Silent Justice

by William Bernhardt

  “Who knows?” Marshall replied. “Colby probably contributed to the judge’s reelection campaign.”

  “I don’t think federal judges are elected,” Foreman Peabody said. “Though I’m not totally sure about that.”

  “Whatever.” Marshall waved a hand in the air. “Colby and the judge are tight. You could see that. And Kincaid wasn’t in the club.”

  “I liked him, though,” Mary Ann said. She looked down shyly. “I believed him. I don’t think he’d lie to us.”

  “You know, I had the same feeling,” Mrs. Cartwright said. “He seemed like a good boy. He reminded me of my sister Clara’s boy, Rudy. He was killed in Vietnam, you know.”

  “Could we just cool it with the jury instructions?” Marshall said. “They’re not getting us anywhere. Let’s take another vote.”

  Foreman Peabody tilted his head to one side. “I don’t have any reason to think this one will come out any differently.”

  “We can but hope,” Marshall said. “Let’s do it.”

  Peabody tore a piece of paper into twelve strips and distributed them around the table. Each of the jurors scribbled down their vote. A moment later, Peabody collected them.

  “No change,” Peabody said grimly. “Eleven votes in favor of awarding damages to the plaintiffs. One against.”

  “I’m tired of this anonymity crap,” Marshall said, banging on the conference table. “We could be here forever at this rate. I’ve got a business to run.”

  Peabody shrugged. “I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “I sure as hell do. I want to know who the holdout is. I want to know now.”

  “Now, Evan,” Peabody started, “we agreed—”

  “I don’t care what we agreed. This has gone on long enough. I want to know who it is.”

  “Evan—”

  “It’s all right.” The quiet, high-pitched voice came from the other end of the table. “I don’t mind. He’s probably right. You deserve to know.”

  The woman straightened, minutely adjusting her dress. “I’m the holdout,” said Carol Johnson, the middle-aged housewife married to the stockbroker. Juror number twelve. “I’m sorry for what happened to those parents, but I just can’t believe those kids got cancer from tap water—no matter what was in it. They didn’t prove it to me. So I’m voting for the defendant. And I’ll never change my mind.”

  On the executive office floor of H. P. Blaylock headquarters, the mood was subdued but undeniably tense. No one in any position of responsibility with the company could be unaware that the jury was still out in the largest class action lawsuit ever lodged against the company. Nor could they be unaware that their CEO, old man Blaylock himself, was taking the lawsuit as an affront to his personal integrity. Since the trial had begun and the accusations had become public, he had been in an uninterrupted foul mood, ranting at employees he didn’t even know, raving with the energy of a man half his age.

  One executive, a junior leaguer named Frank Chadwick, had been reassigned. Currently, his duty was to do nothing more than stay in touch with the courthouse and to report anything—anything at all—to the top brass, starting with Blaylock. Frank had an in with Judge Perry’s clerk, so he was able to get information that would otherwise be off-limits. He reported everything—the expressions on the jurors" faces as they walked into the deliberation room, notes scribbled on scraps of paper found in the trash, offhand remarks overheard in the men’s room. Anything.

  Meanwhile, in Blaylock’s office, a familiar group was assembled—Blaylock himself, trial attorney Charlton Colby, and his young up-and-coming associate Mark Austin. They had met together every day since the jury had begun deliberating. Even on weekends.

  “Still no news?” Blaylock asked, his fingers drumming the desktop.

  “Nothing concrete,” Colby replied. “Nothing worth repeating.”

  “We can’t let this go on,” Blaylock said. “Do you know what this is doing to the stock?”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have any choice,” Colby said. “I have no way of coercing the jury to return faster. Unless you want to settle and pay the plaintiffs everything they want.”

  “I’d sooner choke on a porcupine and die.” Blaylock pushed out of his chair and began pacing. “What a waste of time and energy this has been. Profits are down. Productivity is down. While you legal bloodsuckers play your games, people’s livelihoods are at stake.”

