Silent Justice: A Ben Kincaid Novel of Suspense

Chapter 1

“YOU WERE DIGGING AROUND in the man’s trash?”

Ben Kincaid tugged at his collar. “Uhh … yes … but only in the most respectful way.”

Judge Lemke did not appear amused. “In the man’s trash?”

“It was part of my … legal … investigation.”

“The man’s trash?

Ben glanced back at Christina. She just shrugged. No help from that quarter. “I try to be thorough.”

“Thorough? Thorough?” Lemke was becoming mildly apoplectic. “That’s not thorough. That’s … disgusting.”

“The trash had been moved to the street corner for pickup, your honor. I can assure you there was no privacy violation.”

“And you did this for a week?”

Ben’s eyes averted. “Well … two, actually. I wanted to be … um …”

“Thorough. Yes, I know.” Judge Lemke was well into his sixties, but had been gray for the last thirty years, at least. Ben suspected Lemke thought a crest of white gave him an air of distinction, sort of like a halo. And he might be right. He wore wide black glasses that framed his jowly face and also contributed to the overall owlish appearance.

Judge Lemke was a kindly man, as judges went, but in the last decade or so his mind had begun to wander and his memory wasn’t what it once was. Still, he was a judge from the old school. He expected the formalities to be observed and wouldn’t brook any foolishness. Unfortunately, the present case seemed to be nothing but foolishness. “Could we possibly proceed with the examination of this witness, Mr. Kincaid?”

“Yes. Of course, your honor.” The witness at hand was the defendant, Michael Zyzak, who was being sued by Ben’s client, Rodney Coe, for breach of contract.

Coe tugged at Ben’s sleeve. “How’re we doin"?” Coe owned a comic book and collectibles store in town called Starfleet Emporium. He was a baby-faced entrepreneur, barely twenty-one. He was still inexperienced enough with the legal system to assume that those in the right always prevailed—which created a huge problem for Ben, who knew better.

When this case had first come through Ben’s office door, he had leapt upon it with great alacrity. It looked like a rare opportunity to escape the grit and grime of criminal law for the more tony, genteel world of civil disputes. Wrong. At the moment, Ben would’ve given a great deal to be out of here and in the middle of a nice triple homicide.

Ben addressed the witness. “Mr. Zyzak, when did you and Mr. Coe enter into the contract?”

Opposing counsel, one Darrel Snider, rose to his feet. “Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.”

Judge Lemke nodded. “Sustained.”

“All right,” Ben said, drawing in his breath. “Let me try again. Mr. Zyzak, did you enter into a sales contract with Mr. Coe?”

“No.” Zyzak, a professional collectibles dealer, was thirtyish and extremely overweight. His face was covered with fuzzy stubble, which Ben took as evidence of either laziness or a total absence of fashion sense. Possibly both. He wore a rumpled, stained T-shirt that read SPOCK FOR PRESIDENT and wore jeans that were several sizes too small. “We never did. There was no meeting of minds.”

Ben resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. Zyzak had obviously been well coached by his lawyer., “Well then, when did you discuss the possibility of entering into a contract?”

“That would be August fifteenth of last year.”

“Fine. And a written sales contract was drawn up, was it not?”

“Sure. Coe had the thing in his back pocket when he showed up. All we needed to do was fill in the dollar amounts and sign.”

“And you did sign, didn’t you? But afterward, you learned that the market prices had risen. So barely an hour after the contract was signed, you called my client and tried to welsh on the deal.”

“Excuse me,” Judge Lemke said. “I’m a bit confused.”

Ben sighed quietly. Anytime the judge decided to insert himself into your witness examination, it was bad news.

“I’ve heard no discussion of the subject matter of the contract. The res gestae, if you will.”

Swell. Now he was hauling out his Latin. Probably looked that one up in Black’s before he came out of chambers.

“Mr. Kincaid, I can’t very well understand the nature of the proceedings if I don’t know what was being bought and sold.”

Ben nodded. He had hoped to avoid this. Should’ve known better. “Mr. Zyzak, could you please explain to the court what you were selling?”

Zyzak shifted slightly to face the judge. “Pez dispensers.”

The judge blinked. “Excuse me?” . “Pez dispensers. You know. For Pez.”

The judge stared back blank-faced. “I’m sorry. It sounds like you’re saying pez.”

“I am saying Pez. Pez. P-E-Z. Pez.”

“If I may, your honor,” Ben said, reentering the fray. “Pez is the brand name of a candy. Small rectangular sugary treats. Sort of like Sweetarts.”

“Sweetarts?” the judge replied. “Are we dealing with pastries now?”

Ben smiled wearily. Just his luck to have a bench trial before a judge whose cultural knowledge ended with the Andrews Sisters. Or wanted people to believe it did, anyway. “Your honor, I’m afraid Sweetarts is also a brand name. For another candy.”

“Oh. I see,” he said, although the expression on his face suggested that he did not. “And you say this man was selling Pez … dispensers?”

“Yes, your honor. Little plastic gizmos designed to … well, dispense the candy. They have heads.”

“The candy?”

“No. The dispensers. The heads are made to resemble popular culture icons. Comic book characters. Cartoon characters. Santa Claus. That sort of thing.”

“Oh. I see.” Again the surefire indicator that he was clueless. “Excuse me, counselor, but I’m still confused about something.” The judge rustled through his papers for a moment. “I believe I read somewhere that the sales contract at issue was in the amount of eighteen thousand dollars.”

“Yes, your honor. You see, as I explained in the pretrial order”—hint, hint—“some of the older Pez dispensers are treasured by collectors and sell for large sums of money. Like baseball cards. Or comic books.”

“Comic books.” Judge Lemke clapped his hands together. “I used to read those when I was just a boy. I reveled in them.”

