Silent Justice (39 page)

“I can give you ten minutes,” Blaylock said, snapping his pocket watch closed. “So let’s not shilly-shally about.”

A pocket watch? Mike wondered. What kind of affectation was that? Although, as old as Blaylock was, he might own the original model. “Mr. Blaylock, I’ve been waiting for weeks to talk to you—”

“My apologies.” The elderly man’s spindly legs quivered a bit when he stood in one place too long. Mike was relieved when he lowered himself into a chair. “I’ve been quite busy of late.”

“The lawsuit?” Mike asked.

Blaylock tilted his head. “I see you stay abreast of current events, Lieutenant.”

“I do my best.”

“You’ve heard about this frivolous suit?”

“A little bit.” Mike decided not to mention that his best friend was the plaintiffs" attorney. Somehow, he didn’t think that would endear him to the old codger. “Are you sure it’s frivolous?”

“Of course it’s frivolous. No one knows what causes cancer. To blame it on chemicals used half a mile away … it’s just preposterous.” It could be his imagination, but Mike thought Blaylock’s face did not quite bear the conviction of his words. Was it possible the geezer was having doubts? “Your time is running, Lieutenant. I assume this is not what you wanted to talk about.”

“No. It isn’t. I’m trying to figure out who’s been bumping off your employees.”

“Well, I wish you’d get on with it.” Blaylock’s voice caught fire. “I don’t like this kind of turmoil in the workplace. Absences have risen to an all-time high. Apparently some people are afraid to come to work, afraid they might be the next to go.”

Mike noted that Blaylock’s consternation was all related to business; he hadn’t said a word about the minor inconvenience to the people being murdered. “I’ve talked to most of your top executives,” Mike said. “And a lot of your employees. Everyone who worked with the deceased. I’ve been trying to learn why anyone might want to kill these people.”

“And what have you learned?”

“I haven’t learned scratch. That’s why I’ve come to you.”

“Me?” Blaylock pressed a gnarled hand against his chest. “You think I could help you? I didn’t even know those people.”

“You must’ve known something about them.”

“Lieutenant, I have thousands of employees—”

“And three of them—who are now dead—had been with the company more than fifteen years. Two of them for more than twenty.”

“Nonetheless, I am not the personnel manager. I’m afraid I can’t help you.

Blaylock pressed his hands against the desk, as if signaling that the interview was over.

Mike quickly jumped in; he hadn’t nearly gotten his ten minutes" worth yet. “Was there anything these three victims had in common? Other than working here?”

“Not that I’m aware. I believe I was told they worked in different departments.”

“That’s true.”

“Perhaps there is no connection. Perhaps there are multiple murderers.”

“Perhaps.”

“The murders themselves were each quite different, were they not?”

“They were different,” Mike agreed. “But I think that was an intentional ploy to mislead me. Different as they were, they were all hallmarked by extreme violence. Cruelty in the first degree. How many people can have the capacity to inflict that magnitude of pain?”

“In my experience,” Blaylock said, “quite a few.”

“I just can’t believe it. I think there’s one killer—the man who slipped away from me at George Philby’s house. And I think there’s a rational—or at least explicable—reason for these murders. These three people must’ve had something in common. Do you have any idea—”

“I told you, I didn’t know them.”

“Perhaps they all worked together at some time—”

“They didn’t.”

“Or were members of the same club. Ate lunch together. Worked on a joint project.”

“No, no, no,” Blaylock said. “If anything like that were true, I’m sure one of my executives would’ve reported it to me. And to you.”

“There must be some connection,” Mike repeated.

“Must be? Or you want there to be? That would make your job easier, of course. If the man is simply a crazed lunatic, picking off victims at random, you’ll probably never catch him.”

“There is a connection,” Mike said. “I just have to figure out what it is.

“Well, I’m afraid I can be of no use to you,” Blaylock said. He pulled his watch out of his vest pocket and checked the time. “And I see that your ten minutes have expired.”

“I’m not done,” Mike protested.

“But I am.” Blaylock pushed the button on his intercom. “Janice, would you please escort Lieutenant—”

“Where did the money go?” Mike asked abruptly.

Blaylock blinked. “Excuse me?”

