William Bernhardt - Cruel Justice

Her expression seemed to soften. “If you have time, you might stop by my room later. After you get dressed, of course. I’ve made a new fruitcake.”

“Ah, well, I’m actually very busy today—”

“Speaking of that baby, I think I hear him.”

Ben held his breath in suspense. Sure enough, the plaintive wail with which he had become so familiar during the night was rattling the walls. “Right you are.” He sighed. “By the way, Mrs. Marmelstein, I don’t suppose you know how to change a diaper. …”

Mere seconds after Christina pushed the door buzzer, Ben flung it open, his face marked by panic and desperation.

“Do you know what butt is?” he asked urgently.

Christina blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

“Butt. Butt! ” Ben waved his arms wildly in the air.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow. …”

“He keeps saying butt. ”

“Who does?”

“Joey! Who else? I think it’s the only word he knows!”

“That seems unlikely. …”

“He keeps looking at me like I’m supposed to do something, like I’m the stupidest uncle on earth because I don’t know what butt is. He wants something, but I don’t know what it is. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I tried.”

“I don’t want to hear about it.”

Christina looked past Ben into the front room. Joey was trying to pull himself up on the side of the laundry basket. He was indeed chirping the same word over and over again. “It does sound like butt ,” she admitted, “but unless Julia has an unusually perverse sense of humor, it must be something else.”

She began rummaging through Joey’s enormous diaper bag. “Aha!” she cried a moment later. “ Bert! ”

“Bert?”

She withdrew a small stuffed doll from the bag. It was a longish, yellow, vaguely humanoid creature.

“What is that?” Ben asked.

“It’s Bert, you ninny.”

“And what is Bert, some sort of mutant?”

“He’s a Muppet, you ding-a-ling.” She put the doll in Joey’s little hands. He hugged the doll under his chin and quietly sat down in the basket.

Christina reached back into the diaper bag and pulled out a shorter, rounder, orange-faced doll. “This is Ernie.”

“How can you tell?”

“How can I tell? He just … is. I can’t believe you don’t know them. These characters are world-famous. Didn’t you ever watch Sesame Street ?”

“No.”

Christina stared at him. “How did you learn the alphabet?”

“Actually, I had a private tutor.”

She slapped her forehead. “God save me from rich kids.”

With Christina’s assistance, Ben changed Joey’s diaper (after being instructed that the end with the Sesame Street characters goes on top), filled a bottle, warmed it so it was not too hot and not too cold, and gave Joey his morning feeding. For such a tiny slip of a thing, he could pack away a lot of formula.

While Joey chowed down, Ben told Christina about the videotape.

“Sounds like we’d best get started tout de suite, ” she said. That was Christina—always ready to take on the least desirable chore and to do whatever was required. Ben only hoped that continued to prove true today. “Have you got assignments ready?”

“Well … I’ll have Loving start investigating the country club. All the members, all the staff. And Jones should dig up all the written accounts of the murder from ten years ago. Any additional information would be welcome, especially any information he can find about the victim. I’m going to check out the scene of the crime. But don’t tell Jones that. He’ll want to come.”

Christina nodded. “What should I do?”

“Well … to tell you the truth … I need you to look after the baby.”

“ What? ” Christina rose to her feet. “How dare you!”

“Christina, someone has to—”

“Someone, yes. Do I look like an au pair? This is so sexist.”

“You know me better than that. But you’re the only person in the office who knows anything about babies.”

“I still don’t see why—”

“What else can I do? Leave the baby with Jones?”

Christina frowned.

“Loving?”

Christina blanched. “All right already. I’ll look after the baby. But not forever.”

“Understood. Just until I can make other arrangements. I’ll call some child-care centers. Maybe they can rent me a nanny.”

“You can’t afford them,” Christina replied succinctly.

“I’ll see what I can do, anyway.” He pulled out a chair. “Make yourself at home. Do anything, eat anything. Pretend it’s your place.”

“I may take you up on that. I overslept and didn’t get a chance to shower.” She ran her fingers through her tangled red hair. “But tell your concierge to stop giving me those looks every time I come up the stairs.”

“Mrs. Marmelstein gives you looks?” Ben asked innocently.

“Yes, she does. I feel like a tainted woman.”

“I’ll talk to her. Thanks, Christina. I really appreciate this.”

“Like I had any choice,” she muttered. “Either I spend all day with the baby, or I leave him in the clutches of someone who doesn’t know Bert from Ernie.” She pulled out a clean diaper. “Such a life I lead.”

17

THE UTICA GREENS COUNTRY Club was without question Tulsa’s oldest, most famous, most prestigious, and most exclusive playground for the rich and pampered. Built on land formerly owned by the Phillips family, it occupied two city blocks. It was conveniently located in the ritziest part of town, less than a mile from the Utica Square shopping emporium and Philbrook, the former Phillips mansion, now converted to a sprawling museum and cultural center.

As soon as he drove up to the front guardhouse in his beat-up Accord, Ben knew he was going to have problems. The paint had chipped and rusted in so many places he had long since stopped worrying about it, and the engine made a loud churning noise all the time. Well, not all the time. Only when the wheels moved. Despite several repair attempts, the muffler still hung low and tended to scrape the pavement every time he hit a bump. To be fair, the Accord had been a great car in its day, but its day had ended roughly about a hundred and fifty thousand miles ago.

The security man in the guardhouse stared at Ben as if he might have dynamite strapped to his chest. Eventually, after giving the guard everything from his Tulsa County Bar number to his Book-of-the-Month Club membership card, he was grudgingly admitted onto the club grounds.

The road wove its way through the gentle hills separating the thirteenth and eighteenth greens. Ben couldn’t believe anyone would be playing golf in this sweltering heat, but there they were, in their pastel cotton shirts and spiffy checkered caps. He watched an all-male foursome play through; they looked hot. Once again, Ben was grateful that he had never taken the game up, despite the fact that one is never really taken seriously as a Tulsa lawyer until one has played Utica Greens with a one-digit handicap.

Ben was not looking forward to this visit. All this privileged, exclusionary, keep-them-away-from-us stuff struck a little too close to home. He’d grown up, after all, in the ultrarich Nichols Hills, which some people considered an overgrown residential country club. When he was young, Ben’s father used to drag him to a place not unlike this on a regular basis so he could “get out in the sun and get some exercise.” As Ben drove through the club grounds a cascade of unpleasant memories returned to him. The golf shoes with the stupid floppy ties, the afternoon martinis, the chatter about “keeping the country pure.”