Blackjack

74

July Fourth was a day of celebration. Judge Callison sat in his office with Virgil, Bill Black, Juniper, and me, and reviewed Black’s history. He listened patiently and without expression to Juniper’s exceptional but long-winded oratory regarding Black’s wrongful incarceration, persecution, and sufferings.

When Juniper finished, Judge Callison stared at him for a long moment, then gazed out the window. Then he looked back behind his chair as if he heard something. After a few seconds he turned back to Black. He stared at Black for an enduring amount of time before he said anything.

“To say there is a litany of wrongdoing on your part, Mr. Black, would be a gross understatement.”

Black sat, stoically looking at the judge.

“What you have done,” Callison said, “what you have left in your wake cannot be reversed. Though I cannot hold you directly accountable for everything that has happened in your wake, I can, of course, not dismiss the direct disregard you have shown to the law and to the sanctity of the law and of this courtroom. So I find you guilty of destroying city property and charge you with a fine in the amount of however much it will cost to replace the bars you pried from the windows of the jail and the bed frame you ripped out of the floor... fair enough?”

“It is, Your Honor,” Juniper said.

“I was not talking to you,” Callison said.

Black held his head upright, smiled, and said, “Thank you.”

That afternoon, I walked with Allie to the hospital to get Daphne.

“You’re smitten,” Allie said.

“You think?” I said.

“I do,” she said.

“I like her.”

“Like her,” Allie said with a grin, then elbowed me in the ribs. “You’re smitten.”

“Maybe a little.”

“I know she likes you.”

“What’s not to like,” I said.

“That’s true,” she said. “You’re a pretty fair catch.”

We were approaching the hotel, where the chief was sitting on the porch with Detective King.

“Good afternoon,” the chief said.

“It is,” I said.

“Word?” he said, then scrutinized Allie a little and offered a crooked smile.

I glanced to Allie.

“Oh... go ahead, Everett,” she said. “I want to get some clothes for Daphne, anyway. I know she’ll appreciate it.”

The chief watched as Allie walked up the steps past him and into the hotel, then leveled a harsh look at me.

“So the sonofabitch got off the hook?” the chief said.

“Obviously should have never been on the hook,” I said.

“It’s bullshit.”

“Not.”

“Oh, bullshit,” he said. “If he did not do it. Then who the hell did?”

“I could ask you the same question,” I said.

“And you think I would have an answer?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you?”

“He tricked you,” the chief said.

I looked off down the street, smiled a bit to myself, then looked back to him, but didn’t say anything.

“He can’t fool me,” the chief said.

“No?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t care what happened with the fella that lied about what he saw.”

“That seems apparent.”

“He won’t get away with this.”

“Judge commuted his sentence,” I said.

“So.”

“So?”

“It’s bullshit.”

“No,” I said with a smile, “it’s not.”

“It goddamn sure is,” he said, getting to his feet aggressively.

Detective King got quickly out of his chair and put his hand on the chief’s chest as a precaution to keep the chief from physically attacking me, which he was close to doing.

“Look,” I said, “I know you lost your son and daughter-in-law, and I’m sorry for your...”

“She was nothing but a goddamn tramp,” he said with red face. “A goddamn tramp.”

Allie came out the door with a suitcase in her hand, looking at me like she had just seen a ghost. She glanced to the chief briefly and came down the steps in a hurry.

She hooked her arm in mine and said, “Come on, Everett.”

I moved off with Allie as she practically dragged me away from the chief and Detective King.

I looked to her as we crossed the street in a hurry and tears were running down her cheeks.

“What is it, Allie?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

Allie pulled me around the corner and we walked a ways farther until we got to an alley. Then she pulled me into the alley.

“What is it, Allie?”

She let go of me and continued to walk in the alley, and when she was ten feet in front of me she turned on me and said, “She did it.”

“What?”

“She killed the woman in Denver.”

“What?”

“Daphne,” she said. “She did it, Everett.”

Allie dropped to her knees and opened the suitcase. Inside the case were tubes of oil paints, brushes, and a tintype photograph of Bloom’s Inn.