Joel Goldman - Deadlocked

"Be another week," the guy from the alarm company had told him. "They don't make your system anymore, so we had to find the part on E-bay."

"Why did they quit making it?" Mason asked.

"Didn't sell enough. People wanted something with a louder siren," the alarm guy had told him. "Keep your doors locked in the meantime," he had advised.

Mason slid around the overgrown shrubs that wrapped around the house, making a mental note to find a neighborhood kid to trim them back, remembering Claire's description of Sonni Efron's house. Shrubs like a wall, giving her killer all the cover he needed. Mason stood in his front yard, absently rubbing the scar on his chest, sweat lubricating the raised flesh.

He was chasing middle age, worrying about bushes, locks, and alarms, trading trash talk with a killer ten years younger. The smart way out was to quit. Let someone else or no one else represent Mary Kowalczyk and Nick Byrnes. Prove to Abby that he'd changed. Reassure Blues and Harry that he didn't blame them for an innocent man's execution. Take the advice everyone had given him. Move on. Let it go. Give it up.

He was alone and he was scared, but he couldn't quit. It wasn't about testing his limits or tempting the fates. It was about the voice he kept hearing. Ryan Kowalczyk's last gasp. Innocent.

Mason dragged his rowing machine up from the basement, shoved his dining room table into the living room and docked the equipment where the table had been. He'd moved the rowing machine into the basement in deference to Abby's conventional views on interior decorating, bringing it back now that he was more likely to get that kind of advice from Martha Stewart than from Abby.

He changed into gym shorts, shoes, no shirt, and brought the fan downstairs from the bedroom. He opened the dining room window and turned the lights off. He settled into the seat of the rowing machine, losing himself in the half-light. He started out with a long, slow series of strokes, driving back with his legs, pulling the handle into his gut, letting the flywheel carry him forward, starting again. Rowing was monotonous, almost hypnotic, the rhythm soothing. Breaking him down, building him up.

The fan whirred behind him, drying his back and neck, leaving the rest of him soaked, picking up the pace as his muscles found their groove. Meters and minutes passed, Mason trying to out run Kowalczyk and King, grunting with each stroke, his calves burning, his chest aching, his arms trembling when he finally quit nearly an hour later. Staggering off the machine, sucking air, Mason walked laps around the first floor, betting Tuffy whether she would outlast him, the dog anxiously sticking her nose in his hand.

Grabbing two bottles of water and his cordless phone, Mason led the dog onto the patio where he collapsed into a vinyl lounge chair, his body temperature finding equilibrium with the night, both overheated. His breathing was still ragged. He gagged on the humid, musk air like it was bad medicine. He started to call Abby, tell her she was right, don't come back. Please come back. Instead, he drank one bottle of water, pouring the other over his head, closing his eyes, the phone on his belly, Tuffy at his side.

A few hours later, Tuffy barked, a short burst like shots fired, waking him. The dog was on point at the foot of the lounge chair, her hair bristling. Mason sat up, straddling the chair, the phone in his lap. Peering into the darkness. Listening. Nothing there. Not convinced, the dog edged toward the far corner of the house, growling.

The phone rang. Mason snatching it, answering on the first ring. "Hello."

Dead air. Mason slapped the phone against his thigh.

"Asshole!" the best he could do.

Jumping from the chair, he raced to the front of the house, the dog beating him by a step. The block was deserted. The phone rang again.

"This is your neighborhood watcher. You can go inside now," Whitney King told him.

Mason finished proofreading the lawsuit against Whitney King, increasing the amount of compensatory damages sought from five million dollars to ten million, doubling the prayer for punitive damages from fifty million to one hundred million. He'd spent the morning drafting the papers, coming to the office early, giving up on sleep after King's wake-up call.

King wanted to shake Mason up. Not a problem, Mason muttered, double-checking the lawsuit a third time. King would be more than shaken up when Mason served him with the papers. Mason looked forward to delivering King's invitation to the courthouse party in person. Look for the story in the Kansas City Star, Mason would tell King on his way out the door, another copy under his arm for Rachel Firestone.

"Come on in, Nick" Mason said when someone knocked at his office door close to noon.

"How'd you know it was me, Mr. Mason?" Nick asked, leaving the door open. He was wearing baggy cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals. Sunglasses were perched on top of his head.

"You're on time. I told you to be here at noon, and you're here at noon. Have a seat," he said, pointing to the couch and taking the chair next to it.

Nick settled into the couch as Mason handed him a copy of the lawsuit. "Is this it?" Nick asked, eyes wide.

"You bet it is," Mason said. "I wanted you to see it first. I'm going to file it this afternoon."

"Wow," Nick said softly, taking his time, reading each numbered paragraph on each page, Mason watching, smiling, taking pride in his authorship.

"The law is a beautiful thing, Nick. It holds people accountable. It makes them answer for what they've done and it gives people like you the chance to see justice done. The money won't bring your parents back. Nothing can do that. But Whitney King will pay for what he did and the rest of the world will know him for what he is. A murderer."

Mason had rehearsed the speech in the back of his mind as he drafted the lawsuit. It was what he believed. It was what kept him from calling the cops or picking up the gun in his bottom desk drawer and going after King. Whatever else he was, Mason was a true believer in the system of law. King could threaten him, and wake him up in the middle of the night, but Mason could drag King into court, cut off his head, and put it on a pike outside the village gates as a lesson to anyone else who thought they could intimidate him.

"Nice speech," Blues said, standing in Mason's doorway. "Bad idea, but nice speech."

Mason had been so focused on delivering his closing argument to Nick that he hadn't noticed Blues, a big man to overlook, loose fitting slacks and shirt disguising his power build, soft-pedaling his capacity for sudden violence. Blues had bailed Mason out of more than a few jams, using a mix of rough justice and hard muscle that filled the gaps left by the niceties of the law.

Blues's presence was a swift reminder to Mason that his speech sometimes looked better on paper than it did when the other guy refused to play by the rules. Mason wanted the rules to be enough this time, but Blues's comment was a reality check.

Mason hadn't talked to Blues about the King case, or much else, since Blues told Mason he wouldn't help him. While drafting the lawsuit, Mason had convinced himself that he didn't need Blues's help after all. He would win this case the old-fashioned way: in front of a jury. It might not be enough to bring Abby back, but it felt right.

He wasn't surprised at Blues's attitude, though he didn't want Blues to share his doubts with an eighteen-year-old kid who would be easy to shake up.

Nick looked at Mason. "Who's he?"

"Wilson Bluestone Junior," Mason answered, punctuating the name with a reluctant sigh. "He's a piano player and my landlord. People call him Blues because he's got such a positive outlook on life."