“Funny.” Hal gave a fake snicker. “I would think after all the training you’ve given my nephew, he would be an option.”
“Johnny?” Dean smiled. “No. Johnny has the knowledge . . .” Dean pointed to his own temple. “But he doesn’t have the drive. He can be lazy. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“I didn’t hear anything. Well,” Hal exhaled. “Thanks for your trouble.”
“Hal,” Dean called out before Hal walked from the morgue. “I’m curious. You don’t have to answer but do you have an idea on who you think did this if it was murder?”
“Yes.” Hal nodded. “I believe that whoever injected Glen set that bomb.”
“Why would you say that?” Dean asked.
“Think about it, Dean. Kill the suspects and end the investigation. If that doesn’t work then secure a suspect and end the investigation. In my opinion, there is another insider for the Society. Communication with the Society would have to be a must. Communications are down. The way to pull them back up again . . .”
“Find the murderer,” Dean finished the thought.
“Exactly. Right or wrong man, someone goes down. That man there was my only alibi for Bev’s murder.”
“So you don’t believe it was a personal strike against you?”
Hal just looked at Dean for the longest time. “Nah. I just think I was singled out as another means to end it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not worried. I’m not guilty.” Hal grinned.
“It’s a shame, you know . . .” Dean looked to Glen’s body. “That the dead can’t talk.”
Hal gave a ‘sort of’ grin as he paused in opening the door. “Ah, Dr. Hayes, but they do. In their own way, they find some means to tell us their little secrets.” With a wink, Hal walked out.
Thinking, ‘O.K., Hal Slagel’s being a little cryptic’, Dean began to ponder upon the possibility of another insider. With that thought came the remembrance of when he last entertained the idea of another Society member, at Bev’s autopsy. He believed that like a little secret, it was tucked away and buried in the best of hiding places, right within her. He truly felt with the revelation of the baby’s paternity so would come the revelation of an ‘out of the blue’ name. Someone no one thought about. Though the test didn’t breed a Society insider, it certainly bred a surprise and to Dean, it wasn’t pleasant. Like the issue of the baby’s paternity, Dean had forgotten about the results in the confusion of all that happened. But right then and there, with the memory of who was the father, Dean left the morgue, filled with an anger drive.
^^^^
“That’s about it.” Frank said as he stood by Robbie. His hands moved about as he talked. “That’s how it will go down.”
“So there will be a punishment?” Robbie asked.
“Looks that way. What the choices are . . . I haven’t a clue. It’s fuckin stupid. Dad’s typing it up now, We’ll make copies and distribute them. They have to be back in three days.” Frank stepped back, tilted his head, looked, and returned to Robbie again. “Forgive me if I . . .”
“No, I bet you’re doing good.”
“I am. I think. Yeah.” Frank wisped his fingers quickly in an upright movement. “Good. I’m done. Wanna see?”
“Please?”
He lifted a mirror and gave it to Robbie. “What do you think?”
Robbie nodded, impressed. “Good job.” He handed the mirror back then felt the top of his hair. “I couldn’t have done it better.”
“Well, not that I’m the hair master. Could you see it . . . Frank’s House of Fuckin Hair.” Frank laughed. “But you don’t really comb your hair. You just add Hair Hold and pull.”
“True. El had me all combed neat after she . . . bathed me.”
Frank grumbled and pushed the table tray aside, then sat on the edge of the bed. “So that’s how it’s all gonna go down. Unless the person insists they want a trial, they’ll be no trial, only the punishment.”
“So what do you think Elliott will say?” Robbie asked. “Will he do it?”
“Without a doubt. That’s what I think. You know those UWA types. They’re fuckin hero wanna-be’s. But, little brother.” Frank gave a slap to Robbie’s leg. “I better be going. I have so much work to do. Do you need anything?”
“Can you stop and tell Dean I need some more of that pain stuff Ellen was shooting me with all day. I’m uh, starting to hurt.”
“Absolutely.” With a lean, Frank kissed Robbie on the forehead.
Robbie snickered. “Thanks.”
“Hey . . .” Frank pointed as he stepped back. “I love you. You know that.”
“Yeah. I love you too, Frank.”
Frank stopped at the door. “Robbie, I didn’t bring this up, but it’s something to think about when you’re just hanging about. Those Slam Bombs, how secure do you keep them locked up?”
“Come on, Frank. You know the answer to that. Not very. I never thought anyone would get to them.”
“Do you recall anyone in the shack?” Frank asked.
“No. I’m the only one who . . .” Robbie looked up.
“What? Who?”
“John Matoose.”
“Fuck.” Frank turned to storm out.
“Frank,” Robbie called him. “No.”
Skidding to a loud stop, Frank flung his head back and turned around. “What? You’re mistaken?”
“No. He was there, but if you’re thinking John Matoose planted that, you’re wrong.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The Slam Bombs are designed to be placed in something. Maybe a wall, but not anywhere close to the ground. The bomb in the warehouse was on the ground. If it was the intention to kill us all, locked door or not, it wouldn’t have mattered where we were. It would have wiped us out had the bomb been placed correctly. John Matoose knows how to place a Slam Bomb explosive. Whoever did this hasn’t a clue.”
