Ben stammered. “Well, I didn’t know—”
Loving rose to his feet. “Skipper? Here’s that probation report you asked for.”
“Probation—? Right—the probation report!” He snatched the folder from Loving’s hands. “See for yourself, your honor.”
Judge Hart took the proffered report and flipped through the pages. “According to this, Mr. Prosecutor, the defendant has been a model of good conduct. Never missed a probation meeting. Established his own business. Employs several people, including some inner-city youth who need jobs badly. There’s not a word about any criminal activity. Do you have a conflicting report?”
Anglin coughed into his hand. “Not at the moment.”
Judge Hart closed the folder. “That’s what I thought. Well then, with regard to this motion—”
Anglin cut her off. “Your honor, this is a capital offense. The death penalty is a real possibility here. Courts never consider bail in capital cases. Even for an honest man, the temptation to give flight is too great. And if the man bolts, we may never find him again.”
“There’s a way around that.” Somehow Ben wasn’t all that surprised when Christina leaped to her feet and passed through the swinging gates. She handed Ben a file and winked. “Like you suggested earlier, Ben, I think this is the perfect case for this.”
Ben began rapidly scanning the file. “Right. Perfect case.”
Judge Hart peered down from the bench. “Excuse me, Mr. Kincaid. Is this a member of your staff?”
“Yes, she—” He looked up abruptly. “She’s my legal assistant—and partner.”
Christina’s eyes expanded.
“She’s a law student, you know,” Ben added.
The judge nodded. “Indeed.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ben said. “Very promising. Top of her class.”
“Is that a fact? Well, congratulations, young lady. We need more female faces in this profession.”
Christina dipped her head. “Thank you, ma’am.” She nudged Ben in the side. “Thanks for the kind words—partner.”
Anglin cut in. “Look, I hate to interrupt this Hallmark moment, but there’s a motion pending. Setting Earl Bonner free would constitute a gross injustice, not to mention a threat to public safety.”
“Earl Bonner will not bolt,” Ben said firmly. “But it doesn’t matter because I have a suggestion that will eliminate the risk in any case.” He placed the file on Judge Hart’s bench. “Thanks to my staff.”
Chapter 43
AS BEN WALKED across the plaza to the county jail, he couldn’t help but reflect on how well the hearing had gone. That had been great—the whole staff pitching in, working together like a well-oiled machine. And of course he had been successful, which put a rosy glow on any hearing.
He had almost forgotten how satisfying practicing law could be. How rewarding. It was almost enough to make him consider … just consider …
As he stepped into the front office, he was relieved that the guard on duty at the county jailhouse didn’t ask for any identification or to inspect the traditional Tulsa County bar card, especially since he didn’t have it on him and wasn’t entirely sure he had paid his dues.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” the guard said, easing out of his chair.
Ben searched through the cobwebs of his memory, trying to come up with the man’s name. It was something short and traditional. Bob? Tom? Best not to risk it. “I’ve been on an extended vacation.”
The guard unlocked the outer door to the cell block. “You picked a hell of a time to return. He’s back here.”
Ben followed the man down the metallic corridor, ignoring the gauntlet of drunks and wife-beaters and other assorted lowlifes on either side. Earl was at the end of the corridor, lying on the bottom bunk of a no-frills bed with a barely discernible mattress.
Earl sat up as soon as he heard the two men coming down the corridor. “Ben!” He leaned forward eagerly.
The guard gave Ben a nod. “You need anything, I’m right behind that door.”
“Thanks. I’ll be all right.” The guard locked the cell door behind them and left them alone.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked Earl. He cleared a space on the other end of the bunk.
Earl grunted. “If your idea of okay is having someone take all your stuff, strip-search you, spray you with delousing powder, and throw you in this hell-hole, then yeah, I’m having a great time.”
“Everyone treating you all right?”
