by Gorman, Ed
My ears were ringing from the blast, but I could hear cries and running feet. I backed up, called out, “The situation’s under control. Will somebody get security, please?”
A man’s voice said, “Will do.”
I then shut the French doors against prying eyes. Said to Yatz, “You — go over and sit down on that chair.”
He did as told, still calm and controlled. Even the close call with the rifle bullet didn’t seem to faze him. He returned my gaze steadily.
Typical enforcer. He’s here to keep an eye on the situation till the higher-ups arrive and take over.
Still on the floor, Jakes moaned.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Yeah, mostly.”
“That rifle — Yatz jumped you, and it went off by accident.”
“... Right.”
“You brought it along only for protection.”
“I get you.”
“The rest of it you tell as it happened.”
I glanced at Yatz. Still unconcerned; his firm could afford the best lawyers money can buy. But what he hadn’t realized — yet — was that he’d been flying under the radar for many years, and a court case would destroy his anonymity. At the least it would put him out of work and possibly expose additional crimes for which he might be prosecuted. Maybe even make him the target of another well paid enforcer.
He’d pay for his crimes, one way or the other.
• • •
“Daughter? This is Elwood. I hear you found the man who killed Elise Fourwinds and that he is in custody.”
I pushed hair off my face and looked at the illuminated numbers of the bedside clock in my room at the Best Western. It was nearly two in the morning.
“How did you...?”
“Moccasin telegraph works round the clock. Sylvia Wilson, an Ione who lives in Jackson, found out what happened and this afternoon she called her nephew, Rich Three Wings, who lives up near that ranch of yours in Mono County. I believe he knows you. Rich called a cousin of Junior Jakes in Jackson, who knew about the arrest but not where you were staying. The cousin couldn’t reach Jakes, and your agency was already closed, so he called his stepdaughter in Oakland. She happens to know that office manager of yours — ”
My God, now non-Indians are on the wire!
“Daughter? Are you listening?”
I yawned. “Yes, Elwood.”
“The office manager didn’t answer his phone, but the man he lives with did, and he gave the cousin’s stepdaughter the number of one of your employees and...”
Telegraphing.
• • •
A native of the Detroit area, MARCIA MULLER’S early literary aspirations were put on hold in her third year at the University of Michigan, when her creative writing instructor told her she would never be a writer because she had nothing to say. Instead she turned to journalism, earning a master’s degree, but various editors for whom she freelanced noticed her unfortunate tendency to embellish the facts in order to make the pieces more interesting. In the early 1970s, Muller moved to California and began experimenting with mystery novels because they were what she liked to read. After three manuscripts and five years of rejection, Edwin of the Iron Shoes, the first novel featuring San Francisco private investigator Sharon McCone, was published by David McKay Company, who then cancelled their mystery list. Four years passed before St. Martin’s Press accepted the second McCone novel, Ask the Cards a Question. In the ensuing thirty-some years, Muller has authored more than thirty-five novels — three of them in collaboration with husband Bill Pronzini — seven short-story collections, and numerous nonfiction articles. In 2005 Muller was named a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America, the organization’s highest award. The Mulzinis, as friends call them, live in Sonoma County, California, in yet another house full of books.”
THE VALHALLA VERDICT
By Doug Allyn
The jury wouldn’t look at us when they filed back in. Even the foreman, a rumpled old timer who’d offered my mother sympathetic glances during the course of the trial, was avoiding our eyes now.
A bad sign. But I wasn’t really worried. The case was open and shut.
A rich playboy knocks up his girlfriend. He offered to pay for an abortion but she refused his money. She wanted the child whether he did or not. A week later, as she was walking home from work, my nineteen-year-old sister, Lisa Marie Canfield, was clipped by a hit and run driver who never even slowed down. Dead at the side of the road. Killed like a stray dog.
Police found traces of blood on the bumper of her boyfriend’s Cadillac SUV. Lisa’s blood. A simple, straightforward homicide. In Detroit. Or New York.
