William Bernhardt - Cruel Justice

“How was she killed?”

Mike stared at him. “You really don’t know anything about this case, do you? You haven’t heard?”

“Not the details.”

“I keep forgetting you’ve only lived in Tulsa a few years. Anyone who was around ten years ago would remember. Maria got beat over the head with a golf club. A nine iron, as I recall.”

Ben’s eyebrows rose. “And that killed her?”

“No. She died when the broken shaft was driven through her neck.”

Ben’s hand reached tentatively for the nearest chair.

“Nailed her to the wall,” Mike continued. “Like she’d been crucified in some grisly satanic ritual. She was still hanging upright—clothes torn, blood splashed all over her sagging body—when I arrived. The location and the weapon suggested that the crime wasn’t premeditated. A spur-of-the-moment murder by an angry assailant with a deadly violent temper.”

The words in Leeman’s psychiatric report came back unbidden to Ben. A sudden, explosive temper. Hmm.

How long can you go on representing the scum of the earth?

“Why did the police arrest Leeman Hayes?” Ben asked.

“Leeman worked as a caddy at the country club. He’d been there for a couple of months. He wasn’t the most brilliant caddy in the world—mentally retarded, you know—but by all accounts, he tried hard and managed the essentials. Everyone liked him. Until he turned up at the scene of the crime, in the middle of the night, and they found his fingerprints all over the murder victim. And the murder weapon.”

“But if he was a caddy—”

“That wouldn’t explain why he was there after midnight.”

“But surely the fingerprints—”

“Granted, Leeman might have held the club before the murder occurred. But if so, where were the murderer’s prints? If he had wiped the club clean, he would’ve wiped away Leeman’s prints as well. And why would his prints be all over the victim? No, it just doesn’t make sense. And there was more evidence—I forget the details. I think they found some of the woman’s possessions in Leeman’s locker.”

“So that’s the prosecution’s case?”

“That—plus the confession.”

Ben felt a sudden heaviness on his shoulders. “He confessed ?”

“In a manner of speaking. We brought him in for questioning, but he wasn’t capable of answering the questions. Not verbally, anyway. But then one of the officers asked him to show us what happened. He did that—pantomimed the whole scene.”

“And?”

“You can see for yourself. It’s on videotape—one of the first our department ever made. But I can tell you what you’ll see. You’ll see a reenactment of Leeman Hayes clubbing Maria Alvarez to death.”

Ben decided to get that tape as soon as possible. “Thanks for the inside scoop, Mike. I won’t forget it.”

“No problem. Put in a good word for me next time you see your sis.”

Ben raised a finger. “Speaking of whom—” He briefly told Mike what had happened that morning in his office.

Mike listened to Ben with astonishment. “I can’t believe it!”

“Yeah. Hard to believe she’d leave her baby behind like that.”

“Oh, I can believe that,” Mike replied. “That part is pure Julia. I just can’t believe she’d leave him with you.”

Ben lowered his chin. “And what, may I ask, is wrong with me?”

Mike slapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Oh, you’re nice enough, in your own stiff, mildly neurotic way. But you’re hardly what I’d call a family man.”

“I resent that.”

“Come on, Ben. You’ve never gotten along with anyone in your family. Certainly not your sister. And when was the last time you visited your mother? Most guys would trip over themselves kissing up to a mommy with as much moolah as yours. But you see her, what? Maybe once a year. If there’s no snow on the turnpike on Christmas Day.”

“My mother and I have an understanding.”

“And what about your dad? You upset him so badly he wrote you right out of his will!”

All traces of good humor disappeared from Ben’s face. “You really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Mike.”

Mike held his hands out. “Did I hit a sensitive spot? Sorry, chum. I was just attempting to explain my mystification that Julia would choose you to be her indentured baby-sitter when you’ve alienated every member of your family. Is there some family member I’ve omitted?”

Well, Ben thought, there was someone I thought of like a father, but that was hardly worth bringing up now. I’m so disappointed, Ben. How could you let this happen to you?

“Julia will be back soon,” Ben said. “I’m sure she will. I bet she’ll be back before nightfall.”

“You’re deluding yourself, kemo sabe. ”

Ben fidgeted with his briefcase. “I remember you told me you saw Julia not too long ago. Did she seem … distraught? Stressed out?”

Mike shrugged. “No more so than usual. But that was over a year ago. Becoming a mother changes women.”

“If you say so.” Ben started to leave, then stopped. “If worse comes to worst, I don’t suppose you’d care to do some baby-sitting?”

“For my ex-wife’s new baby?” Mike’s look of amazement slowly faded into a soft smile. “There was a time when I would’ve done anything in the world for Julia. Anything. If she just would’ve stayed with me one more night.”

He took a deep breath, then slowly released it. “Sure thing, pal. I can help look after the little booger. Just tell me when to show up. I’ll bring the pizza and beer.”

10

CARLEE CRANE WATCHED AS her husband, Dave, introduced their two sons to the joys of whittling.

“It’s like this,” Dave said, carefully demonstrating how to open and close their pocketknives. “Put your knife in your right hand, and hold the block of wood in your left. Always stroke away from you, not toward you. Understand, Ethan?”

Ethan, who had just turned six, peered up at his father with his usual inquisitive, somewhat skeptical expression. “Why?”

Dave’s eyes soared toward the heavens. It was an inquiry Ethan had made with increasing frequency during the past year.

“Because you don’t want to hurt yourself.”

Their other son, Gavin, an elder sage of eight, volunteered an answer. “If you stroke toward yourself, Ethan, you’ll end up cutting off your hand or poking a hole in your stomach. Knowing you, you’d probably kill all four of us with a single blow.”

“Gavin,” Carlee said, “don’t talk to your brother like that.”

“I’m just trying to keep him from slaughtering us, Mom, like that guy who kills all the campers in those Friday the 13th movies.”

“Gavin,” Dave interjected, “your brother is not Jason.”

“I don’t know,” Gavin said. “He looks pretty scary in a hockey mask.”

Carlee smiled. This was her family, God help her. It was too late to trade them in now.

She reached over and turned on the portable radio they had brought with them. It was tuned to the NPR station. Terry Gross was finishing an interview with yet another jazz musician.

“Let’s continue the whittling lesson,” Dave said.

“Aw, gee, Dad,” Ethan said. “Do we have to?”

“Yes, you have to,” Dave said emphatically. “You don’t want to hurt yourself, do you?”

There was no immediate answer forthcoming.

“Of course you don’t,” Dave answered for him. “Smart campers don’t hurt themselves.”

Here we go again, Carlee thought. Since they had arrived at their Turner Falls campsite in the Arbuckle Mountains two days before, Carlee had heard Dave indoctrinate his children on his own personal code of forbidden camp conduct, which could be titled What Smart Campers Don’t Do. Don’t swim for an hour after eating. Don’t build a campfire without a protective ring of rocks. Don’t pitch your tent on a slope. All these lessons and more were reinforced with the injunction “Only stupid campers do that.” Presumably, Dave believed that nothing would mortify the boys more than being thought stupid campers. In truth, Gavin and Ethan would probably be more attentive if he threatened to take away their Game Boys.