William Bernhardt - Capitol Offense

Ben knelt down beside him. “Will you let me? Will you let me do that for you?”

Dennis slowly rose to his feet. He brushed his wet face, then tugged at the lay of his shirt. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to help me, Mr. Kincaid.”

“Dennis…”

“Even though you won’t be representing me, I assume this conversation is protected by attorney-client privilege. Since I came in as a prospective client.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t extend to planning criminal-”

“I didn’t say anything about any plan. I’m researching a book. So the privilege applies. And we have nothing more to talk about.”

Christina peered across the fifteen-by-fifteen grid, obviously not pleased.

“There is no way I am accepting this, Ben. Za is not a word.”

“It is.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s slang for a slice of pizza.”

“If it’s slang, it shouldn’t be in the dictionary.”

“But it is. And that makes it a valid Scrabble word.”

“Use it in a sentence.”

Ben contemplated a moment. “Whenever I look at you, I think, Wow- Za .”

She gave him the look that he had come to recognize as the sort of serious irritation that only total acquiescence or pizza from Mario’s could fix. “I am not going to let you make sixty-two points for playing one lousy tile!”

“There just happened to be an opening on the triple-letter space. I got lucky.”

“It might be the last time.”

“You mean I can’t play qi?”

She closed her eyelids. “No, you innocent waif. That is not what I mean.”

Ben normally looked forward to these evenings when no one was in trial and they were both home at a decent hour and they could unwind with a round of the greatest of all board games. But Christina seemed uncommonly stressed tonight.

“Something on your mind?”

She flopped around and lay down in his lap. “As a matter of fact, yes. I’m concerned about that client you saw today. Dennis Whatever. The professor.”

Ben stroked his two young cats, Mellisandro and Dellisandro, and they curled themselves against his foot. Their mother, Giselle, watched from her cushy bed in the corner. The cats loved Ben, followed him everywhere, mostly to the exclusion of all others. Christina patiently tolerated their unmitigated partisanship. “He was a little creepy.”

“He was more than just creepy, Ben. He’s planning to kill someone!”

“He never actually said that.”

“He didn’t have to. It was obvious. That’s why he was there.”

“He said he was there because he wondered hypothetically if I would be able to arrange a pardon. Because he was researching a book. A work of fiction.”

She took his hand. “Ben, I don’t want to see you get in trouble over this. Especially not when you’re planning a reelection campaign. Maybe you should report it to the bar association.”

“If he had said he was planning to commit a crime, I would agree. But unless and until he does that, prospective client interviews are protected by privilege. Even though I didn’t help him, I’m still bound not to reveal anything I was told.”

“Unless he says he’s going to commit a crime.”

“Which he did not. The test is whether I believe he’s planning to hurt someone. And I don’t.”

“And that’s based on what? Your profound understanding of human nature? Give me a break, Ben. You’re clueless when it comes to people. You couldn’t psychoanalyze a Barbie doll.”

She had a point. He wanted to argue and defend himself, but unfortunately, he could never win an argument with her, especially when she was right.

“I know what you’re saying. I’ve been agonizing over this, too. I just don’t know what to do.”

“You have to protect yourself.”

“I have to protect the victim. If there is one.”

“That’s another problem. You don’t even know who it is.” She raised her hand to the side of his cheek. “Well, sleep on it. Perhaps in the morning it will all be clear.”

“Good idea.”

“Sleepy yet?”

“Not really.”

She sat upright and smiled. “Good. Let’s go to bed.”

And then he heard the Blue Danube waltz. His cell phone. This sort of untimely interruption seemed to happen more frequently these days. Or perhaps it just seemed that way because, being newlyweds, something else was happening more frequently…

He flipped open his phone. “Yes?”

“Boss? Jones. Having a good evening?”

“Trying.”

“Still wringing your hands over whether to report that guy who might be planning to kill a cop?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, you can stop.”

“Can I now? Why is that?”

There was a brief static-filled pause before Jones continued. “Because he just did it.”

After Ben showed his ID, the uniform at the door allowed him to pass beyond the crime scene tape. The room at the Marriott Southern Hills was a spacious suite, but it didn’t take him any time at all to determine where the action was. Crime scene techs scrambled all over the site where the body was found. Videographers recorded everything. Two outlines had been drawn on the carpeted floor.

Major Mike Morelli stared at the scene, standing just above one of the outlined figures and a huge patch of bloodstained carpet, his hands deeply thrust into his coat pockets. Ben had seen this expression before. Mike was not pleased.

“That looks… awful,” Ben said, staring down at the carpet.

Mike nodded. “April really is the cruelest month, huh? ‘The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned… ’” He exhaled heavily. “Miles to go before I sleep.”

“So if I’m not mistaken,” Ben replied, “that was Eliot, Yeats, and Frost, all in one breath. That may be a new record for pretentious allusion, even for you.”

Mike shot him a wry smile. “Good to see you, Ben.”

“Thanks for letting me in.”

“I gather from your presence here that you will be representing the alleged perpetrator?”

“He’s called for me,” Ben said, not filling in all the details. “I haven’t taken the case.”

“Don’t.” Mike replied. “This probably appeals to your insane predilection for representing underdogs and lost causes, but this is going to be ugly. It’s premeditated. And a cop is dead.”

“Even assuming Dennis Thomas committed the crime-”

“He did.”

“You must admit, there were some keenly sympathetic circumstances.”

“When it comes to cop killers, sympathy does not exist.”

“Thomas blamed this guy for the death of his wife.”

“So he killed Detective Sentz, who also had a wife, not to mention two daughters. I’m telling you, Ben, stay away. This is a loser.”

Ben frowned. There was no point arguing with Mike about this. Better to change the subject. Try to slip in through the back door. “You’re, um, looking good. Walking without a cane, I notice.”

“Didn’t like it. Made me look prematurely old. And you know what they say. ‘This is no country for old men. The young / In one another’s arms… ’”

“That more poetry?”

“Yeats.”

“Right. Sergeant Baxter been making you go to physical therapy?”

“You know it.” Mike glanced his way. “To tell the truth, you look pretty good, too. Can barely see the scar.”

A few months before, Ben and Mike’d had the misfortune to be at the epicenter of an assassination attempt. Trying to escape, they ended up in a car a few seconds before it exploded. Mike threw Ben clear, taking most of the damage in the process. Ben had a small crease from a stray bullet on his right cheek. Mike had been in the hospital for months and was only now getting back to work. Ben and Mike’s partner, Kate Baxter, had been nursemaiding him most of the time. He was a difficult patient. He didn’t like people fussing over him. Or so he said, anyway.