William Bernhardt - Perfect Justice

“And Ben.” Belinda walked to the door with him. “Don’t come back.”

“If you do,” Frank added, “I’ll be waiting. You’ve been warned.”

Ben clamped his jaw shut and pushed himself out the door.

10.

ABOUT AN HOUR LATER Ben arrived at the Sleepy Hollow Inn. From polite inquiries directed at people who hadn’t read the morning Herald yet, he had learned that the Sleepy Hollow was the best, the finest, and incidentally, the only hotel in town. It was an oversized house basically, a bright yellow Victorian A-frame. It couldn’t possibly have more than ten rooms, but then, unless the Virgin Mary was spotted at the Bluebell Bar, Ben doubted it would ever need more than ten rooms.

A bell rang as Ben passed through the front door and approached the registration desk. The man sitting on a stool behind the counter appeared to be in his late sixties. He wore gold-rimmed bifocals that threatened to drop off the edge of his nose at any moment. Ben saw to his dismay that the man was reading The Silver Springs Herald.

“Excuse me,” Ben said. “I’d like a room for—”

“You’re the one!” the elderly man said. He slid off the stool, then flipped back to check the front-page photo. “You’re that young lawyer fella on the front page.”

“Lucky me.”

The man made a snorting noise and tossed the paper down on the counter. “I’ve lived in Silver Springs for sixty-seven years, and I ain’t never had my picture in the paper. Much less on page one.”

“Go to law school,” Ben suggested. “It happens to me all the time.” He glanced at the Herald. “They must’ve gotten my photo out of the bar directory. I never liked that picture.”

“Too late to complain,” the man pronounced, hooking his thumbs under his suspenders. “Everyone in town’s seen it by now.

“Swell. Look, I’d like a room for the night. In fact, I may need it for a week or two.”

The clerk made a tsking noise with his tongue and teeth. “Sorry, son. Can’t do that.”

“You’re full up?”

“Oh, no. Haven’t been full since that Bigfoot sighting in seventy-two. But I can’t let a room to you. Everyone in town would take my head off.”

“I’m not asking you to help me overthrow the government. I just want a place to spend the night.”

“No can do. Maybe you should set up at a campsite in the hills.”

“I already have a campsite. I need in-town accommodations.”

“Sorry. If I put you up, I’ll start getting the Silver Springs brush-off. No one will stay with me, and no one will trade with me. Can’t run a hotel without supplies.”

“I can’t believe an entire town would be so narrow-minded—”

Ben saw the man’s face scrunch together; his shoulders rose half a foot. “Lookee here, son. This is a good town, and don’t you be sayin’ otherwise. We never asked for all this trouble. We never asked your people to come in with their big guns and bombs and—”

“They’re not my people,” Ben said adamantly. “I’m just a lawyer who made the mistake of taking a case in this two-bit town.”

“This—!” The clerk’s wheezing became more rapid. “Until your people came here, we all lived quiet, peaceful little lives. Nothin’ too excitin’, mebbe, but we liked it. Even after they showed up, we tried to be friendly; Mary Sue took some of them into her boardinghouse on Maple. Pretty soon we got graffiti, and fires, and brawls. And now murder.” The clerk licked his lips. “We just don’t like all this trouble, see? So you ain’t going to be very popular in this town.”

“But—I didn’t kill Vuong!”

“Maybe not, but you’re sure as tarnation going to try every trick in the book to set the killer free.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh?” The clerk grabbed the paper and spread it across the counter. He pointed to the page-one article below Ben’s picture and read. “ ‘District Attorney Swain said he would make every effort to circumvent the courtroom antics and big-city maneuvers of lawyer Benjamin Kincaid, who was quoted as saying that he would try every trick in the book to put Donald Vick back on the streets.’ ”

Ben snatched the paper away from him. “I never said that. I’ve never even met this reporter.”

“The papers don’t lie,” the clerk said indignantly.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “So there’s a town the National Enquirer doesn’t reach. That’s reassuring.”

“Get on out of my place, son. I don’t have room for you. And I never will.”

“But this is the only hotel for sixty miles!”

“Git!” The man’s entire torso shook as he pointed toward the door.

“I’m going, I’m going.” Ben flung open the door, ringing the bell. “Have a nice day.”

11.

IT TOOK HIM ALMOST an hour, but eventually Ben managed to find Mary Sue’s boardinghouse. It was a two-story Victorian home, with bright blue shutters and gingerbread gables. A sign on the front porch confirmed Ben’s belief that she would have rooms to let. There should be at least one vacancy now that Vick had taken up residence in the city slammer. And that gave Ben two reasons to be here.

Ben knocked, then pushed open the front door. He saw an interior Dutch door that restricted access to the parlor—probably the hostess’s version of a registration desk.

Ben glanced up the staircase and, to his surprise, saw Christina standing at the head of the stairs. “Christina! What are you doing here?”

“I’ve taken a room.” Her face was stiff and solemn. “I don’t feel safe out at the campsite.”

“You’re afraid of muggers?”

“No, I’m afraid you’ll bring your Nazi pal back for a client conference.”

“Then you’re sticking around for a while?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not going to let you ruin my vacation.”

“Boy … if you’re going to be in the neighborhood anyway … I could really use some help with—”

“Forget it.” She turned and marched away from the staircase.

Ben sighed. He rang a small bell on a table in the foyer. A few moments later a petite woman in a pink frock came to the other side of the Dutch door. She was wiping her hands on her apron; she looked as if she had been baking. Ben assumed this was Mary Sue.

“ ’Morning,” Ben said, putting on his best smile. “I see you have rooms to let.”

“Indeed we do. Will you be staying long?”

“Probably a couple of weeks,” Ben said. “Maybe more.” Thank goodness. She didn’t appear to recognize him.

He spotted the morning Herald, folded down the middle, on an end table by the Dutch door. His likeness was facing straight up, although the paper did not appear to have been opened. All the better. Now, if he could only keep her from looking at it for another two minutes.

“Bunch of trouble in town these days,” Ben said casually.

“Don’t you know it,” Mary Sue replied. “Sometimes it seems more than a body can bear.” She leaned conspiratorially across the Dutch door. “He stayed here, you know.”

Bingo. “You mean …?”

She nodded. “Donald Vick. Took the room at the top of the stairs. Of course, I had no idea.”

“No. Of course not. Was he … difficult?”

“Oh, no. He was the nicest boy you could imagine. Sometimes I forgot he was from out of town. Very polite, well mannered. Opened the door for the ladies. Never took seconds. Respected the other tenants’ privacy. In fact, he rarely spoke to anyone.”

“Well,” Ben said, “it’s always the quiet ones.”

“Isn’t that the truth? You know, it wasn’t until the last week—the week before the, well, you know—that he even had visitors.”