Dangerous

by Lee Magner

  Logan lifted a shoulder and cocked his head to one side.

  “Well, it’s understandable that he doesn’t want to run up here to Illinois,” he said cautiously. “We Reillys treated him about as badly as it’s possible to treat a man when he fell in love with your mother and married her against the family’s wishes.”

  “Hell, that was over thirty years ago.” Case snorted. “And the man has no other place to go!”

  “He thinks otherwise, apparently,” Logan observed.

  “Crawfordsville? He’s going back to Crawfordsville?” Case exclaimed, his voice rising in heat and disbelief. He hit the letter with the back of his left hand. “What in hell is he thinking of, Logan? He was convicted of murder there fifteen years ago. Does he think those people want him around? Is fifteen years long enough for them to forget? I don’t understand his thinking at all. He could come here and be lost in Chicago. No one would pay any attention to him. I could see to it he got into some kind of home. But no, he goes back to Crawfordsville while they try to get him some public money to live on. Disability payments or something. Well, hell. He’s disabled, all right. He pickled his heart and liver in alcohol twenty years ago. It’s a miracle they’re still functioning.”

  Logan didn’t say anything. He listened, grim faced.

  Case sensed that Logan was withholding criticism. He glared at him.

  “I’ve gone to that damn prison every Christmas for the past fifteen years to see my old man. He knows he could come here and I’d at least see to it that he had a roof over his worthless head.”

  Logan’s eyebrows rose. “I’m sure he appreciates the thought.”

  Case’s cheeks reddened with anger. Yeah, well, why should he feel any enthusiasm for caring for the old drunk after all he’d done to make Case’s life a walk through misery?

  “What do you want from me, Logan? You want me to love that old man? Want me to forget how he was convicted of murdering a young girl fifteen years ago? A high school girl that I’d gone steady with, for pity’s sake?” Case’s jaw hardened. When he unclenched his teeth, he added, “I’ve done ray duty to him. I’ve gone back every year. I’ve asked him if he needed anything. I’ve answered his questions about my life. But don’t ask me to understand how a man could get so blind drunk that he could murder a girl and not remember it. Don’t ask me to love a man who ruined my life with his drunkenness and his shiftlessness…” Case’s voice cracked and he stopped talking. He lowered his head. The room seemed silvery bright for a moment. It was the light filtering through the tears that had unaccountably filled his eyes.

  Logan quietly crossed the room and laid a comforting hand on Case’s shoulder.

  “We can’t choose who our family are. And, sometimes, we can’t choose who we love.”

  Case swallowed hard. He was tired. And suddenly he felt older than he’d felt in years.

  “Why don’t you take a couple weeks off and go down there. He’s staying with…” Logan looked over Case’s shoulder and read the line in the letter again to refresh his memory. “Luther Fitch—isn’t that the old guy you two lived with when you first went to Crawfordsville seventeen years ago?”

  “Yeah. He’s a strange old bird, but one of the few people on this earth you can trust with everything you have.”

  Logan nodded. In his book, Case was like that. He hoped someday Case realized it. He patted Case’s shoulder and walked around to sit down at his desk again.

  “Look, take today to see what loose ends there are from that Moscow business. Leave a list of things for me to finish up for you on that score. Then go to Ohio and see your old man. Take ’ as much time as you need.” Logan looked at his pen and remembered the times in his own past when the chance to say goodbye to someone he loved had been lost. “It’s important. These chances only come around once, Case.”

  Case looked at Logan and saw the grim expression in the man’s face. Logan had his own ghosts to wrestle.

  “Yeah. I guess you’re right,” Case agreed with a long, deep sigh. He stood and headed toward the door.

  “I’ll get back to you this afternoon, Logan.”

  “Fine. And, Case?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Welcome home.” Logan smiled at him.

  Case nodded and swallowed the cold, hard lump in his throat. Home. He always wondered what it would have been like to have one of those. He’d almost known back in Crawfordsville. Before Lexie Clayton’s murder had ended everything in the most brutal, scandal-laden way possible. Logan was all the family that Case had, really. This place was as close to home as he was ever likely to get, he figured. That was more than some folks got in life.