“Thanks.” Frank nodded.
“There is one thing to look at though.”
“What’s that?” Frank asked.
“The timer was set and protected correctly. They may not have known about placing a Slam Bomb, but whoever did this knows about explosives. You’ve just narrowed down the suspect list.”
“Little brother, thank you very much. I’m gonna start that list.” With a wave, Frank darted out. A few seconds later, he stuck his head back in. “Oh, hey Robbie. What was that you needed me to tell Dean?”
“Pain?” Robbie told him.
“Pain. Got it.” Frank left and came back. “Pain?”
“Medication.”
“Oh, yeah,” Frank laughed. “I thought maybe you wanted me to walk up and pinch Dean or something.”
“No, but go ahead if you feel like it.”
“O.K.”
Robbie lay back when Frank finally disappeared. He really didn’t think Frank would, but knowing his brother, it didn’t come as a shock when he heard Dean yelling, ‘ow, Frank, you asshole’ With that, Robbie smiled. Laughter certainly did work, even just a little, as a means of medication.
^^^^
Rubbing his arm from the hard pinch he took only fueled the aggravation Dean was experiencing. Of course there was a little bit of gratefulness to Frank for doing that. Dean was worked up and ready to go but he made the mistake of making sure all was fine at the clinic before he ducked out for a few minutes. Stopping to check on patients calmed him down. It made Dean rethink about what he was planning to do, but as soon as Frank pissed him off, Dean remembered and any debate that came to him about confronting Henry, left. And so did Dean.
With the results in hand and his focus only on getting to the living section, Dean moved at a quick pace as he rehearsed in his mind what he was going to say and how he was going to handle it. There would be no reason to yell or scream. He merely was going to state his peace on how he didn’t appreciate Henry staying silent during all that went down with Bev. Dean ended up being the heavy. Henry could have lifted some
of that by just owning up to the fact that during that time of conception, he was with Bev, but he didn’t. That was where Dean’s adversity lay.
“Dean?” Henry was just a bit surprised when he opened his front door. “Hey. Are you making house calls now?”
“We need to talk.” Dean lifted a folder. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” Henry opened the door wider. “But not too long. I’m tired and I want to get my energy up to go back to work.”
“I see.” Dean stepped inside and closed the door. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“My problem with you.”
Henry opened the folder and peered lost at the document. “This is medical. I don’t know anything about reading test results.”
“Why don’t you tell me what words you recognize on that sheet?”
“I don’t have time for this.” He closed the folder.
Dean flipped it back open. “Tell me.”
With a huff, Henry looked. “Paternity. DNA. Kusakari batch 32.” He shrugged.
“Do you even understand the definitions?”
“Dean, what is your point.”
“My point is,” Dean stated calmly. “A month ago my life fell apart. I screamed my innocence. My wife left me. Everyone believed I was the only one who could have impregnated Bev. And the funny thing is . . .” Dean chuckled. “I wasn’t the one who slept with her. You were.”
Henry closed the folder and handed it back. “Get out.”
“What?” Dean snapped. “No. Don’t tell me you’re getting defensive.”
“What you want me to do, Dean? You’re implying I slept with Bev.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.” Henry argued. “I told everyone I stopped at the last minute.”
“Oh, no doubt. You stopped at the last minute all right. Right after you ejaculated.”
“Fuck you.”
“No.” Dean waved his hand about. “Don’t.”
“What do you have to gain by setting me up like this?”
“Henry, knock it off. I did no such thing. You’re busted. It’s known. DNA tests don’t lie.”
“They did about you.”
Dean growled. “Keep it up. Go on. You’re pissing me off.”
“And you’re pissing me off, Dean! You had no right to run these tests.”
The shock breath was heavy and it slipped from Dean in a form of a laugh. “No right? Henry, there’s a murder investigation going on. It was brought to my attention that maybe the murderer was also the father. Seeing how I wasn’t and Kevin wasn’t, who was? You!” Dean pointed.
“Then that theory is wrong! I didn’t kill Bev.”
“But you slept with her.” Dean kept his focus on a silent Henry. “There is evidence staring you in the face and you still deny it.” Dean laughed. “My God, have some decency Henry. That’s all. Decency. When my life went to hell, when everyone was saying, ‘oh Kevin wasn’t around, it must have been Dean’, all you had to do was pull out a single shred of decency and say, ‘Hey, wait, there’s someone else in the picture. Me.’”
“But the DNA tests showed it was your baby. Why say anything if I did sleep with her.”
Biting his bottom lip with a forced calm, Dean nodded. “If.” He nodded again. “Yeah, keep going, Henry. Don’t you think, aside from this . . .” He lifted the folder. “Don’t you think your behavior is enough? I mean, she was blackmailing you about your relationship with Hector. I doubt very much that even you would get as outraged over that. No. She was holding over your head that you had slept with her and it she would let it out.”
“You’re wrong.” Henry’s words were low and piercing. “And so are your tests.”
Dean gave Henry one more look and it said it all. “I’m not going to argue with you. I know the truth.” Dean headed to the door.
“You know nothing.”
Dean stopped. “I have the fetus, Henry.”
