Shoot the Lawyer Twice

by Michael Bowen

  “I stopped worrying about ‘legal’ when I buried my father. Show me a badge or back off.”

  “I can’t do either one.”

  She stepped decisively to slice past Rep on his left. He swung his arm out to block her and caught a sharp elbow in the solar plexus for his trouble. This jolted him but instead of the full-fledged retreat Hoeckstra was expecting he snapped his arms at her and pushed back. Hoeckstra followed up with a forearm shiver to his collar bone. Rep stumbled backward and skidded on an icy patch. His fanny, back, and head hit the frosty pavement in that order. His glasses and cap went flying off behind him.

  “You gettin’ everything, Cyclops?” Fletcher asked the photographer.

  “Hey, I get paid to do this.”

  “Good. A stuffed shirt pratfall might make page one.”

  Rep scrambled to his knees and reached out to grab Hoeckstra’s leg as she scurried to get past him. He managed to get a throbbing right shoulder into her thighs and, more important, to slap at her handbag with his left hand and knock it off her arm, halfway back to the Navigator’s door. As she backpedaled amid a stream of fluent obscenities to get it, Rep used the respite to half crawl and half crab-walk into the confined space between the vehicles. This delayed Hoeckstra’s progress by about three seconds and kept Fletcher’s jovial mood from being spoiled; for the Navigator now blocked his view of the proceedings. He couldn’t see Hoeckstra pull the gun out of her pocket and swing it down in a rapid and abbreviated arc.

  The side of the pistol smashed into Rep’s left temple. His head jerked up and his mouth snapped open. He toppled sideways against the Navigator and then face-down onto the parking lot’s surface. He probably would have yelled if he’d still been conscious, but he wasn’t.

  Fletcher and Cyclops saw Hoeckstra stalk back into view and march toward the church. Cyclops dutifully recorded the strut at three frames per second and enjoyed every moment of it. After Hoeckstra had gotten all the way to the church door without any reappearance by Rep, however, he lowered the camera and glanced uneasily at Fletcher, who was now following Hoeckstra.

  “Maybe we should check on the guy first?” Cyclops inflected his voice to make it a question.

  “Do I look like Richard Harding Davis to you?”

  “If he was an aging hippie with a Christ-complex you could be his twin brother.”

  “He was a superstar reporter who got personally involved in his stories. I don’t.”

  Cyclops looked back toward Navigator, where he still didn’t see any signs of life.

  “You know what, homey? Up yours.”

  Holding his camera around the barrel of the lens so that it wouldn’t bang against his chest, he began loping gingerly toward the Navigator.

  “All right, have it your way,” Fletcher sighed as he turned to follow the photographer. “But if news happens in that basilica while you’re busy posing for holy cards, I’m gonna discombobulate your f-stops.”

  ***

  Blissfully unaware that her husband’s oozing blood was staining the snow outside, Melissa stiffened as she heard Hoeckstra’s rapid footsteps striding up the aisle. Hoeckstra walked one pew past Melissa and Clevenger, then wheeled around to confront them. Cheeks flushed with chill and adrenaline, she took a couple of deep breaths before leaning forward to brace her hands against the back of the pew in front of the two women. She addressed them in a throaty stage whisper.

  “All right, it’s your party. Tell me why I’m here.”

  “I assume you’re here to talk about getting this mess behind us,” Clevenger said coolly as she cast a did-I-call-this-or-what? glance at Melissa. “We won round one. You won round two. How about we just call it a draw now, before round three gets nasty?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Why is Professor Angstrom dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Good answer. I don’t either. Let’s call it quits and keep it that way.”

  “Or else you accuse me of killing Angstrom when the case is tried again—is that what you’re saying?”

  “Certainly not,” Clevenger cooed. “Saying that would make this conversation uncomfortably close to a felony. I’m saying that if whoever killed Angstrom was trying to suppress evidence in the sex-or-swim case, they failed. I have it.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll hear it when the jury does—if you really don’t know.”

  “If?”