  Grimly, he left Logan’s office and headed toward his own.

  If he was lucky, he could fly down to Cincinnati, rent a car and drive over to Crawfordsville by tomorrow night.

  “I hope you still have a spare corner for me somewhere in that firetrap you call a house, Luther,” Case muttered. Compared to some of the places he’d slept, that would be high-class accommodations.

  Case grinned, a little bitterly.

  He wondered what Clare Browne looked like, now that she was all grown up. He decided he’d probably never recognize her. Well, he wouldn’t be there long enough to find out, anyway. Best he didn’t drop by her house. Maybe she didn’t even live there anymore.

  No. He wouldn’t have time to succumb to that temptation.

  If he was lucky.

  “Seamus? Seamus, are you ready to go?”

  Seamus Malloy sat on his neatly made bed in the corner of the cell that had been his home for fifteen long, barren years. He heard the chaplain calling his name, but did not reply.

  The cell door was open. A guard stood next to it, waiting to escort Seamus out of the prison. Chaplain Everhard Douderbeck stepped into the cell. The smile that wreathed his face quickly faded into a look of anxious concern. He laid a hand on Seamus’s frail shoulder and bent low to speak quietly, so only Seamus could hear.

  “What’s the matter, Seamus? Are you afraid to leave, after all these years of being here?”

  Seamus stared blindly into space. He shook his head, but did not reply.

  “C’mon, Malloy,” the guard said with a touch of exasperation. “I got other things to do besides stand here waiting for you to up and leave. Hey, if you don’t want to go, I know a few hundred other guys in here who’ll be happy to leave for you.”

  “Shh,” the chaplain said, frowning severely at the guard. “He’ll leave. It’s not easy. This has been Seamus’s home, after all. As much a home as he’s had, anyway. Isn’t that right, Seamus?”

  Seamus blinked and tried to focus his eyes so he could make out the chaplain’s face. It was hovering pretty close, though, and it seemed awful blurry. Seamus cursed his failing eyesight, but not too energetically. He hadn’t had the energy for much of anything for most of the past year. Well, maybe that was a good thing. When he was younger and had lots of energy, he’d put it to bad use, Lord knew.

  Seamus cleared his throat and got unsteadily to his feet. He reached down and picked up his small suitcase. It had been purchased with the money he’d made last year working in the prison library. His toothbrush, underwear, a rosary and his diary and pencil were in it. It didn’t weigh much at all, so he was a little surprised when Chaplain Douderbeck insisted on carrying it for him.

  “I just wish you’d found the wheelchair,” the chaplain said, clucking and shaking his head in discontent as the three of them walked down the long, barren hall. Rows of cells, most with men in them, were the only decor.

  “I looked for it, but I can’t be responsible for everything in this place. B’sides, I thought the doc told him walking was good for him,” the guard said defensively.

  “It’s a long way from Seamus’s cell to the car that’s waiting for him out in front of the building,” the chaplain said diplomatically. “I’d just hoped to make it an easy trip for him.”

  Seamus’s weathered face creased into something r
eminiscent of a leprechaun’s smile.

  “It’s easy enough, Chaplain. Don’t fret. I’ll not drop dead at your feet, man.” He reached out and squeezed the chaplain’s arm with his bony hand. “The Lord didn’t bring me this close to have me fall down on me face in this hellhole.”

  The guard snorted and gave Seamus a look of mild contempt.

  “Well, now you’ve got yer tongue back, y’sound like your peppery old self, old man.”

  Seamus nodded, eyes gleaming as he took the measure of the guard.

  “Ay. Freedom does that to a man.”

  “Well, maybe this time you’ll treat that freedom with a little more care,” the guard said, puffing up his chest and getting rather self-righteous.

  The chaplain frowned.

  Seamus looked ahead down the hall toward the door that would lead into the discharge area. A faraway look came into his watery old eyes.

  “I always did treasure freedom,” Seamus murmured. “It’s the greatest gift we have, next to life itself.”

