Loving shrugged. “I’ll take the stand if you want, Skipper, but—”
“But who would believe a guy who’s working for the defense attorney.” Ben agreed—it wasn’t a very promising prospect. Especially since he knew Bullock would run rings around poor Loving. “You just rest and try to get better. We’ll figure out what to do later.”
“There’s something else, Boss.” There was a tremor in Jones’s voice that wasn’t normally there. A tremor he hadn’t heard since … “This came in the morning mail.”
Ben hesitantly took the overstuffed envelope from Jones and withdrew a black videotape. “I gather this isn’t the latest episode of Melrose Place.”
Jones shook his head. “I borrowed a VCR from Burris’s pawnshop next door. It’s on Christina’s desk.”
Ben walked over to the machine, turned it on, and inserted the tape. After a few moments of snow, the picture came to life. The camera was focused on a barren wall, a corner. Nothing was there. But there was a rhythmic sound in the background.
Ben turned up the volume. It was a ticking sound. A clock? No, each tick was more of a double beat. Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.
It was a heartbeat.
On top of the heartbeat, there was the sound of a bell ringing, followed by some sort of clicking noise, like a lever of some sort being tripped. About a second later, they heard a humming noise, like a small engine being activated.
A shrill cry emerged, electrifying the room. The cry went on and on. It was the sound of something in terrible pain, something in more misery than it could possibly bear. A hideous, chilling shrieking.
“My God,” Loving murmured. “What is that?”
Christina was holding her hands against her face. “Is that … human?”
Jones shook his head. “Sounds more like an animal to me. An animal being tortured.”
The shrill, agonized cry continued to peal out from the television. “But what is it?”
A voice suddenly erupted from the tape. It was a deep, dark voice, speaking unnaturally slowly. “What’s … wrong … with … Kitty?” There was a pause, then bone-chilling laughter. “Kitty … has … a … sick … heart!” There was more laughter, then a sudden crashing noise.
The picture went to black, but the tape wasn’t over. They heard a clock ticking, ticktock, ticktock, and a few seconds after that, the sound of a tremendous explosion.
After the rumble of the explosion had finally faded, the deep voice returned and spoke two more words: “You’re next.”
Ben turned off the VCR. This time his hand was shaking. “I think it’s fair to say that our correspondent has progressed from harassment to intimidation.”
Christina looked stricken. “But who could it be?”
“Who couldn’t it be?” Jones said. “Everyone on God’s green earth has heard about this case.”
Christina’s face did not relax. “Who is he after? Who is he threatening?”
Ben turned slowly. “Do you know if Barrett has a cat?”
“No,” Christina replied. “He doesn’t.”
Ben slowly turned his head. “I do.”
Chapter 30
BEN SPED BACK TO his apartment as fast as his well-worn Honda could get him there. The front left headlight was beginning to dangle out of its socket, and his muffler scraped the pavement every time he hit a bump, but he ignored both. He had called first, but there was no answer, which could mean one of two things—and one of them made his heart stop just to think about it.
He parked his car on the street and bolted at top speed toward Mrs. Marmelstein’s boardinghouse. Just as he hit the front lawn, he saw Joni coming from the opposite direction. To his relief, he saw she was cradling Joey in her arms.
“Thank God,” Ben gasped as he ran up to them. “Where have you been?”
One glance at his face told Joni that he was not inquiring out of idle curiosity. “We went to the mall. Baby Gap. Clothes shopping, remember?”
Ben tried to calm himself down. “How long have you been gone?”
“Pretty much all morning. Why? Should we have stayed home?”
“No. It’s just as well you didn’t.”
“What? Ben, what’s going on?”
“I’m not sure. But I think we may have had company.” He glanced over at the front window to his apartment. “Doesn’t Giselle normally sleep on the windowsill this time of day?”
Joni glanced at the house. “You know, come to think of it, she does. That’s funny, she was there when we—”
There was no point in finishing her sentence, because Ben was already gone. He tore up the front wooden steps, barely missing Mrs. Marmelstein’s garden. He ran up the stairs, forced the key in the lock, and ran inside.
“Giselle!” he cried out, but who was he kidding? She didn’t come when he called even under normal circumstances. More drastic measures were required. He bolted into the kitchen and opened a can of Feline’s Fancy, Giselle’s favorite food. He held the can up in the air, letting the sweet aroma (well, he assumed cats liked it) waft its way through the apartment. Normally, ten seconds would be sufficient to draw her out of the farthest corner of the apartment.
Nothing happened. No cat.
“Giselle!” He set the can down on the floor and began a search. He felt a profound aching in his chest. He had to search, but he was bitterly afraid of what he might find.
“Giselle!” He pushed open his bedroom door and looked all around. Could she be caught in the closet, in a dresser drawer, under the bed? Each possible place turned up empty.
He tried the bathroom. No luck. Then the front living area—under the sofa, inside the end table. Even inside the piano, for God’s sake. But she wasn’t there.
The sick feeling expanded and rose up Ben’s throat. This just wasn’t like Giselle. If she were here, she’d have come to him by now.
If she could.
Joni and Joey came through the front door. “Found her yet?” Joni asked.
