Heartbalm

by Malachi Stone

  “But your Honor, we have witnesses,” Bobbi protested.

  “I’ve reviewed the State’s pleadings, Bobbi, and read your expert’s report.”

  “They never provided me with a copy of that report, Judge,” I said.

  “Do some discovery next time,” Bobbi replied. “The law doesn’t reward the slothful.”

  “What about the lustful?” I said.

  Judge Mudge indulged me with a hearty laugh. “That’s rich. State’s claiming sexually dangerous person and you want to reward the lustful. I swear, Ricky, you’ll be the death of me!” He reached for a Kleenex and wiped away tears of mirth from his eyes. He huffed and puffed and laughed some more.

  Bobbi and I returned to the courtroom. Each of us took a blank tripartite carbon order and began writing down our Christmas wish lists. I finished first; Bobbi kept scribbling away, with language she no doubt hoped would seal Kevin’s fate forever and imprison him in Big Muddy for the rest of his natural life.

  “You about done?” I said.

  “What’s your hurry? He gave us twenty minutes.”

  “I’ve got somewhere to be.”

  “We’re set for a four-hour hearing and you’ve got somewhere to be? Here.” She handed me her proposed order granting her petition in full.

  “You care if I take them back to him?” I asked.

  “Please. I’ve already had about all the laughs I can take for one morning.”

  The door to Judge Mudge’s chambers was almost completely closed. His clerk and reporter had deserted their posts and were probably at the fifth floor cafeteria enjoying mid-morning snacks. Both women from long experience could read the nonverbal cues: there would be no hearing and no courtroom work today. I listened at the door. No sound of conversation, or snoring. I tapped at the door, pushed it open and slipped in.

  Judge Mudge’s head lolled at an uncomfortable angle, but from the open-eyed expression on his face he was beyond discomfort. Ever the public servant, he had finally outdone himself and saved the taxpayers the expense of a retirement pension. His discolored tongue extended as though he were about to blow a raspberry. It smelled like a substandard nursing home in chambers; Judge Mudge had made in his pants.

  I pushed the door shut until the latch clicked, set the lock and lifted the phone off the hook. Taking Judge Mudge’s pen in hand I practiced on a sheet of scrap paper until I could approximate his scrawled illegible signature. I signed Judge Mudge’s name to my proposed order and drew a single diagonal line through Bobbi’s. Placing the pen in Judge Mudge’s stiffening hand, I rested his dead wrist over my newly-forged order like a macabre paperweight.

  Bobbi had left the courtroom, no doubt attending to more pressing matters. I smiled pleasantly and nodded to the state psychiatrist before sitting down across from my client. I leaned back in my chair, folded my hands over my stomach, counted the ceiling tiles and waited. Twenty-five minutes passed on the courtroom wall clock before I heard the screams.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - STILL LIFE WITH CORPSE

  Spoilsport that she was, Bobbi insisted on taking it up with the chief judge locum tenens. Judges, ever-conscious of their respective rank and of the evanescence of power, prepared for such things as the sudden death of one of their number and the consequent succession of authority. The chief judge locum tenens, reluctant to countermand a facially valid court order entered by a sitting judge, let alone a well-liked, politically well-placed, newly-deceased chief judge, sided with me and even file-stamped the forged order himself. Kevin was as good as checked in at Happy Meadows.

  My work here was done. I tooled out of the parking garage in Heart’s car and raced my demons back to Giant City Pines State Park. The demons, given the advantage of pole position, finished first. Heart met me at the door. We embraced wordlessly, fairly writhing with desire for one another.

  “Come inside; there’s something I have to tell you.”

  I told her about the raccoon roundworm infection and showed her my medicine. “You need to see a doctor right away, Heart.”

  “But I feel fine.”

  “No, Dr. Nancy says they have to catch it early.”

  “I’ll just take some of yours.”

  “There isn’t enough for both of us.”

  “Then call up for a refill. You’re making this too complicated.”

  “I have to go to my doctor in Belleville every day for cortisone injections or the encephalitis might come back.”