  The guard looked Seamus up and down, saw a prisoner convicted of murder and snorted his, opinion of Seamus’s highminded comment.

  “Well, good luck to you, Malloy,” the guard said gruffly. “You never caused me no trouble,” he added. It was a backhanded goodbye compliment of sorts.

  Seamus nodded.

  “And you were never a mean or cruel man to me, for which I thank you,” Seamus acknowledged.

  The chaplain looked from one to the other as if they were both crazy. The guard ushered them into the discharge processing area. When Seamus had finished all that he needed to, the chaplain walked with him to the exit, still carrying Seamus’s pitiful bag of possessions.

  “Is that Luther Fitch out there?” the chaplain asked, peering through the dirty glass window of the prison’s visitors’ entrance.

  Seamus peered out, too.

  “Yes, sir. That’s Luther.”

  “He looks as old as Methuselah! Are you sure it’s safe for him to be driving?” Chaplain Douderbeck wrinkled his brow.

  “Better him drive than me, Chaplain. I haven’t driven in close to twenty years.” Seamus chuckled.

  “That wasn’t the choice I had in mind,” the chaplain muttered. “What about your son?”

  “Never mind about him. He’s busy. I don’t want him bothering with this, Chaplain.” Seamus got a very stubborn look on his face and reached to take his suitcase back from Douderbeck.

  The chaplain let him take the bag back and sighed.

  “Well, Seamus, it’s been a great pleasure getting to know you this year. You’re a man of hidden depths… and, well, do you mind if I ask you one more time about the murder?”

  Seamus’s brow furrowed.

  “I don’t remember a thing about that night,” Seamus said stubbornly.

  He moved toward the door. Then, sensing the chaplain’s hurt and regretting that he had caused it, Seamus hesitated before passing through the doorway that would take him to freedom.

  “Chaplain,” Seamus said. “I never killed anyone. I swear it before all the saints in heaven.” He reached in his pocket and fingered the rosary’s crucifix, as if it were a talisman of truth. “I did penance for the murder, and I hope the good Lord takes it and applies it to the debt of the one that did it. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. He had too much good in him to do something so evil on purpose. And maybe I’m to blame for his sin, anyway…”

  Chaplain Douderbeck stood there, listening to Seamus, wondering what to make of that strange confession.

  “Seamus, you’ve been freed by the law. You don’t have to claim you’re innocent, if you aren’t. And remember what we used to talk about—you know, the importance of confessing what you do wrong in life, facing up to it and making amends, if you can.”

  Seamus glanced back at Douderbeck and nodded.

  “You’re right,” Seamus agreed soberly. “And God bless you, Chaplain.” Seamus turned and pushed his way through the door, into the late-afternoon sunlight.

  As the door swung shut, Chaplain Everhard Douderbeck stated through the dirty windowpane, watching Seamus as he slowly shuffled toward the thirty-year-old car parked at the curb with its impatient driver, leathery-skinned old Luther Fitch behind the wheel.

  The chaplain had heard guilty men insist upon their innocence for as long as he had been ministering to the inmates of this prison. But for some reason, he believed what Seamus had said, and he didn’t know why. It wasn’t just that Seamus had turned to religion for comfort in the past few years. There was the ring of absolute truth in Seamus Malloy’s voice just now.

  But who would Seamus have willingly suffered for all these years? Douderbeck wondered. Who on earth could have merited such sacrifice?

  And had they appreciated it? Douderbeck flushed with anger. How could someone murder another and then let an old man go to jail for it?

  He prayed that someday justice prevailed in this strange case. As far as the state of Ohio was concerned, justice was done fifteen years ago. But Everhard Douderbeck preferred to deal with a higher authority. He headed toward the prison chapel with that firmly in mind.

  Luther’s car percolated along. Seamus sat in silence in the front seat, watching the landscape roll by. Trees. Grassy hills. Birds flying in the sky. A pasture with a dozen or so plump cattle, noses pressed against the verdant earth as they casually mowed through the late-spring grasses.

  “Isn’t this the same car you had last time I rode with you?” Seamus asked.

  “Yep. Perfectly good car. Just needs to be kept up.”

