Deadlocked (Lou Mason Thrillers)

by Joel Goldman

  "I was going to call," she said, standing close enough for Mason that he could smell her perfume and hair, scents that hurt.

  "When," he asked, "after the primary or the general election?"

  Abby crossed her arms, the muscles in her neck tightening. "Don't turn this around. This is about you, not me. I can't live my life with someone who keeps painting a target on his back."

  "What about Mickey?" he asked. "Did you tell him you got him the job with Seeley to punish me or to protect him from me?"

  "You don't need to be punished," she said. "But the people who care about you need protecting."

  Mason had no answer. He'd made and broken his promise to Abby, and wouldn't make it again. The scarf around Abby's neck was reminder enough that he couldn't keep it. Standing next to her, he felt like he was drowning. She was a lifeline just beyond his reach. Fragments of Josh Seeley's speech drifted back to them. Something about limits on malpractice lawsuits, the audience finally clapping like they meant it.

  Abby broke their silence. "I don't want you following me around like this."

  "I'm not following you," he said. "I didn't know you were going to be here."

  "Then why are you here?" she asked, suddenly anxious, her eyes wide. "Is it Claire? Is it Harry? Are they all right?"

  "They're fine," he told her, taking a deep breath, knowing she would find out anyway. "My client, Nick Byrnes, is here. Whitney King shot him. The police are calling it self-defense."

  Abby swallowed hard, her mouth a silent cry, her eyes filling. "And what do you call it? Diving in the dark water or self-destruction?"

  She left him on the curb. Mason watched her wade into the crowd, joining in their cheers, taking her place behind Seeley, Mickey at her side. Mickey looked across the crowd, finding him and lighting up when Mason gave him a salute. Abby tugged at Mickey's sleeve, forcing him back to their business. Together, they ushered the candidate into his car, directing the troops to their next destination, gone again.

  Mason found Esther Byrnes in the food court on the lower level of the hospital, the first floor rotunda giving him a view below. She was by herself, a tray of uneaten food in front of her. She was wearing the same blue slacks and pale green blouse she'd had on the night before. Trying to gauge her mood, Mason watched her for a moment before going downstairs.

  "Mrs. Byrnes," he began when he reached her table. "I'm Lou Mason, Nick's lawyer."

  She looked up at him, her face a clouded patchwork of wrinkles and sorrow, his name registering in the deepening downturn of her mouth. "Nothing's changed," she said. "They've got him sedated so he doesn't move around. Otherwise the bullet might press more against his spinal cord."

  She gave him the news with flat, rote precision, looking away as if that should be enough to satisfy him and leave her alone. Mason forced a weak smile and pulled out a chair.

  "You know, Nick's a strong kid. He'll pull through just fine," Mason said, her blank stare saying she knew no such thing. "Is your husband with him?"

  She shook her head. "He went home. He can't take it. He couldn't take it when Graham and Elizabeth were...when they died," she said, choosing the easier explanation. "It's different for a mother, I think. We're used to the pain our children bring us. It starts when they're born and keeps on hurting with every scraped knee and broken heart. Fathers, I just don't know. Martin is like a lot of men. They're so full of their feelings they don't know what to do with them, so they just get all balled up and mad all the time."

  "I've seen pictures of your son. Nick looks just like him," Mason said.

  She nodded this time. "I don't know what to make of that," she said. "It's a bitter comfort, I suppose."

  "I know you didn't want Nick to hire me, Mrs. Byrnes," Mason said. "But Nick wants Whitney King to be held accountable for what he did. That's really important to him and I think he's right to want to do that."

  Esther looked at him, studying him as if she was only just then aware of his presence. "My son and daughter-in-law are dead, Mr. Mason. For no reason other than Whitney King decided to kill them. Now he's ruined Nick, maybe left him worse than dead. There's no way to hold him accountable for that. It's a debt that can't be paid."

  Mason asked her, "What about Ryan Kowalczyk? Wasn't he guilty too?"