  “Save it.” Clevenger’s voice suggested boredom with amateur theatrics. “Look, we’ve had tragedy enough. You’ve made your point. You’ve put Jimmy through more than enough hell to punish him for being a clod. Let’s do a walk-away and get on with our respective lives.”

  “That clod came onto my ship in open water after midnight and tried to rape me,” Hoeckstra said through fiercely clenched teeth, her tone all the more ferocious because she kept her voice low. “He threatened to throw me into the drink. If you think—”

  “Wasn’t that what you’d planned on him doing?” Melissa asked.

  “WHAT?” Hoeckstra’s head snapped toward Melissa’s face.

  “You made sure he knew about the party and you let him come on board. You waited for him to come on too strong, and when he did you dove into the lake like a blushing maiden afraid of a fate worse than death. You weren’t afraid and we both know it. I’m not saying he’s blameless. I’m just saying you wanted what happened to happen.”

  “I set him up? You’re blaming the victim? That’s the kind of crap I’d expect from a misogynist like Angstrom, not someone who owes her career to feminism.”

  “Save the guilt trip for some feminist who wrote her dissertation on angst induced by patriarchy. I got my degrees the old-fashioned way, so I don’t have to take my opinions pre-packaged from the thought police. Facts are facts. You wanted to hurt Valerie, so you went after her son. The Jimmy thing was about you squaring things with dad, and Betty Friedan is no more help to you than she would have been to Hamlet.”

  In a furious hiss Hoeckstra told Melissa to perform an anatomically impossible sex act.

  “Don’t need to,” Melissa shrugged. “I’m a happily married woman.”

  Slightly dampening the pleasure Melissa took in this riposte was the fear that it was wasted on Hoeckstra, who was whipping out of sight in ostentatious rage. Melissa took advantage of the diversion to glance to her right at the pew directly across the transept. Tereska Bleifert knelt there, eyes apparently focused on the altar—but not too focused to keep her from giving Melissa a barely perceptible nod.

  “A frank and candid exchange of views,” Clevenger said. “Thanks for jumping in and backing me up. It just might have done the trick. Hoeckstra isn’t stupid. Once she has calmed down, she’ll connect the dots and maybe we’ll get something done.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “I’ve seen it happen before. Claiming to have the Angstrom stuff was pure bluff. But she wouldn’t have asked for the meeting if she didn’t think it might be true.”

  “She didn’t ask for the meeting,” Melissa said.

  “What?”

  “Wait a minute,” Melissa said then.

  She pulled herself abruptly to her feet. Three quick steps brought her to the confessional. Pausing for dramatic effect, she flung open the door of the nearer penitent’s booth. Then she gasped and stepped back so quickly that she almost stumbled. This reflected not superior acting skills, for Melissa’s were average at best, but genuine shock. Instead of the empty interior she had expected, she saw Assistant Dean René Cyntrip Mignon’s trembling features. He recovered first.

  “A punchline to an old joke in this situation would go, ‘No, professor, I am surprised; you are astonished.’”

  “Let’s just skip that one,” Melissa suggested.

  “Good idea.”

  “What are you doing here? And please don’t say you were waiting to go to confession.”

  “I
was looking for the papal order.”

  “In a confessional?”

  “In your conversation with Ms. Clevenger.” A desperately avid glint lit Mignon’s eyes. “I’m certain you do know where it is. I read all of Taylor Gates’ novels looking for clues and hints, but I couldn’t find any. A few years ago, Angstrom circulated an email asking for directions to this place, even though he had no earthly reason for visiting any church, much less a basilica. When I learned that you were meeting secretly with someone here, I thought I might overhear something that would tell me where to find it.”

  THERE IS NO BLOODY PAPAL ORDER! THERE IS NO BLOODY PAPAL ORDER! Melissa wanted to scream. THERE NEVER WAS! IT WAS A CON, YOU MORON!

  But a glance at his face told her that saying this would be as futile as telling Sir Percival there was no holy grail, or assuring St. Helen that the True Cross had certainly gone to kindling centuries before she “found” it. She and Angstrom between them had done too good a job of selling their snake oil. Mignon was beyond logic, beyond common sense, irretrievably drunk on heady draughts of apodictic certainty. She chose instead to say something less dramatic but more practical under the circumstances.

