Joel Goldman - Deadlocked

"Mary Kowalczyk," Mason said. "She doesn't like you."

"She was staring at me from the hall. I thought I recognized her. That's one mean woman."

"Mary?" Mason asked, plopping into his desk chair, leaning back, feet propped on his desk. "That woman doesn't have a mean bone in her body."

"You try arresting her son," Blues said. "Forget the bones. Her whole body is mean." Blues sat in the middle of the sofa, spreading his arms out, nearly covering its length.

"Mothers are protective," Mason said.

"She's way past that. Called me a dirty Indian. Came at me with a butcher knife. I wanted to take her in too, but Harry talked me out of it."

Mason dropped his feet to the floor, unable to conjure a picture of Mary as a bigot or attacking a police officer. Blues was tough enough to ignore ethnic slurs in emotionally charged situations. He was less forgiving of assault.

"She says you threw her son against the wall."

"Damn right I did. Harry found both the kids' clothes in the basement. They were covered with the victims' blood. I found the Kowalczyk kid trying to climb out his bedroom window. Mary came running in the kid's bedroom, screaming like a banshee, ready to open me up with that knife."

"You're a foot and a half taller and outweigh her by a hundred and fifty pounds. Don't tell me you were scared?"

"I'll tell you something, Lou. Every time I went into someone's house I was scared because I never knew what I was going to run into. Nicest house, nicest looking people. Sure as hell, some asshole throws a brain clot and comes out shooting. A little woman like that catches you from behind, puts that knife in your ribs. Trust me, you'd be scared too. No doubt in my mind she'd have done it if she could have. What's she want from you?"

Mason shook his head. "She made me promise to leave you out of it."

Blues stood, crossing to the dry erase board. "Don't say as I blame her if it's got anything to do with those murders," he said, turning to face Mason, his coppery skin and jet black hair offset by the white board. "That boy was guilty. Fact is both of them were guilty."

"You think I can prove Whitney King was guilty?" Mason asked.

Blues smiled. "I thought you were supposed to leave me out of it."

"Hypothetical question," Mason said.

"The prosecutor couldn't get the job done and he was a damn good lawyer. Forest Jones. Patrick Ortiz was just starting out, carrying Jones's briefcase into court every morning. You're good enough. Trouble is you're fifteen years too late."

"Feel like helping me?"

Blues looked at him, chewing his lip. "Is this just about King?"

Mason stood, measuring himself against his friend. "No," he answered. "She wants me to prove Ryan was innocent. She wants her son pardoned."

Blues raised his hands. "Figured it was something like that. Count me out."

"Why?" Mason challenged him. "Because you arrested Ryan? Now he's dead and you might have been wrong?"

Blues dropped his arms to his sides, his face slack, eyes hard. Mason knew that look. It was Blues at his most dangerous, sizing up a situation, deciding whether to wade in or walk away. If he waded in and wasn't on your side, you were in big trouble.

"That kid was guilty as sin. Bank on it," he said and left.

"Shit!" Mason said, angry with himself.

He had jumped Blues without reason. Yet the accusation gave voice to the thing that had gnawed at Mason since Ryan Kowalczyk uttered his last words. What if Ryan was innocent? What if Mason had stood by watching an innocent man be put to death? That he couldn't have done anything to stop it changed nothing. He was there. He was a witness. Blues might be able to walk away, certain of both guilt and justice, unwilling to question either. Mason couldn't.

The phone rang, jarring Mason. "Yeah?" he answered.

"Good morning to you too, Sunshine," his Aunt Claire said. "Who stepped on your toes so early in the day?"

Mason took a breath. His aunt was the antidote for whatever ailed him. Too lazy and she kicked him in the ass. Too cocky and she took him down a peg. Too moody and she lightened him up.

"An old case that I'm going to take another look at," Mason said, explaining about his new client.

"You're all right. I don't care what anyone else says," Claire told him. "I may even be proud of you one day," she teased.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Mason said. "What are you up to?"

Claire sighed. "I'm going to Sonni Efron's funeral this morning. Care to come along?"

"No thanks. I didn't know her and I've already been to the cemetery today."

"Really? What for?"

Mason ran his hand through his hair, stalling for time, knowing that was a mistake with Claire. "I hadn't been in a while. The grave looks nice. They keep it trimmed up."

"Uh huh," Claire said. "That's nice."

"I didn't know you were close to Sonni Efron," Mason said, changing the subject.

"We belonged to some of the same organizations. We weren't close friends, but I knew her well enough to pay my respects. What an awful thing. Shot to death like that in her own home."

"The paper says the cops don't have any suspects yet. Harry hear anything?" Mason knew that Harry kept his lines of communication humming with his former colleagues.

"Just that they don't have a clue. Her house is between Ward Parkway and State Line, set way back from the street with landscaping like a wall around the front door. No one saw or heard anything and it happened in broad daylight."

"Hell of a thing," Mason said.

"Yes it was. Now tell me why you were at the cemetery since you obviously don't want to talk about it," Claire said.

"It's crazy really," Mason said, unable to resist his aunt. "I met Nick Byrnes at the execution the other night. His parents were the murder victims. I told him my parents were killed when I was three, just like him. I was making small talk, if you can do that at an execution."

"Passes the time," Claire said.

"Anyway, he asks me how my parents died and I tell him they were killed in a car accident. He says that's what his grandparents told him until he found out the truth. I told him they were just trying to protect him because he was just a kid and…"

Claire interrupted, "He asked you who was trying to protect you and your devious, suspicious mind wasn't satisfied with the obvious answer that no one was, so you went to the cemetery to ask your parents. Am I right?"

Hearing her say it made it sound all right and silly at the same time. She was telling him that she understood and that he shouldn't worry about it. "On the money," he answered, relieved.

"I loved your parents dearly," Claire said. "They're gone and they've been gone a long time. Visit them as often as you like, but leave it alone. Life is for the living. I've got to get ready for the funeral."

Mason expected Claire to reassure him about the car accident, not tell him to forget about it. Her response sent a tremor through him.

"Good advice," he lied. "By the way, someone left a rock on the headstone. A nice one, all polished and smooth. I'm sure it wasn't you."

"No," she answered too quickly, unable to keep the caution from her voice. "It wasn't me."

"Any idea who might have left it? I mean who visits their grave besides you and me? And why now?"

"I don't know," she answered. "Maybe it was someone visiting another grave that had an extra stone and thought it would be a nice gesture."

"Makes sense," Mason said, not believing it did. "I've got another client at eleven. I'll let you go."

Mason had settled into a funk by the time Nick Byrnes arrived. Crumpling junk mail into tight wads, he riffled them through the hoop nailed to the back of his office door, letting the door sweep the pile away the next time someone opened it. He'd taken on Mary's case as much out of misplaced guilt as conviction, pissed off his best friend in the process, and gotten the runaround from Claire, the one person who never ran him around in his life.