“Hell, no. What’d’ya expect? These people all think I killed three people, ’cludin’ a woman. And mutilated their bodies. I didn’t expect no Tom Cruise treatment.” He shrugged. “You know that guard?”
Ben gave it a try. “Bob?”
“Tom. He drops by every twenty minutes or so jus’ to tell me about how I’m gonna”—he held his hands up like a monster—“frrryyy!”
“Oh, geez.”
“He’s been givin me the lowdown on the lethal injection table, how it works, how they shoot the poison into your body. He says I got lucky once, but not twice. He says the cops’ve got secret ways of remixing the poison so it hurts, but a man’s paralyzed so he can’t say or do nothing about it.” Earl’s voice began to tremble. “He says I’ll be dyin’ in agony, but no one will know it. He says they got ways of makin’ it happen over and over again. He says they’ll make me die three times over, once for each person I killed.”
Ben put his arm on Earl’s shoulder, trying to calm him. “That’s all a load of crap, Earl. Typical jailhouse rot. He’s just trying to scare you. Put it out of your mind.”
“Hard to put somethin’ like that out of your mind, Ben. Man says I’m gonna pay the price. Three times over!”
“You didn’t commit those crimes, Earl. And besides, you already paid the price for the murder of George Armstrong. You were convicted and you served your time. To try you again would be double jeopardy. They can’t touch you.”
“If you say so,” he said without much conviction. “It’s just so damn … hard.” He pressed his fists against his face. “Hard to sit here and listen to that bull. Hard to listen and know how much they hate you. And it ain’t right. I didn’t do it!”
“I know you didn’t, Earl. You have to understand—law enforcement officials have a terrific responsibility. They do a tough job, usually without half the support or appreciation they deserve. It’s understandable that sometimes they become overzealous. You can’t let it get to you.”
“It will get to me. It will!” He grabbed Ben by the lapels. “Can’t you get me out of here?”
Ben paused. “Maybe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just had a hearing before Judge Hart. The prosecutor’s against bail, of course, and Judge Hart normally doesn’t even consider it in capital cases. But fortunately, Judge Hart trusts me. I’ve been before her on several occasions, and she knows I wouldn’t ask for bail if I thought there was any danger you’d disappear. I told her you were an honest man, that you wouldn’t flee, that you had a business to run, and that the prosecution’s case was unconvincing and entirely circumstantial.”
“So she’s going to let me out?”
“Well, conditionally. You have to agree to wear one of these.” Ben pulled out of his pocket something that resembled a plastic dog collar. “It goes around your ankle. As soon as it’s activated, it gives off an electronic homing signal. Allows them to track you wherever you go.”
“So they can hunt me down like a dog!”
“If you try to run, yes. And if you try to remove it, they’ll know instantly.”
“I ain’t gonna be treated like some kind of animal!”
“Believe me, Earl, you don’t want to be in jail a second longer than you have to be.” He laid the collar down on the bed. “I had to argue my guts out to get you this. These collars are still relatively new; a lot of people don’t trust them. But you have to realize—it will be weeks, maybe months, before your case comes to trial. You don’t want
to spend all that time in this crappy jail cell.”
Earl ground his teeth together. “Can I wear the damn thing under my pants?”
“Of course. No one will even know you’ve got it on.”
“Wrong. I’ll know.” He scooped it off the bunk. “But you’re right. It’s better than spendin’ another minute behind bars. Let’s get outta here.”
When at last he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything. And his eyes hurt.
Tyrone tried to survey his surroundings, but all he saw was pitch-black darkness. He tried to stretch, but his limbs wouldn’t move. He was curled in a narrow space; his hands were tied tightly behind his back, and his shoulders were wedged in a painful, contorted position.
And there was something wrong with his face. The pain was agonizing. When the air rushed up against him, Tyrone could feel open sores, wounds to his flesh. And he could taste blood at the corner of his lips.
He had been beaten, even while he was unconscious. Beaten savagely.