  “Then we’ll stay at my place. Snug’s no threat. He’s dead as a doornail.” She shrugged indifferently.

  “We’re liable to get hassled there over our choice in roommates. We’re better off staying here, at least for another week or so. We can commute back and forth to the office in your car. You like it here okay, don’t you, Toots?”

  “Who’s complaining? I’ll start dinner.”

  Remembering the raccoon feces I asked her, “What do you say we eat carry-out tonight for a change?”

  “Suits me, Johnny.”

  I walked the quarter mile gravel path to the manager’s office and paid cash for another week in advance. On the way back I noticed for the first time that Snug’s motorcycle was missing. I asked Heart about it.

  “That guy Rodney finally came back and got it,” she explained. “I told him he sure took his sweet time about it. The last thing this gal needs is any junk mementos around to remind her of Snug. From here on out it’s gonna be just you and me, Johnny, together forever. Nobody’s gonna stand in our way.”

  For the next several days Heart and I lived in the rented cabin indolent as pigs. It’s a guilty pleasure to throw things down wherever you happen to be, drape clothes rather than hang them up, not do laundry or dishes until you run out, not clean the floor unless you cut your feet walking. And of course there were other benefits.

  Then one day while I sat loafing at my desk Diane called the office. I saw my former home number on the caller ID, but Heart answered before I could grab the receiver. With Heart on the line I didn’t have the guts to pick up. After a few tense seconds I heard Heart say, “Two can play that game.” A moment later she hung up the phone.

  The next call was Bobbi Peterson. “I just want you to know I intend to have a state police handwriting expert go over that bogus signature of yours. If it comes back fake, as we both know it will, you can kiss your license goodbye.”

  “Still mad?”

  “You think you’re doing your pervert a favor playing games like this? Look at your boy’s history. No way can he make it at Happy Meadows. Once he fucks up, and he will soon enough, it’ll be back to court for round two in front of another judge, a live one this time. Ever hear the expression ‘it ain’t over ‘til it’s over?’”

  “Bobbi, it’s out of my hands. But to show you there’s no hard feelings, I have a tip for you.”

  “What? Don’t play the horses?”

  “Hold on a sec.” I walked over and pulled the door to my office closed. “Remember the Russell R. Russell case that made the local papers a year or so ago?”

  “The junior college film instructor? He and his wife both got sent up for kiddie porn out of Hamilton County.”

  “Actually it was Mitchell County, but the tip is, there’s a St. Clair County connection. That’s where you come in. You can thank me later.”

  “Don’t tell me; let me guess: Russell’s mother-in-law and his wife’s uncle were the ones running the show.”

  “You’ve heard it. So if you already know—”

  “I didn’t just climb down off a turnip truck, Ricky. As soon as Russell tried to implicate them we went to work, executed search warrants on both residences, Ruth’s and Boaz’s. We came up dry. Computers, everything squeaky clean. ”

  “What about arrest records?”

  “I’m way ahead of you. Neither of them had so much as a parking ticket. Russell was desperate for a deal, that’s all it was. You know how it is with a drowning man: he’ll flail around and grasp for dear life at anything or anyon
e within reach, take them down with him.” She paused, then said, “Don’t tell me you represent him too.”

  “Not him. Her. Or at least I did.”

  “The wife? I always thought she got a raw deal, but it’s her own fault in a way. She never would turn state’s evidence and finger Russell. We always figured there were other players, but unfortunately there’s this tiny nuisance called burden of proof.”

  “What if I got the wife to roll on the higher-ups?”

  “And just how do you propose to do that?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “That’s what kills me about you defense attorneys.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You think you’re irresistible to women clients.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

  “Penny for your thoughts.” Heart stood in my doorway wearing a petulant expression. Had she been listening in?

  “Trying to smooth things over with the state’s attorney after that Kevin thing. Unsuccessfully as it turns out.”

  “I don’t mind about my uncle, but do you think handing over my mother to them is a good idea? Isn’t she your client?”

