Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

The Valhalla Verdict by Doug Allyn

Doug Allyn is simply incredible. Hardly a year goes by when he isn’t nominated or claiming one of the mystery field’s major awards. In 2007, for instance, not only did the Michigan author win a third-place scroll in EQMM’s Readers Award Competition for “Stone Cold Christmas” (1/07), he also received a nomination for the Barry Award for Best Short Story for the EQMM tale “Dead as a Dog” (7/07). This new story is shorter than most of Mr. Allyn’s, but of the same high quality.

The jury wouldn’t look at us when they filed back in. Even the foreman, a rumpled old-timer who’d offered my mother sympathetic glances during the course of the trial, was avoiding our eyes now.

A bad sign. But I wasn’t really worried. The case was open and shut.

A rich playboy knocks up his girlfriend. He offered to pay for an abortion but she refused his money. She wanted the child whether he did or not. A week later, as she was walking home from work, my nineteen-year-old sister, Lisa Marie Canfield, was clipped by a hit-and-run driver who never even slowed down. Dead at the side of the road. Killed like a stray dog.

Police found traces of blood on the bumper of her boyfriend’s Cadillac SUV. Lisa’s blood. A simple, straightforward homicide. In Detroit. Or New York.

But Valhalla is a small, northern Michigan resort village and Lisa’s boyfriend, Mel Bennett, is a hometown hero here. A football star at Michigan State and later for the Detroit Lions, Mel owns the biggest Cadillac/GMC dealership in five counties.

Lisa, on the other hand, was only a shopgirl, a wistful little retro-hippie who sold candles and incense in one of the tourist traps on Lake Street. She was too young to get involved with a player like Mel. If I’d known she was seeing him... but I didn’t know. I’d been too wrapped up in my teaching career to pay much attention to my little sister’s life.

And now it was too late for brotherly advice. Or anything else. Only justice remained.

But Mel Bennett was a sympathetic figure on the witness stand. Tanned, tailored, and charismatic, Mel sheepishly admitted that my sister wasn’t his only girlfriend, he was dating several other women. And one of his lovers, Fawn Daniels, still had keys to his apartment. And to his car.

When Fawn took the stand, she refused to say where she was at the time of the killing. She took the Fifth Amendment instead, scowling at the jury, hard-eyed and defiant as a Mafia don.

And now the jury looked uneasy, even angry. Like they’d been arguing. Perhaps they’d settled on a charge less than murder. Manslaughter, maybe.

It never occurred to me they’d let the bastard walk.

But that’s exactly what they did.

The foreman read the verdict aloud from the verdict slip. “On the sole charge of murder in the second degree, we find the defendant, Mel Bennett, not guilty.” And the packed courtroom actually burst into applause.

Outside, on the courthouse steps, the foreman told a ring of reporters: “We thought Mr. Bennett was credible when he swore he cared for Lisa Canfield and would never harm her. And when his mistress, Fawn Daniels, refused to answer, many of us felt there was reasonable doubt. Maybe she—”

But he was talking to the air. Mel and his entourage swept out of the courthouse and the reporters flocked around them like gulls at a fish market.

Smiling for the cameras, Mel said he had no idea who’d killed poor Lisa, but he was sure the authorities would find the person responsible. He offered his sincerest condolences to her family.

“How does it feel to be a free man?” a reporter shouted.

“I was never worried,” Mel said solemnly. “I knew I could count on a Valhalla jury for a fair shake.”

Scrambling into a gleaming red Escalade, Mel roared away, waving to the crowd, grinning like he’d just scored the biggest touchdown of his life. Or gotten away with murder.

When the prosecutor was interviewed, he griped that Mel Bennett got a Valhalla verdict. A reporter asked him to explain, but he just shrugged and stalked off. Implication? What do you expect from a hick-town jury?

And he was right. Valhalla is a small town. By New York or even Detroit standards, most folks who live up north are hicks. More or less.

My extended family, Canfields and La Mottes, are redneck to the bone, and proud of it. My uncle Deke’s clan, the La Mottes, are the roughest of our bunch, jackpine savages who grow reefer and cook crystal meth in the trackless forests. The rest of us are solid, working-class citizens. Blue collar, for the most part.

All but me. I’m Paul Canfield, the first of my family to earn a bachelor’s degree. I teach political science at Valhalla High School. My relatives call me Professor. A compliment or an insult, depending on the tone.

