Unforced Error

by Michael Bowen

  “Sounds like the right move,” Rep had commented.

  “Except that by eight-thirty this morning, Peter still hadn’t come home. No contact, no messages. Linda was frantic, and I wasn’t feeling so great myself. So she went out looking for him while I drove to the encampment to see if he’d gone back there. That’s when I asked someone to track you down.”

  “So I’m up to date,” Rep had said.

  “Right. Peter’s disappearing act would be troubling under any circumstances, but coming so soon after Linda let R. Thomas Quinlan talk her into the sack on a vulnerable night it’s hard not to get shook about it.”

  “WHAT? The guy she slept with was Quinlan?”

  These emphatic questions, fortunately, had come while they were stopped at a red light just before turning onto the southbound leg of Ward Parkway.

  “Yes. I forgot, you’ve never met him. He has his own imprint at Jackrabbit Press, and Linda works with him a lot.”

  “‘ Had his own imprint,’ ” Rep had said. “Last night, R. Thomas Quinlan passed away. Passed away, as it happens, courtesy of a very sharp blade after Peter retrieved his saber and said he had something to take care of.”

  “That was what all the excitement at the encampment was about?”

  “Yes.”

  “This just got vastly worse, didn’t it?”

  “And it’s headed downhill from there,” Rep had said. “I was the one who found the body. So you might say that I have met Quinlan, although I suppose that raises a metaphysical issue.”

  They had gone into the Damons’ house hoping that Linda, at least, would have returned. But they had found the house empty. Their search had ended in the bedroom, where Melissa had started hinting about Rep giving Peter some legal help and Rep had put his foot down.

  “We can hold their hands and be here for them and find out who the best criminal lawyer in Kansas City is if it turns out Peter needs one,” Rep said after Melissa shrugged off his initial demurrer. “But I can’t play Ben Matlock. In this little mess I’m not a lawyer, I’m a witness. And so are you.”

  “I’m duly admonished,” Melissa said. “But you don’t seriously believe that Peter killed Quinlan, do you?”

  “I don’t know. But I know that heavy cavalry sabers have long, substantial blades. And I’ll feel much better if the cops don’t find any blood on Peter’s when they examine it.”

  “Now there’s an interesting point,” Melissa said brightly.

  Darting around her husband, she crossed to the woven wicker chair where Peter had apparently thrown his uniform and equipment (other than his bugle) sometime late last night. She pulled on the white gauntlets lying there, picked up the saber, and awkwardly slipped the weapon from its scabbard.

  “I suppose it’s pointless for me to note that you’re tampering with evidence,” Rep said resignedly, but he made no effort to stop her. He wanted to know the answer as much as she did.

  “I’m doing my level best not to tamper with it,” Melissa answered.

  They examined the blade together. Rep pointed to a few specks of dark discoloration about two-thirds of the way down.

  “It looks too brown for blood,” Melissa said.

  “Thank you, Doctor Quincy.”

  “And if Peter had cut a man’s throat you’d think there’d be a lot more.”

  “I don’t know what color dried blood is, and I don’t know if those specks are what’s left after a lot more blood was wiped off. But I’m surprised to see any at all. I would have expected Peter to keep this thing in mint condition.”

  Pulling his own gauntlets on, Rep worked a loose, broken wicker strut free from the chair back. He extended his right hand toward Melissa, who with some reluctance turned the saber over to him. Rep tossed the wicker into the air and slashed theatrically at it with the saber. Unfortunately, he missed, which somewhat diluted his gesture’s dramatic impact. He tried again and this time made contact. The saber sliced cleanly through half an inch of wood.

  “Very impressive, dear, but isn’t that what sabers are supposed to do?”

  “Mine didn’t. These things are supposed to be props. Re-enactments aren’t intended to spill real blood.”

  Melissa realized that what she was about to do was manipulative, and reminded herself to feel ashamed later on. Her face formed an exasperated pout, which she turned away from Rep as soon as she was sure he’d seen it.

  “You’re upset with my dogmatic, left-brained, patriarchal, stereotypically male logical empiricism, right?” Rep asked.