“No,” Ben said. “Why don’t you take a look?” But even as he said it, he knew she was no more likely to find Giselle than he had been.
Think, he told himself. Assume that this person did want to hurt him. The point of the videotape was to prolong the pain, to drag out the twisted suspense. And to tell him … what?
Ben tried to recall what he had seen and heard on the tape. That was definitely a cat he had heard shrieking. But what were the other sounds? There was a bell, followed by a clicking, followed by a whirring noise. Some kind of engine running. What was this sicko trying to tell him?
Ben ran it over and over in his mind as his eyes scanned the apartment. Click. Bell. Hum. Click. Bell. Hum.
It hit him the instant his eyes moved to the kitchen.
It was a microwave.
You click the door closed, the bell rings, and the microwave hums into action.
A cat in a microwave? The demented mind behind this was probably just the type who would enjoy seeing a sick urban legend brought to life.
His eyes barely open, barely willing to be open, Ben reentered the kitchen. This time he checked the microwave. It was dark inside, but—something was in there.
Ben closed his eyes and slowly, not wanting to but knowing he had to, opened the microwave door.
There was a large shoebox inside. Closed. Taped shut. Just barely fit.
Not breathing, Ben edged the shoebox out of the tight space. He closed his eyes, said a quick and quiet prayer, and opened the box.
Giselle leaped out of the box, claws extended, and clutched onto Ben’s shoulder. Ben cried out in surprise, not to mention pain. A piece of cloth had been jammed in her tiny mouth and held in place by adhesive tape. Ben carefully cleared the cat’s mouth and a forlorn howl followed.
“Giselle!” Ben reached for her, but she eluded him and bounced down onto the floor.
“Giselle! Are you all right?” Ben held out his arms, but she had already scampered across the floor to the open can of Feline’s Fancy. She lo
wered her nose and attacked the food as if she hadn’t eaten for days.
“Well, you don’t seem to be in any immediate pain.” What a relief. For a moment there, he had been certain …
But he was wrong, thank God. He lowered his head to the table. He could feel his blood circulating again, his heart lurching back into action. Who the hell was behind this, anyway? What sort of game was he playing? As if the Barrett case wasn’t complicated enough already, now he had some psychopath tormenting him. Someone who had managed to find his office, his apartment, and his cat, with no problem.
And if he could get to Ben’s cat, how hard could it be to get to his friends? Or his nephew? Or Ben himself?
And what did the rest of the tape mean? The explosion. And the final words.
You’re next.
Joni rushed into the kitchen, Joey in tow. “You found her!”
“Yeah.”
“Thank goodness.” She sat in the chair opposite him. “You really had me worried there for a moment. What’s with the new jewelry?”
“Jewelry?”
“Yeah. Around her neck. Did you buy her that?”
“I didn’t buy her anything.” Ben rose out of his chair and walked to Giselle. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed it before—but everything had been happening so fast. Giselle had a bright red ribbon tied around her neck in a bow. And dangling from the ribbon beneath her chin was a coin-size gold heart engraved with two words.
SICK HEART.
It took Ben twice as long as normal to get Joey to sleep that night. It was as if the boy could sense how worried Ben was, how ill at ease. Ben tried to conceal it, at least until he could do something about it, but he apparently wasn’t doing a very good job. His mind was racing. Would this stalker continue with the sick pranks, or would he eventually try something serious? Maybe even deadly. Was it safe for them to stay here, and if not, where would they go?
Joey finally closed his eyelids, but only after Ben had run through “Annabel Lee” twice and sung the “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” more times than he cared to count. It was just after ten; he decided to turn on CNN.
“Our top story this evening is our continuing coverage of”—a graphic image formed over the newscaster’s left shoulder—“Horror in the Heartland.” HEARTLAND appeared in large red letters, with what appeared to be blood dripping from them. The picture cut to video of the Utica neighborhood where Wallace Barrett lived. There was a sudden explosive noise—a gunshot—followed by two more in rapid succession. “Can you trust your neighbors? Are you safe? That’s what the citizens of the usually sleepy town of Tulsa, Oklahoma, have been asking themselves in this upper-class neighborhood, since their sense of security was shattered by the hideous murder of a mother and her two tiny, defenseless children. The people of this neighborhood thought they were safe; they thought violence couldn’t find them here. Little did they know that this illusion would be shattered by a hideous melodrama featuring their own mayor in the starring role.”
Ben shut the television off. This he did not need. Obviously, Barrett’s decision to speak to the media had not profoundly influenced the general tenor of the news coverage. He thought about playing the piano, always relaxing, but he was afraid to risk waking the baby. He retrieved his box of childhood treasures from under his bed, but somehow, given his current mood, a Magic 8-Ball and a bag of marbles just wasn’t going to help. He considered reading; it seemed as if there was some book he was halfway through, but he hadn’t read a page since he became embroiled in this case and now he couldn’t remember what it was.
Nights like this, he had to admit, it would be nice to have someone else in your life. Someone to talk to, to relax with, watch a movie or listen to a CD with. Whatever. Truth was, he hadn’t had anyone like that since Ellen, and that had been an increasingly long time ago. And that had ended in tragedy.
