A Ghost of Justice

by Jon Blackwood

  "He's okay," he said. "But we need help out here."

  Eric heard John. Dropping the inert man only half out of the water and sitting down to drape a protective arm on Emily, Eric said breathlessly, "Right. Get right on it." He raised his wrist and got his PDM up. To John, he said, "Can you get the car over here?"

  "Yes, sir," he answered with greater energy than he felt. But a little adrenaline lit through him and he found enough strength to go to the Volvo, start it and pull it up carefully next to Emily Sheafer. Another minute of effort by Eric and John and she was slumped in the front passenger seat, heater on full, thawing her out.

  John started to get out and see if Eric needed help. When he had one foot out, she stopped him with an icy, shivering hand on his arm. "H-How…d-did you and D-Dad…find us?" she managed to blurt out between gasps for breath.

  John looked out at the two figures on the bank. He smiled. "Your father figured it out." Aiming his mouth down for her to hear him, he looked over the car's roof at Eric Sheafer. "Did you know he's a very smart man?"

  She leaned her head back, teeth chattering loudly. "Yeah," Emily said in a shaky voice.

  65

  Emily settled as comfortably as she could on the sofa, looking at the two bottles she held. 'Orabumex' and 'A-CoAg' they said. The first a pain med, the other saying, 'One tablet daily to prevent blood clots.' She sneered at that one and checked the time on her PDM to see when she could take another pain pill.

  A shadow fell on the floor. She looked up and saw John Hardy at the door. She smiled weakly at him. It still hurt like fire to do much with her face. Or her left arm. Or to breath too deeply. Or to move.

  He sneezed, sniffed mightily and said, "I thought I'd see if you needed anything."

  Emily started to shake her head but remembered that it would hurt like hell and she had two more hours to go before the next dose. "No. Thank you."

  "Okay. Just call if you do." He turned to leave.

  "Wait," she said quickly. "Maybe a little company?"

  "Sure," he mumbled. Coming all the way into the room, he held a finger up and veered from her to the chair across the room. "Stupid cold's back. You don't need it."

  "Thanks," she said. After he settled into the chair, she said, "Another thing you can do for me is if you could accept an apology."

  He hastily covered his face with a tissue and sneezed again before he could answer. "What apology?" he said after blowing his nose.

  "Mine."

  "What for?"

  Emily winced and tenderly rubbed her side. The doctor had assured her nothing was broken; just a mass of bruises. She didn't believe her. "John," she said after getting in a slow, careful breath. "I, ah, behaved badly toward you, and that's putting it very mildly. In fact, I acted horribly."

  "Can't hold that against you. Remember what I said to you upstairs? I would have convicted me based on the trial. The only difference is that I knew I didn't do it. You didn't know until…well, until it almost got you killed." He shuddered. "That's one death I really would have felt responsible for."

  Emily smiled again, ignoring the soreness in her face.

  Eric came into the room. Taking in the scene, he said, "I'm glad to see you two are able to get along."

  They both looked up at him. "How'd it go," Emily asked.

  "About what you'd expect. Phil says Ed wants to confess. For Joan Devereaux's murder, too. He can avoid a capital sentence if he does."

  She nodded. Yep, just like him to take the easiest way out. "Did Phil say anything else?"

  Eric nodded. "Until the court starts reviewing the new evidence, you're still a vigilante fugitive," he said to John with a shrug. Sitting on the couch next to Emily, he went on. "The good news is Phil doesn't think it will take long. Emily's testimony and discoveries will make short work of it, not to mention Ed trying to kill her and you fighting him to save her." Eric reached over and massaged her shoulder. "And the blood DNA on the edelweiss was a total match for Kelly's. There's also some fabric ash residue in Ed's patio grill. Maybe some of his clothing." He looked at John again for a moment. "I think it would be safest if you stayed here until the media has declared you innocent and no longer a fugitive. I hope you'll agree."

  John blew his nose and shrugged. "That's kind of you to offer. I should say it's very good of you."

  Eric shrugged. "I feel responsible. Nothing you did led to this mess. You're a victim of it as well. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. No. this was all done by my own family."

  "But you lost your son and daughter-in-law."

  Eric nodded. "And I miss them terribly. But you damn near lost your life. I'm ashamed to admit that I came closer than you or Em realize." He paused a moment. Then he added with sincerity, "You also saved Em's life."

  "Some savior I was. Ed was gonna kill me, too."

  Eric slowly but emphatically shook his head. "I didn't see them. You did. And you got Ed off of her enough for her to catch her breath. I owe my daughter's life to you."

  The conversation drifted into silence.

  Emily had wondered what made Ed let her up those last times. Now she knew. It was John pulling him off and coming back to do it again after Ed threw him off. She felt too awkward to thank him right now, but thank him she would. There would be time.