  Seamus grunted. He was tired. The walk out of the prison had drained his strength. He felt weak. His heart was beating strangely. And he felt a little cold.

  “Well, now, Seamus,” Luther said gruffly. “Do you need any personal things? You know, shaving cream. Razor blades. We can stop at the corner five-and-dime in Crawfordsville on the way to my farm, if you need anything like that. Well? Do you?”

  “No, Luther. I’ll be okay for a week.” Seamus smiled weakly. “Besides, if your neighbors see who you’ve brought back to town, they may lynch me. Might lynch you, too, Luther.”

  Luther gave Seamus a sharp look.

  “You’re a free man. You’ve got a right to be there if you want.”

  Seamus rolled his head against the back of the seat.

  “Luther, how come you always believed me when I said I couldn’t remember doing anything to that girl?” Seamus asked.

  “Because I know you, Seamus. And I knew that girl. There had to have been someone else there that night. I just wish we could have found out who it was.” The tanned, wrinkled skin that covered Luther’s face tautened as he clenched his teeth together in anger. “Someone owes you, Seamus.”

  “No. Leave it be, Luther,” Seamus said sharply. “It’s all past. Leave it there. Forget it all.”

  Luther’s hands tightened on the wheel.

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” Luther muttered sharply. “I don’t understand why you don’t want the man who did that flushed out like the varmint he is.”

  Seamus didn’t say anything. He just closed his eyes and let the motion of the old car lull him to sleep.

  Luther fumed all the way back to his farm.

  Why on earth was Seamus so unconcerned?

  “You must be trying for sainthood,” Luther sniped bitterly at the sleeping man next to him. “Well, I’m not. And I have enough vengeful bones in my body to make up for the lack of ‘em in yours, Seamus Malloy!”

  That was when Luther first wondered whether Seamus’s return might stir up someone who knew the truth about what happened to Lexie Clayton that awful night, fifteen years ago.

  Chapter 2

  Clare Browne was sitting on the front porch swing, watching the children across the street play kick ball in the alley beside their house.

  It was still sunny, since May in southern Ohio brought sun until the early-evening hours. It had been a dry spring, and the roads were a li
ttle dusty because of the lack of rain. That was why she noticed Luther Fitch’s car as it drove by.

  Luther always caught her attention, of course, because Luther almost never drove that car of his. He’d walk a mile into town rather than gas up that old 1960s Chevrolet.

  Clare smiled and walked over to the porch rail, squinting her eyes and raising a hand to wave at Luther. She wasn’t sure that he’d look her way, of course, but he might. She and Luther were friends.

  The car was a few blocks away, on the county road that bypassed the town and would swing by his farm two miles farther west.

  Clare shielded her eyes from the sunlight and frowned. Her hand stopped in mid-wave.

  She couldn’t really make out Luther, but that didn’t look like him in the passenger seat. And who in heaven’s name would Luther be driving around, anyway? she wondered.

  Clare was so absorbed in the mystery of Luther’s passenger that she didn’t hear the screen door open or her mother step out onto the porch.

  “Clare?”

  Clare jumped and laid a hand over her heart, which was beating like the hooves of a racehorse coming down the backstretch.

  “Mother!” she said, nearly gasping for breath. “You scared me!”

  “Well, for pity’s sake, who would I be to scare you, Clare?” her mother asked indignantly.’ She put her hands on her aproned hips and began to laugh. “You’re always complaining that absolutely nothing ever happens in this town and now look at you—just a little slamming of the porch door and you jump out of your skin.”

  “My mind was someplace else,” Clare explained smoothly. “I thought I saw Luther Fitch driving toward his farm with someone in the front seat beside him.”

  “Now that is an exciting piece of news,” her mother teased. “And only the local historian would have noticed that, I’m sure.”

  Clare giggled and leaned back against the porch rail. “Now you watch what you say to the ‘local historian’ or she’ll put you in the next history of this county… and I’ll be sure and mention that incident when you were sixteen and joining the Rebekahs and went out in the so-called ‘pigsty’ barefoot…”