opened the door, a smiling Kate waved an envelope. “And what am I offered in return for this court order?”

“Spinach salad, cold poached salmon, snow peas amandine, and a wholesome selection of the best of Ben and Jerry’s.”

“Pretty good kitchen work for a banged-up detective.”

“I did the salad. Dean and DeLuca did the rest.”

Over dinner, Frank described Calkins’s findings and the meeting with Emerson and Tompkins. When they were finished, Kate placed a “Stay put” hand on Frank’s shoulder. She cleared the table, and then poured coffee.

“So this Osmond’s the prime suspect for Gentry’s source?”

“If Gentry had a source. So far, this case’s a grab bag of suppositions and suspicions. According to Gentry’s CIA pal, Gentry made the recruitment in June ’ninety-eight.”

“Any chance the Agency’s dragging a red herring across the path?”

Frank shrugged. “There’s always a chance something’s going on under the blanket. The Navarro woman believes that investigating Skeeter’s operation was Rhinelander’s idea.”

“Your jackstraw game’s getting more complicated.”

Frank glanced toward the corner where Monty sat upright, a gray sphinx, gravely staring back at him, as if to say, See, human, you make everything more complicated.

“One thing about jackstraws,” Frank said wistfully, “you jiggle enough sticks and something happens. Problem is, sticks may not all fall your way.”

The image returned of the ICU and Leon Janowitz’s waxen face and bandaged arm.

“Leon?” Kate asked. “You can’t keep beating yourself with that.”

“Last night I sat here and went over the Vietnam album. First time I’ve done that in years. I hated that goddamn war. But I loved the guys around me. It was like we had a contract with each other… a responsibility. To take care of each other. And when somebody got wounded or bought the farm, each of us thought about it. Took everything apart… every move we’d made, every step we’d taken… trying to see where we might have screwed up.”

“Shoulda, coulda, woulda can haunt you if you let it,” Kate said.

Frank waved that off. “It was more than playing ‘What if?’ or taking a self-inflicted guilt trip. More than a survivor syndrome. It was self-preservation. You thought about those things so you might keep them from happening again. Because you knew if you didn’t keep those things from happening, none of you would make it through.”

Angel of Death got that woman marked,” Titus Phelps rumbled. “Husband got killed in that Korea War. Daughter smashed up on the Beltway. Grandson died in her front yard.” He sat in the big armchair, head to one side as though listening to the echo of his own words. The echo faded and he slowly swung his head from side to side. “Angel of Death marked her,” he repeated, with the weary air of a man who’d learned that truth had sharp edges.

“We want to see her tomorrow,” Jose said. He sprawled on the sofa. Across the living room, Channel 4 was giving out the evening weather and traffic. Neither man was paying attention. From the kitchen came the sounds of cooking.

“What can she tell you?”

“I don’t know. Won’t until we talk to her. If she talks to us.” He paused. “You mind calling her before we go over?”

“Mind? Yes, I mind.”

“But you’ll do it?”

“Yes,” he said wearily, “I’ll do it.”

Weather and traffic went off. A clip of Timothy McVeigh, a cut of the Murrah Federal Building, its face obscenely stripped away, then again a clip of the unsmiling crew-cut McVeigh.

“Evil man,” Titus Phelps murmured.

“You think he ought to die?” Jose asked.

“We all die.”

“You know what I mean… the death penalty.”

“For someone like him”-Titus Phelps’s eyes remained on the TV screen-“for doing something like that… I do.”

“But you been against capital punishment… always.”

“All my life.”

“But now…”

“I know… I know…” The man shifted in his chair to look at his son. “I used to think you get to some age, you get to some place where you’ve wrestled all your demons down… you’re at the magic place where doubt goes away.” He threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I guess I’m still wrestlin’.”

“You knew Martin Osmond.”

Titus Phelps nodded. “Baptized him, buried him. In between, saw him in Sunday school, youth choir, league basketball.” He ran his fingertips across his forehead. “Happens a lot. Everything seems to be workin’. Then… the street gets them.”

“Street got Martin.”

“His mother lived, he mighta been all right. But he tied in with that Hodges boy.”

“His grandmother…?”

“She did what she could,” Titus said. “You get to a certain age, your chirrun get too fast for you to keep up.”

Jose grinned. “I never got fast enough.”

His father swatted a hand at him. “There were times. Times I had to run plenty hard.”

“I know. I’m glad you did. You think Virginia Osmond finally gave up?”

Titus shook his head emphatically.

“Hunh! That woman doesn’t know give up. She was on that boy to the last.” He paused to think back. “There was a time… I thought maybe he’d get hisself straight, but…” Titus’s eyes strayed off into the distance, searching for a lost soul.

“She ever come to you about Martin?”

His father held up a hand. “That’s something you ask her.” As though he’d received a signal from the kitchen, he got up out of his chair. “Besides, supper’s ready.”

Your daddy called. Said you’d be over.”

Jose nodded in a way that was almost a courtly bow. “Thank you for seeing us on a Sunday, Mrs. Osmond.”

Erect, as if on parade, Virginia Osmond came up to just below Jose’s shoulder. Her voice pulsed with a slight tremor, and her green eyes had a hollowed-out but luminous look.