Blind Justice

43

“OWW!” BEN CRIED. “BE careful!”

The nurse frowned and plunged ahead, winding the stiff tape around Ben’s rib cage. Clearly, she had no patience for wimps.

“Where did this woman take her training?” Ben asked Mike. “Belsen-Belsen?”

“Yeah, that’s where we get all our nurses. Helps prepare them for life with the force.”

“No doubt. Ouch!”

The nurse wound the tape around Ben’s chest a final time, then cut it off with a small pair of scissors. “There,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”

“Really?” Ben rubbed his sore arm, the one on the side Stanford had kicked repeatedly. “I guess that explains why I feel like I’ve been hit by a tank.”

“Just take the medicine the doctor prescribed,” she said brusquely. “The cracks are small. You’ll heal.” She turned and left the infirmary.

“A doting mother,” Ben murmured.

“She works the police department and both jailhouses,” Mike said. “She has to be tough.”

“I suppose. How are you feeling?”

“All. right. I can’t believe I let that goddamn old white shirt get the drop on me.”

“Don’t keep riding yourself. He was desperate.”

Mike shook his head in self-disgust. “I just lay there like a pansy while Stanford tried out his recipe for face pudding.”

“I thought you handled yourself okay. At least you didn’t get totally walloped, like yours truly.”

“Yeah, well. Things could be worse.”

“Now you’re doing it! Everyone keeps telling me that, but somehow, I’ve yet to be convinced.”

“What the hell did you say to Stanford, anyway? To get him so rattled?”

“I told him we had the goods on him. Described his entire scheme. And I mentioned that Lombardi had identified him by name in his suicide note.”

“But Lombardi didn’t identify Stanford in his suicide note. He didn’t identify anyone.”

Ben looked away. “Gosh, I guess I misspoke myself.”

“You sly dog, you. You set him up.”

“The least I could do. Considering what he did to Christina.”

“Understood. By the by, Ben Kincaid, consulting detective, I have one final question, Something that occurred to me while I was running around like an idiot.”

“Okay. What’s your question?”

“Are you going to tell her?”

Ben laid back on the examining table, taking some of the pressure off his bruised and aching ribs. “Care to explain that?”

“Surely you’re not going to make me outline the entire line of reasoning.”

“Well, I’ve always wondered if you’re really any good at this detective stuff. Now’s my chance to find out.”

“All right. It goes like this. It occurred to me, that between what you’d told me, what we found out, and what we’d deduced, there was still one detail unexplained.”

“Which was?”

“Who drugged Christina? I’m assuming she was drugged. There’s just no other explanation for the fact that she dozed through four rounds of a gun with no silencer.” He took his pipe out of his pocket, blissfully ignoring the sign on the wall that thanked him for not smoking. “The rosé she drank must have been doctored. But by whom? And why?

“Given what we know, there’s only one person who had a realistic opportunity to violate the vino. Lombardi. He could get the drug easily enough from DeCarlo, or perhaps Lennie, and of course he had access to his own booze. But why would he do such a thing? Obviously, because he knew Christina would drink it when she came over that night. In fact, he invited her to do just that when he left the message asking her to come to his apartment. And that deduction leads to the big question. Why did he want to drug Christina?”

“And the answer is?”

“He was planning to let Christina take the fall for him. As we’ve established, even before Stanford called to blackmail him, Lombardi knew the FBI was closing in. Whether the FBI ever proves it or not, I’ve no doubt Lombardi was using his parrot operation to run drugs, especially after he started doing business with DeCarlo. And now he knew they were on to him. He panicked. He had to think of some scheme to prevent himself from going to prison. He was still expecting a big drug shipment. DeCarlo probably got wind of the FBI investigation and called it off, but Lombardi didn’t know that. So he planned to leave Christina in his apartment that night, sound asleep with a large stash of cocaine, while he was somewhere miles away with an unbreakable alibi. He thought the FBI would come charging in, as in fact they did, and they’d find her with all the illegal narcotics.

“Lombardi’s theory was, let Christina fill the FBI quota; at the very least, it would temporarily take some of the heat off him. The fact that she was in his apartment might be somewhat incriminating, but there would be no hard evidence against him—since Christina didn’t know anything about his drug-running activities. She’d just plead innocence, and no one would believe her, and she’d be put away for a long haul. And if he got lucky, the FBI would call their investigation a success and close it down before they got to him.”

Ben nodded. “But something went wrong.”

“Yeah. Stanford. After Lombardi’s telephone conversations with him, he knew it was hopeless; he couldn’t divert suspicion from himself just by planting the drugs on someone else. Christina had already drunk the rosé; it was too late to stop that part of the plan. But it was not too late to save himself from his worst nightmare—a long stretch in prison and the wrath of Albert DeCarlo. So he killed himself.”

Ben tried to roll over onto his side, but the pressure on his sore arm was too great. “I remember what Margot said when she was testifying. Something like, ‘I don’t know why Lombardi wanted Christina around, but it wasn’t for the reason everyone assumes.’ I thought that was chilling at the time. Now I realize it was chillingly true.”

“Which brings us back to my original question. Are you going to tell Christina?”

“She may have already figured it out,” Ben said. “And if not, well…I think she’s been through enough pain and disappointment these past few weeks.”

“I concur.” Mike started out the door, then stopped, as if something were holding him back.

“Ben,” he said, after a long moment.

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted…well…to discuss the way I’ve been behaving—”

“You were on the other side, Mike. I understand.”

“Let me finish, will you?” He walked closer to Ben and leaned against the examining table. “When I took this job, I swore an oath.”

“I know. To defend the United States and the Constitution, etc.”

“More than that. To obey the rules and procedures of the state and federal law enforcement agencies. To be a good cop. To play it by the book. And that meant something to me, Ben. It really did.” He exhaled slowly. “Well, I’ve learned something from all this.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve learned that by the book isn’t good enough anymore.” His eyes became hooded. “That following the rules isn’t always sufficient. Oh, I’m not talking about becoming a vigilante or anything: I’m just saying…I think sometimes we hide behind our professionalism, our badges, our licenses, our procedures—”

“Our Rules of Professional Conduct,” Ben added.

“Yeah. May be. We hide behind those things because they protect us from moral debate, from the really tough questions. It’s easier to read a rule than to consider individual cases—specific people in specific situations.

“But that’s wrong,” Mike said firmly. “People are more important than rules. I won’t make that mistake again.” He half smiled. “You think you can forgive me?”

“Mike, pals are for thick and thin—no matter what happens. That’s why they’re called pals.”

Mike clasped Ben’s arm firmly. “Thanks, pal.”

“Don’t mention it. Incidentally, pal, you’re hurting my arm.”