Murder One (24 page)

“Who … are …” She pulled her hands away from her abdomen. They felt warm and sticky. Even in this darkness, she knew she was losing blood, lots of it, fast. She heard footsteps on the carpet and realized with some relief that the intruder must be leaving.

“Who … why …?” The blood was forming a large puddle all around her crumpled body. She tried to cry for help, but found she had no strength for it. All she could do was lie there, helpless, gushing blood.

And then, all at once, the pain kicked in. She felt the full force of what had happened to her, her gut ripped open, her insides torn apart.

She clenched her teeth together, trying to block out the pain. She had never felt anything like this, never in her entire life. It was as if she had been broken, eviscerated, as if she had been violated in some permanent, elemental way.

Her head throbbed. She imagined she could feel her blood flowing through her heart, pumping past her temples and oozing out onto the floor. She felt her strength flowing with it. Sleep was coming on, or something like it. She told herself to fight it. Don’t give in, she said to herself. If you sleep now, you’ll never wake.

Another flash of pain coursed through her body. What did that person do to her? She couldn’t conceive of anything that would hurt like this. Her eyes watered from the anguish but there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Was this what it was like to die? she wondered. Was this how it felt?

“Please … help …” she said, but she knew there was no chance that anyone would hear. Her eyelids were too heavy to keep open. Her eyes closed and she was glad. She didn’t know whether she would ever wake again, but at this point, any kind of sleep seemed like a blissful retreat.

Her head fell back and she was gone. Blood continued to ooze out of her wound, spreading all around her, swirling and flowing until at last it soaked her dress and her hose and her name tag, the standard Tulsa City-County Library identifier, and the five letters of her first name.

“P
AULA!”

Jones raced down the hospital corridor, his overcoat flapping behind him. He rounded a corner, skidded, reoriented himself, then peeled off in the next direction.

“Sir!” The nurse behind the receiving desk shot out of her chair, but she was much too slow to stop him. Jones was halfway down the corridor before she felt the breeze of his passing.

Jones kept racing, tracing the numbers posted by each door. 510, 512, 514 … There it was. 522.

He practically dove toward the door, but a uniformed security officer interceded before he had quite reached the threshold. “Excuse me, sir. That’s a private room.”

Jones tried to push past him, but the officer wouldn’t budge. “Is Paula Connelly in there?”

The officer’s eyes narrowed slightly. “May I see some identification, sir?”

“I don’t have time for this! I need to see her!”

The officer raised a firm hand, restraining. “I have instructions to prevent any unauthorized persons from entering the room.”

“I’m not unauthorized. I’m Jones!”

The officer pulled a list from his shirt pocket and scanned it. “First name?”

“Jones. Just Jones.”

“And your relationship with Ms. Connelly?”

“I’m her, er, boyfriend. I guess. Look, I’ve got to get in there!” The hospital room door opened slightly and a familiar face emerged. “Ben! Tell this lug to let me in.”

Ben gave the officer a nod. “He’s okay.” The officer relaxed and stepped away from the door.

Jones surged forward. “What’s his deal, anyway? Why the guard?”

“You’ll understand in a minute.”

Jones entered the room. Christina was seated next to the bed. And in the bed …

Her face was a ghastly white; even her lips seemed colorless. Her face was marred by blue-black bruises in several places. An IV was connected to her wrist; an emergency respirator covered her mouth.

Jones broke down on the spot. He crumbled beside the bed, his eyes wide and watery. “What happened?”

“We don’t know exactly,” Ben answered, in a quiet, solemn voice. “Someone attacked her when she came back to the office. Left her for dead. We don’t know how long she lay bleeding. No one found her till Christina came in this morning. Fortunately, she came in about four-thirty.”

Jones gently tugged back the edge of the sheet covering Paula’s pale fragile body. “What did they do to her?”

“She was stabbed. At least twice.”

Jones clenched his eyes shut. “With what?”

“We don’t know exactly. A knife, probably.” Ben turned his head. “A big one.”

“Is she … is she …?”

