Уильям Макгиверн - Summitt

“I’ve never heard of it, Captain.”

“How about the Rakestraw Bridge?” This was Lieutenant Eberle’s voice, low and rasping. “You know that bridge, Earl? It’s covered, got one of them old-style wooden roofs over it.”

“Maybe, I don’t know—”

“So your statement,” Captain Slocum interrupted, “is that you don’t know anything about Vinegar Hill, and that you’ve never been there. Is that it, Earl?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Captain. I don’t know the place, I was never there and I don’t know how my car got there. Whoever stole it probably—”

“Hold it.” Eberle’s growling voice broke in. “We’ll get to that later. You know some people who live near Fairlee Road named Selby?”

“Selby? No, Lieutenant, I don’t.”

“You know where Fairlee Road is?”

“I have an idea. Near Muhlenburg, isn’t it?”

“You ever drive over Fairlee Road, Earl, around Little Tenn or Mill Lane?”

“I don’t believe so. My car was stolen in Muhlenburg, though, if that means anything, but—”

The captain interrupted him again. “Earl, do you know a young lady named Shana Selby?”

“Shana Selby? No, should I?”

“No reason you should, Earl, but on the other hand, there’s no reason you shouldn’t. We have good cause to believe that girl was taken to Vinegar Hill in your car and very seriously assaulted.”

“Hell, Captain, my car was reported stolen. I was having a beer in a bar called The Green Lantern when it happened. It was late in the afternoon. But I was home a half hour later having dinner right here with my mother. Look, late as it is, you can wake her up and talk to her if you want. But when you find out who ripped off the Porsche, maybe they can tell you about that girl — what’d you say her name was?”

Davic snapped off the tape machine. He clenched his hands and stared at Slocum. “Tell me this, Captain. Why did you and Lieutenant Eberle go to Earl Thomson’s home in the middle of the night and attempt to intimidate him with those irrelevant and slanderous insinuations—?”

Brett instantly objected and Judge Flood sustained her.

Listening to the subsequent charges, countercharges and legal rulings, Selby couldn’t help believing that he was witnessing the trappings of a charade... He hoped not, but the judge and Davic did seem somehow mannered, rehearsed... He wanted not to believe that. But...

“You gave Earl Thomson no advance warning, Captain?” Davic was now pressing. “Not even the courtesy of a phone call before getting him out of bed — when was it, one-thirty in the morning?”

“No, sir, we decided that—”

“I know what you decided, Captain. You just decided to scrap any paragraph of the Constitution that didn’t meet with your—”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

Davic drew a deep breath. “Captain, Earl Thomson’s car was stolen several months ago, correct?”

“Yes.”

“The theft was duly reported at that time. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then why... why, Captain Slocum, did you and your lieutenant seize on the pretext of a stolen car investigation to interrogate my client about a rape case and an alleged victim named Shana Selby?”

“We were exercising” — Slocum paused and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief — “what I’d term a discretionary caution—”

“In regard to what, Captain? A car had been stolen. You had news of that fact. You then interrogated Earl Thomson about the details and the locale of a rape case, did you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was he a suspect in that case?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why, Captain, did you ask him about Vinegar Hill? Or about Shana Selby?”

“We were looking for... links.”

“Captain, will you agree you have violated my client’s civil rights?”

“No, because—”

“Will you admit” — Davic was raising his voice — “that you have abused your authority?”

“Your Honor! ” Brett raised her voice too. “It isn’t my place to remind Mr. Davic that this isn’t a playpen for his tantrums. This is a court of law and—”

“Sustained. Mr. Davic, you will observe the proprieties and... and not badger the witness.”

“I apologize, Your Honor, I apologize to the court and to the jury. It is my sincere intention to conduct myself with decorum. But at the risk of your displeasure, I must state that I am here in your courtroom for one purpose, and that is to fight for justice for my client...” Davic turned from the witness stand and dismissed Slocum with a gesture, saying, “I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

The jury, it seemed to Selby, was favorably impressed by Davic’s defiant and emotional attitude. Glancing at Brett, he saw a tension in her face as she spoke quietly to Shana, touching her arm, a quick gesture to reassure her.

Selby now decided what he’d suspected all along — the scales of justice in this old courtroom, with its solid pine floor smelling so cleanly of good, rubbed-in linseed oil, had been carefully tipped from the start against his daughter.

He decided to do something about it.

The insurance agent, Jay Mooney, lived on a residential street near East Chester’s slums, the stretch of ancient row houses and tar-paper shacks that bordered the Brandywine.

“They’re not bad neighbors,” Mooney said, leading Selby into his overheated living room. A twenty-four-inch color TV glowed from a corner, coughing out bursts of canned laughter and applause. An upright typewriter rested on a card table surrounded by a clutter of dusty business stationery and insurance forms. What was left of Mooney’s dinner, crusts of pizza and several empty beer cans, were on a coffee table. A single fly walked around on the flakes of tomato-flecked dough.

“We do just fine here with our dusky friends along the river.” Mooney snapped off the TV set. “Sit down, Harry. Failure creates sympathy, and we’re all failures at this end of town. Can I get you a drink?”

“No, thanks, but you go ahead.”

“Well,” Mooney said, “since you insist.”

He returned from the kitchen with a large glass filled with whiskey and water. Seating himself at the coffee table, he waved at the fly crawling around the pizza crumbs. “I can guess why you’re here, Harry, so maybe I can save us both some time. I was in court this afternoon, heard Slocum’s testimony. Nice little gavotte the pair of them danced, wasn’t it? Not subtle, but effective. So you’re back for some more help from the old lush, is that it?”

“That’s right, Jay.”

Mooney took a long pull from his drink without taking his eyes from Selby. The soft paunches under his eyes were the color of oysters. From the street sounded motorcycles and children shouting. After another long drink Mooney set the glass down. His eyes, glinting in deep rolls of fat, were not-friendly.

“You want a name now, is that it, Harry? You want to involve me up to my ass, right?”

“Just tell me where I can start checking,” Selby said. “I won’t mention you, Jay, that’s a promise.”

“You obviously feel I should help you because it’s the decent thing to do.” The whiskey had made Mooney’s speech deliberate. “Which means you don’t think my life is worth much of a shit one way or the other. Therefore, I’m pleased to tell you I don’t know one goddamn thing more than I’ve already told you. Earl Thomson got in some trouble with a girl when he was at school over in New Jersey. Some other students were mixed up in it. Captain Slocum rode like a knight errant to the rescue.”

With the flat of his hand, Mooney struck at the fly crawling around the pizza tray. The blow shook the table and shattered a few soggy crusts, but the fly flew off and alighted on the dark television screen.