  Esther shook her head, a rueful smile easing the burden on her face for a moment. "I never believed that. Never did," she said, clasping her hands together, her arms stretched out in front of her.

  Mason pulled his chair closer to the table, leaning toward her. "Why not?"

  "Ryan was a lost boy. You could see it in his eyes. He was sweet, tender. Good to his mother. I could tell, watching them in the courtroom. He could never have hurt my children."

  Mason sat back, disappointed but not surprised that Esther had no proof of Ryan's innocence, just a grandmother's intuition. "What about Whitney King?"

  Her face darkened. "He has the devil's cruelty," she answered. "And an ugliness about him that I've never seen. He killed my children because he could, no more than swatting a fly. I truly believe that, Mr. Mason. All through the trial, he acted like it was a lark, a high school field trip to the courthouse, like he knew he was going to get off. Sometimes he'd look at me, his eyes so black it made me cold."

  "Then why didn't you and your husband sue him? It's easier to win a civil suit for wrongful death than it is to get a murder conviction."

  Esther stood, putting distance between her and Mason's suggestion, waving one hand in front of him, the other shielding her heart. "No, no it isn't. Not with that one. You see what he's done. He's taken enough from us. That boy is a killer."

  Chapter 21

  Gaylon Dickensheets parked his bus in the company lot at exactly four o'clock. Mason had been there for fifteen minutes, marking the time as he waited in his car, knowing it was Gaylon's bus by the number on its side, 451, which corresponded to the legend in the route map he had picked up.

  Gaylon drove an east-west route, covering the city's eastern border with Independence, Missouri, reaching into the west side along Southwest Boulevard, all the way to the Kansas state line. The route kept him south of the Missouri River and north of midtown, navigating an urban artery, a straight line distance of some thirty miles, longer with the zigs and zags of city streets.

  Mason had found a picture of Mary when he returned to her house earlier that day, taking it with him to show people who might have seen her. It was a snapshot of her sitting at her kitchen table holding a cup of coffee, not posed for the camera, her sober expression hiding the vitality Mason had detected in her. The date was superimposed on the print, the picture taken in the last year. He found it in the kitchen, beneath the glass covering a small desk, along with other pictures, one of her, Ryan, and her husband, the rest pictures of Ryan before he was arrested.

  Gaylon climbed down from the bus, a small, slender man with a button face, barely five-five, dwarfed by the rig he drove. Mason got out of his car, cutting across the lot.

  "Mr. Dickensheets," Mason called out. The driver turned, shielding his eyes from the sun.

  "Sure I am," Gaylon said as Mason approached.

  "I'm Lou Mason," he said, extending his hand, the driver wiping his own against his pants, taking Mason's.

  "Sure you are. The dispatcher said you wanted to talk to me about a passenger. That right?"

  "That's right," Mason said, showing him Mary's picture. "Do you recognize this woman?"

  "Sure thing. That's Mary Kay."

  "Mary Kowalczyk?" Mason asked.

  "The same. I like to give my regulars nicknames, you know. Makes the ride a little friendlier. I tease her about being that cosmetics lady. Tell her she should be driving one of them big pink Cadillacs instead of riding the bus. She always gets a kick out of that one."

  "Did you pick her up yesterday?"

  "Sure thing. On my morning run, nine-o-five."

  "Where'd she get off?" Mason asked.

  "Downtown, like she always does. Tenth and
Main. Transfers to a southbound."

  "She didn't happen to say where she was going, did she?"

  "Didn't have to," Gaylon said. "Yesterday was Wednesday. She goes to the church every Wednesday. St. Mark's."

  "What's she do there?" Mason asked.

  "Volunteers. Helps out one of the priests, I think. Father Steve, she calls him. Mary's a real sweet little lady. Had a hard time, she has, but you'd never know it. Always has a

  nice word for me."

  "Does she ride your bus on the way home?"

  "Depends on when she goes home. Could be mine, could be one of the other buses. There's six of us drive this route. We all know Mary."

  "You wouldn't mind checking with the other drivers, would you? Ask them if they gave her a ride home yesterday," Mason said, handing Gaylon a business card. "Call me and let me know what they say, will you?"

