Ben snatched the paper away from him. “I never said that. I’ve never even met this reporter.”
“The papers don’t lie,” the clerk said indignantly.
Ben raised an eyebrow. “So there’s a town the National Enquirer doesn’t reach. That’s reassuring.”
“Get on out of my place, son. I don’t have room for you. And I never will.”
“But this is the only hotel for sixty miles!”
“Git!” The man’s entire torso shook as he pointed toward the door.
“I’m going, I’m going.” Ben flung open the door, ringing the bell. “Have a nice day.”
11.
IT TOOK HIM ALMOST an hour, but eventually Ben managed to find Mary Sue’s boardinghouse. It was a two-story Victorian home, with bright blue shutters and gingerbread gables. A sign on the front porch confirmed Ben’s belief that she would have rooms to let. There should be at least one vacancy now that Vick had taken up residence in the city slammer. And that gave Ben two reasons to be here.
Ben knocked, then pushed open the front door. He saw an interior Dutch door that restricted access to the parlor—probably the hostess’s version of a registration desk.
Ben glanced up the staircase and, to his surprise, saw Christina standing at the head of the stairs. “Christina! What are you doing here?”
“I’ve taken a room.” Her face was stiff and solemn. “I don’t feel safe out at the campsite.”
“You’re afraid of muggers?”
“No, I’m afraid you’ll bring your Nazi pal back for a client conference.”
“Then you’re sticking around for a while?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not going to let you ruin my vacation.”
“Boy … if you’re going to be in the neighborhood anyway … I could really use some help with—”
“Forget it.” She turned and marched away from the staircase.
Ben sighed. He rang a small bell on a table in the foyer. A few moments later a petite woman in a pink frock came to the other side of the Dutch door. She was wiping her hands on her apron; she looked as if she had been baking. Ben assumed this was Mary Sue.
“ ’Morning,” Ben said, putting on his best smile. “I see you have rooms to let.”
“Indeed we do. Will you be staying long?”
“Probably a couple of weeks,” Ben said. “Maybe more.” Thank goodness. She didn’t appear to recognize him.
He spotted the morning Herald, folded down the middle, on an end table by the Dutch door. His likeness was facing straight up, although the paper did not appear to have been opened. All the better. Now, if he could only keep her from looking at it for another two minutes.
“Bunch of trouble in town these days,” Ben said casually.
“Don’t you know it,” Mary Sue replied. “Sometimes it seems more than a body can bear.” She leaned conspiratorially across the Dutch door. “He stayed here, you know.”
Bingo. “You mean …?”
She nodded. “Donald Vick. Took the room at the top of the stairs. Of course, I had no idea.”
“No. Of course not. Was he … difficult?”
“Oh, no. He was the nicest boy you could imagine. Sometimes I forgot he was from out of town. Very polite, well mannered. Opened the door for the ladies. Never took seconds. Respected the other tenants’ privacy. In fact, he rarely spoke to anyone.”
“Well,” Ben said, “it’s always the quiet ones.”
“Isn’t that the truth? You know, it wasn’t until the last week—the week before the, well, you know—that he even had visitors.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes, sir. That was when I got my first hint that he might be planning something. ’Course I never guessed—”
“No. Who could’ve?”
“Normally I don’t even take notice of my tenants’ visitors. But when that woman came by”—she raised her chin—“well, that was a different kettle of fish.”
“I can imagine.”
“If Donald Vick thought I was going to let him go sparkin’ with that woman in my boardinghouse, well, he had another think coming. I don’t run that kind of place.”
“I’m sure.”
“I was prepared to march right in there and boot her out myself if necessary. Fortunately she left on her own just a little after eleven.” Mary Sue took a white guest book from the end table and opened it to the current page. “If you’ll just sign in, please.”
Ben took the feather pen and signed.
“ ’Course, I will have to ask for some … you know … in advance. Since we don’t know each other.”
“Naturally.” Ben reached into his wallet and withdrew a fistful of twenties. “Will this do?”
“Oh, my, yes.” Mary Sue reached eagerly for the money, but one of the bills slipped through her fingers. A draft from the front window caught it, nudging it to her side of the Dutch door. It slowly drifted downward … and lighted on the end table on top of the morning Herald.
Don’t look! Ben found himself issuing mental commands, for all the good it would do. Just pick up the money and—
“Oh, my gracious. Is this you?”
Ben’s eyes rolled to the back of his head.
Mary Sue picked up the newspaper and unfolded it. “You’re this—Benjamin Kincaid?”
Ben briefly considered a story about an evil twin, but decided it was probably futile. “It’s me.”
Mary Sue scanned the article. “Then you’re—good Lord!” She threw down the paper. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ben shrugged. “It didn’t come up. …”
“You’re one of them!”
“I’m not one of anything. I’m just a lawyer—”
“Do you have any idea what you people have done to this town? I don’t feel safe walking the streets anymore.”
“I’m just representing a man I believe may be innocent—”
“Innocent!”
“You know Donald. You know how harmless he is.”
“I saw him nearly beat a man senseless!”
That slowed Ben down. “What?”