  “I think you should go. I understand the university’s general counsel is about to circulate a memorandum with non-gender-neutral language.”

  “Oh dear. Yes, I suppose I should.”

  With surprising dignity, all things considered, Mignon stepped out of the confessional, nodded politely to Clevenger, and began to walk toward the rear of the church. After a few steps his pace quickened, as if he felt spurred on by the urgency of his new mission.

  Melissa took another quick glance inside. Then, after a deep breath, she stepped into the booth, letting the door swing shut behind her. She didn’t dwell on the grade school memories that suddenly flooded her head. Instead she got to work on the task that Mignon’s unexpected presence had delayed. When Clevenger opened the door two minutes later she saw Melissa feeling tentatively around the corners, nooks, crannies, and niches of the cramped interior. Clevenger squeezed in next to Melissa. The door had just enough room to close behind them.

  “Are you all right?” Clevenger whispered.

  “Aside from raging paranoia and feeling a bit silly, I guess I am.”

  “What are you doing?

  “Checking for electronics—and not finding any. Let’s go back.”

  Clevenger opened the door, turned awkwardly, and stepped out of the confessional. Melissa emerged in her turn and followed Clevenger back toward the pew.

  “Why were you checking for bugs?”

  “Because, as I said just before I stumbled over Dean Mignon, Hoeckstra didn’t set up this meeting.”

  “You’re going to have to explain.”

  “Whoever left you that message gave the area code as ‘nine-two-oh.’ Hoeckstra is an anal retentive, by-the-numbers engineer. She makes Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest look like Maria Montessori. For her, ‘oh’ is a letter, not a number. She’d never say ‘oh’ if she meant ‘zero.’”

  “And the message specified the pew nearest the confessional.”

  “Right.”

  “So there might be another bad guy—or gal—running around in this mess who manipulated both Hoeckstra and me into this meeting and maybe wanted to record what we said for posterity.”

  “Or for a grand jury,” Melissa said.

  “Ouch. I’m beginning to regret that ‘verging on felony’ crack.”

  A piercing contralto sliced through the ecclesial quiet before they could take the conversation further.

  “Professor Pennyworth!” Mignon shouted from just inside the church doorway. “Outside, right away! It’s your husband!”

  “Jesus!” Melissa hissed. She realized with a spark of surprise as she raced toward the door that the word wasn’t blasphemy but prayer.

  Chapter 34

  Mignon didn’t wait for them, but Melissa didn’t need his help to know where to go once she reached the front steps. An ambulance had backed into place to form a right angle with the Navigator’s right rear bumper, and a knot of people had gathered around the scene. Melissa saw Rep lying on a gurney. A siren in the distance hinted that a policeman might soon be joining them.

  “REPPPP!” Melissa screamed as she hurtled across the parking lot. Rep lifted his head from the gurney and smiled wanly at her approach. A bulky, red-tinged bandage covered the left side of his face from cheekbone to scalp. He’s alive! Thank God!

  “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

  “Quoting Ronald Reagan in a blue state, darling?”

  “Why not? I’m playing the hero’s best friend.”

  “What happened?”

  “A delicate question,” Rep said, using a minimal nod to draw Fletcher and Cyclops to Melissa’s attention.

  “He crowded me so I cold-cocked him,” Hoeckstra said with a verbal shrug. “I had no idea who he was. I didn’t think I hit him all that hard. I just wanted to discourage him a little.”

  Melissa pivoted with an athleticism she hadn’t deployed since high school soccer and slapped Hoeckstra across the face as hard as she could.

  “Cyclops!” Fletcher barked. “Chick fight!”

  This prediction proved optimistic, at least from Fletcher’s viewpoint. Hoeckstra flinched reflexively at the smack and grunted in pain as her left cheek flattened under Melissa’s stinging palm, but she made no effort to avoid the slap or retaliate for it.

  “Okay, that makes us even. The next one’s gonna cost you.”

  Ignoring the threat, Melissa turned back to the gurney.

  “Concussion?” she asked.