But Valhalla is a small, northern Michigan resort village and Lisa’s boyfriend, Mel Bennett, is a hometown hero here. A football star at Michigan State and later for the Detroit Lions, Mel owns the biggest Cadillac/GMC dealership in five counties.
Lisa, on the other hand, was only a shopgirl, a wistful little retrohippie who sold candles and incense in one of the tourist traps on Lake Street. She was too young to get involved with a player like Mel. If I’d known she was seeing him ... but I didn’t know. I’d been too wrapped up in my teaching career to pay much attention to my little sister’s life.
And now it was too late for brotherly advice. Or anything else. Only justice remained.
But Mel Bennett was a sympathetic figure on the witness stand. Tanned, tailored and charismatic, Mel sheepishly admitted that my sister wasn’t his only girlfriend, he was dating several other women. And one of his lovers, Fawn Daniels, still had keys to his apartment. And to his car.
When Fawn took the stand, she refused to say where she was at the time of the killing. She took the Fifth Amendment instead, scowling at the jury, hard-eyed and defiant as a Mafia don.
And now the jury looked uneasy, even angry. Like they’d been arguing. Perhaps they’d settled on a charge less than murder. Manslaughter, maybe.
It never occurred to me they’d let the bastard walk.
But that’s exactly what they did.
The foreman read the verdict aloud from the verdict slip. “On the sole charge of murder in the second degree, we find the defendant, Mel Bennett, not guilty.” And the packed courtroom actually burst into applause.
Outside, on the courthouse steps, the foreman told a ring of reporters the jurors thought Mr. Bennett was credible when he swore he cared for Lisa Canfield and would never harm her. And when his mistress, Fawn Daniels, refused to answer, many of us felt there was reasonable doubt. Maybe she — ”
But he was talking to the air. Mel and his entourage swept out of the courthouse and the reporters flocked around them like gulls at a fish market.
Smiling for the cameras, Mel said he had no idea who’d killed poor Lisa, but he was sure the authorities would find the person responsible. He offered his sincerest condolences to her family.
“How does it feel to be a free man?” a reporter shouted.
“I was never worried,” Mel said solemnly. “I knew I could count on a Valhalla jury for a fair shake.”
Scrambling into a gleaming red Escalade, Mel roared away, waving to the crowd, grinning like he’d just scored the biggest touchdown of his life. Or gotten away with murder.
When the prosecutor was interviewed, he griped that Mel Bennett got a Valhalla verdict. A reporter asked him to explain, but he just shrugged and stalked off. Implication? What do you expect from a hick town jury?
And he was right. Valhalla is a small town. By New York or even Detroit standards, most folks who live up north are hicks. More or less.
My extended family, Canfields and La Mottes, are redneck to the bone, and proud of it. My uncle Deke’s clan, the La Mottes, are the roughest of our bunch, jack-pine savages who grow reefer and cook crystal meth in the trackless forests. The rest of us are solid, working class citizens. Blue collar, for the most part.
All but me. I’m Paul Canfield, the first of my family to earn a bachelor’s degree. I teach Pol
itical Science at Valhalla High School. My relatives call me Professor. A compliment or an insult, depending on the tone.
After the trial, on a golden, autumn afternoon, our small clan gathered in my Uncle Deacon’s garage, still stunned by the verdict. We’d intended to hold a delayed wake, in honor of my sister. Lisa Marie was dead, but at least the monster had been punished. Or so we’d expected.
Instead it felt like Lisa had been slaughtered all over again. Along with her unborn child. A Canfield baby none of us would ever hold.
But there was beer on ice, hot dogs and potato salad already laid out. And folks have to eat.
So we gathered around the banquet table in somber silence, Canfields and La Mottes, in-laws and cousins. But with none of the usual good-natured banter. No one spoke at all. Until my mother, Mabel Canfield turned to me for an explanation.
“I just don’t understand it, Paul,” she said simply. “How could a thing like this happen? Where’s the justice?”
“Justice is only a concept, Ma. An ideal.”