“We just don’t know, Jones,” Christina said softly. “The doctors haven’t told us anything. The wounds themselves were serious enough. She was barely breathing, and probably wouldn’t be now without the respirator. And she’d lost so much blood by the time I found her …” She shook her head, not finishing the sentence. Not that it was necessary.

Tears tumbled out of Jones’s eyes, one after the other, like a waterfall. “This is all my fault.”

“What?”

“She wanted to get married. I knew she did. She never said as much, but … I knew. And the crazy thing is—I wanted to get married, too. I just couldn’t bring myself to say the words. And now … now …”

Ben placed his hand on Jones’s shoulder. “Jones, don’t torture yourself. You couldn’t have known.”

“I should’ve known. I should’ve known that life is precious. And short. I shouldn’t’ve wasted so much time.”

Christina walked to the opposite side of the bed and wrapped her arms around him.

Ben stood silently by his friend. Which at a time like this, was about all he could do. Certainly words were useless.

After a long spate, Jones lifted his head and wiped the grief from his eyes. “Ben … I won’t be in the courtroom today.”

“Understood.”

“All your trial materials are ready and waiting for you. You shouldn’t have any problems …”

“Don’t even think about it, Jones.”

“I have to stay with her. I have to. Just in case. If there’s even a chance.”

“I know. I took that for granted.” Which was true. He had known Jones would want to remain here, even if the trial started without him, and even if Paula’s chances were … remote at best.

“Why?” Jones said, as if that single syllable spoke volumes. His fist clenched the bed sheet. “Why would anyone do this?”

“We don’t know,” Ben answered. “But she was attacked in the office. There was no sign of forced entry.”

“She was a librarian, for God’s sake!” Jones cried out. “She never did anything to anyone. She’d die before she’d hurt someone. How could anyone possibly be so cruel?”

“I don’t have the answers, Jones—”

“Do you think it has something to do with your damned Dalcanton case?”

Ben hesitated before answering. Hard words to say, but he couldn’t lie to Jones at a time like this. “I have to assume her attacker thought she was a member of my staff. Or Keri. Or me.”

Jones’s voice flattened. “That’s what I thought.”

“That’s what I think, too.”

Ben turned slowly and found, standing behind him, to his horror and disgust, Detective Sergeant Matthews.

“What in the name of God are you doing here?”

“I’m a detective, remember? I’ve been assigned to this case.”

Ben’s face was stony. “No way. No way in hell.”

“It’s already done.”

Ben glanced back at Jones. He didn’t need any more trauma in his life. He grabbed Matthews by the coat sleeve and jerked him outside the hospital room.

In the corridor, Ben pushed Matthews up against the wall and got quite literally in his face. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, Matthews, but—”

“The only thing I’m trying to do is my job. I’ve been told to investigate. So I’m investigating.”

“You can’t handle this case. You’re too close. You have too much animosity toward me—and my staff.”

“Says who?”

“Don’t play games. We both know it’s true. And that goes for you and all your Blue Squeeze buddies.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Listen to my words, Matthews. I do not want you on this case.”

“Then file a complaint. Ain’t gonna break my heart if I have one less case to handle. But until I’m transferred, if I’m transferred, I have to do my job.”

“I’m taking this straight to Chief Blackwell.”

Matthews chuckled. “Oh yeah, that’ll do it. You two are so close and all. Listen to me for a minute, Kincaid, before you go flying off the handle. I know you don’t like me, and that’s okay. You ain’t exactly at the top of my hit parade, either. But understand this—I’m a cop. And I’m a good cop. Always have been. I get the job done. And I don’t like seeing crooks and killers get away unpunished. That was true with Joe McNaughton. And that’s true with this librarian woman, too. If you care anything about catching the bastard who cut her, you should be glad I’m on the case.”

“That sounds great in theory,” Ben said, his words even and measured. “But what if the bastard who did this
is
one of your cop buddies?” He leaned in so close Matthews couldn’t possibly escape his gaze. “Or you.”