  “For sure,” said a crusty med tech who had ex-Navy-Pharmacist’s-Mate stamped unmistakably on his features. “He’ll need some stitches, but he’ll be all right after a night in the hospital.”

  “Actually,” Rep said as he began to push himself up from the gurney, “I think I can get in for those stitches under my own steam.”

  “Like hell you will,” the med tech said, shoving him back down. “I’m taking you for a ride.”

  “Doesn’t that require my consent?”

  “Sue me.”

  “Just a minute, then,” Rep said. He extracted a folded sheet of printer paper from his inside coat pocket and handed it to Melissa. “This is for you.”

  Although she already knew what it was, Melissa unfolded the paper and examined it. Murmuring “Interesting,” she showed it to Clevenger and Hoeckstra:

  MELISSA SETON PENNYWORTH

  ____________________________________________

  From: Pennyworth, Melissa [msp@uwm.edu]

  Sent: Wednesday, 04 Feb 08 13:12

  To: Lt. Cmdr. Francis X. Seton [lcdrfxetonusna@navy.mil]

  Subject: Meeting

  Bro,

  Rep will be at the church, but say a prayer for me anyway if you have time. It can’t hurt.

  ’Lissa

  “I don’t understand,” Hoeckstra said.

  “Don’t understand what?” Clevenger asked.

  “Look at the ‘Sent’ line,” Hoeckstra said. “Pennyworth’s email printer for some reason uses military notation to show date and time. ‘4 February’ instead of ‘February 4,’ and a twenty-four hour clock instead of A.M. and P.M. Thirteen-twelve means twelve minutes past thirteen-hundred hours—in other words, one-twelve P.M. But one-twelve P.M. was a few minutes ago, while we were chatting in church and the invalid here was taking a nap in the snow.”

  “Well, obviously,” Clevenger said, “she wrote the email to her brother just over an hour ago. He printed it out at the Naval Academy, where the print-out showed eastern standard time in military notation. Then he faxed it to Mr. Pennyworth, and what we have here is the facsimile.”

  “Except that that’s not what happened,” Rep said. “Melissa sent the email at twelve minutes after noon, Milwaukee time, just as you said. It was the last thing she did before she left for Sa
int Josephat’s. But I printed it out myself from our computer a few minutes later, before I left to come here.”

  “If you printed it out in Milwaukee, and it was sent from Milwaukee, why does it show the ‘Sent’ time in military format and Eastern Standard Time?” Hoeckstra asked.

  “Because I sent it to a military installation in Annapolis, Maryland,” Melissa said. “A few days ago I printed out an email that Frank had sent me from the Naval Academy. That email showed the ‘Sent’ time in standard notation instead of military, and it showed central standard instead of eastern standard time. If you print out an email you’ve sent using Outlook software, it uses the time and date format of the person you sent it to, not yours. And it shows the time at the recipient’s location, not your location, as the time the email was sent.”

  “Wait a minute!” Hoeckstra turned to confront Clevenger. “That means the email they found on Angstrom doesn’t give you an alibi for his murder after all. You could have printed it out yourself in Chicago after he had already left South Bend. South Bend, Indiana is on eastern time and Chicago is on central. Because the email was sent to an email address in South Bend, the print-out would show eastern standard time instead of central standard time even though you printed it in Chicago. Then you could have planted it on him when you killed him.”

  “She has a point,” Melissa said. “The email made it look like you were with me at the time he had to have been killed. But an email sent to someplace in the eastern time zone will show eastern time regardless of where it was sent from or where it’s printed out. Therefore, Angstrom didn’t have to print that email off in South Bend. If you did what Hoeckstra just said, you would have had enough time to kill Angstrom and plant the email on him before you and I got together.”

  “‘Could’ ain’t ‘did,’” Clevenger said in a surprisingly mild voice. “After all, it was pure happenstance that his body was found while I was still in your company. It might not have been found for three days. If that had happened, given the imprecision of estimates about time of death, my meeting with you wouldn’t have proven anything. I could have killed him after you and I had parted company. If I were trying to fabricate an alibi, I wouldn’t have left the discovery of the body to luck.”