  “Let’s just say that if I gave you a swat right now it would be aggravation, not flirtation,” Melissa said. “Which wouldn’t be fair, because you’re right. Logically, things don’t look particularly good.”

  “Well, it’s not all one way,” Rep allowed. “There’s no blood on the uniform, which should have gotten thoroughly spattered from the kind of attack that killed Quinlan. Peter certainly didn’t seem coldly homicidal when he was retrieving his saber and talking to me. And with a guy like Quinlan seems to have been, there are probably several cuckolded husbands in the Kansas City metropolitan area who would have been happy to cut his throat.”

  “Go on,” Melissa said, her face glowing with ostensible admiration for her husband’s rhetorical brilliance. “You’re certainly convincing me.”

  With a mordant smile at his wife, Rep took the scabbard from her and decisively re-sheathed the saber.

  “You don’t really think I’m swallowing that little routine, do you, Doctor Pennyworth?” he asked then.

  “Uh oh,” Melissa said. “I rather thought you were, actually.”

  “Listen,” he said tenderly, putting the saber back the chair. “I know how much Linda means to you. I know you feel that Linda confiding in you and you giving her advice means you have a special responsibility.”

  “But,” Melissa prompted.

  “But Peter had a sharp piece of metal there when someone he had a motive to kill got killed with a sharp piece of metal. You’re resisting the obvious. With anyone else I’d say emotional involvement got in the way of objectivity. But you’re too smart for me to blow your argument off like that.”

  “Rep, dearest, ” Melissa said, “I know exactly what you’re up to.”

  “So I want you to do something,” Rep continued. “Think about it for a minute, and then tell me how much of your attitude is coming from your heart and how much is coming from your head.”

  “You’re not playing fair,” Melissa said.

  “That doesn’t exactly set a precedent in this conversation, does it?”

  “Okay.” Melissa took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. She forced herself to think methodically for sixty seconds. “Okay,” she said again. “Time for a little dose of G.K. Chesterton.”

  “Dose away.”

  “Suppose an eleven-year old girl told you that she’d seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin or Mother Teresa. Would you believe her?”

  “No,” Rep said.

  “Neither would I. But would you be absolutely certain?”

  Rep opened his mouth for a hip-shot answer, then stopped and thought for a few seconds.

  “This will sound like a cop-out,” he said, “but I don’t think I could say I was ‘absolutely certain’ about anything. Things happen that we don’t understand. Fatima, Lourdes. The time-space continuum bending in on itself. ‘Absolutely certain?’ I guess not.”

  “Now, suppose someone told you that he was sitting in the bleachers on the Capitol steps last inauguration day and he saw Laura Bush smoking a cigar while her husband was being sworn in. Would you believe him?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Neither would I,” Melissa said. “Would you be absolutely certain he was wrong?”

  “That’s a trick question,” Rep protested.

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s not the same thing. I mean, yeah, I would be as close to absolutely certain as you could b
e. It’s not the kind of thing that would happen at all, much less happen and be ignored by everyone who had to have seen it except one guy.”

  “Right,” Melissa said. “It wouldn’t violate any scientific laws, the way a miraculous vision would. But it would violate the laws of human nature.”

  “So what are you saying? That Peter Damon couldn’t have killed a man who seduced his wife?”

  “No. I’m not even sure I could say that about you—not that I expect the question ever to come up.”

  “So who’s Laura Bush in this analogy, and what’s the cigar?”

  “Peter didn’t have a breath of a motive unless he at least suspected that Linda had cheated on him with Quinlan.”

  “How do we know he didn’t suspect that?” Rep demanded. “All we know is that Linda didn’t tell him about the fling. He could have spotted Quinlan’s little keepsake and parsed it the same way you did.”

  “If he had suspected infidelity on any grounds, he wouldn’t have gone running off while his wife was in the bathroom, maybe overdosing on something in a paroxysm of remorse. Anyone can see how desperately he loves her. He might have screamed at her or—or any number of things, I suppose. But he apodictically would not have left Jackrabbit Press until he saw with his own eyes that she was physically okay.”