  “Relax,” Colby reassured him. “Those aggrieved parents aren’t going to hurt your company. I won’t let that happen. Judge Perry won’t let that happen. It’s not going to happen. We’ve spun Mr. Kincaid and his friends six different ways to Sunday, haven’t we, Mark?”

  His associate, Mark, had been strangely silent through the majority of the conversation. “We certainly have, sir.”

  “Charlton,” Colby reminded him, not for the first time. “Call me Charlton.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “At any rate,” Colby continued, “no matter what this jury does, we’ve scored one major victory.” He leaned forward and tapped a report bound in a blue folder. “This didn’t get out.”

  Blaylock whipped around. His agitation had increased, rather than diminished. “I’m still worried about that, Charlton. Are you sure—”

  “It’s privileged,” Colby said, his hands raised. “You have nothing to fear. The report was distributed on a strict "need to know" basis. You’ve made it perfectly clear that loose lips sink ships—and careers. And my name is all over it, so it’s protected by the attorney-client privilege.”

  “Still, I worry that some judge might take a different view—”

  “Don’t worry about Judge Perry. He wants to be considered one of the big boys so bad he can taste it. Hell, I can taste it. He’ll never cross Raven, Tucker & Tubb. He’s probably hoping we’ll hire him when he retires and give him a nice fat salary for doing nothing.” Colby leaned back in his chair. “I’ve got him eating out of my hands. Don’t I, Mark?”

  Mark pulled himself up in his chair. “It certainly seemed that way. During the trial, I mean, s—er, Charlton.”

  Colby smiled. “So don’t worry yourself into an early grave, Myron. Take it easy and wait for the jury to return. You won’t be disappointed. That’s a promise.”

  “You’d better be right, Charlton,” Blaylock said, his lips pressed tightly together. “That’s all I can say.”

  “I always am,” Colby said. He leaned over toward Mark and winked. “Isn’t that right?”

  It was Fred. It was really, truly, believe-it-or-not Fred.

  All along, he had considered Fred the least likely suspect—virtually the impossible suspect. But he had been wrong. It had been Fred all along.

  He wiped his hand across his forehead, briefly covering his vivid green eyes. To think of all the time he’d wasted. All the time he’d spent killing Harvey and Margaret and George. Not to mention The Tiger, way back when. He’d exterminated the whole club, except for Fenton. That poor schmuck had exterminated himself.

  It seemed he had underestimated good ol" Fred the Feeb. They all had. That, of course, was what had allowed Fred to get away with it. Much easier, he supposed, to get away with a brazen act of betrayal when no one in their wildest dreams would suspect you.

  He still couldn’t quite make himself believe it, but there was no other possibility, no one else left. Fred had the merchandise.

  And he wanted it.

  And he would get it, too. No matter what it took. No matter how long it took. No matter what torture he was required to exact on Fred’s body. He would do it. He would do it in a heartbeat. He would do it with great pleasure.

  And he would do it to anyone else who got in his way, too.

  Chapter 40

  AS CHRISTINA STEPPED OFF the elevator on her way to work, she was almost flattened by a sofa.

  “Whoa!” she said, ducking out of harm’s way. “Remember your elevator etiquette, boys. Unload first, reload second.”

  One of the wo
rkmen carrying the sofa tipped his hat. “Sorry about that, ma’am. Didn’t see you.”

  “That’s all right. This sort of thing happens, when you’re only five foot one.” She started walking down the hallway, then froze. “Wait a minute.”

  She whirled around. “That looks like the sofa in my office.” She blinked. “That is the sofa in my office!”

  She ran in front of the workmen, blocking their access to the elevators. “What’re you doing? You can’t take my sofa! I love my sofa!”

  The same workman looked at her sheepishly. “Sorry, ma’am. We’ve got orders.”

  “Orders? Orders from whom?”

  “The bank.”

  Christina ran down the hallway and into the office. The place was crawling with workmen, all wearing the same blue coveralls and matching baseball caps. They were taking everything—the desks, the tables, the lamps, the lampshades.