After the trial, on a golden, autumn afternoon, our small clan assembled in my uncle Deke’s garage, still stunned by the verdict. We’d intended to hold a delayed wake in honor of my sister. Lisa Marie was dead, but at least the monster had been punished. Or so we’d expected.

Instead it felt like Lisa had been slaughtered all over again. Along with her unborn child. A Canfield baby none of us would ever hold.

But there was beer on ice, hot dogs and potato salad already laid out. And folks have to eat.

So we gathered around the banquet table in somber silence, Canfields and La Mottes, in-laws and cousins. But with none of the usual good-natured banter. No one spoke at all. Until my mother, Mabel Canfield, turned to me for an explanation.

“I don’t understand it, Paul,” she said simply. “How could this happen? Where’s the justice in it?”

“Justice doesn’t actually exist, Ma. It’s only a concept. An ideal.”

“I still don’t—”

“When people go to court, they expect to win because they’re in the right. But the truth is, every trial is a contest. Like a debating match between lawyers with a judge for a referee. The jury chooses the winning side and we call it justice. And usually, it works pretty well.”

“Not this time,” my cousin Bo La Motte snorted. “The jurors were morons.”

“No,” I said, “they were just home folks. Like us. Mel Bennett’s a professional salesman and that jury was just one more deal to close. He had a sharp lawyer and the prosecutor thought the case was a slam dunk—”

“It should have been!” Bo snapped. “Lisa’s blood was splattered all over Bennett’s damn car!”

“But the Daniels woman had keys to that car. When she took the Fifth and refused to say where she was at the time of Lisa’s death, the jury had reasonable doubts. And they gave Mel the benefit of those doubts.”

“Is there any chance at all that Daniels woman could actually have done this thing?” my mother asked.

“No,” Uncle Deke said quietly. “I had some people look into that. Word is, she was shooting pool at the Sailor’s Rest when Lisa was run down. She’ll probably claim she bought dope or committed some other petty crime to justify taking the Fifth, but her alibi is rock solid. She didn’t kill Lisa, Mel Bennett did. I expect Fawn collected a fat payoff to cover for him.”

“Then I say we should pop that bastard today,” Bo said. Burly and surly, my cousin Bo is the hothead of the family. He inherited his father’s straight dark hair, obsidian eyes, and black temper. But in school, nobody ever picked on me when my cousin Bo was around.

“Popping Bennett is a great idea, Cousin,” I said, “as long as you’ve got no plans for the rest of your natural life.”

“Bull! No jury in the world would convict me! They’d—”

“You just saw firsthand what a small-town jury can do! You’re already a two-time loser for weed and grand theft auto, Bo. Nobody’d give you the benefit of a doubt.”

“Then to hell with them! And to hell with you too, Professor!” Bo snapped. “If you got no belly for this, go back to school and leave the rat killin’ to men who ain’t afraid to—”

Whirling in her chair, my mother backhanded Bo across the mouth. Hard! Spilling him over backwards onto the garage floor.

He was up like a cat, fire in his eyes, his fist cocked — but of course he didn’t swing.

Instead, he shook his head to clear it, then gingerly touched his split lip with his fingertips. They came away dripping blood.

“Damn, Aunt May,” he groused, “most girls just slap my face.”

“Not Canfield girls,” my mother said. Uncle Deke chuckled, and gradually the rest of us joined in. It was a thin joke, but our family hadn’t done much laughing lately.

Uncle Deke tossed Bo a paper towel to mop up the blood and we all resumed our seats.

“All right, Professor,” the old man growled. “You’re the closest thing we got to a legal expert in this family. What are our options now? Is there any way to get justice for Lisa? If we dig up more evidence—?”

“I don’t think it would make any difference,” I said. “Now that Mel’s been found not guilty, he can’t be tried again, period. He could confess to killing Lisa in a church full of witnesses and the worst he could get is a perjury charge. A year or two, no more.”

“You’re saying the law can’t touch him?” Bo said dangerously. “Is that what you’re telling us?”

“Look, I’m only a teacher, Bo, not a lawyer. But I don’t believe there’s anything we can do. Legally, it’s over.”

“Except it ain’t,” Bo said.