  “Technically Beattie is my client, until I formally withdraw, that is. And who said anything about handing over your mother?”

  “I’m not saying it’s a bad plan,” Heart said. “I’m just asking, is all.”

  “That’s how you learn. Asking questions. Since we’re asking, what did Diane have to say on the phone just now? And why did you tell her, ‘two can play that game?’”

  “Now who’s eavesdropping?”

  “I never accused you of that. But it is my office. And my wife.”

  “You’ve sure got funny ways of treating her, Johnny.”

  “You oughta know, Toots. So what did she say?”

  “She wants you to call her. Sounded hot under the collar to me. Us dames don’t like being two-timed.” Heart bounded across the room and landed in my lap, draped her arms around my neck and kissed me hard. It was a kiss like in the movies. I kept waiting for somebody to yell Cut!

  “Don’t call her back, okay, Johnny? Not just yet. Let’s enjoy ourselves while we can. Now that Snug’s out of the way, we’re halfway home.” She began tensing and relaxing in an undulating lap-dance motion, waving her arms like a harem girl.

  “You talked me into it.”

  Life for the next several days was a merry round of office hanky-panky mixed with just enough dictation and telephone work to call it a law practice. Bright and early every morning I would dutifully appear at Dr. Nancy’s office for my daily cortisone shot. The thing they never tell you about cortisone, it gives you the energy of a young stallion. Heart was amazed. Then Saturday rolled around and with it, concupiscent thoughts of Ruth Holstein crept unbidden into my psyche. Blame it on the cortisone; I did.

  Convincing Heart to remain at the cabin while I took her car in to work on a Saturday and to see the doctor proved less difficult than I had imagined. Wired with preternatural vigor, I called ahead to Ruth from the road. She told me she would await my visit with eager anticipation—her words. I made it to the Belleville city limits by nine-thirty AM and to Ruth’s doorstep by nine-forty, stopping by the office only long enough to forward the business calls to my Blackberry. The grandkids were nowhere in sight, probably out exploring the wonders of nature with Pastor Bobo the Christian clown. By nine forty-three I was in Ruth.

  “Monster!” she gasped in the throes of orgasm. “Fiend! How dare you last so long, so huge and so hard?”

  “The better to probe you with, my dear.”

  “You’ve consumed me,” she sighed afterwards. “Utterly shamed me; poked and prodded into the depths of my impassioned soul, ploughed up my most shameful secret lusts and exposed them to your full view.”

  “In other words, you liked it?”

  “Liked it? Darling man, I loved it! And I must have more! More, more, more!”

  “First I have to go get a shot.”

  “I have ten-year-old bourbon on the sideboard.”

  “No, I mean a shot from my doctor.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “Not at all; it’s only a precaution. Keep my side of the bed warm; I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”

  “Satyr.”

  “Siren.”

  “Priapus.”

  “I’d love to stay here and trade mythological references with you, Ruth, but I can’t keep the doctor waiting.”

  “Don’t keep me waiting, my Adonis.”

  It’s always nice to be appreciated by the fair sex, however mature and grotesque. Dr. Nancy’s nurse gave me the injection after a brief wait. I hurried back to Ruth’s place on cloven hooves before the adventitious side-effects of the drug wore off.

  The front door was still unlocked when I returned. Thinking I’d surprise Ruth by suddenly appearing and bounding into bed naked, I started to undress as I moved toward the bedroom, dropping articles of clothing along the way like a trail as I went. I sprang into the bedroom naked and ready for action. All that was missing was Ruth. Playfully calling out her name, I ranged throughout the house, ending at the door to the solarium, where I sensed a familiar smell.

  Essence of cap pistol and butcher shop. Behind me a familiar male voice remarked, “Fuckin’ A.”

  Lieutenant Grimm, alone this time. I spun around and tried covering my privates with spread hands. Grimm said, “Not a bad likeness.”