  Jones was standing in the center of the deconstruction, his hand covering his face.

  Christina raced up to him. “Jones! What’s going on here?”

  “What does it look like? They’re hauling off all our stuff. They’ve foreclosed on our loans.”

  “They can’t do that.”

  “They certainly can. They were only supposed to be short-term loans, and they’re way past due.”

  “Didn’t they say they’d ride it out till the end of the trial?”

  “As far as they’re concerned, they did. They didn’t expect jury deliberation to go on forever.”

  “It’s only been a week.”

  “That’s an eternity, in jury time. You know as well as I do that when a jury is out that long, there’s a good chance they’re hung. If that happens, we won’t get a penny. And we won’t be able to pay back our loans—any of them. So the bank decided they’d better get something now while the getting was good.”

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “Like what? The bank filed a valid foreclosure lien with the sheriff. He’s required by state law to seize any assets he can to make good the debt. I tried to talk to the man, but I got nowhere.”

  “There must be something you could do. You’re the office manager.”

  Jones’s face steamed up. “Which is why, if you’ll recall, I advised everyone not to take this case in the first place. But did anyone listen to me? Nooooo.”

  “Don’t say "I told you so," Jones. It’s so unbecoming.”

  “Everyone wanted to do the sweet, kind, heroic thing. Represent the parents no one else will represent.” He gestured toward the men hauling away everything that wasn’t nailed down. “And see what it got us?”

  Christina stepped back, narrowly avoiding four men who were hauling her desk out the door. “Does Ben know?”

  Jones shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Where do you think?”

  Ben sat on a bench in the hallway, staring at the closed door to the jury deliberation room. What were they saying in there? he wondered. He would give almost anything to know. The door was firmly shut, and every time he started to get close to it, the judge’s bailiff gave him a harsh warning glare. He would just have to wait. And he had been waiting for so long now.

  What was this—Day Seven of the courthouse vigil? He had lost count. He knew it was stupid to just sit here waiting, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to know. The first day, he had tried to go back to the office and work on something else, but his mind inevitably drifted back to this case, this trial, his ever-diminishing hopes. It was clear he was not going to get any other work done until this deliberation was over, so he stopped trying.

  On the second day, he’d started bringing a book to the courthouse with him, but now, so many days later, he was barely out of the first chapter. He couldn’t focus. Everything he read reminded him of the trial. Did he do enough? Did he do it right? Did he do honor to the rights and expectations of those bereaved parents? The potential for second-guessing himself, for Monday morning quarterbacking the trial now that it was over, was endless. Did he muster all the evidence possible? Did he show it in the most favorable light? Did he do everything he could? Everything he had promised he would do?

  He heard movement behind the closed door. Someone in the jury room was moving. Barely a moment later, the door opened. One of the male jurors appeared, and Ben could glimpse the others behind him. Was this it? His heart leapt into his throat; his pulse began to race. Was it finally over?

  No. Only the one man left, and he went straight for the men’s room. Just a false alarm. Like so many others he had suffered through these past few days.

  He had been so intent on the juror leaving the room that he didn’t even notice the woman who had sidled onto the bench beside him. “Any news?”

  Ben turned. It was Cecily Elkins. She looked good in the cerulean blue jacket with matching brooch, although her eyes suggested she had not had much sleep of late. “What are you doing here?”

  “I brought lunch.” She lifted her hand, revealing a large bag from Taco Bell. “Hungry?”

  “Not yet. Maybe later.”

  She nodded. “Any change?”

  “Sorry. No.”

  “Won’t they call you at your office? I mean—if something breaks?”

  “Yeah. I just—I don’t know. I want to be here. I want to see the jurors walk in and out of the room every day. I want them to see me.”

  Cecily nodded again. “Mind if I wait with you?”

  “Oh, Cecily—there’s really no need. This isn’t your problem.”

