Murder One

by William Bernhardt

  Two hours later, Mike was gone, but the rest of them were still partying. The exuberance of the evening had not diminished with the last of the bubbly. In fact, if anything, Ben thought the rampant merriment had increased.

  They were unwrapping presents now. Loving gave Christina a briefcase embossed with her initials, and Jones and Paula gave her a flowering plant for her new interior office. Christina was obviously pleased and touched.

  “What about you, Skipper?” Loving asked, his voice loud and celebratory.

  “I bet the Boss has something great for her,” Jones said. “I think he’s kind of soft on her, just between you and I.”

  “Between you and me, dear,” Paula said. “So what’s your present, Ben?”

  Ben coughed uncomfortably. “Uh … yeah. Present. Right.”

  Loving looked aghast—and Christina looked shattered.

  “Don’t tell me,” Loving said.

  “Boss, you didn’t—”

  “No, no, I have something. Really.” Ben scrambled awkwardly behind a desk. “I just wasn’t expecting to present it so … publicly.”

  Loving winked at Christina. “Must be somethin’ intimate.”

  Christina rolled her eyes. “From Ben? Yeah, right.”

  “Well, it’s about time he gave her something intimate,” Jones said. “How long has she been—” Loving jabbed him in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him.

  “Here it is.” Ben dragged out a large oversize package, long and thin like a poster, only somewhat thicker and more solid. It was wrapped in red and green paper—Christmas leftovers, obviously.

  Christina’s eyes brightened immediately. “You did get me something!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek against his. “You old softie, you.”

  “Is she talking about the Boss?” Jones asked. Loving shushed him.

  Christina tore into the package without hesitation. Barely a second passed before the interior was revealed, black and green and wobbly.

  Christina’s eyes crinkled. “Is it … a desk blotter?”

  Jones looked up toward heaven. “He got her a desk blotter.”

  Loving pursed his lips. “Very intimate.”

  Paula nodded. “Sexy, even.”

  Ben appeared perplexed. “What? I just thought, she’s going to have a new office, and she’s going to want it to look all lawyerlike, so she needs a desk blotter.”

  “It’s nice,” Christina said, keeping her voice even. “I really like it.”

  Ben noted that the other three were glaring at him. “What’s your problem?”

  But there was no time to explain. Before anyone could even attempt it, they heard a harsh pounding at the outer doors. “Open up!”

  Paula jumped. “Who the hell is that?”

  The pounding continued. Christina moved closer to Ben. “Someone you forgot to invite to the party?”

  Ben started toward the front doors, but before he could get there, they burst open.

  The voice returned, this time amplified by the unmistakable sound of an electronic bullhorn. “Police! Nobody moves!”

  3

  IN A MATTER OF SECONDS, the ambience in Ben’s office switched from a tipsy gala to a surreal nightmare, a cop show out of Kafka. Uniformed officers surged through the door like storm troopers, weapons out, wearing heavy flak gear.

  A piercing white light swept across the room, blinding them. It seemed to be coming from outside the bay windows. Ben went to take a look, but the sound of the churning blades tipped him off before he got there. It was Police One—the Tulsa P.D. chopper.

  Down below, he spotted dark shadowy figures hustling around the building. He’d been around cops enough to know what it was—the SOT team (what the rest of the world called a SWAT team) in their BDUs, their Remington 7005s at the ready, forming a tactical perimeter.

  “What in the name of—” Ben eyed the seven officers now in his office, two plainclothes, five uniforms. He recognized at least one of them. He couldn’t remember the name, but he knew the man had been a witness in the Dalcanton case.

  Ben stepped forward. “What’s going on here?”

  The plainclothes cop pushed Ben back. “I’m Detective Sergeant Matthews. We’re going to search the premises. Don’t get in the way. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have you physically restrained.”

  “You want to search? That’s it? What’s with the big dog-and-pony show outside?”

  Matthews moved so close Ben could smell his breath. “When we’re dealing with cop killers, we don’t take any chances.”