Ben picked up the phone and was halfway through dialing Christina before he stopped and pushed the interrupt button. It wouldn’t be right. He monopolized too much of her time as it was during the day; he didn’t have any business invading her nights. She probably had a social life, unlike him. She belonged to clubs and support groups and a church and went to parties and all that stuff.
What do I belong to? Ben asked himself. He didn’t have an answer.
Without even thinking about it, he began dialing her number. Long distance to Oklahoma City. He was afraid she might not still be awake, but in fact, she answered in less than three rings.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Mother?”
“Benjamin?” There was a brief pause. “Is today a holiday?”
“No, Mother. I just thought I’d see how you were doing.”
Her voice could not disguise a certain incomprehension. “You just called … to talk?”
“Is it too late? I hope you weren’t already asleep.”
“You know, Benjamin, when you get to be my age, you don’t sleep as much as you used to. How’s my grandson?”
“He’s fine, really. All in all.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Well, he doesn’t talk much.”
“Some children don’t. Your sister barely spoke until she was three. But once she started, you couldn’t stop her.”
“Maybe it’s genetic.”
“What else would it be?”
Ben stretched out on his sofa. “I don’t know, Mother. I’m doing my best, but I don’t know very much about raising a kid.”
“No one does, Benjamin. It’s all trial and error.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I just don’t want my errors to destroy someone’s life.”
There was another long pause. “Benjamin, is something wrong?”
“Oh, no. Nothing. I’ve just been very busy lately.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You do?”
“How could I not? I see you on television constantly—scowling at reporters and refusing to comment. I can’t go anywhere without running into someone who wants the inside scoop. Majel Howard stopped me at Crescent Market yesterday and I thought I would never get away from her. She wanted to know all about my son, the famous celebrity. Can you imagine? My son, the famous celebrity. Who’d have thought?”
“I’m hardly famous. More like notorious.”
“Nonsense. But Majel kept pressing for information, so eventually I had to pretend that you and I talk occasionally and that consequently I might know something.”
“Mo-ther!”
“Sorry, Benjamin.”
“The trial starts soon.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard. Do you have your trial strategy mapped out?”
Ben hesitated. “Not exactly. We have a theory, but no way to prove it.”
“It must be very stressful. Handling such a high-profile case. Having reporters swarming around you every second.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Well, you’ll think of something, Benjamin. I know you will.”
“I will?”
“Of course you will. We Kincaids aren’t quitters, are we?”
“No. I guess not.”
“Was there something else?”
There was, of course. What he wanted to say, what he really wanted deep deep down to say was “Mommy, I’m scared. Mommy, I think some bully wants to hurt me and I don’t know how to stop him.” But he couldn’t say that. That would never do.
“Benjamin?”
“Yes?”
“You know … sometimes your father would get so busy with his practice and his surgeries and his research that his head would swim. He wouldn’t know what to do next. But he never let it get the best of him. He’d smile, put his arm around me, and say, ‘We’ll get through this. If the creek don’t rise.’ ”
Ben smiled a little. “That’s nice. I wish he had said that to me.”
“Didn’t he?” There was a rustling on her end of the phone. “You know, when I visited you last, I tried to tell you everything I could remember about your fa
ther. But you haven’t mentioned him since then.”
“I’m sure you already know everything I could say.”
“But I don’t. I don’t know anything about when you visited him in the hospital that last time. Or when you saw him in … in … well.”
After all these years, she still couldn’t say it. In jail.
“There really isn’t much to tell, Mother. I barely remember myself.”
Ben couldn’t have been more surprised when his father showed up at his apartment. He had been opposed to Ben’s moving out of the family house. Why would you want to live in some grungy old apartment, he asked, when we have one of the biggest mansions in Nichols Hills not ten miles away? He had refused to visit. But now here he was, on Ben’s doorstep, just hours after Ben learned that his mentor, his father in situ, was trying to prosecute his father in fact on charges of criminal fraud and murder.
“Ben, I need your help.”
“Um, sure, come on in.” He was embarrassed by the condition of his apartment: barely any furniture, clothes and books and records strewn all over the place. He knew his father was a firm believer in the tenet that “you can tell a great deal about a person from the way he lives.”
“It’s not for me. Personally, I think this is all a load of crap. But your mother is quite upset about it, and I know you don’t want that.”
“No, of course not.” Ben pushed some clothes off a chair and motioned for his father to sit. He didn’t. “What’s the problem?”
“Well, don’t you know? You work there, don’t you?” A deep furrow crossed his forehead. “Ben, you haven’t screwed up another job, have you?”
Ben felt his jaw clenching. “No, I’m still at the DA’s office.”
“Then you know they’re trying to railroad me.”
“I found out about the grand jury investigation today.”
“You didn’t know till today?”
“No. They intentionally kept me out of it.”
“Well, hell’s bells. And I thought you were going to be such a big help. I’ve known about it for weeks. I probably know more about it than you do.”
“Probably.” Good, Ben thought. Let his father think he’s a moron. At least he wouldn’t ask him to do anything that…
Naked Justice bk-6 Page 20