  “Excuse me?” She drew herself up. “I’m the one who started this mess, remember? I’m the one who brought it to you and dropped it in your lap.”

  “I just meant—” He stopped. How selfish he had been—acting as if this was his case, as if he was the only one who cared about the outcome. She was Billy’s mother, not he. She was the one who saw her son die in her arms, as she desperately tried to revive him. She was the one who had devoted years of her life to the boy, only to see that all come to naught, all due to the greed of a corporation that cared more about its bottom line than about people.

  It was her case. It always had been.

  “Actually,” Ben said, “I could do with some company.”

  “Thanks. I should warn you, though—I’m not much for small talk.”

  Ben smiled. “Thank goodness.”

  “How many time are we going to rehash the same damn arguments?” Marshall bellowed. “We’ve been over all this before.”

  “I know that,” Foreman Peabody said, trying to remain cool. “We’ve been over it before and we’ll go over it again until we reach an agreement.”

  The bailiff had brought all the evidence into the deliberation room—which took several trips—and they had pored over it, piece by piece. They had asked the judge for transcripts of the testimony of all the witnesses. They had asked for a magnifying glass, so they could scrutinize the aerial photographs of the dumpsite and ravine. They even asked for a medical encyclopedia, to help them decode some of the expert testimony.

  But they were still unable to reach a consensus. A week later, the vote was still eleven to one. And Mrs. Johnson would not budge.

  “How can you deny what’s right there in front of our faces?” Marshall asked. He had had enough of this case, enough of the deliberation, and most of all, enough of her intransigence. “The Blackwood water killed those kids!”

  “No one can prove that,” Mrs. Johnson said, folding her hands.

  “Who needs proof ? It’s obvious!”

  “Not to me.”

  “What do you think made those kids get cancer?”

  “I don’t know. And nobody else does either, except the Good Lord.”

  “Is that the same Good Lord who gave the kids cancer?” Mary Ann Althorp asked. “Those families have been hurt. They need our help.”

  “If they need help,” Mrs. Johnson rejoined, “we can pass the hat. But I’m not going to give them millions of do
llars of someone else’s money.”

  Marshall threw himself back in his chair. “Isn’t there some way we can get rid of this old bat?” he asked the foreman. “What were those alternates for?”

  “They can’t join the deliberations unless something happens to one of us,” Peabody explained.

  “Maybe I should strangle her,” Marshall said under his breath. “That might speed things along.”

  “I heard that,” Mrs. Johnson proclaimed. “And I am not amused.”

  “There’s no need for unkindness,” Mrs. Cartwright said. “I’m sure we can work through this without sinking to that level.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Marshall grumped. “I think you’re enjoying this. But I’ve got a business to run.”

  “Let me see if I can get us back on track,” Peabody said. In fact, he was as tired of this as everyone else, but as the duly elected foreman, he felt an obligation to try to resolve the dispute. “Let’s focus on the medical testimony. Let’s see what evidence there is that the water caused those kids" cancers. I myself was very persuaded by that fella—what was his name?—Rimland, I think.”

  Mrs. Johnson groaned. “Mr. Colby called him a quack.”

  “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” Marshall rolled his eyes.

  “Let’s look at the published report from Dr. Rimland’s study. I thought those results with the lab rats were kinda interesting.” Peabody had no real confidence that reviewing the report—or anything else—would ever change Mrs. Johnson’s mind. But he had to try something. He was the foreman, damn it. This was his watch. He had a responsibility. It wouldn’t be easy—but he was a farmer. He was used to things not being easy.

  He wasn’t going to throw in the towel yet. Not without putting up one hell of a fight.

  Chapter 41

  WHEN BEN STEPPED OUT of the judge’s chambers, Cecily was so excited she could barely restrain herself. She jumped off the bench that had been their home base for the past two weeks and met him halfway down the corridor.

  “So? What did the judge want?”

  Ben hesitated before answering. “The jury sent a note back.”

  Why was she having to drag this out of him? “Yes? And?”