“I was at the Bluebell Bar that afternoon, before the murder. I was shocked; I had never seen Donald act like that. For no apparent reason, he attacked that poor Vietnamese boy. From behind, with no warning. He liked to have killed the boy before he even knew what was happening. A few of the boy’s friends pulled Donald away, then laid into him. When they threw Donald out, he was bleeding in half a dozen places, screaming about how he was going to kill him. And the next morning that Vietnamese boy was dead. That’s pretty conclusive evidence as far as I’m concerned.”
“That’s strictly circumstantial—”
“Circumstantial? What’s that—some big-city lawyer word?” She threw Ben’s money back at him. “You just get on out of here. I don’t want anything to do with you and your kind.”
“Please listen to me, ma’am—”
Mary Sue bent down, then came up with a double-barreled shotgun almost as big as she was. “You get on out of here, understand? Now!”
She held the shotgun steady and ready; Ben didn’t doubt for an instant that she knew how to use it.
“Last chance! Scram!”
Ben knew it was pointless to argue, and probably highly dangerous. He grabbed his money and hurried out the front door.
12.
HOURS LATER ALL BEN had accomplished was several repetitions of the same old scene. No matter where he went, The Silver Springs Herald had been there first. No one would talk to him; no one would even take his money. Overnight he’d become a local pariah.
By nine P.M., Ben had covered both Main and Maple streets from one end to the other and managed to find absolutely no one who would talk. They didn’t pretend that they didn’t know anything; they just weren’t telling him. What Judge Tyler had said was absolutely true; the whole town was on edge—expecting the ticking time bomb to explode at any moment.
The only lights on Main Stre
et that still flickered were the ones inside the Bluebell Bar. A red neon sign in the front window boldly announced that they had Coors on tap. At this point Ben was ready for a drink. And more importantly he recalled that this was where the fight between Vick and Vuong took place on the afternoon before the murder.
Ben spotted a scuffle in the alley just outside the bar. Both combatants were beefy, tough-looking men in blue jeans and T-shirts. Fortunately they appeared to have imbibed a fair amount of beer. More punches were connecting with empty air than any part of either body.
Ben pushed open the front door and stepped inside. The Bluebell was small, simple, laid-back—and packed. The bar had six stools, all but one of them currently occupied. A pool table in the corner was flanked by two pinball machines, both of which Ben judged to be at least fifteen years old. Four booths in the back provided space for couples who wanted to get snuggly.
Ben took the available bar stool and flagged the bartender. The jukebox was wailing a country-western tune, a bit of homespun philosophy courtesy of Mary-Chapin Carpenter. “Sometimes you’re the windshield,” she sang, “sometimes you’re the bug. …”
“I’ll have a longneck,” Ben said, pointing at the label on a bar coaster.
The bartender peered at him, eyes narrowed. He was an older man, but the pronounced wrinkles lent his face an air of distinction and world-weariness. “You’re the lawyer.”
Ben had heard it too many times today to be surprised. “That’s right. And now that the introductions are out of the way, could I have my beer?”
The bartender hesitated. “I don’t want no trouble in my place.”
“I don’t plan to cause any,” Ben replied. “Unless you don’t get me that beer.”
The bartender gave a small, lopsided grin. “What the hell! I suppose Satan himself has to take a drink now and again.”
He pulled a Bud out of the ice. The song changed; now Mary-Chapin Carpenter was singing a slow sad song about being haunted by the past, and finding the courage to love again after “the first time you lose.” Carpenter’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “Come on, come on … it’s getting late now. …”
While he waited Ben scanned a copy of The Herald lying on the bar. It appeared that District Attorney Swain was trying his case in the morning edition and polarizing public opinion by making the “big-city lawyer” the bad guy. Ben learned that Sheriff Collier had found the murder weapon, a twenty-four-inch Carvelle crossbow. Swain claimed that tests run by the forensic office in Little Rock conclusively linked the crossbow to Donald Vick.
“My name’s Mac.” The bartender pushed a beer and a bottle opener across the bar.
“I’m Ben. But you probably already know that.” Ben opened the beer and downed a good long gulp. He wasn’t that fond of Budweiser, but since the man had apparently compromised his virtue by serving it, Ben wasn’t about to appear ungrateful. “Nice place.”
“Thanks,” Mac said. His pride was evident. “Had the bar shipped in from St. Louis the day the county voted to go wet. Stools, too.”
“I guess this is where it happened,” Ben commented.
“What’s that?”
“The big fight. Vick and Vuong.”
“Oh, yeah. Right here.”
At long last. Someone was actually talking to him. “Must’ve been a hell of a fight.”
“You better believe it. Kicked the hell out of my best pin-ball machine.”
Ben saw that the head glass on one of the pinball machines was shattered, just over the picture of a fiery red cyclone. “You were here that night?”
“Of course. I’m here every night.”
“What happened?”
“Well, that Vietnamese fella was minding his own business, sitting just where you are, when in walks Vick. They talk a little bit, and then he up and says, ‘You—’ ”
To Ben’s dismay, Mac stopped suddenly, just as the story was becoming interesting. “Maybe I shouldn’t say any more.”
“Don’t stop now!”