  "Sure thing. Say, she's okay isn't she?"

  "Yeah," Mason answered. "Sure thing."

  St. Mark's Catholic Church was at Forty-first and Main, a limestone cathedral, a parsonage, and a high school on ten acres of ground surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence. Mary had attended the church for thirty years, she had told Mason. Ryan Kowalczyk and Whitney King had attended the high school, and played their last basketball game in its gym.

  A bronze dedication plaque set in stone at the entrance marked the cathedral's completion in 1937. The school building was a mix of old and new, the most recent addition still under construction, a brightly painted sign promising it would be ready by the start of the fall semester.

  It was late in the day. Parishioners arrived for mass and Mason followed them into the church, not certain where to go. Most people gave him a friendly nod though a few gave him wary looks reserved for strangers. Mason was suddenly aware of being Jewish.

  He rarely attended synagogue services, not even belonging to a congregation, another sore point with Abby, who had extracted his promise to attend services for the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement, the High Holidays coming in the fall. That was before Abby hit the campaign trail. Though he was certain a dose of atonement would do him good, he doubted whether Abby would save him a seat.

  Mason's experience in Catholic churches was limited to weddings and funerals. He'd never attended mass; the prospect of doing so now just to track down Father Steve made him feel like he was trespassing.

  He stood at the door to the sanctuary for a moment as a young priest greeted people as they came in, sunlight fracturing into rainbow rays as it cut through stained glass. People took their seats on wooden pews with red velvet cushions matching the thick carpet. Mason retreated outside to wait for the end of the service, figuring to ask the priest where he could find Father Steve.

  Father Steve was Mary's priest. He was also a priest to Whitney King and his family. Two families. One rich and one poor. It made sense that Father Steve would maintain his relationships with both Mary and Whitney, even after all that happened.

  Still, Mason was troubled by the priest's insistence that Ryan had confessed to murdering Graham and Elizabeth Byrnes, a confession that was unsupported by Ryan's last words, Ryan's mother, or Mason's gut feel from reading the trial transcript. Now Father Steve was the sole witness to Whitney's claim that he had shot Nick in self-defense. Adding the priest as the last person who may have seen Mary Kowalczyk put Mason's trust in coincidence to a real test. He wasn't ready to accuse Father Steve, but he had questions for the priest and he wouldn't accept the answers on faith.

  Chapter 22

  Mason wandered over to the school, skirting the construction site, getting a close look at the artist's rendering of the structure being built. The main entrance to the school was blocked off. A sign announced the new administrative wing made possible by the Christopher King Trust, Whitney King, Trustee. Another sign identified King Construction Company as the general contractor. Mason decided Whitney was building a stairway to heaven.

  The construction crew had fashioned a temporary entrance to the school. A lax workman had left it unlocked at the end of the day. Mason took advantage, ducking inside, the hallways stuffy, air-conditioning being saved for the school year. The lights were off, but sunlight made its way from tall classroom windows to rectangular-shaped windows laid end-to-end like dominos along the interior wall above rows of lockers, painting the halls a smoky gray.

  Mason had graduated from Southwest High School, a mile or two south of his house, a big city public school with big city public school problems—not enough money, motivated students, or interested parents. Mason managed to get a decent education anyway. Claire told him that four years spent with people who didn't look, live, or think like he did was his enrichment program.

  The gym was tucked onto the back of the school, an addition made in 1955. A trophy case displayed accumulated hardware; basketball team rosters were engraved on plaques hung on the wall outside the gym. Mason traced the ten-member teams through the years, finding Ryan Kowalczyk's and Whitney King's team, Whitney's name was preserved along with those of eight other boys. Ryan's name was missing—a blank spot in its place.

  "It was easier for the school to pretend he'd never been here than to try to forget what happened," Father Steve said. Mason spun around, finding the priest behind him. The priest apologized, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you, Mr. Mason. They teach us to walk quietly at the seminary." He smiled at his joke and Mason smiled back.

