William Bernhardt - Blind Justice

“So?”

“So, it’s following us. It’s been following us since we left the municipal complex.”

Christina looked puzzled. “Who would be following us?”

He wheeled into the parking lot of the Riverview apartment complex. “I wish I knew.”

Ben and Christina walked toward her second-level apartment facing the Arkansas River.

“Who was that guy who brought my clothes to the jail?” she asked.

“That was Jones. He’s my secretary.”

“I never saw you as the male-secretary type.”

“What did you see me as?”

“More the Donna Reed type. Some motherly secretary who brings you cookies during trial recesses and lays out your clothes in the morning.”

“Jones was a client,” Ben explained. “I helped bail him out of some trumped-up embezzlement charges brought by his former employer. Basically, Jones borrowed ten bucks from the till for lunch one day and forgot to replace it. The boss decided to make an example of him.”

“A great humanitarian.”

“I got Jones off, but he didn’t have any way of paying my bill. I didn’t have a secretary—Kathy having left me for the third time—so he filled in. It was his idea. I pay him when I can, and he’s slowly paying off his bill.”

“Is he any good?”

“Well, he only types about twenty words a minute, loses things, can’t spell, and can’t use a Dictaphone without erasing half the tape. But his attitude is exemplary.”

“So he’s better than Maggie?”

“By light years, He’s handy with computers, too.”

“Pity you can’t afford one.”

“Yeah. If there’s a problem, it’s that he’s got Sherlock Holmes fever. Always wants to investigate the scene of the crime.”

“You’ll contain him.”

“Oh? I was never able to contain you.”

They arrived at apartment 210.

Christina inserted her key into the lock. “I hope the place wasn’t too much of a mess when Jones came by. How embarrassing. I probably left my underwear lying all over the floor.”

She turned the lock and pushed open the door.

Ben was reminded of the Time magazine photographs of the aftermath of Hurricane Bob. Everything in the apartment had been turned upside down, spilled, tossed, shattered. Sofa cushions lay on the floor, tossed in a heap with books, magazines, desk drawers, and upended chairs. Posters had been ripped off the walls; plants had been turned on their sides.

“Well,” Ben said slowly, “I don’t see any underwear.”

“Is this Jones guy what you would call a messy person?” Christina asked.

“Not like this.”

“Then I’ve had another visitor?”

“I’m afraid so.”

They both heard the noise at the same time. Ben whipped around just in time to be body blocked by the man running out of the back bedroom. Ben fell back and crashed against the fireplace. Christina screamed; the fireplace tools clattered to the floor. The man bolted through the still-open door.

Ben pulled himself to his feet and started after him.

“Let him go,” Christina yelled. “It’s too dangerous.”

Ben ignored her. He raced out the door and down the sidewalk to the parking lot. The intruder was already astride his motorcycle, kicking the starter. Ben grabbed him around the waist and pulled him to the ground. The man struggled, but Ben pinned him down with his knees, then tried to remove the man’s black opaque motorcycle helmet.

Suddenly, the man lurched forward, bashing his helmet against Ben’s forehead. Ben fell backward, clutching his head in pain. The man jumped onto his cycle and restarted it. Ben struggled to his feet just in time to see the man zooming away, his long blond hair trailing beneath his helmet.

Ben loped back to Christina’s apartment, his head throbbing. “Got away,” he said, panting heavily.

“You shouldn’t have gone after him in the first place. You’re a lawyer, not a cop.”

“Obviously.” Disgusted with himself, he walked across the room. “At least he didn’t take the French collection,” Ben said, trying to sound upbeat. He examined the evidence of Christina’s Francophilia on her mantel. Travel posters of the Sorbonne, an Eiffel Tower paperweight, matching chien and chat potholders, Lautrec reproductions. A plastic bubble that, turned upside down, caused snow to fall on Notre Dame.

Ben picked up a thick paperback book and examined the spine. The Trial of Joan of Arc. “I didn’t know you were a fan of the Maid of Orleans,” Ben said.

“Now more than ever,” Christina answered. “I feel we have a lot in common.”

“I hope that’s because you’ve both been wrongly accused. Not because you hear voices.”

“Well, actually…” Christina picked up her Garfield phone and put the receiver back in the cradle. “You think we should call the police?”

“Definitely. I think this is the murderer’s work. Any idea what he might have been looking for?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Maybe we’ll figure it out if we take note of what was searched.”

“Ben!”

Ben whirled. “What?”

“My animals! They’ve been drilled!”

Ben surveyed the twenty or so stuffed animals that normally occupied most of the sitting space on her sofa. They were tossed haphazardly onto the floor on the opposite side of the room. Every one had a hand-size hole cut in its belly, with its stuffings falling out.

“I’m sorry, Christina,” Ben said. “I’ve heard smugglers sometimes hide contraband in dolls and stuffed animals. I guess your visitor was checking.”

“What else could they possibly…” A horrified expression suddenly came upon her face. She walked quickly into the kitchen. Everything was silent for a moment, then, suddenly, she cried out.

Ben raced into the kitchen. “Is someone—” He stopped. Christina was kneeling on the floor. “What’s wrong?”

Christina’s hands were pressed against her eyes. “They got my babies.”

Ben saw Christina’s countless ceramic and porcelain pig figurines shattered into pieces on the floor.

“Those…dirty…It took me years to collect all these.” She picked up a small pig shard with the word cochon in bold black letters. “They even got my little French piggy! He was my favorite!” Her damp eyes began to swell.

Ben patted her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Christina. There’ll be other pigs. Really.” He didn’t know what to do. Murders he could deal with; on ceramic French piggies, he was helpless.

“Hey, look at this,” Ben said, hoping to distract her. He pointed toward a muddy smudge on the kitchen linoleum. The mud retained the clear imprint of the heel of a shoe. “Was this here when you were home last?”

“Of course not. I’m not a total slob, you know.” She wiped her eyes and studied the footprint. “Ben, it’s a clue!”

“Not a very helpful one.”

“If you were Sherlock Holmes, you’d run tests and discover that that particular type of mud is only found in one place in all of Tulsa.”

“Indubitably. But I’m not Sherlock Holmes, and that’s not bloody likely.” He saw Christina’s face droop. “Still, we have nothing to lose. Have you got a paper bag I can borrow?”

Christina seemed to recover a bit from her pig-induced melancholia. The thrill of the hunt, Ben supposed. “I’ll give you a baggie,” she said. “The pros always put evidence into little plastic bags.”

“Wrong. The pros avoid little plastic bags because they retain moisture that can taint the evidence. Pros use paper bags and then transfer the evidence to plastic before trial so it can be viewed more easily by the jury.”

“Is that so?” She opened the cabinet beneath the sink and withdrew a small paper bag. “I guess I could be Mister Know-It-All too if my brother-in-law was a cop.”