  “Cop killers?” Christina said. “What are you babbling about? There’s no one here but staff.”

  “We know.” He motioned to his officers to spread out through the office. “Like I said, we’re going to search. Don’t worry, shyster. We’ve got a warrant.”

  “From who? Judge Bolen?”

  “No.” Matthews lowered his voice. “From your personal pet. Judge Hart.”

  Ben felt a cold chill at the base of his spine. This was no mistake. They knew who he was. And they knew what they were doing here.

  “I want to see the warrant.”

  Matthews dropped it in his hands. Ben scanned it as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, everything appeared to be in order—even the signature. He touched a wet finger to it, and the ink smeared.

  “What’s the basis for this?” Ben asked. “How did you make probable cause?”

  “I’m not required to brief you on my case,” Matthews said. “And I don’t plan to.”

  The two words that resonated most in Ben’s brain were “my case.” “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t have to answer that question, either.”

  “If you’ll give me a clue, maybe I can—”

  “Just stay out of our way, Kincaid.”

  “I’m telling you—”

  Matthews shoved Ben back, hard. His teeth clenched together and his lips curled. “Listen to me, you goddamn piece of filth. I don’t know if you’re a murderer or just someone who gets his jollies helping murderers. That’s for someone else to decide. But I can tell you this. I don’t like cop killers and I don’t like people who help cop killers. They should be executed on sight, far as I’m concerned. And if you get in my way, that just might happen.”

  Ben stared back at him coldly. “You’re making a mistake.”

  “See those weapons my men are holding? Those are Smith and Wesson forty-caliber semiautomatic handguns loaded with Federal hollow points. Fast, accurate, and deadly. The two in the rear are carrying Remington 870 twelve-gauges loaded with double-ought buckshot. If my men should be forced to use their weapons in pursuit of a cop killer’s accomplice, they’d never be prosecuted. More likely they’d become national heroes. So stay the hell out of our way.”

  Ben stepped aside.

  “Spread out,” Matthews instructed his team. “Everybody take a room.”

  “Stick with them,” Ben said, instructing his own team, Christina and Loving, Jones and Paula. “Each of you take one of the officers. Don’t get in their way, but don’t let them out of your sight.” Something about the expression on Matthews’s face gave him the feeling he couldn’t be too careful. He didn’t know what they were looking for, but whatever it was, he wanted to make sure it didn’t come out of a police officer’s back pocket.

  Ben started after them, but Matthews grabbed him and shoved him sideways. Ben tumbled into a desk.

  “My apologies,” Matthews said. “Didn’t see you there.” He moved closer to Ben and lowered his voice. “No courtroom tricks are gonna get you out of this, asshole.”

  If there were any doubts in Ben’s mind about what was happening before, there were none after that. Ben pulled himself together and followed one of the uniforms into the nearest office. The others did the same.

  Ben watched as an officer ripped open the drawers in Jones’s desk and dumped the contents on the floor.

  “Is it the McNaughton case? Is that what this is a
bout?”

  The officer grunted and continued tearing apart the office.

  “Is that necessary?” Ben growled.

  The officer did not look up. “Get in my way, I’ll cuff you. Which I would enjoy.”

  Ben buttoned his lip and kept an eye on the man’s hands.

  Outside, the other officers searched with the same ham-handed technique. Entire file cabinets were dumped out on the floor. Desk drawers were emptied; even the trash was spilled. Desktops were cleared—phones, laptops, and all. Ben hadn’t expected them to worry about keeping things tidy, but he’d been on searches before with Mike and he knew this wasn’t how it was usually done. It almost seemed as if the object was not so much to find something as to create the biggest upheaval possible.

  A high-pitched shriek brought him out of his reverie. “Christina!”

  Abandoning his post, Ben raced into her office, where she’d been watching one of the uniforms destroy everything in sight. When Ben arrived, the officer had Christina’s arms pinned behind her back and was snapping handcuffs on her.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Ben shouted. He was mad now, damn it. If they wanted to run some petty harassment vendetta against him, fine. But manhandling Christina was something else again.

