William Bernhardt - Dark Justice

She snorted. “No one in this town will be remotely sympathetic to you or your client, Kincaid.”

“Then I thought I’d tell the same story to the Seattle Free-Press . An ambitious woman like you-you can’t be planning to stay in Magic Valley all your life.”

Her face grew cold and stony.

“While I’m at it, I thought I might have a chat with the state attorney general.”

“The attorney general!”

“Yeah, I’ve heard he’s pretty interested in gross miscarriages of justice.”

All traces of amusement bled out of her face. “What is it you want, Kincaid?”

“I’ve already told you. You’ve still got the originals. You can make copies a lot more easily than I can have them retyped. You should’ve done it in the first place; it would’ve been a lot simpler than this red-ink ploy.”

“I’ll take it under consideration.”

“That’s not good enough.” He pushed out of his chair. “See you in the funny papers.”

“All right, all right. I’ll tell the copy squad to get on it. I don’t know how long it’ll take, though.”

“The trial starts Monday. If we don’t have the documents well in advance, I’ll be petitioning for a continuance.”

“Judge Pickens will never-”

“So we won’t waste time with him. I’ll go straight to the state supreme court. On an interlocutory appeal of right.”

Her head lowered; her lips pressed together. “I’ll get you the damn documents.”

“Good. I’m glad we were able to work this out amicably.”

Granny gave him a seriously unamicable glare. “Will there be anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Ben reminded himself to tread carefully. He had promised Peggy he wouldn’t do anything that would expose her, and he wanted to keep his word. “I want all the information you’ve got on Alberto Vincenzo.”

“Vincenzo?” Her head twitched ever so slightly. “Who’s that?”

“The man who clobbered my investigator’s head last night. Either him or someone working for him.”

“Your investigator?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “Was he hurt?”

“He’s got a nasty bump on his head, but he’ll be okay. But I understand you have some DEA information on his assailant, or his assailant’s boss, and I want it.”

“And who told you that, may I ask?”

“Sheriff Allen, that’s who.”

“Sheriff Allen! But he’s-”

“Yeah, I know. He’s supposed to be on your side, and I’m sure he is. But it turns out he’s also an honest man, and he has a conscience. So he told me the truth.”

“I’m going to have to have a word with the sheriff.”

“That’s good, Granny. Chew the man out for having a conscience. You don’t want that sort of thing catching on in your department.”

“The issue is confidentiality.”

“No, Granny, the issue is fairness. And now the issue is safety. I want to know that my staff is safe.”

“So you’re not suggesting this has anything to do with the Gardiner murder?”

Ben had tried to avoid this, tried to get at the file in a way that wouldn’t throw any suspicion on Peggy. “Well, it’s awfully suspicious that the man has taken such an interest in my investigator, isn’t it? But bottom line, I don’t know if it does or it doesn’t. Either way, I want the file.”

“If it doesn’t relate, I have no obligation to produce it to you.”

“My investigator has been assaulted-”

“And I’m sure Sheriff Allen is hard at work on the case. You, on the other hand, are a private citizen. You don’t have any business butting into the investigation and you don’t have any claim to the files.”

“And if it does relate to the murder?”

“ If isn’t good enough.”

Ben drew in his breath. “I have reason to believe Gardiner was using Magic Valley’s hot new designer drug-Venom, right? If so, he probably had contact with Vincenzo.”

“And you think that creates a motive for murder?”

“It’s a better motive than you have for the man you’re holding behind bars. I can see a major drug dealer committing murder before some myopic conservationist. And I think the jury might also.”

“You’re really stretching, Kincaid. I suppose you’re just desperate.”

“Maybe Gardiner and Vincenzo had a falling-out. Maybe Gardiner threatened to turn him in.”

“You’re speculating.”

“Of course I’m speculating. And do you know why I have to speculate? Because you won’t give me the file!”

She waved her hand dismissively. “You’re assuming you’ll find something wonderful in a file you’ve never seen.”

“What is it with you?” Ben suddenly realized he was shouting. “Do you think this is all just a game? Do you think these cases are just convenient stepping-stones for career advancement? We’re talking about people’s lives!”

“This is all irrelevant anyway. I don’t have any files.”

“You’re lying.”

“How do you know?”

Ben bit his tongue. “Sheriff Allen said-”

“Sheriff Allen saw an alert come over the wire. So did I. So what? It’s hardly the same as having a file.”

Ben leaned across her desk. “I think you’re lying, Granny. And when I prove it, you’re going to be out of a job.”

“Where do you get off, Kincaid?” Granny was shouting now, too. “You come off so goddamn high and mighty-when the truth is, you’re just trying to get a murderer off the hook.”

“Zak didn’t-”

“Are you sure?”

Ben hesitated.

“Let’s imagine for a moment that you’re wrong, although I’m sure that’s hard for you to imagine. Let’s suppose for once that I’m right, and your client really did murder Dwayne Gardiner. That kind of changes everything, doesn’t it? Because if that’s true, then this murder is all your fault, you pompous twit.”

“ My fault?”

“You’re the clown who got Zakin off the hook the first time he was up for murder. If you hadn’t been so clever, he’d be serving time right now. And Dwayne Gardiner would still be alive. Got that, Kincaid? That’s the bottom line. Gardiner would still be alive-if it weren’t for you.”

Ben fell silent.

Granny settled back into her chair. “I don’t know how you sleep at night.” She glanced up, contempt smeared all over her face. “You can go now. And close the door behind you.”

Tess sat in the backseat of the Jeep, behind Rick and Maureen, as they discussed their plans. As far as she could determine, she was entirely within their confidence.

“Green Rage hasn’t been at full strength since we lost Zak,” Rick said, “and we’ve been in even worse shape since we lost Al.”

“Agreed,” Maureen said. “Each of us needs to focus on a particular goal and start driving toward it.”

“Right.” Tess knew Rick’s jaw still hurt when he talked, but he wasn’t letting it show. “Tess, have you heard anything more from your … source?”

Tess swallowed. This was the part she hated most-maintaining the lie that had gotten her into their good graces in the first place. But she had no choice. She knew if they ceased believing she had the inside track to the Cabal, they would lose interest in her quickly.

“Of course, I don’t see John as often as I once did. Since I’ve been spending time with you.”

“Maybe we need to curb that,” Rick said. “The most important thing is that you maintain your contact with the Cabal. That information could be life or death for us.”

Tess nodded. “I know. I’ll make an extra effort to touch base with him. Don’t worry, he’ll come around.” She laughed. “He can’t resist me.”