“No, no.” Mac picked up a bar rag and began polishing the woodwork. “I’ve said too much already.”
“Mac, I have to prepare a man’s defense. This is a capital crime. You have to help me!”
“Like hell I do.”
Ben leaned across the bar. “Look, I’m desperate. You’ve gotta see that—”
Ben felt two hands slap down harshly on his shoulders, shoving him back onto his stool. Before he had a chance to become curious about who it was, the hands whirled him around.
It was the two local boys who had accosted him that morning, Garth Amick and his tough-looking friend. Except now they had a third friend, who looked even older and meaner than the first two.
Garth—still the group spokesperson—leaned into Ben’s face. “I thought I told you to get out of town.”
“I think you did. So?”
“You talk pretty tough for a big-city lawyer who’s about to get the hell beaten out of him.” The smell of beer on his breath was thick and nauseating.
“Why don’t you just go back to your beer and leave me alone?”
“I’ve got somethin’ else in mind. Hold him, boys.” Garth’s two friends each grabbed one of Ben’s arms.
“Kincaid!” It was Mac. He’d raced around the side of the bar. At first, Ben thought Mac had come to his rescue. He was quickly disillusioned. “I thought I told you I didn’t want any trouble!”
“Me? Why are you telling me? I was just sitting here minding my own business.”
“Should’ve minded it somewhere else.” Garth drew back his fist.
“Garth!” Mac yelled. “Take it outside. I don’t want any more damage to my place.”
“Fine.” Garth grabbed Ben by the shirt collar and jerked him toward the front door. His two friends held tight to Ben’s arms.
They made it to the door just at the same split second that Sonny Banner and his two bodyguard buddies came in. Banner and Garth almost bumped heads.
“Banner! Thank goodness!” So this was what it had come to, Ben thought grimly. He was overjoyed to see a bunch of white supremist headbashers saunter in. “What are you doing here?”
“This wath where you thold uth to wait, ’member?” The thickness of his tongue left Ben little doubt about what the boys had been doing all day. He began to have serious doubts about the imminence of his rescue. “What the hell ith going on?”
“None of your goddamn business,” Garth barked. “Just get out of our way.”
Banner inflated his chest. “Not till I get thome answers.”
“We’re just going out for a chat.” Ben felt the hands on his arms tightening.
“Zat right?”
Ben shook his head. “They’re taking me outside, to use their own words, to beat the hell out of me.”
“Zat so? Three against one? Figures. Vietcong-loving punkth.”
“Screw off, you redneck freak,” Garth said. “I don’t have to take—”
The first punch landed squarely on Garth’s jaw and sent him reeling. Ben felt both of Garth’s friends release his arms. They raised their fists to defend themselves.
“Take it outside!” Mac shouted from behind them. “Take it—”
It was too late. Ben ducked out of the way and the three locals took on the three ASP men one-on-one. Garth and his crew were spirited and resilient, but they were outmatched in weight and skill. The three ASPers were a bit sluggish, but they were still more than able to hold their own.
Ben watched Banner spin Garth through the bar, punch by punch, while one of his friends delivered a swift kick to a townboy’s groin. The stylish fighting moves came more naturally to the ASPers. Ben supposed that was understandable. This was what they trained for every day, after all. This was what they lived for.
The brawlers flew back and forth across the tiny bar, smashing and clattering as they went. Ben considered jumping into the fray to help; the question was—whom would he help?
Banner had Garth in a headlo
ck and was banging his face against a beer-stained table. Garth’s shouts were silenced by the repeated pummeling and the viselike grip around his throat. For a moment Ben was afraid Banner was going to kill him. Then, to his amazement, he saw Banner literally lift Garth off the ground and throw him across the bar. Garth landed on the cyclone pinball machine, shattering the glass.
Mac was not going to be happy.
Ben saw that Garth’s two friends were similarly on the bad end of major-league beatings. Just as he began to be concerned for their long-term health, he heard a siren wailing down Main Street. A quick peek out the window confirmed it—the sheriff was paying them a visit. Mac must’ve called.
Ben crawled back to his bar stool and took another drink of his beer. It looked like it was going to be a long night.
13.
AS BEN HAD NOTICED during his earlier visit, there were only three cells in the Silver Springs jail, and Donald Vick already occupied one, so Sheriff Collier was forced to divide everyone up into their respective teams: the locals in one cell, the ASPers in the other. With their best buddy Ben, of course.
Ben had protested his innocence to both Sheriff Collier and Deputy Gustafson ever since they picked him up, based on Mac’s identification of Ben as the “instigator.” The sheriff was not impressed. And Gustafson was treating Ben even more coldly than he had when they met.
After delivering a stern lecture on the evils of drinking and carousing, Sheriff Collier excused himself and left Deputy Gustafson to handle the actual incarceration. Vick eyed Ben as he passed down the corridor, but he remained silent. What must be going through the kid’s mind? Ben wondered. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, you see the deputy putting your lawyer behind bars.
Gustafson locked the locals in one of the vacant cells, then put the ASP men in the other. To Ben’s surprise, Gustafson closed the door to the cell and locked it while Ben was still outside.
Maybe there was hope yet. “Does this mean you’re letting me go?”
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