T
HE FIRST DAY OF
trial was always Ben’s least favorite, although in a case like this, picking a favorite was like trying to choose the least offensive from a smorgasbord of deadly poisons. All his usual nemeses were present: the reporters stalking a sound bite, the spectators fighting off boredom by entangling themselves in the drama of other people’s tragedies, the judge who would rather be anywhere else, and of course, the district attorney, who acts as if his prosecution is God’s Own Work, a characterization which inevitably casts the defense attorney in the role of the Prince of Darkness.

Well, Ben was feeling rather satanic at the moment, as the judge rattled through the preliminaries that launched the monster modern-day trials have become. Christina was sitting at the defense table—between Ben and Keri. Every time Keri so much as leaned in Ben’s direction, Christina shot her an evil look that could probably hold back an advance of the demons of hell. LaBelle was keeping his distance, not shaking Ben’s hand, not even glancing in his direction, as if his very touch or gaze might somehow contaminate him. Ben knew it was a show for the benefit of any potential jurors who might be around or any potential voters who might be watching on television, but it didn’t make him love the judicial system.

Judge Cable seemed particularly crabby this morning and Ben didn’t know why. It was impossible to tell with judges. It could be that he didn’t get the kind of cereal he liked for breakfast that morning. Or it could be his unhappiness at actually having to hear this miserable Take-Two case. Ben had been trying to contact Mike, but no one was willing to give him any information about where his friend had gone. He was beginning to doubt that anyone knew. And even though he needed to focus his full and total attention on the trial at hand, it was almost impossible not to keep thinking back to the hospital room where Paula’s life hung in a delicate balance.

For Ben, getting into the trial mind-set was a process of submersion. It was as if the courtroom was a submarine, and the further the trial progressed, the deeper they sank beneath the waves. The whole trial experience was one of separation, apartness from the real world. As Ben became more and more consumed by the incredibly complex trial process, he lost touch with almost everything that was a part of his normal life: fun, friends, family—hell, even his cat.

Why did he do it? Ben had asked himself on more than one occasion. In many respects—in most respects—he hated being in trial. And yet, at the same time, there was something elusively thrilling about it. Granted, there was the opportunity to actually do some good in the world, to be of service to other people, and Ben knew he had been, on more than one occasion. But there was something else, something hidden away beneath all the objections and legal obscurities and lies. Being in the courtroom was like being in the arena. It was unmasked conflict, one man against another. It was a small sort of warfare, and yet it was sanctioned by law. If it was true that all men, even civilized sorts like Ben, had a spark of the warrior in their heart, this was an occasion when that instinct was truly revealed.

Whether Ben cared to admit it or not, being in trial was like nothing else in the world.

“
The State versus Keri Louise Dalcanton,
Case No. C-01-874.” Judge Cable rattled the papers from which he read. “Court is now in session. Are the parties ready to proceed?”

Ben and LaBelle both indicated that they were.

“Gentlemen, let’s pick a jury.” He redirected his attention to the bailiff. “Please call out the first twenty names on the list, Brent.”

Brent the bailiff called out the names of the potential jurors—“driver’s licenses,” lawyers liked to call them, because of the keenly scientific basis by which they were chosen. Brent had a clear, bass voice; he would’ve been good on radio, Ben mused. But in the courtroom, his voice gave a sense of authority and gravity to what was basically a mundane procedural matter.

The lucky twenty took their seats in and around the jury box. They knew the case for which they were being called. Ben could see it in their eyes; he could feel it in their movements, in the way they carried themselves, the way they looked at one another.

LaBelle knew it, too, and he made no bones about the fact when he began his juror examinations. “You know why you’re here,” he said, positioned still as a statue just beyond the rail demarking the jury box. “I won’t go into a lot of details about the cruel, inhuman crime that lies at the heart of this case. You’ll hear plenty enough about it later; I won’t describe the horror any sooner than necessary. It isn’t fair to you.”

That, Ben thought, plus it would draw an immediate sustained objection and mess up his whole voir dire.

“You know why you’re here, but do you know
why
you’re here?” LaBelle paused, letting the words sink in, as if he had uttered some great profundity. “You’re here because you have been asked to be part of the most important branch of our government. The branch that keeps us safe. The branch that strives to see that justice is done, that virtue is rewarded, that evil is punished.”