“I still don’t — ”
“People go to court expecting to win because they’re in the right. But the truth is, every trial is a contest, a debating match between lawyers. One side wins, one loses, and we call it justice. And it usually is.”
“But not this time,” my cousin Bo La Motte snorted. “The jurors were morons.”
“No,” I said, “they were just home folks. Like us. Mel Bennett’s a professional salesman and that jury was just one more deal to close. He had a sharp lawyer and the prosecutor thought the case was a slam dunk — ”
“It should have been!” Bo snapped. “Lisa’s blood was splattered all over Bennett’s damn car!”
“But the Daniels woman had keys to that car. When she took the fifth and refused to say where she was at the time of Lisa’s death, the jury had reasonable doubts. And they gave Mel the benefit of those doubts.”
“Is there any chance at all that Daniels woman could actually have done this thing?” my mother asked.
“No,” Uncle Deke said quietly. “I had some people look into that. Word is she was shooting pool at the Sailor’s Rest when Lisa was run down. She’ll probably claim she bought dope or committed some other petty crime to justify taking the Fifth, but her alibi is rock solid. She didn’t kill Lisa, Mel Bennett did. I expect Fawn collected a fat payoff to cover for him.”
“Then I say we should pop that bastard today,” Bo said. Burly and surly, my cousin Bo is the hothead of the family. He inherited his father’s straight dark hair, obsidian eyes, and black temper. But in school, nobody ever picked on me when my cousin Bo was around.
“Popping Bennett is a great idea, Cousin,” I said, “as long as you’ve got no plans for the rest of your natural life.”
“Bull! No jury in the world would convict me! They’d — ”
“You just saw firsthand what a small town jury can do! You’re already a two-time loser for weed and grand theft auto, Bo. Nobody’d give you the benefit of a doubt.”
“Then to hell with them! And to hell with you too, Professor!” Bo snapped. “If you got no belly for this, go back to school and leave the rat killin’ to men who ain’t afraid to — ”
Whirling in her chair, my mother backhanded Bo across the mouth! Hard! Spilling him over backwards onto the garage floor.
He was up like a cat, fire in his eyes, his fist cocked — but of course he didn’t swing.
Instead, he shook his head to clear it, then gingerly touched his split lip with his fingertips. They came away dripping blood.
“Damn, Aunt May,” he groused, “most girls just slap my face.”
“Not Canfield girls,” my mother said. Uncle Deke chuckled, and gradually the rest of us joined in. It was a thin joke, but our family hadn’t done much laughing lately.
Uncle Deke tossed Bo a paper towel to mop up the blood and we all resumed our seats.
“All right, Professor,” the old man growled. “You’re the closest thing we got to a legal expert in this family. What are our options now? Is there any way to get justice for Lisa? If we dig up more evidence — ?”
“I don’t think it wouldn’t make any difference,” I said. “Now that Mel’s been found not guilty, he can’t be tried again, period. He could confess to killing Lisa in a church full of witnesses and the worst he could get is a perjury charge. A year or two, no more.”
“You’re saying the law can’t touch him?” Bo said dangerously. “Is that what you’re telling us?”
“Look, I’m only a teacher, Bo, not a lawyer. But I don’t believe there’s anything we can do. Legally, it’s over.”
“Except it ain’t,” Bo said.
“It is for now,” my mother said firmly, rising stiffly, looking up and down the banquet table. “Deacon, you’re my older brother and I love you, but you’ve got an evil temper and your three boys are no better. Lisa was my daughter, not yours. You missed most of her growing years while you were in prison. I absolutely forbid you to throw any more of your life away in some mad dog quest for vengeance.”
“You forbid me, Mabel?” Deke echoed, with a faint smile.
“I swear to God, Deacon La Motte, if you or Bo go after Mel Bennett, I’ll cut you off. I’ll never speak to either of you again as long as I live, nor will any of my family. Ever.”
“That’s too hard, Sis,” Deke said, his smile fading. “That sonofabitch murdered your girl and her unborn child. I can’t let it pass.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m only saying we should wait. In six months — ”
“Six months!” Bo interjected. “No way!”