  “We warned you what would happen if you tried to interfere.” He pushed Christina into the corner.

  “He was trying to go through the files in my laptop,” Christina said. “They need a special specific warrant to do that. State versus Cresswell.”

  “She’s right,” Ben said. “Screw with her computer and you may invalidate this whole dubious search.”

  That seemed to slow the young officer. He backed away from the laptop, his teeth gritted.

  “Now uncuff her and stop abusing your authority. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  That was more that the young man could take. “I should be ashamed of myself? Coming from you, that’s pretty ironic. At least I haven’t put any murderers back on the street.”

  “Neither have I. I just point out to the judge when the police screw up their cases.”

  The kid uncuffed Christina, then stormed out of the office, leaving it looking as if an earthquake had struck.

  “Ben, what’s going on here?” Christina asked, rubbing her sore wrists.

  “I don’t know.”

  They were both riveted by the sound of bellowing from the next office over. “Found it!”

  Ben and Christina both raced into Ben’s office. Matthews was there; Paula was huddled off to the side.

  He was holding a knife. A butcher-sized knife. Caked with blood.

  “What is that?” Christina asked. Her voice trembled.

  “Unless I miss my guess,” Matthews said, “this is the knife that was used to kill Joe McNaughton.”

  “Where the hell did it come from?” Ben asked.

  Matthews smiled thinly. “From your office, Kincaid.”

  “No way. You planted it.”

  “I didn’t. I found it in the bottom drawer of your file cabinet, under some papers. Right where you left it.”

  “You’re lying through your teeth!”

  “I’m sorry, Ben, but—he isn’t.” It was Paula. Her eyes were lowered and her voice was slow and … confused. “I was watching him the whole time he searched. And I was especially watching his hands. He didn’t plant it. Not just now, anyway.”

  “But that—”

  Matthews motioned to one of the officers in the hallway. “Put this man under arrest.”

  The uniform whipped out his cuffs, yanked Ben’s arms back roughly, and snapped the metal restraints around his wrists.

  “Is this your idea of justice?” Ben asked. “Arresting the defense attorney?”

  Matthews smirked. “Justice is never simple.”

  “This is an outrage. I’ve never seen that knife before in my life!”

  “Yeah. That’s what they all say.” Matthews removed a card from his shirt pocket. “You have the right to remain silent. If you waive that right, anything you say can and will be used against you …”

  “Cut the crap. What’s this all about?”

  Matthews stopped. His eyes locked with Ben’s. “What’s this about? It’s about seeing a murderer brought to justice. Maybe two of them.” He leaned into Ben’s face. “How much did you do, Kincaid? Did you help with the murder, or just the cover-up? Were you fucking her all along, or just after she was arrested?”

  “You miserable son of a bitch. I never—”

  Christina pushed between them. “He’s not answering any questions.”

  “Get out of my way, lady,” Matthews barked.

  Christina grabbed the man by the collar. “I’m not a lady, jerkface. I’m his attorney. And if I say he’s not answering any questions, he’s not answering any questions. Got it?”

  Matthews shook her off, rubbing his neck. His teeth were clenched tight enough to pop a filling. “Frank, take this scumbag downtown.” The other plainclothes officer pulled Ben toward the door, yanking him by the cuffs.

  “Find Mike,” Ben called. “As soon as possible.”

  “I’ll be right there, Ben,” Christina shouted behind them. “Don’t say anything. As soon as you’ve been processed, we’ll talk.”

  Matthews couldn’t bear to leave without a parting shot. He leaned into Christina’s ear and spoke in a low tone. “When we’re done with your scum-sucking boss, lady, he’ll be lucky if he remembers how to talk.”