  “If you’re right, then when Peter came down to get his saber he didn’t even suspect Linda had cheated, much less that Quinlan was the guy, and therefore he couldn’t have been planning to kill him. Wait a minute, though. What if he’d noticed the hairs tied to the bolt but didn’t tumble to what it meant until he was five miles down the road?”

  “And then doubled back to kill Quinlan?” Melissa asked.

  “Right.”

  “The timing doesn’t work. Linda and I were only about twenty minutes behind him. If he’d driven off and then backtracked to kill Quinlan, he couldn’t have gotten home, changed clothes, and left before Linda and I got there.”

  “Fair enough,” Rep said. “Which takes us back to the key question: if it wasn’t jealous rage that sent Peter running off in the first place, what was it? If we can answer that question and sell your laws-of-human-nature premise, then what Peter said to me not only isn’t incriminating, it’s almost an alibi.”

  “But the police don’t sleep with me, so they won’t pay any attention to metaphysical speculation borrowed from G. K. Chesterton. Once they get a sharp saber and a whiff of adultery, they’ll stop looking at anything else and work on nailing Peter for the murder. He needs help from someone else.”

  “Which unfortunately can’t be us,” Rep said. “Apart from everything else, there’s the detail that I don’t know any criminal law. I deliberately forgot everything I’d learned about it fifteen minutes after the bar exam.”

  “Well,” Melissa said dubiously, “nobody’s perfect.”

  “Although you come close, beloved. But close doesn’t cut it. We can’t pull a Nick-and-Nora here.”

  “That verged on condescending.”

  “It was a literary allusion,” Rep protested.

  “I guess it was, at that. I suppose I should be flattered.”

  The phone rang. They both sprang to answer it. This involved a mild collision, a moment’s confusion, and a rare unladylike ejaculation from Melissa, for the Damons’ bedroom phone was cunningly concealed somewhere with its ringer turned off, and Rep and Melissa had instinctively headed first for the telephone locations in their own home. Rep managed to find the Damons’ phone in the living room by the fourth ring, as Melissa picked up the kitchen extension.

  “Damon residence, Rep Pennyworth speaking,” Rep said.

  “This isn’t Peter?” a male voice that Rep didn’t quite recognize asked.

  “No, my wife and I are guests of the Damons. Peter isn’t here right now.”

  “How about Linda?”

  “Not at the moment, I’m afraid. Can I take a message?”

  “Yes. In fact, it’s lucky you answered. This is John Paul Lawrence.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m terribly sorry about Mr. Quinlan’s death. That must be a terrible blow both to you and your company.”

  “That is exactly right, and you’re very kind to say so. I was hoping to reach Linda to talk both about a fitting memorial for Tom, and somewhat less sentimentally about keeping his projects on track.”

  “I’ll have her call you as soon as I see her,” Rep said.

  “Ordinarily, I would have put that call off at least until tomorrow. But I heard a few minutes ago that the detectives investigating Tom’s murder have been told that Linda was seen last night talking with him, even though he hadn’t planned on coming to the social.”

  “I see,” Rep said.

  “Andy Pignatano is a local lawyer who does criminal work and is highly regarded. He is coming out here at two-thirty. I thought it might be a good idea for Linda to join us in a consultation. You as well, for that matter.”

  “I’ll try to get word to her, and if I can get out there myself I will.”

  “Good. Hope to see you then.”

  Phones clicked. When Melissa returned to the living room, she saw Rep hurriedly unbuttoning his shell jacket while he hustled toward the stairs.

  “See if you can find a large cardboard box,” he yelled over his shoulder, panting because he was taking two steps at a time. “Hurry!”

  Cardboard box? she wondered.

  “No, wait, that’s dumb,” Rep said, pausing breathlessly at the top of the stairs and unbuckling his belt. “Boot my computer up and plug in the phone modem. First, send an e-mail to the all-attorneys’ list at the firm asking for recommendations of the top three criminal lawyers in Kansas City. Then get on the net and search for TASA.”