“In six months we’ll all have cooler heads,” Mabel continued firmly. “Maybe we’ll feel differently. Maybe Bennett will get hit by a bus or someone else will settle his hash. If not, in six months, we’ll look at this again. But for now, I want your word, Deke, yours too, Bo, that you’ll stay away from him. We’ve already had a Valhalla verdict. We don’t need a La Motte verdict added on top of it.”
“That’s bullshit, Aunt May!” Bo began —
“Watch your mouth!” Uncle Deke barked, slamming the table with his fist, making the beer bottles jump. “Mabel’s right, as usual. If Mel Bennett gets struck by lightning or catches the flu, the police will be coming for us. Because they’ll know damned well we were involved. We’d best lay back in the weeds awhile, and cool off. Think things through. If anybody’s got a problem with that, he can step out back and talk it over. With me.”
Deke was glaring at Bo, his oldest boy. Uncle Deke is rawboned with thick wrists and scarred knuckles, dark hair hanging in his eyes, lanky as Johnny Cash back in his wilder days. Pushing fifty, though.
Twenty years younger and forty pounds heavier, Bo has a serious rep as a bad-ass barroom brawler.
But when we were boys, my Uncle Deke shotgunned Bo’s mother and her lover in a local tavern. Then ordered up a beer and sipped it while he waited for the law to come for him.
Fourteen years in Jackson Prison, he never backed down from anybody and had the battle scars to prove it. None of us had any doubt how a scrap between Bo and Uncle Deke would come out.
Not even Bo.
“Whatever,” he muttered.
“Speak up, boy,” Deke said. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Whatever ... you say. Sir,” Bo added, glaring at his father. Then at me for good measure.
“It’s settled then,” Deke nodded. “We wait six months.”
But he was dead wrong about that.
• • •
I called one of my old professors over the weekend, but she only confirmed what I already suspected. Simply put, double jeopardy means that once you’re found innocent of a charge, you can never be tried for that crime again. Period. A civil lawsuit for damages might be possible, but it would be a long, expensive process with only a faint hope of success.
I told my mother what I’d learned over dinner that night. She took it as she did most things, with a wan smile. Determine
d to carry on in spite of everything. The bravest woman I’ve ever known. But even Canfield girls have their limits.
Nine days after the Valhalla verdict that freed Mel Bennett, my mother, Mabel La Motte Canfield, collapsed in her kitchen. And died on the floor.
A massive coronary thrombosis, the coroner said.
Medical terminology for a broken heart.
• • •
Making arrangements for my mother’s funeral was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Coming so soon after Lisa’s death and the botched trial, it felt like we’d suffered a double homicide. Like somebody’d ripped stitches out of a fresh wound with a lineman’s pliers. And then it got worse.
Greeting folks at the funeral home, accepting and offering condolences, I was one of the final few in the viewing line. And as I gazed down at my mother’s careworn face for the last time, my eye strayed to a showy wreath at the foot of the casket. With a condolence card.
From Melvin Bennett. And family.
• • •
After the viewing that evening, I stayed on, sitting alone in the empty parlor in numb silence. So lost in thought I scarcely noticed when my uncle Deacon eased down beside me. A familiar aroma of wood-smoke and whiskey.
“You all right, Paul?”
“Hell no. How could I be? And why would he do a thing like that? Send flowers, knowing how we’d feel.”
“Remember back when Mel was playing football for the Lions? Every time he scored, he’d do a little dance around the end zone. Showing off. I think that’s how he feels now. Like he just pulled off his biggest score ever. Sending the flowers is like dancing.”
“Taunting us, you mean?”
“Nah, he doesn’t give a damn about us. It’s more like he’s taunting the world. Look at me. I’m rich, I’m pretty. I can whack my hick-town girlfriend and the law can’t touch me.”
“And he’s right,” I said bitterly.
“Only half right,” Deke countered. “The law can’t touch him. That don’t mean he can’t be reached.”
I turned slowly to face him. “Uncle Deke, if you go after Mel Bennett now, you’ll die in prison. You know that.”