“That’s lovely, your honor.” But what does it have to do with this case?

“There was one of which I was particularly fond. What was it?—oh, yes. Captain Marvel. He was just a little boy, you see, but when he said the magic word, he became a huge strapping hero.”

Ben glanced at Christina, but once again, all she offered was a shrug. Was there an objection for the addled judge’s taking an irrelevant stroll down memory lane?

“I remember there used to be a little worm Captain Marvel fought. What was his name? Why, Mr. Worm, of course. No—Mr. Mind. That was it. Yes. Spoke through a little radio transmitter hung around his neck.” He paused for a moment, then sighed. “Don’t see how those comics could become valuable, though. They only cost a dime.”

Ben cleared his throat. “Your honor … if I may.”

Judge Lemke looked up abruptly, shaken from his reverie. “Oh, yes. Of course. Proceed, counselor.”

Ben turned his attention back to the witness. “Didn’t you agree with my client that eighteen thousand was a fair price for the dispensers?”

Zyzak shook his head vigorously. “I did not.”

“You wrote that amount on the contract.”

“He wrote that amount on the contract. I would never have sold my dispensers that cheaply. Especially not the Wonder Woman.”

Judge Lemke looked down again from the bench. “Excuse me?”

“Wonder Woman. The 1965 version, in mint condition. That’s before she lost her eagle.”

Lemke removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I don’t quite follow.”

Zyzak was happy to explain. “Everyone knows that, originally, Wonder Woman had the emblem of an eagle across her … um …”—he waved his hand vaguely around his chest area—“you know. On her bodice. But in the Sixties, her corporate masters, DC Comics, now part of the Time-Warner mega-monster, changed the emblem to a stylized double W. They wanted a trademark they could register and market, and you can’t claim dibs to the American eagle. So they changed it. The 1965 dispenser, however, was made before the change; hence its heightened value. Some people think it’s the 1969 Wonder Woman dispenser that’s so hot, but that’s incorrect. The 1969 dispenser was of the short-lived superpowerless karate-chopping Wonder Woman written by the legendary Dennis O"Neil. She was modeled after Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel character on The Avengers, which, by the way, was itself a steal from Frances Gifford in Nyoka and the Tigermen. Of course, the Nyoka character was taken from the serial movie adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s book Jungle Girl, but the Hollywood slime changed her around so they wouldn’t have to—”

“Excuse me,” Ben said, coughing into his hand. “This is fascinating, but could we return our focus to this case?”

Zyzak shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Mr. Zyzak, you claim that there was never a meeting of minds between you and Mr. Coe?”

“That’s correct.”

“But the fact remains—you did sign the contract.”

“Yeah.…” He adjusted his bulk from one side of the chair to the other. “But I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. I was … uh … what’s the phrase? Not of sound mind.”

“Are you saying you were temporarily insane?”

“Nah. Nothing like that.”

“Are you claiming you signed the contract under duress?”

“What, like I was threatened by a wimp like Coe? Nah.”

“I gather you’re not a minor.”

“Only in the eyes of the cosmos.”

“Then I’m afraid I don’t understand why—”

“I was drunk.”

Ben lowered his chin. “Drunk?”

“Yeah. Smashed. Blown. Snockered. Get my drift?”

“I certainly do. You said the same thing at your deposition. You’re claiming you were intoxicated at the time you signed the contract, and therefore didn’t know what you were doing.”

“Yeah. That’s it exactly. And that guy, Coe”—he pointed across the courtroom—“he knew I was plastered. He took advantage of me.”

“Mr. Zyzak, that’s about the lamest excuse I’ve—”

“Now, now, Mr. Kincaid.” Judge Lemke rapped his desk with his water glass. “Let’s remember our manners.”

“Your honor, this is ridic—”

“Counsel, we must take this defense seriously.”

“Why? He’s just trying to weasel out—”

“I’m afraid I’m in complete agreement with the witness, Mr. Kincaid. If he was drunk, and your client knew he was drunk, I will not enforce the contract.”

“But your honor, he’s just—”

“You heard what I said, Mr. Kincaid.”

“Yes, your honor.” He shifted his attention back to the witness. “All right, then. We’ll play it your way, Mr. Zyzak. If you were drunk, what had you been drinking?”

“Beer. The staff of life.”

“I assume that was three point two beer. This being Oklahoma, after all.”

“Well …”

“You’d have to drink a hell of a lot of three point two to get so drunk you didn’t know what you were signing.”

“Oh, I did. Put down a whole six-pack and a half in about ten minutes. I was grieving, see. I had just found out the Sci-Fi Channel was removing Earth II from its lineup.”

“So you had about nine beers, then.”

“I did. Man, I was reeling. Could barely stand up straight.”

“Tell me this, then, Mr. Zyzak. After you finished those nine beers … what did you do with them?”

“What did I do with them? What do you mean? I didn’t do anything with them, "cept maybe when I went to the John.”

“The cans, Mr. Zyzak. What did you do with the beer cans?”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so? I just threw them in the—”

All at once, Zyzak’s face froze.

Ben smiled. He held up a typed piece of paper. “I have here a signed and notarized affidavit listing the complete itemized contents of Mr. Zyzak’s trash, on August fifteenth, the next day, and the next two weeks. There were no beer cans, Mr. Zyzak. Not one, much less nine.”

“Oh.” Zyzak stared down at his hands for a long moment. Finally, he looked up. “Judge, is it too late for me to settle?”

Judge Lemke smiled beatifically. “I think that would be very wise.” He leaned forward a bit. “Tell me, son. Was there ever a Captain Marvel … uh … um …”

“Pez dispenser?”

“Yes. That.”

Zyzak nodded. “Oh, yeah. But it’ll cost you.”