And the worst of it was, he had no way to check the damage, no way to see himself. All he knew was that he ached—and that the damage was probably worse than he imagined. Maybe even permanent.
He cursed himself under his breath. How could he have been so stupid? Back with the gang, he had been safe. But no, he had come out of hiding. The killer already knew he and Kincaid were connected—were working together, even. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that eventually Tyrone would show up at Kincaid’s office. He’d been a fool, a shrimp swimming with a piranha. He deserved what he got.
What he got, and what he would get. Because Tyrone knew that, whatever had happened to him before, it was only a prelude to what was to come.
He heard a whirring noise somewhere in the background. The sound of an engine, he thought. A steady droning noise.
Suddenly his entire world lurched to the right. He would have been thrown sideways, except there was nowhere for him to go. He was pressed against—well, whatever it was. It was hard and metallic, just like the cold sharp something that was beneath his face.
There was a bump, and Tyrone bounced into the air. He didn’t bounce far; there was a low ceiling, and he smashed right up against it.
That’s when it came to him—he was in a car! The car was going somewhere, going fast, and he was tied up in the trunk. That explained the engine noise, the darkness. That explained the cramped space and the low ceiling. That explained everything.
Everything except where they were going. And what was going to happen to him when they arrived.
The car did not seem to be moving as fast as it had been before. There was a good side to this: it meant fewer bumps, fewer bruises to his already battered body. But there was something disturbing about it, too. No one who was trying to get anywhere drove like this. No, this was more like the way someone drove … when he had almost arrived.
Fear began to take over, replacing pain as Tyrone’s dominant sensation. It was making his blood race, making his heart skitter-skat. His mouth went dry, and his brain was filled with horrible thoughts of what might lie ahead. He tried to distance himself from it, tried to remove himself from his own body. This isn’t happening to me, he told himself. I’m just a spectator, a watcher. I will observe, but I will not feel…
Knowing he was in a car helped explain the smell—the nauseating odor he had been aware of since he first came to. It was turning his stomach, literally making him sick. It was petroleum, the smell of the gas tank, motor oil, and perhaps the tools in the trunk. Whatever. It was hot in here, he was sweating, and the heat made the smell all the worse.
The car hit another huge bump—a pothole probably, knowing Tulsa’s roads as he did. He bounced violently up against the trunk lid, then his cheek-bone smashed down on the sharp metallic something. Was it the jack? Or maybe that metal frame the spare fits into? Whatever it was, it hurt—hurt so much he cried out. Stupid. Why let his captor know he was in pain? Why let him know how scared he was? Why let him know he was conscious? That could only lead to … unfortunate consequences.
He felt blood trickling down his cheek. The bump hadn’t been that bad—he must have reopened something, some wound from the beating before. He wished he had stayed quiet.
But it was too late. He felt the car pulling over to the right, then slowly coming to a stop. Tyrone panicked. His pulse was racing; he felt a surge of fear-drenched blood rushing through his veins. He could barely breathe. His face was wet and sticky, drenched with blood and sweat.
A crunch of gravel. Tyrone lifted his head slightly, turning toward the sound. The steps were coming closer; they circled around the back of the car. He heard a jingling of keys.
His heart skipped a beat. His breath was suspended, frozen. He felt as if a thousand days passed during the second it took his captor to poke the key into the trunk lock and turn it till it clicked.
The trunk lid popped open. A bright light shone in Tyrone’s face, so blinding he had to clench his eyes shut.
“You’re up early,” the man hovering over him said. He reached beside Tyrone and pulled a long iron object out from under him. Tyrone slowly opened his eyes, let the light seep slowly in …
It was a tire iron. Poised just above his face.
“Sleepy-bye time,” the man said. There was a burst of whiteness, an explosion of pain.
And then Tyrone drifted back into merciful unconsciousness and was left with only his dreams, his haunted tortured dreams of the pain still to come.