“The money,” Mike said calmly. Now it was his time to relax and let the old gasbag squirm. “The sixty million. That disappeared. Six years ago.”

“Cancel that, Janice.” Blaylock took his finger off the intercom. “It seems we’re not done talking.”

Ben had spent an hour the night before preparing Scout to take the witness stand. By normal standards, an hour would be a very short prep period, especially for such a vulnerable witness, but Ben was concerned about overwhelming the boy. Hard as he tried not to show it, Scout was obviously nervous about sitting in that chair next to the judge and talking to a lot of strangers. Who wouldn’t be? So Ben simply reviewed what he would say, tried to give him some glimmer of what to expect on cross-examination, and let his father take him away for an ice cream.

The next morning, after Judge Perry called the case back into session, Ben called the boy to the stand. He bravely soldiered his way to the front of the courtroom, brushing a ridiculously long shock of blond hair out of his eyes. He was dressed in a suit with a clip-on tie—and looked miserably uncomfortable in it. The suit must’ve been his father’s idea. Ben had the impression Scout wouldn’t have chosen it in a million years, not even if he was on the way to a funeral.

After he was sworn, Judge Perry asked the boy the usual series of questions to determine whether he was competent to testify despite his tender age. Scout asserted proudly that his daddy had taught him the difference between the truth and a lie, and apparently the judge was satisfied.

After Scout settled in, Ben began the questioning. “Would you state your name please?”

“Scout,” he said. “Er—I mean, that’s what they call me. I guess my actual name is Harold Marvin Michaelson.”

“Thanks. We’ll just call you Scout, if that’s all right with the court.” Judge Perry nodded graciously. “How old are you, Scout?”

“Nine,” he said quietly.

“Speak into the microphone,” Judge Perry instructed him. “Doesn’t do anyone any good if the jury can’t hear you.”

“Yes, sir.” Scout cleared his throat and leaned closer to the mike. “I’m nine. "Bout to be ten, though.”

Calmly, with frequent stops to deflect Scout’s inadvertent diversions, Ben led Scout through a recitation of what he saw that day, now months past, when he was playing in the forest and ravine near the Blaylock plant. Scout described how he and Jim hid in the ravine, how he saw the Brush Hog unearth the waste drums, some of them cracked or broken, and how he saw the Brush Hog drop one, which split apart on impact. Following the court’s prior instruction, Scout did not mention the dead body found in the drum. Judge Perry didn’t want the jury distracted by details that weren’t pertinent to the present case.

“Scout,” Ben said, winding up, “do you have any idea how many drums you saw hauled out of the Blaylock property that day?”

“Well … I didn’t have a chance to count. But there musta been at least forty. Probably more like fifty.”

“Forty or fifty waste drums buried in the ground. And how many of those were leaking?”

“Gosh. I couldn’t say for sure. Prob"ly—”

“Objection,” Colby said calmly. “If he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know.”

“Sustained,” the judge said quickly. “Son, we don’t want to hear any guessing up there. We just want to know what you know.”

“Okay. Well, I don’t know exactly how many drums were broke.” His voice dropped a notch. “But it was a lot.”

Ben smiled. “I have no more questions for this witness, your honor.”

Unfortunately, Colby did. Ben watched as the master trial lawyer approached the podium, his eyes fixed on Scout like a predator eyeing its prey. He wondered what approach Colby would take. He would, of course, try to poke holes in Scout’s testimony; it was the first evidence that tangibly linked Blaylock to the contaminated water. But he couldn’t come on too strong. Scout was only a boy, after all, and the jury wouldn’t like it if he started in with bully tactics.

“First of all,” Colby said, “let’s cover everything you don’t know. You don’t have any idea what was in those drums, do you?”

Scout glanced at Ben, then back at Colby. “N-no.…”

“Could’ve been water, for all you know.”

Scout swallowed. “I don’t know what was in the drums.”

“And you don’t know when those drums were placed on the property. Could’ve been the day before.”

Scout tilted his head to one side. “They looked pretty dirty. And they were buried deep.”

Colby looked at him sternly. “You don’t know when they arrived, do you?”

“No, sir.”

“And if they were placed recently, it would be impossible for those waste drums to have caused the well contamination. If there was any. Right?”

