by Ken Brigham
Texas Senator Warren Hedgepath insisted on speaking directly with the US attorney responsible for nailing that crafty sonofabitch Cy Bartalak. It was the first conversation that Dom Petrillo had ever had with a sitting US senator and probably the last. The senator was very pleased with the work of the Justice Department in this case and would see to it that the department and specifically the attorneys involved would be appropriately rewarded. Mitchell Rook received a citation recognizing his extraordinary commitment to integrity in business from the Attorney General of the United States. He stored the gilt-framed plaque in a small basement room of his Belle Meade house where he kept the several other such citations that he had received.
“Shane,” Katya said.
They sat on their Printers Alley balcony. The sun had disappeared to the west and the soft twilight seemed to smooth the sharp edges of the usual human activity in the alley below. Shane nursed a glass of sherry. Katya drank from a wine glass periodically refilled from the cylinder of Voss sparkling water that sat on the table between them. They were enjoying the time before the dinner that they had arranged at Mere Bulle.
“Yes, my love?” Shane responded.
“One thing, well maybe more than one, but especially one still puzzles me.”
“And what is that?”
“Well,” Katya said, “you solved the case. Why does Hardy Seltzer get all the credit?”
“Yes,” Shane answered. “Well, it wasn’t easy to accomplish that. Hardy refused to allow it at first. I insisted that the public perception of how the case was solved must not involve me. Hardy vehemently refused to accept that until his chief weighed in. The chief, to his credit, recognized that my insistence on being a silent partner in the process was wise. The department, especially Hardy, was in serious need of a major success if they were to regain some favor with the public. Solving this case was exactly what they needed. If it were known that the department had relied on help from a retired paraplegic detective, long since absent the force, rather than on their best and brightest, X Coniglio and his toady freelance reporter would have had a field day.”
“So,” Katya said. “You are party to a deception.”
“Deception, my dear,” Shane responded, “can be a useful device if judiciously employed. Shall we go to dinner?”
When they arrived at Mere Bulle, Hardy Seltzer and his guest, Marge Bland, were already seated at the table overlooking the river. Shane had requested that specific table when he made the reservation. Hardy introduced Shane and Katya to Marge. Shane was surprised that Hardy asked if he could bring a guest when Shane suggested the dinner. He had been completely unaware of Hardy’s social life which, Shane strongly suspected, was not that interesting. Perhaps the tide was turning. To Shane’s surprise, Hardy was drinking what looked for all the world like a glass of sherry. An apparently untouched glass of white wine sat before his guest.
When they were all seated and drinks were ordered, Hardy opened the conversation.
“Shane,” Hardy said. “There is one point in the investigation that I confess completely baffles me.”
“Baffled?” Shane mused. “Not a bad emotion generally. Can spark a creative impulse at times.”
“Well.” Hardy continued. “Whatever. But it’s the gun. When the Texas dealer told you that he had sold a gun similar to the one that wound up in Jody Dakota’s hands to someone else? That seems to me completely irrelevant information. Why did you pursue it?”
“I believe, my man,” Shane responded, “that I may have mentioned to you at some point the principle of the other gun. The explanation of the principle being that there is more to be learned from the gun you don’t see, the other gun, than the one you see. And, I’m quite sure I said this to you before, there is always another gun.”
“Yes, Shane,” Hardy responded. “I know. I remember that. But in this case, there was absolutely no reason to think that the gun sold to a Texas lawyer had anything to do with the case we were investigating.”
“Quite right, Hardy my man,” Shane replied. “That is what made it so interesting. They were very rare guns. Coincidences of very rare events are to be studied carefully. I found the information absolutely irresistible. It simply had to be pursued.”
“If you say so,” Hardy answered, thinking how drastically his own approach to criminal investigation differed from Shane’s.
They ordered dinner and spent the meal in idle chatter, getting to know Hardy’s friend a bit and reinforcing the bonds that had developed over the course of the past few weeks.
Lingering over coffee and dessert, Hardy asked Katya. “So what is the situation with Beth Bartalak?”
“Sad,” Katya answered. “Her mental condition continues to deteriorate. I’m convinced that Cy’s drug is the cause although he refused to allow a brain biopsy that might have answered the question.”
“The DA was going for the death penalty,” Hardy said.
“That’s what I read in the paper,” Katya said. “But she was in no condition to stand trial for murder.”
Shane interjected, “So Beth may be the only person whose life will ever be saved by Cy’s drug.”
“Maybe,” Katya replied. “But I think the drug also was responsible for the act that threatened to cost her her life. I was impressed from the tests I saw that the drug affected the brain’s frontal lobes. That’s where we control our behaviors, parse out right and wrong. When I said that I couldn’t believe that Beth was a killer, I believe that I was right. She would never have done what she did without the effect of the drug. It caused her to commit the crime that could have sentenced her to death and then protected her from that fate, at least for a while.”
“Ah, ironies,” Shane mused. “How uninteresting life would be without them.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ken Brigham is emeritus professor of medicine at Emory University. He is widely published in the scientific literature and has authored or coauthored two previous novels and two nonfiction books. He lives with his wife, Arlene Stecenko, in midtown Atlanta. For more information see www.kenbrigham.com.