  I turned to view Ruth’s half-completed nude portrait of me as Michelangelo’s David displayed on an easel in the solarium. Spreadeagled at the foot of the easel Ruth’s body lay. She had been shot once at close range in each nipple, giving her breasts the appearance of twin exploded eggplants. The coup de grace had been the shot that blew her lips wide and distended her cheeks like a Valkyrie catching the wind’s fury in her open mouth.

  “They say the value of a painting goes way up once the artist crappies off,” Grimm mused. “Looks like somebody couldn’t wait. You an art lover, Ricky?”

  “I know how this looks, Grimm, but I can prove where I’ve been for the past thirty minutes. I was at my doctor’s getting a shot.”

  “A rabies shot? You may have thought you’d slithered away from those first two murders, but now three? Same MO, and from the looks of it, same weapon. Where’d you ditch the pistol this time, Slick?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about you telling me in a statement how you hadn’t fired a weapon, and then come to find out the GSR on your jacket and shirt sleeves comes back dirty. Care to explain?”

  “The murders of Tyranno and Drey? I told you, I have an airtight alibi. I was nowhere near Cahokia at the time of death. Or deaths.”

  “That’s the thing about estimating times of death. All’s they are is estimates. Loosey-goosey wild-ass guessing. Medical examiner can’t narrow it down any closer than eight hours or so. Same as this here. I’m betting the ME can’t call this one any closer than the time the neighbor lady says she saw you pull up to the house, ease on in and commence to fucking the unfortunate victim. And nobody heard any shots to narrow the time down.”

  “I’m being framed, Grimm. Someone’s trying to pin this on me.” I thought of something. “How’d you get here so fast?”

  “I live close by. So what?”

  “How did you know there was a homicide?”

  “You think you can pass me off as the killer? Nice try, Ricky. I know you defense shysters have devious minds, but you take the prize. Anonymous tipster called it in. Nine one one operator checked the address, alerted the police and here I am.”

  “Was the tipster male or female?”

  “How the hell should I know? The public-spirited citizen in question elected to remain silent. All the operator heard in the background was a few screams followed by what sounded like muffled gunshots.”

  “A sound like dank?”

  “I’m beginning to think you do have rabies after all.”

  Grimm let m
e get dressed and took me downtown where they booked me, fingerprints, mug shot, the whole works. When they had finished they locked me in the holding cell again. This time I had company.

  “Rodney!”

  “Ricky! You’re my lawyer. What’s a guy like you doin’ in jail?” Rodney Wisniewski looked around furtively, bent toward me and whispered in my ear behind his cupped hand, “I ain’t told ‘em jack shit.”

  “Shut up in there!” a uniformed officer yelled.

  We waited until the officer took a call at the desk, then Rodney muttered under his breath, “They’re snooping around trying to find You Know Who. Picked me up on some chickenshit warrants, violation of an order of protection and that. I tried telling them my ol’ lady’s long gone, but you know how it is once they get on your case.”

  “I wish I could help you, Rodney, but as you can see—”

  “They know it’s all bullshit. You Know Who’s the one they’re really after. I ain’t told ‘em dick and I ain’t fixin’ to tell ‘em dick. You wanna help yourself, you better do the same.”

  “Did you eliminate his mode of transportation?” I whispered, staring at the floor.

  “Say what?”

  “You Know Who’s mode of transportation.” I pantomimed hanging onto handlebars, twisting my wrists. “Did you get rid of it? Heart said you came by and took off on it a few days ago.”

  “I ain’t come by and took off on shit. They’ve had me in here more’n a week. That item in question’s missing, it musta started up and drove off under its own power.”

  “But Heart said—”

  “Hey, man, what’d I tell you about that bitch?”

  I called out to the officer. “I want to see Lieutenant Grimm.”

  “Suppose he don’t want to see you?”

  “He will once he hears what I have to tell him.”

  Grimm took me handcuffed into an interrogation room. I said, “I know you don’t really believe I killed anybody, Lieutenant.”

  “Is that a fact? I don’t suppose you can shed any light on who did. We kind of like to get a handle on that sort of thing before we go springing anybody from custody.”