“It is for now,” my mother said firmly, rising stiffly, looking up and down the banquet table. “Deacon, you’re my older brother and I love you, but you’ve got an evil temper and your three boys are no better. Lisa was my daughter, not yours. You missed most of her growing years while you were in prison. I absolutely forbid you to throw any more of your life away in some mad-dog quest for vengeance.”

“You forbid me, Mabel?” Deke echoed, with a faint smile.

“I swear to God, Deacon La Motte, if you or Bo go after Mel Bennett, I’ll cut you off. I’ll never speak to either of you again as long as I live, nor will any of my family. Ever.”

“That’s too hard, Sis,” Deke said, his smile fading. “That sonofabitch murdered your girl and her unborn child. I can’t let it pass.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m only saying we should wait. In six months—”

“Six months!” Bo interjected. “No way!”

“In six months we’ll all have cooler heads,” Mabel continued firmly. “Maybe we’ll feel differently. Maybe Bennett will get hit by a bus or someone else will settle his hash. If not, in six months, we’ll look at this again. But for now, I want your word, Deke, yours too, Bo, that you’ll stay away from him. We’ve already had a Valhalla verdict. We don’t need a La Motte verdict added on top of it.”

“That’s bullshit, Aunt May—” Bo began.

“Watch your mouth!” Uncle Deke barked, slamming the table with his fist, making the beer bottles jump. “Mabel’s right, as usual. If Mel Bennett gets struck by lightning or catches the flu, the police will be coming for us. Because they’ll know damned well we were involved. We’d best lay back in the weeds awhile, and cool off. Think things through. If anybody’s got a problem with that, he can step out back and talk it over. With me.”

Deke was glaring at Bo, his oldest boy. Uncle Deke is rawboned with thick wrists and scarred knuckles, dark hair hanging in his eyes, lanky as Johnny Cash back in his wilder days. Pushing fifty, though.

Twenty years younger and forty pounds heavier, Bo has a serious rep as a bad-ass barroom brawler.

But when we were boys, my uncle Deke shotgunned Bo’s mother and her lover in a local tavern. Then ordered up a beer and sipped it while he waited for the law to come for him.

Fourteen years in Jackson Prison, he never backed down from anybody and had the battle scars to prove it. None of us had any doubt how a scrap between Bo and Uncle Deke would come out.

Not even Bo.

“Whatever,” he muttered.

“Speak up, boy,” Deke said. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Whatever... you say. Sir,” Bo added, glaring at his father. Then at me for good measure.

“It’s settled then,” Deke nodded. “We wait six months.”

But he was dead wrong about that.

I called one of my old professors over the weekend, but she only confirmed what I already suspected. Simply put, “double jeopardy” means that once you’re found innocent of a charge, you can never be tried for that crime again. Period. A civil lawsuit for damages might be possible, but it would be a long, expensive process with only a faint hope of success.

I told my mother what I’d learned over dinner that night. She took it as she did most things, with a wan smile. Determined to carry on in spite of everything. The bravest woman I’ve ever known. But even Canfield girls have their limits.

Nine days after the Valhalla verdict that freed Mel Bennett, my mother, Mabel La Motte Canfield, collapsed in her kitchen. And died on the floor.

A massive coronary thrombosis, the coroner said.

Medical terminology for a broken heart.

Making arrangements for my mother’s funeral was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Coming so soon after Lisa’s death and the botched trial, it felt like we’d suffered a double homicide. Like somebody’d ripped stitches out of a fresh wound with a lineman’s pliers. And then it got worse.

Greeting folks at the funeral home, accepting and offering condolences, I was one of the final few in the viewing line. And as I gazed down at my mother’s careworn face for the last time, my eye strayed to a showy wreath at the foot of the casket. With a condolence card.

From Melvin Bennett. And family.

After the viewing that evening, I stayed on, sitting alone in the empty parlor in numb silence. So lost in thought I scarcely noticed when my uncle Deacon eased down beside me. A familiar aroma of wood-smoke and whiskey.

“You all right, Paul?”

“Hell no. How could I be? And why would he do a thing like that? Send flowers, knowing how we’d feel.”

“Remember back when Mel was playing football for the Lions? Every time he scored, he’d do a little dance around the end zone. Showing off. I think that’s how he feels now. Like he just pulled off his biggest score ever. Sending the flowers is like dancing.”

“Taunting us, you mean?”

“Nah, he doesn’t give a damn about us. It’s more like he’s taunting the world. Look at me. I’m rich, I’m pretty. I can whack my hick-town girlfriend and the law can’t touch me.”