  Her gaze wandered to the framed calligraphy of Howard Carter's quote in the corner, her mother's work so many years ago. Automatically she started in the middle of the passage: In fact, the archeologist is so enamored of life that he would raise all the dead from their graves. She skipped down to the last: He is such an enemy of Death and Decay that he would rob them of their harvest; and for every life that the foe has claimed he would raise up, if he could, a memory that would continue to live.

  Turning to look back at her father, she thought about how he beat her homicidal cousin into surrender. She amended the quote, adding: and fight Death whenever able.

  And keep from aiding, the foe, she amended in her mind, looking back at her father.

  John broke the silence. "Did Mr. Lindley say what was going to happen to Ed?"

  "Yeah. The most likely thing is that he'll probably get life. It appears that he didn't commit a high enough level of first degree murder in either case. He panicked when he thought his life style was in jeopardy and he owes much money to some not so nice people. Both times it was because his conspiracy was going to be exposed. Em and I can tell you from our own experiences that Ed couldn't handle certain pressures very well. It was fine if it was in a game he played well, and he could really play sales. But if the conditions or the game changed on him, then he wasn't flexible enough to handle it. Phil said he was going to arrange with the prosecutor for a psych eval, but he already thinks Ed could be a narcissistic psychopath." Eric leaned back on the couch, gazing unfocused into the middle of the room. "Bob and I have both lost a son." He reached down and gave Emily's hand a gentle squeeze. "At least I didn't lose you." Eric took a deep breath, made a little throat-clearing sound. "There's another thing."

  John and Emily looked at him expectantly.

  "I, ah, called Callie Vance - you don’t know her, John. I'll explain more later. She asked me if I would testify if she could convince the judiciary committee of either the Senate or House, or both, to hold a hearing on the Vigilante Act. I think all three of us should."

  Quickly Emily said, "I will."

  John could only shrug. "I'm still trying to get used to the idea you're not going to kill me." He lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

  Emily said to him, "What will you do after you can move around freely again?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know right now. I can't go back to the way I was," he said, shaking his head. "Not after this. I came through it for some reason. Maybe I'll go back to school. Anyway, looks like I've got some time to think it over."

  "Anything I can do to help, just let me know. There's no time limit on this offer," Eric said.

  Suddenly the notion of feeling 'too awkward' seemed silly.
"Same here," Emily said. "I owe you my life. I can't thank you enough for that."

  John shook his head. "You'd've made it out of that lake."

  She also shook her head, but slowly and just once. "Maybe. Maybe not." She remembered the brutal cold of the water, how weak she was getting, how much she had hurt. And how she was no longer able to fight, even with the tire iron. "No. I was giving out. He would have drowned me."

  John looked at her steadily with what seemed an expression of affection.

  She felt her smile broaden in return. Damn the pain, she thought, and held it.

  He blinked and broke contact with the slightest of blushing. He appeared to think of something. He looked to her father. "Dr. Sheafer? Could I use the house Data Manager? I need to call someone."

  Not hesitating, Eric Sheafer said, "Sure. Use the access in my office."

  "It's, um, long distance."

  "I thought it might be."

  John stood and went out into the hall.

  Watching him go, Emily asked, "Calling his father, you think?"

  Eric nodded.

  "He really did save my life, no matter what he says."

  Again her father nodded. "If he hadn't seen you and Ed in the lake, we'd have just driven all the way to Bob's house. Then we'd…"

  Emily watched her father's face work at maintaining composure. She felt a powerful urge to protect him. "You know, its still you that's responsible. I'd've killed him. Then he wouldn't have been there to stop Ed from drowning me."

  Emily's father looked down at the floor, then up at her. "I owe that young man a hell of a lot that I can never repay."

  John walked down the hall to the study, thinking about the young woman who credited, along with her father, him with saving her life. Her face was bruised and swollen on the right side, along with a goose-egg at her left temple. Her lip was also swollen and split, and she had a gash on her forehead. Even so, he thought she was quite beautiful, now, with all that hate gone when she looked at him. Maybe some good came out of this tragedy. He felt he had gained the friendship of these two remarkable people.

  Nearing the study with its DM, he felt his breath quicken in anticipation. The clock on the wall said eleven a.m.

  Another sneeze struck him and he blew his nose into a fresh tissue to try to clear it. Would the snot ever let up?

  He just might be there, John thought as he went into Eric Sheafer's office. He sat, hands shaking as he touched the activation button with a knuckle, not wanting to contaminate it. Fingers flailed through the holographic image as he tried to type in the numbers. It took him four tries to get it right.

  Please be there, he pleaded silently as the system sought the distant connection.

  Then it was ringing.

  It stopped and a familiar image appeared, looking lost, eyes downcast at his desktop as the hologram materialized. The equally familiar voice said, "Yes?" without looking up.

  John sighed with relief. "Dad? It's me."

  THE END

  Jon Blackwood works in the medical profession by day and in animal rescue by night.

  He lives with his wife and assorted felines in the piedmont of North Carolina.

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  Jon Blackwood