The Ghost and the Dead Deb

CHAPTER 17

Kangaroo Court

You got a tender spot in your heart for the palooka but it’s not going to do him any good.

—Frederick Nebel, “Take It and Like It,” Black Mask magazine, 1934

AFTER CLOSING THE bookstore at seven, I set up the folding chairs in the Community Events room, placed a table against the wall, and prepped the coffee urn. Then I locked up and went upstairs to the somewhat rundown yet cozy three bedroom apartment above the store to have dinner with my son. My aunt had stepped out already to have quahog cakes with Bud at the Seafood Shack. (And before you ask, quahogs—which comes from the Narragansett Indian name “poquauhock”—are usually referred to as “hard-shell clams” outside of Rhode Island.)

By nine, I was pulling the plug on Spencer’s Shield of Justice marathon, which was playing on the Intrigue Channel.

“But Mom!”

“No buts, Spencer. I agreed to let you watch TV until nine. Now it’s time for bed.”

“But I’m gonna miss the next episode. My favorite one’s the next one . . . The one where Jack Shields goes undercover at a racetrack and at the end he has to chase the bad guy down on the back of a horse!”

A soft male chuckle rolled through my head.

I silently asked Jack if that particular episode was based on his case files.

Only the racetrack part, baby. Those horseback antics are pure Hollywood.

I smiled. “You won’t miss a thing,” I promised my son. “I’ve got a tape in the machine. You can watch it in the morning.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

While I was less than thrilled that my nine-year-old was enamored of crime melodramas, I was relieved he’d taken an interest in anything after the suicide of his father. Sometimes I still worried that moving him away from the life he’d known in New York City, away from the private school and luxurious Manhattan apartment, might have been a mistake. But one look at the smiling face of my seemingly normal and healthy boy told me I did the right thing.

After tucking Spencer into his narrow bed with a recent children’s Edgar winner, one of the many young adult mystery books we carried, I was ready to implement my plan, beginning with presenting the facts in the case of Johnny Napp to the rest of the Quibblers. I headed back downstairs to turn on the lights and start the coffeemaker. But as I proceeded to the Community Events room, I was startled by a noise—something had bumped against one of the metal folding chairs in the darkened room.

For a split second I wondered if it was the ghost of Jack causing some sort of poltergeist mischief, as he had been prone to do when I first opened the new wing of the store over a year ago. I moved to snap on the lights. But before I could feel the switch in the darkness, a callused hand clapped over my mouth and a strong arm encircled my waist. A man’s voice hissed in my ear.

“Don’t scream.”

I didn’t. I stomped down with all my might on the intruder’s toe instead. He howled and released me. Stepping backward, he threw his hands up in surrender.

“Mrs. McClure! . . . It’s me . . . Johnny Napp!”

I flattened myself against the wall next to the light switch, flicked on the lights. It was Johnny all right, blinking against the sudden glare. Beneath an open grease-stained denim workshirt, he appeared to be wearing the same baggy blue jeans and black T-shirt he’d worn to Angel’s reading the night before.

“How did you get in here?” I cried, unable to suppress the hysteria in my tone.

“I jimmied the lock on the back door. I thought nobody would come back until morning.”

“Your uncle is looking for you.”

I realized Johnny was at least as rattled as I was. “My uncle Bud isn’t the only one. I tried to get home, but spotted a State Police car staked out around the corner, another in the alley behind my uncle’s hardware store. They’re out to get me again!”

“Yes, they’re looking for you. But they only want to ask you some questions—”

Johnny violently shook his head. “The last time cops ‘asked me questions,’ they grilled me all night and roughed me up in the process. They want to pin Angel Stark’s death on me, Mrs. McClure, just like they tried to frame me for Bethany’s murder!”

“You heard about Angel?”

He nodded. “On the pickup truck’s radio. They talked about Angel’s books and said her death appeared to be a homicide. When I heard the news, I turned around and came right back. I knew Uncle Bud would help me figure out what to do. But then I saw the police, and I was scared they’d grab me before I even got a chance to talk to my uncle.”

The kid’s in a panic. Tell him to take a breath.

“Calm down, Johnny. Okay? If you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear.”

Johnny’s look made me feel naïve, and I realized that if I were arrested for a murder I didn’t commit, I probably wouldn’t have much faith in the system either.

“My uncle’s the only guy who believed in me. He’s the only person who ever stood up for me.”

“It’s up to a jury to decide who’s guilty or innocent. That’s why we have a justice system,” I replied, even though I knew it probably sounded like a platitude to Johnny.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Jack?” I silently asked. “What do I do here?”

You said it yourself. It’s up to a jury . . .

“What are you saying?” I silently asked. “Turn him over to the cops?”

No. Your little gang of cornball yahoos. Have him tell his story to them. See if he’s believable. Get a whiff of how his case’ll play out on the witness stand.

I met Johnny’s scared, brown eyes. “Listen,” I told him, “you have your side of these events, right?”

“Yeah . . . ,” he replied warily.

“Then I want you to tell it.”

“But the cops—”

“Not to the police—not yet, anyway. You uncle is on his way over here. I want you to tell your side of events to him, Sadie, me, and a few other people whom he trusts.”

Johnny looked doubtful.

“Just think of us as a jury of your peers . . .”

“I OBJECT!” BELLOWED Seymour Tarnish, jumping to his feet.

Fiona’s eyes narrowed. “You object to what? I haven’t said a word.”

“I object to getting the wobbly folding chair. You got another one stashed around here, Pen?”