“And he’s right,” I said bitterly.

“Only half right,” Deke countered. “The law can’t touch him. That don’t mean he can’t be reached.”

I turned slowly to face him. “Uncle Deke, if you go after Mel Bennett now, you’ll die in prison. You know that.”

“I’ve done hard time, Paul. I can do it again if I have to.”

“My mother didn’t want this.”

“Maybe she’s changed her mind,” Deke said evenly. “Why don’t you ask her? Or ask Lisa. Lemme know what they say.”

“You know what they’d say.”

“Dammit, when Mabel asked me to wait I went along for her sake, but I’m done waitin’, Paulie, so save your breath.”

“I’m not asking you to wait, Uncle Deke. You’re right, we’re way past that. But whatever you decide to do, I want in.”

“You’d better think about that, boy. Your mother—

“I don’t have a mother anymore! Mel Bennett saw to that! We’ve held two Canfield funerals and that sonofabitch doesn’t have a mark on him. And now this?” I nodded at the flowers. “Enough already! I can’t let this pass any more than you can.”

“Slow down, Paul. We ain’t talking about some classroom problem here. Collecting a debt like this will be an ugly, dangerous business. And afterward, you’ll have to live with what’s done for the rest of your life. You really think you’re up for that?”

“I’m in, Uncle Deke. All the way. If you tell me no, I’ll do it on my own!”

He eyed me in silence, reading my face like a stranger. Which wasn’t a comfortable experience.

My uncle and I were never close. I was already a teenager when my uncle got out of prison. I heard he’d gotten mobbed-up in Jackson and hadn’t been straight since. Some people call him a gangster.

I call him “sir.”

He’s my mother’s brother. She loved him and he’d always been welcome in our home. And that was good enough for me. Especially now.

“Well?” I demanded.

“Maybe there’s more La Motte blood in you than I thought, boy.” He shrugged. “Take a look at this.” He handed me a typewritten note. Lisa, I heard about your situation. Maybe I can help. We should talk. I’ll pick you up after work. F. “It was on Lisa’s office computer,” he explained. “She got it the day she was killed.”

“How did you get it?”

“Don’t ask. My crew’s got more connections in the north counties than Michigan Bell.”

“All right then, who’s F?”

“The police think F is Fawn Daniels, but it was e-mailed from a coffee shop so it can’t be traced. The D.A. couldn’t use it. It makes sense, though. Lisa was pregnant, who better to talk to about it than Mel’s other girlfriend? Or so she thought.”

“My God, that’s why Lisa walked home alone that night. She was expecting a ride.”

Deke nodded. “I think the Daniels woman set Lisa up for Mel. Probably expected to be Mel’s new lady, but he’s banging some high-school cheerleader now, seventeen years old. Fawn’s history, in more ways than one. She goes first.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It ain’t complicated, boy. The Daniels woman and Bennett killed Lisa together. She’s as guilty as he is. They’re both going to pay for it, but she has to be first.”

“Why?” I managed, swallowing hard.

“Your mother called it right. If anything happens to Bennett, the law will be all over me and my sons. But the Daniels woman is a different matter. They won’t be expecting that, especially not from you. If I set it up right, you’ll get away clean. And if not, well, you’re a simple schoolteacher who lost his mother and sister. Maybe you’ll get the benefit of the doubt. One of them Valhalla verdicts. Me and Bo definitely won’t.”

“But if I...” I swallowed, hard.

“Kill her. Say it.”

“If she dies first, won’t that make Bennett even harder to get to?”

“For a while. But he’ll be scared spitless the whole time. Waiting for his number to come up. Could be he’ll get nervous enough to make a mistake.”

“What kind of a mistake?”

“Maybe he’ll take a run at me or Bo. If he tries that, it’ll be the last thing he ever does. Or maybe he’ll confess, and take that perjury fall you mentioned.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To a frightened man, a jail looks like a safe place. Stone walls surrounded by guards. Serve a few months, wait for things to cool down. But I’ve got contacts inside, guys who’ll do Bennett for a carton of cigarettes. If he ever steps through a cell door, he won’t come out.”

“And if he doesn’t confess?”

“Then I’ll let him sweat awhile, then take care of him myself. Up close and personal.”

“You can’t possibly get away with it.”