Henry’s head lifted.
“Oh, yeah. I didn’t . . .” Dean shook his head. “I didn’t look at it. I just extracted the uterus, injected a biopsy needle, and took a tissue sample. That was all I needed. But at twenty-one, twenty-two weeks, the fetus is quite small but formed. In the old world, babies that age survived outside the womb. But he has features, guaranteed. If you insist on lying, I’ll remove that baby from the womb in my lab, and trust me, there will be no denying it upon view unless you now want to say Danny Hoi slept with her.”
“Dean,” Henry whispered, “you can’t say anything.”
Dean’s heart dropped upon Henry’s admittance, but somehow it angered him that he had to argue so far to get the truth that was so evident. “Only those who need to know, will know. It’s not my doing if it gets out.” He turned for the door again but hesitated. “I won’t forgive this, Henry. It was a coward’s move to not say anything.”
“I turned around and tried to help you, didn’t I?”
“Oh, sure, but do you know how much help you would have been had you spoken up? You could have placed the simple seed of doubt in my wife’s mind that I so desperately needed, but in the beginning, you sat back and judged me. Did it even cross your mind, when she dropped this bombshell, that maybe, just maybe, you could have been the father?”
“No.” Henry shook his head. “It never did, not even after she died.”
“Why? If you knew the time frame . . .”
“She assured me, before she let the news out, that it wasn’t my baby. It was yours.”
Dean took a long blink. “Before she let the news out? She brought it to your attention, brought up the possibility, before she told anyone, and you still stayed silent?”
“I didn’t think . . .”
“That’s right, Henry, you didn’t think and that makes it worse. It makes you just as guilty as she was for the deception.”
“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a little? Going overboard?” Henry asked. “All I did was protect my reputation.”
“At the stake of mine and at the stake of my family, my wife.” Dean flung open the door. “From this moment on, I have no use for you. I never will again. You could drop off the face of the earth tomorrow and I couldn’t care less.”
“Do you think that’s a huge threat?” Henry said bitterly. “Do you think that matters to me?”
“Not right now, no.” Dean shook his head. “But it will it will.” With his final words, Dean walked out.
^^^^
“Those are the terms we decided on.” Joe handed Frank the sheet. “Two ballots per sheet. I’m posting a message up on the board plus I have people to circulate. Hal’s doing the same.”
Frank read the paper.
“I need you to find time tonight or tomorrow to make me about four hundred copies of that.”
“I thought you said everyone votes,” Frank commented.
“Yes.”
“O.K. Correct me if I’m wrong, but between Beginnings and New Bowman there are more than four hundred people.”
“Your point.”
“You want four hundred copies.”
“Yeah. Your point?”
“Not everyone will get them.”
“Frank,” Joe snapped. “There are two ballots on each sheet. I did it to save paper.”
“Oh, O.K. I just thought you guys were repeating options.”
Joe closed his eyes for a second. “What do you think?”
“About?”
“That?”
“You used a computer. Good job.”
Cringing, Joe tensed up and tried not to lose it. “Not my formatting. The suggestion.”
“They suck.”
“Why do they suck, Frank?”
“Because it sounds so official,” Frank said.
“It’s murder.”
“It was Bev.”
Joe grumbled, “I’m not arguing with you, all right.” He walked to his office door. “Make those copies. I need them so Ellen can take them to New Bowman tomorrow.”
> “Why is she going to New Bowman? To see Hal?”
“What in God’s name would make . . .” Joe paused. He remembered and then he smiled. “As a matter of fact, Frank. Yes. It’s a romantic thing.”
Frank’s eyes widened. “Dad, you aren’t condoning that, are you?”
“Absolutely. He’s your brother. Share.” Joe walked out.
“Fuck that.” Frank looked to the paper. “And fuck this.” He read the words.
Murder in the State of Beginnings will not be condoned. Because of extenuating circumstances, it has been decided that a predetermined punishment will be established for the guilty party. You, as Citizens and peers, are asked to decide this punishment. When the guilty party is delivered by an overabundance of evidence and/or their admission of guilt, the sentence will be handed down without delay.
If the guilty party is determined to have committed the act of murder, with premeditation and malice, the following are the options for punishment:
A) Immediate permanent removal from Beginnings/New Bowman.
B) Removal from Beginnings/New Bowman for a time period of no longer than five years, no shorter than one. No provisions, help, or protection will be granted. An invitation to return is extended following completion of sentence with loss of all status and rank within the communities.
C) Removal from Beginnings/New Bowman for a time period of no shorter than two years with limited government provisions, help, and protection. An invitation to return will be extended after sentence with the loss of all status and rank within the communities.
If the guilty party is determined to have committed the act of murder, without premeditation and malice, the following are the options for punishment:
A) Removal from Beginnings/New Bowman for a time period of no longer than two years, no shorter than one month. No provisions, help, or protection will be granted. An invitation to return is extended following completion of sentence, with loss of all status and rank within the communities.
B) Removal from Beginnings/New Bowman for a time period of no shorter than six months with limited provisions, help, protection. Invitation to return is extended after sentence, with the loss of all status and rank within the communities
The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20 Page 192