“Sure, Seymour.”

“That’s what you get for showing up last,” said Milner, who was busy with wife Linda, setting out Cooper Family pastries around the coffee urn.

I dragged out several more chairs—deciding we needed one or two near the wooden podium, as well. Earlier, I had set up more chairs than a typical meeting would require, but this was certainly not going to be a typical gathering of the Quindicott Business Owners Association. Usually the subject of our merry band of bold commercial entrepreneurs was the town’s parking woes. Lately a popular topic has been the draconian sanitation rules imposed by the city council, along with the tickets that go with them—the newest ploy by the municipal zoning witch (don’t ask) to squeeze Quindicott’s small business owners just a little bit drier. But no matter what issue was on the table, within an hour the conversation usually veered into a spirited discussion of the pastry of the evening, politics, books, or just local gossip shared over coffee.

But not tonight. Tonight, by mutual consent, we would decide whether or not to turn a young man over to the authorities who would undoubtedly pin a murder rap or two on him—maybe even three. To my relief, everyone had agreed with my plan to hold a mock trial and decide if Johnny Napp should go to the police and turn himself in, or if we had enough evidence to believe Johnny innocent, and hide him away until—hopefully—the real culprit’s identity would be revealed.

Before the meeting even started, I’d been on pins and needles waiting for the Quibblers to arrive. A few minutes after my aunt came downstairs, Fiona and Brainert appeared, followed by Milner Logan and his wife, Linda Cooper-Logan.

Like his wife and her shades-of-Annie-Lennox spiky hair, Milner had held on to some fashion trends of his own youth—albeit a decade before Linda’s. He wore a small gold hoop in his left ear and his hair in a long ponytail, now more wiry salt-and-pepper than midnight black. Milner was quarter-blood Narragansett Native American, and he frequented our store for crime novels, noir thrillers, and the occasional front-list Tony Hillerman. Linda preferred her big best-selling authors like James Patterson and Stuart Woods, but she was also game for reading anything Sadie or I might recommend.

Mr. Koh and the newest addition to our club—his eighteen-year-old daughter, Joyce, who had graduated high school in May and was helping him run his store for one last summer before college—showed up with a ten-pack of soft drinks. Bud Napp showed his face just as the meeting was scheduled to start, and Seymour, typically, arrived fifteen minutes late.

As soon as Bud called the meeting to order, I moved we postpone all outstanding business. Brainert seconded the motion. Then I told them everything I knew about Angel Stark’s death, Victoria Banks’s possible abduction, and the disappearance of Johnny Napp. Despite protestations from Bud, I also revealed Johnny’s identity, his felony conviction, and his connection—rightly or wrongly—with the Bethany Banks murder.

While the Quibblers were digesting that vast array of facts, I went to the office where I’d stashed Johnny until I could make my case. I knew that the true test of how things would go would be the Quibblers’ reaction when I sprang Johnny on them—and told them my plan. The look of relief on Bud Napp’s grizzled face when he saw Johnny made it all worthwhile. The shock, surprise, and consternation on everyone else’s face when they saw Johnny was not as comforting, however.

Then I told them my plan to hold a mock judicial hearing to determine Johnny’s immediate fate. “Bud and I are both heavily involved, so we’ll be witnesses. Brainert will take to the podium as presiding judge. Johnny can present his case and we can weigh the evidence.”

“Let me defend the kid,” said Bud. “I know he’s done nothing.”

“But you’re too close to the case, Bud,” Milner pointed out. “You’d do better as a character witness.”

“How about a prosecutor?” said Linda Cooper. “We need a prosecutor.”

I scanned the room, focused in on Fiona Finch and the predatory peregrine falcon pin she wore on her blouse. “How about Fiona? She’s read enough true crime novels to channel Vincent Bugliosi. And she’s read Angel Stark’s book—”

“Cover to cover,” Fiona said with the Cheshire cat grin of a motivated attorney.

“Great idea, Pen,” said Brainert. “Fiona, no doubt, will be dogged. However, I must correct you before the jury.”

“Correct me?” I asked. “For what?”

“Evoking the name Charles Manson, as you did when you mentioned Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, can be construed as prejudicial.”

For a moment I thought perhaps I’d made a mistake in my choice of judge.

Nah, doll, said Jack in my head. He’s as pompous an ass as most judges I’ve dealt with. Maybe the attitude comes with the robes.

“Brainert’s not wearing any robes,” I silently noted.

Judge Parker cleared his throat. “Since we have a prosecutor, we need a defense attorney as well,” he declared. “Someone who can press Johnny’s case, and stand up to the prosecution.”

Not even her husband could stand up to Fiona Finch. But one of our number did go toe-to-toe with her on a regular basis. Brainert sent his glance across the room. “Someone like . . .” His gaze stopped on Seymour.

“Why me?” whined Seymour.

“Brainert ignored the plea and pounded on the podium with his hand. “Order! Order!” he cried. “Consider yourself appointed, Tarnish. Now take you seat next to the defendant and we’ll get this procedure underway.”

“Goodness,” said Sadie. “Brainert is certainly taking his judge role seriously.”

As Seymour unfolded his new chair, I took a seat among the jurists. Though I still had doubts about how the rest of the evening would go, I felt a little better now that Jack was looking on over my shoulder—or wherever the heck he was looking on from. Suddenly, I was shaken from my thoughts by Brainert pounding on the podium with a hammer he’d dug out of the desk in the storage room.

“This court is now in session,” he cried. “Judge J. Brainert Parker—that’s me—presiding.”