“I don’t expect to,” Deke said simply. “If I die in the joint over this, so be it. That’s my problem. Fawn Daniels is yours, if you got the belly for it. I know it goes against your nature, Paul, but it’s the only way. If you want out, say so now.”

I looked away, avoiding his eyes. Found myself staring at my mother’s casket instead. I knew what she’d say to this. But she couldn’t talk me out of it. Nor could Lisa. Never again.

“I said I’m in, Uncle Deke. I meant it. What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing for a few days. If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

“Then go back to your life and stay cool till I contact you. Bo will come by with instructions. When that happens, you’ll probably have to move fast. Understand?”

I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“Say it!” he snapped.

“I understand!”

But I didn’t. Not really.

I stumbled through my mother’s funeral service like a zombie, going through the motions. I read her eulogy and laid a final rose on her coffin as they lowered it into the ground. And didn’t understand any of it.

She was laid to rest beside my father, who was killed long ago in the First Gulf War. And beside Lisa and her unborn child. Buried so recently the earth was still raw over the grave. As raw as the jagged wound in my heart.

Somehow I managed to teach classes over the next few days, but I must have asked myself a thousand times how it all happened. The two funerals, so close together, had shattered my life. Everything was spinning wildly out of control.

Our branch of the family was suddenly reduced to an army of one. Me. And I was waiting for my uncle’s instructions to murder a woman I’d never met.

My God, how had it come to this?

Then I’d see Mel Bennett doing an interview on television, offering a million-dollar reward for the arrest of Lisa’s killer. Smiling all the while.

And I’d get a quick memory flash of Lisa’s smile. Or my mother’s.

And I’d remember exactly how it all happened. And what I had to do now.

Ten days later, I was walking to my car after the day’s classes when a black Cadillac Escalade pulled up beside me. Bo La Motte climbed out, glancing around to be sure we were alone.

“Put these on,” he said, stripping off a pair of black leather gloves. “The Caddy’s stolen, so you’ll have to move quick. Fawn Daniels jogs along the lake-shore after work. There’s a hundred-yard stretch near Michikewis where the shore road parallels the beach. Run her down there, just like Lisa. Put that bitch in the ground! You sure you’re up for this?”

I nodded, too shaken to answer.

“Afterward, dump the Caddy in the supermarket lot downtown, then walk to Valhalla Park. We’re having a family barbecue this afternoon. Twenty witnesses will swear you were there the whole time. Gimme your car keys. Move!”

As I fumbled them out of my jacket, he grabbed my arm.

“One last thing, Cousin. You remember all the times I stood up for you in school?”

“I remember.”

“Good. Because if anything goes wrong, if you get stopped, get stuck, whatever, you dummy up and take the weight, understand? If my dad does one day in prison because of you, Paulie, I’ll make up for every beatin’ you ever missed and then some!”

Scrambling into my Volvo, Bo sped off.

A moment later I was on the road too, heading for the lakeshore in a stolen Cadillac SUV. Taking deep breaths. Pumping myself up. For a killing.

I didn’t question the justice of it. Fawn Daniels helped arrange my sister’s death, and by standing mute on the witness stand, she’d gotten Lisa’s killer off scot-free. And put my mother in her grave.

Half the men in my family were army vets, and my father died in the Persian Gulf. If killing strangers on behalf of our government was honorable, how could I fail to retaliate against people who’d murdered members of my family?

The Daniels woman justly deserved a death sentence. But knowing that and being able to carry it out are very different things.

I didn’t know if I was capable of killing. I only knew that the law had utterly failed our clan. Justice had been left to me.

Turning onto the shore road, I headed toward Michikewis Beach. Half a mile ahead, I could see a blond jogger running along the shore. Fawn Daniels, lithe and athletic, decked out in skin-tight pink spandex. Enjoying a relaxing run in the warm autumn afternoon.

While my mother, my sister, and her unborn baby lay cold in the moldering darkness.

Flooring the gas pedal, I rapidly closed the distance. There were a few tourists strolling along the beach, but none were close enough to interfere. All they could do was watch.

Not that they could see much. The stolen Escalade’s windows were smoked glass. And in the split second before I whipped it off the road onto the beach, it occurred to me that my uncle Deke had planned this killing extremely well on very short notice. A sobering thought.