Chapter 44
BEN SPENT THE next day pursuing every lead imaginable. He bullied Mike into letting him see the reports taken from the patrons at the club the previous night; the ones who seemed promising he tracked down and interviewed himself. He sent Christina to the courthouse and Jones to the computer to pore through any records that might bear on Scat, his background, his history—anything that might suggest why he was killed or who would have a motive to do it. And he sent Loving out to investigate Scat’s neighbors, people who knew him.
And at the end of the day, Ben knew not a whit more than he had known when the day began. Which was next to nothing.
What was he missing? Somehow, he couldn’t make it add up. He had all the necessary information; he just wasn’t putting it together right. It was like he had all the pieces to a jigsaw puzzle, but they were turned face down so all that showed was the brown cardboard backing.
And he hadn’t found Tyrone Jackson, either. Not so much as a trace of him.
At sundown he returned to the office, where he was greeted by Jones—and Paula. What was she doing here? Ben wondered. Were they holding hands under the desk?
“Jones,” he said in a businesslike tone, “did you have a chance to run those Internet searches?”
“I spent most of the day on it. I ran all your searches and several others besides.”
“Masterfully,” Paula added.
“I used all the major search engines—Alta Vista, Yahoo! Excite. To increase my search capacity, I reprogrammed my web browser.”
“Ingeniously,” Paula added.
“Finally, with Paula’s help”—he looked lovingly in her direction—“I went to the library and did some research the old-fashioned way.”
“You mean—you used books?”
Jones gave Paula a knowing look. “You see? I used to put up with this every day.” He turned back toward Ben. “I used their electronic card catalog to search the collections of other libraries, including newspapers and periodicals, for information that might be of use.
“Brilliantly,” Paula sighed.
“No doubt,” Ben said. “Did you find anything?”
“A lot. About Scat. And about this Professor Hoodoo he and Earl used to play with. But probably nothing you don’t already know. Certainly nothing that suggests a motive for murder.”
“Oh.”
“I printed it all out,” Jones said, pointing to a stack of computer paper on the edge of his desk. “But I don’t think there’s anything in
there that’s going to solve your case.”
Ben laid his hands on the information. He’d been hoping for a miracle. But all he got was a tower of feed-form paper.
“There’s some mail for you as well,” Jones added.
Ben saw a small package wrapped in brown paper. He picked it up and ripped it open.
Inside he found a golden bauble, a small thin sparkly—and beneath that a note in a handwritten scrawl: Found this in the men’s room the night of the murder. Probably Rug Man’s. Don’t know what it is—but thought you might. T.
Tyrone! He was alive!
Ben held the golden object in his hands. It was a penknife—a fancy one, from the looks of it. And on the side, in an overwrought, stylized lettering, he saw a monogrammed B.
B, he thought to himself. B. Who could that—
“Is it something important?” Jones asked, interrupting his thoughts.
“Huh? Oh, I don’t know. I need to talk to Tyrone.” He pushed the penknife into his pocket. “I don’t suppose you saw anything in your computer research that might help us figure out what happened to him?”
“ ’Fraid not,” Jones said.
“Who’s Tyrone?” Paula asked.
“Kid who saw a man at the club wearing a disguise,” Ben explained.
“A disguise?”
“Right. Which led me to believe he might’ve been the killer. Why else would a man go out in a fake Afro?”
Paula’s head tilted slightly. “Ben, he was wearing a fake Afro?”
“False beard, too. Shades.”
Paula slowly rose out of her chair. “Sunglasses with silver lenses? The kind that look like mirrors from the outside?”
“Yes, exactly. Why?”
Paula looked from Ben to Jones, then back to Ben. “I saw him, too.”
Ben gripped her by the arms. “You saw him? You were there the night Lily Campbell was killed?”
“Sure. I told you that last night. Heck, I told Jones the night it happened. In the chat room.”
Ben whirled around toward Jones. “You knew?”
“Well, I didn’t know she saw the Rug Man!”
“The Rug Man?” Paula frowned. “What are you talking about?”
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