  “T-A-S-A?” Melissa asked, as if she were involved in a sane conversation. “And what’s wrong with the Pignatano guy?”

  “To answer your questions in order,” Rep yelled from the bedroom, “yes, and nothing as far as I know, except that I don’t know whose lawyer he is.”

  Rep stripped off his uniform and equipment and tossed them on the bed. He climbed gratefully back into the twenty-first century clothes he’d left in this room less than twenty-four hours before. Then he turned to the Damons’ closets. He started to pick up a suitcase, checked himself, and chose a large suit carrier instead. He laid this on the bed.

  “Honey,” Melissa called to him, “I’ve sent the e-mail, and I’ve gotten three-hundred-fifty-two catches on TASA. Which one do I want?”

  “Technical Advisory Services for Attorneys,” he yelled in response.

  He found the calico dresses that Linda and Melissa had presumably worn last night and slid them into the suit carrier. Then he stuffed Peter’s uniform and saber into the bag on top of the dresses.

  “I have Technical Advisory and so forth,” Melissa yelled. “What next?”

  “Look for ‘chemical analysts’ or something like that,” Rep shouted.

  He zipped the suit carrier shut. Now came the part that was tickling his conscience a little bit. Well, he thought, might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. He took his own uniform and saber and arrayed them on the wicker chair where Peter’s had been.

  “How about forensic chemists?” Melissa bellowed.

  “Perfect,” Rep screeched. “See if there’s one in Kansas City.”

  “I didn’t think you wanted one in Tampa, luv,” Melissa said with exaggerated patience. “Done.”

  “Good.” Rep spoke this syllable as he was walking down the stairs, lugging the garment bag over his shoulder. “Get the address and phone number down while I put this in the car.”

  “I’m printing it out now. I thought we weren’t doing Nick and Nora.”

  “Well, we’re sure not going to sit around here and wait for the Kansas City Police Department to show up with a search warrant.”

  “Is this sudden change because of what Lawrence said about someone seeing Linda talking to Quinlan
?”

  “Yes. Because maybe that’s what someone saw, and maybe what someone saw was a young woman in a long calico dress talking to Quinlan.”

  “Namely me.”

  “Namely you.”

  “I’m already getting some answers to the e-mails.”

  “Print out as many as you can in two minutes,” Rep said, heading for the kitchen where the back door was, “then come to the car. And leave the front door unlocked so that the cops won’t have to break it down.”

  Having learned a share of patience in eight years of marriage, Rep waited almost six minutes in the car. Then, sighing, he went back in the house to see what was holding Melissa up. He found her talking on the phone.

  “It’s Linda,” she said.

  “Any sign of Peter yet?”

  “No.”

  Rep went into the living room and picked up the phone there.

  “Linda, this is Rep. Where are you now?”

  “At the library. No one here has seen Peter, but he signed in at the guard station around midnight, and signed out again at twelve-forty-eight.”

  Twelve-forty-EIGHT? Rep thought. How anal is THAT?

  “Okay. Listen, Linda, don’t come home yet. Check into a hotel under your own name. Call Melissa’s cell phone and just say the name of the hotel.”

  “What’s going on?” Linda demanded.

  “We’ll talk later. Just do as I ask, okay?”

  “Okay. I guess. Rep, Melissa, I’m really worried about Peter.”

  “That’s all right. We’ll talk soon.”

  “All right.”

  Melissa met Rep at the back door.

  “‘Check into a hotel under your own name’?” she asked. “I thought you didn’t remember anything from your criminal law course.”

  “I don’t. I learned that by watching Perry Mason reruns.”

  Chapter 13

  For what this guy’s probably going to charge, Melissa thought, I would have expected at least a lab coat.

  Wesley Cerv, Ph.D and CEO of Litigation Analysts, Inc., had his offices not in Kansas City but in suburban Shawnee Mission, on the Kansas side of the line. He greeted them in blue jeans and a tee-shirt showing a bronze bust of a moon-faced man, accompanied by the words