“Right.”

“Good. I’m glad we got that settled. Now let’s talk about something else.” Colby leaned forward, resting against the podium, tilting it slightly. “You were … playing a game that day, weren’t you, Scout?”

Scout hesitated. He undoubtedly remembered what Colby had done during his deposition. “Y-yes.”

“You were … pretending. Right? About the Outsider and all the monstrous things he did. Make-believe.”

“Yes.…”

“Pretending. Making it up.”

“Yes.…”

Colby fingered his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder how much of the rest of your story is … made up.”

Scout straightened. He wasn’t going to let Colby do this to him twice. “I’m telling the truth. About the drums and all.”

“So you say. So you say.” Colby opened a manila folder he’d brought to the podium with him. “But you have been known to tell lies on occasion, haven’t you? When it was convenient. When it got you a lot of attention.”

“I’m not a liar.”

“Are you sure about that, Scout? Didn’t you tell some of the other boys at school the other day that your father was the president of a big company?”

“Well …”

“But he isn’t, is he? He’s a janitor. Scrubs floors nights at the Blaylock plant.”

“Your honor,” Ben said, rising to protect his witness. “This is not relevant. He’s just trying to embarrass the boy.”

“That’s not so,” Colby said quickly. “It goes toward the witness’s propensity for truthfulness. That’s permissible cross.”

Judge Perry shrugged. “That’s what the rules say, counsel. I’ll have to allow it.”

Ben scanned the gallery and saw Scout’s father sitting two rows back, looking uncomfortable and angry. It had taken some doing to persuade the man to allow his son to testify in the first place, especially given that he worked at Blaylock. It’s a civic duty, Ben had argued. No harm will come of it. Now the man was no doubt wishing he’d never laid eyes on Ben, much less believed anything he’d said.

Colby continued questioning the boy. “Answer the question, son. You told that lie, didn’t you?”

Scout twisted uncomfortably. “I guess I might’ve exaggerated a little.”

“And on another occasion, you led your friends to believe that your mother lived at home with you and your father, that she packed your lunches and bought you cool presents. Didn’t you say that?”

“Well …”

“Don’t bother lying. I can call your teacher to the stand if necessary. She heard every word you said on the playground that day.”

Scout sighed, resigned. “I guess I might’ve said that.”

“But it isn’t true, is it? In fact, your mother hasn’t lived with you for some time, has she?”

Scout’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “No.”

“I don’t think the jury got that,” Colby said. “Would you repeat it?”

“No!” he shouted into the mike, so loud it reverberated through the courtroom.

“The truth is,” Colby said, being almost as quiet as Scout had been loud, “that your mother left you and your father a long time ago, didn’t she?”

“Your honor!” Ben said, jumping up. “This is uncalled-for harassment. It obviously doesn’t relate to the substance of this witness’s testimony.”

“That is simply not true,” Colby said calmly. “I am permitted to challenge the witness’s veracity … and to explore any motives he might have for … telling falsehoods. Which is exactly what I’m doing.”

“Very well,” Judge Perry said. “You may proceed.”

Damn this judge, anyway! Ben pounded the table on his way back to his chair, making sure the jury understood he was not happy about this ruling. Judge Perry’s deference to his old pal, the great trial god Colby, had gone too far. If he wasn’t willing to challenge Perry on this obvious impropriety, Colby could get away with anything.

Colby resumed. “How long has your mother been living … elsewhere, Scout?”

“Since January.”

“She’s living with some other person. Some man other than your father.”

Scout’s head burrowed down. “I don’t know where she is.”

“But you do get to spend some time with her, right? Every other weekend.”

“I guess.”

“And I guess in the midst of all this turmoil, you must feel rather left out. Neglected. Right? That’s what your teacher told me.” He paused, even though he didn’t really expect an answer. “I suspect at this point in your life, you’d do about anything to get your parents" attention, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” the boy said petulantly.

“And this little story you’ve cooked up—it’s gotten you all kinds of attention, hasn’t it?”

“No.”

“Attention not only from your parents, but other adults. Like Mr. Kincaid.”

“No.”

“Probably scored some big points with your father, since you’re causing problems for the employer he no doubt resents.”

“No! It isn’t like that!”