  "Makes it easier to sneak up on the sinners," Mason said.

  "Oh, I don't have to worry about that. God catches all sinners eventually," Father Steve said. "Like me and this dirty habit of mine," he continued, taking a pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket. "I can't sneak a smoke in the church, so I sneak one at the school. How about that?"

  Mason couldn't help smiling again. Father Steve was short, stocky, and willing to make fun of his shortcomings. A benign, soothing combination Mason was certain put congregants at ease. Father Steve hadn't shown such self-effacing charm at Ryan's execution or in their last prickly exchange in front of Mary's house. Since then, Mary had disappeared and Nick Byrnes had been shot right before his eyes, jolts that should rattle, not calm.

  Maybe, Mason thought, the priest was just more comfortable on his own turf, enjoying an ecclesiastical home-court advantage.

  "I imagine there are worse sins," Mason said.

  "Would you like the complete list?" Father Steve asked.

  "No thanks. I've got my hands full with murder."

  Father Steve pulled a cigarette from the pack, tapped the end of it against his palm, lighting it, drawing hard, the smoke working its way through him, thin vapors escaping from his mouth and nose. "You've chosen one of the greatest sins, taking another's life."

  "When Graham and Elizabeth Byrnes were killed, it was murder. When Ryan Kowalczyk was executed, it was justice. Sin is a tricky thing."

  "Not really, Mr. Mason. Killing is killing. The church opposes capital punishment unless executing the offender is the only way of protecting society against an unjust aggressor, a circumstance the pope says is virtually certain never to exist. There's always a way to protect people. That's what jails are for."

  Mason asked, "Is it a greater sin if the state executes an innocent man?"

  "No life is more valuable than another, though Ryan Kowalczyk was not innocent. He confessed to me, as you heard me tell his mother."

  "I believe Ryan was innocent," Mason said.

  "Then we're both men of faith, Mr. Mason. We just believe different things to be true. In my world, faith is proof enough of the existence of God. In yours, belief in a man's innocence doesn't overrule a jury's verdict."

  "Juries make mistakes. That's not a matter of faith. It's a matter of fact," Mason said.

  "This jury struggled with the truth until they found it.

  Whitney's father told me they were deadlocked for two days before they reached a verdict on the third day. You're entitled to your own struggle."

  Mason studied the priest f
or some sign that he knew the significance of what he had said. Ryan's lawyer, Nancy Troy, knew about the deadlock, as did Harry Ryman. Father Steve had added himself and Whitney's father to that inner circle. Rachel's question about how Nancy and Harry had known took on added significance.

  "The jury refused to talk with anyone about their deliberations. How did Whitney's father know what had happened?"

  The priest flicked the ash from his cigarette, an involuntary twitch that matched his stuttered answer. "He didn't... say. Maybe...he just assumed," he said, looking down the hall to avoid Mason's stare.

  "Did you attend the trial? Did you talk with the jurors?" Mason asked, homing in.

  Father Steve's shoulders sagged. "I ministered to both Ryan and Whitney, and their families."

  Mason stepped toward the priest, backing him against the wall. "I'm sure you were a comfort to them, Father. I'm more interested in the jury and why you're trying so hard not to answer my question. The jury was deadlocked for two days. Something happened that made them convict Ryan and acquit Whitney. What do you know about that?"

  "The jury found Ryan guilty. He confessed to me," the priest said dully as if he was repeating a catechism.

  "Ryan was innocent. I'm going to prove that."

  "And then what?" Father Steve asked, glancing at Mason.

  "You tell me, Father. Is it a sin to let an innocent man die?"

  The priest drew on his cigarette. "If you know he's innocent and you remain silent, that's a grave sin."

  "The sin of silence. Where does it rank on your list?" Mason asked.

  "It's one of the worst," the priest said, his voice steeped in sadness. He moved away from the wall, putting space between him and Mason. "Our sins reflect our weaknesses as human beings. Many of them come from the things we want. Sex, money, power. The sin of silence is different. It comes from fear and it condemns the innocent whom the guilty are afraid to save."