Then it was too late for thinking. The big SUV slewed in the sand, and I was fighting the wheel to keep the unruly machine upright, wrestling it back on course. Forty yards ahead, I glimpsed Fawn Daniels’ terrified face as she glanced over her shoulder to see the monster Cadillac hurtling toward her. It must have looked like a messenger of death. A roaring black juggernaut.

For a split second our eyes met through the windshield — and then I cranked the wheel over, veering away to avoid her. Too late!

I heard a thump, saw Fawn go sprawling into the shallows. But then she was up again, scrambling to her feet, sprinting out into the water, limping, but making pretty good time.

Matting the gas pedal, I nearly rolled the SUV in the loose sand as I swerved back toward the shore road. Running for my life.

Though I knew it was already too late.

She’d glimpsed my face, if only for a moment. And she’d seen me often enough during the trial to know who I was.

I’d destroyed myself. Thrown my life away. For nothing.

At the moment of truth, I simply couldn’t do it.

I didn’t hear police sirens yet, but they’d be coming soon enough. All I could do now was try to avoid dragging anyone else down with me.

As instructed, I abandoned the Escalade in the supermarket lot, but I didn’t join my family in the park. I’d failed them. I’d take the weight for that failure alone.

I walked home instead. Not to my apartment. Home. To my mother’s house. A small white clapboard on a quiet side street, shaded by maple trees.

It stood empty now. Locked, shades drawn, eyeless windows staring blindly at me as I trudged slowly up the porch steps. Utterly exhausted.

I still had a key, but didn’t bother to use it. I sat on the front steps instead. Waiting for the police. Knowing they’d be on their way as soon as the Daniels woman got to a phone.

It was a good place to wait. I’d grown up in this house, roamed these streets as a boy. With my little sister tagging along after me. Closing my eyes, I could almost hear Lisa’s voice calling me. The autumn sun warm on my face...

I snapped awake, startled. Wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep but dusk was coming on now, shadows falling.

A car screeched to a halt at the curb.

Not a police car. My Volvo. With my uncle Deacon at the wheel.

“What the hell are you doing here, Paul? You’re supposed to be at the park.”

“You’d better get out of here, Uncle Deke. I blew it completely. The police will be coming.”

“They’ve already been. They arrested Mel Bennett twenty minutes ago. Seems he tried to run down Fawn Daniels. Half a dozen people saw his car at the beach. That big, ugly SUV was hard to miss.”

“Mel’s SUV?” I echoed stupidly.

“Whose did you think it was? He left it parked in front of his new girlfriend’s place. She swore he was with her the whole time, but a star-struck kid isn’t much of an alibi. Not with Fawn Daniels in the back of a prowl car screaming that Mel tried to run her down. Positively identified him.”

“I don’t understand. She saw me! At the beach she—”

“Saw what she was most afraid of,” Deke finished. “Mel’s car coming straight at her. She’ll swear on her mama’s eyes he was at the wheel because she damn sure knows how he did his last girlfriend. I expect they’re going at each other like rats in a box about now, throwing their own lives away.”

“I still don’t—” But suddenly I did understand. “My God. This was the plan all along, wasn’t it? You knew I’d never go through with it. Why the hell did you ask me to do it?”

“It had to be you, Paul. Your mama was right, the law’s been all over us since the trial. We couldn’t make a move.”

“Bo managed the car.”

“I said they were watching us. I didn’t say they were real good at it.”

“And if I’d been caught, Uncle Deke? What then?”

“A poor, heartbroken schoolteacher who just lost his mom and sister? You’d get the benefit of the doubt, same as Mel Bennett did. What did the D.A. call it?”

“A Valhalla verdict,” I said slowly.

“Exactly,” Deke grinned. “Sometimes, livin’ in a town where folks cut one another a break ain’t such a bad thing, Professor. C’mon, the family’s at the park and you need to be with your people. Damn it, Paul, we’ve won for once. And it was long overdue.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Trotting down the steps, I slid into the car beside my uncle. Breathing in the aroma of wood-smoke and whiskey. Reading his wolfish smile as he gunned away from the curb.

I knew he’d played me. All the way. Maybe he had the right to. Maybe it was the only way we could get justice.

Still, I couldn’t help wondering... about those flowers.

Did Mel Bennett really send that wreath to my mother’s funeral?

But I didn’t ask. Uncle Deke was my mother’s brother. She loved him and that was good enough for me.

And it’s best to give people you love the benefit of the doubt.

Even when you know better.