  4

  THE OFFICERS SHOVED BEN down the stairs of Two Warren Place and outside, using as much force as possible. Ben was paraded through a phalanx of at least twenty SOT officers. A searchlight beamed down from the chopper overhead, practically blinding Ben and insuring that there was no one in a half-mile radius who couldn’t see him. They led him to the back of the Armored Personnel Carrier and shoved him inside.

  Fifteen minutes later they arrived at the police headquarters building downtown and dragged him up to the fourth floor. He waited while the four officers accompanying him checked their weapons in a locker. As Ben well knew, no one was allowed to take weapons onto the fourth floor—not even cops. They wanted to eliminate all possibility of an arrestee grabbing a weapon and making an escape. The cops traded their guns for keys, which they placed in their holsters, a sign that they had stored their weapons. Then they dragged Ben inside the county jail.

  Because the holding cell belonged to the county, Ben was patted down by sheriff’s deputies. They were none too gentle about it, and didn’t avoid any place where a weapon of any kind could conceivably be hidden.

  “Is this a frisking,” Ben asked, “or are you giving me a physical?”

  The officer to his left “accidentally” cuffed him on the jaw with his elbow.

  They dragged him inside the cell block. “Stand on those footsteps, asshole,” the jailer said, pointing to a set of yellow prints painted on the floor. Ben complied. “Lean forward.” The jailer searched him again, just as thoroughly, if not more so.

  When he was done, the jailer barked, “Take off your clothes.”

  Ben squirmed. “On our first date?”

  The jailer kicked him in the back of his knees. “Take off your goddamn clothes.”

  When Ben was naked, and the officers had let him stand around exposed long enough to humiliate him, they tossed him a pair of the orange coveralls that were standard attire for all inmates. Then they dragged him to a small cell.

  Ben noticed that the cells on either side both had someone inside. One if not both of them were probably plants, he realized. He would have to be careful with what he said.

  The jailer removed his cuffs. Just as Ben began to stretch his aching arms, the jailer twisted his right arm around and pinned it behind his back. He shoved Ben forward till his face was pressed against the hard bars of the cell.

  “I hope you’re enjoying this,” Ben grunted, though he could barely move his mouth. “ ’Cause I’m going to be out of here before the second shift
arrives.”

  “I don’t think so, creep,” the jailer whispered. “We have special rules for lawyers who help cop killers. The wheels just don’t seem to turn as quickly.”

  “All I did was my job,” Ben said. “Why are you doing this?”

  The other man’s voice hissed in his ear. “Joe McNaughton was my best friend. He and his wife are my kids’ godparents.”

  Ben closed his eyes. So what you’re saying is, this stay isn’t going to be quite as nice as a night at the Ramada Inn.

  Without warning, the jailer whirled him around and pounded him in the gut, hard. Ben doubled over. The jailer followed up with another blow, then another. Ben fell to his knees.

  “I’m hitting you in the stomach because I don’t want to leave a mark. If you tell anyone about this, I’ll say you had to be restrained while attempting escape. And every man on the force will back me up. No one will speak up for the creep who helped kill Joe McNaughton. But you’ll get some extra time for attempted escape.”

  He opened the cell door and kicked Ben inside. Ben crashed against the opposite wall of the tiny cell, banging his head against the concrete.

  “Get used to being treated like this,” the jailer growled, as he locked the cell door behind Ben. “It ain’t gonna get any better. And you’re gonna be here a good long time.”

  5

  KIRK DALCANTON COULDN’T DECIDE which he thought more feeble: the spindly rotted staircase or the decrepit old man leading him up it.

  “Last tenants I had in here, they didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything except themselves.” The elderly man could only manage one step every thirty seconds or so, which made the ascent even more painfully slow, not to mention hazardous. “And maybe not even themselves. Tore the place apart. Left in the dead of night and never paid me a dime. You’re not going to do that, are you, son?”

  “No. No, I mean, I wouldn’t. I’ll pay in advance, if you want.”

  “That’d be all right, sure. Not that I don’t trust you. But you know how it is.”