In Self-Defense Page 10

  Now, them was some mean fucking dogs, Brie thought, those TDC hounds, but they were probably even dumber than this German shepherd. Every prison bloodhound was a member of a pack, and every pack had a leader, and the rest of the mutts would follow the leader straight into hell. If a man wanted to outsmart a herd of TDC bloodhounds, all he had to do was find a maple or elm tree branch and take out the lead dog. Brain that sonofabitch, kill him dead, and the rest of the pack would run for cover. Which was exactly what Bradford Brie had done, killed the lead dog down there in the river bottom, and all the rest of the bloodhounds had scattered like big dumb four-footed quail, baying and howling. Brie sometimes wondered if those stupid fucking guards had ever rounded up their stupid fucking dogs, and frankly hoped the guards were still down in the river bottom hunting for the canine bastards. Killing that dog had brought Bradford Brie four extra days of freedom, hiding out in a farmhouse near Huntsville with a widow woman as his captive slave.

  His breath caught as he pictured her, firm ass and big, strong legs, cooking for him and doing just about anything Bradford Brie damn well wanted her to. They’d finally caught up to him when the widow’s son had come by looking for his mama, and Brie now understood that not letting her answer the door had been a mistake. He should have let her baby boy into the house and then strangled the fucker; the son had gone away and then had returned a short time later with the county boys. Bradford Brie had been no dummy; he’d understood when the jig was up and had come out grinning with his hands in the air. The four days of good hot food and succulent pussy, Brie thought, had been well worth the beating he’d taken from two county deputies on the way downtown. The court had appointed him a lawyer who’d made Brie a good deal: fifteen years each on the kidnapping and rape charges, a nickel for the escape, all three sentences to run concurrent with the twenty-year beef he’d already been serving for armed robbery. Bradford Brie, in fact, had not received one extra day’s time for the escape, not one minute more in the joint for raping and terrorizing a woman over four long nights, and he’d made parole in six years, four months, and thirteen days.

  He grinned as he remembered the escape, and squatted down to peer at the raging German shepherd through the fence. Your time’s comin’, old Shep, Brie thought.

  But even if the dog wasn’t going to be any problem for Brie, the man he’d seen going in the house might be a different story. Brie scratched his head with fingers like bird claws. He should have figured that a good-looking one like the lawyer lady would have someone coming over at night to put the old pork to her. He hadn’t thought that one out carefully, which certainly wasn’t typical procedure for Bradford Brie. It had been just past eleven o’clock when the man had come to her door, strutting as though he had a cob rammed up his ass, and Brie hadn’t missed the fact that the man had parked his car next door. For some reason the man didn’t want people to see him. Was he married? Did the lawyer lady have another guy and this man was just somebody she was banging on the side? Before long Bradford Brie would have the answers, and then he’d know exactly what to do.

  After one more feint in the shepherd’s direction—and after laughing like a banshee as the dog practically broke his fool neck slamming into the fence—Bradford Brie retreated down the alley and rounded the corner. He was whistling as he climbed into his eight-year-old Chrysler LeBaron. Figure all the angles and don’t go in half cocked, he thought. Bradford Brie was one smart guy. He was damn sure smart enough to take his time.

  8

  The next day was Saturday, but far from a day of rest for Sharon Hays. She was up by six and, clad in knee-length cutoff jeans and oversized Texas Longhorn T-shirt, was on her back porch by seven, beating the stuffing out of two army blankets. They had been wintertime covers for Melanie, and had been folded on the floor of the linen closet since late February. Sharon had sworn every week since then that she was going to knock the dust from the blankets and put them away for the summer, but she hadn’t found the time. But now she made time, stretching the roll-up clothesline from Sears across the porch at shoulder level, draping the blankets over the line and, after drawing a deep breath, whaling the tar out of the blankets with a rug beater. She sneezed as the dust flew in sooty clouds, and clenched her jaw to swing even harder. Commander trotted over from his position by the fence, sniffed Sharon’s feet, then sat on his haunches and looked as though he thought 7:00 a.m. blanket beaters were nutty as fruitcakes. Sharon paused for long enough to scratch Commander behind the ears, stick her tongue out at him and wrinkle her nose, then continued her assault on the blankets.

  She finished in a half hour, folded the blankets away in the top of the linen closet, and said goodbye to the snuggly warm covers until November. Her forehead and upper lip were damp with perspiration, and there was a fine coating of dust grime on her forearms and hands. She went out the front door, padded barefoot down the sidewalk to pick up the folded Dallas Morning News, and paused to wave at Mrs. Breedlove across the street. Mrs. Breedlove, chubby and gray, returned the wave as she sprayed her lilies with fine mist from the garden hose. Mr. Breedlove was retired from Exxon, and the elderly couple had lived across the street since Sharon had been seven years old. They had one daughter, Nancy, two years older than Sharon, who now lived in Boston and worked for a cruise line. Sharon had intended to write Nancy for some time now, and as she carried the paper back inside her house, she made a mental note—for the sixth or seventh time this year—to ask Mrs. Breedlove for her daughter’s address. At the very next opportunity, whenever that might be.

  She dumped the paper onto the breakfast table, whipped orange juice, wheat germ, and one raw egg into a froth in the blender, and sat down to sip the concoction while she read the News. The other Dallas daily, the Times-Herald, had folded in late ’91. With no local competition—except for a pesky radical sheet, the Observer, which was a free handout in supermarkets and restaurants and survived mostly on income from its personals section, and which never missed the opportunity to take swipes in print at the News—the News had the Dallas media arena pretty much to itself. Sharon thought the city had really suffered from the Times-Herald’s collapse, and had always considered the Herald the better paper of the two. She skimmed the News’ front page and first-section stories—and wondered briefly whether Ross Perot was really out to give the Repubs and Democrats a run for their money, or if the eccentric Dallas zillionaire was merely bored and looking for something to do—then laid the first section of the paper aside, took a glug of orange juice, wheat germ, and egg, picked up the Metropolitan page and looked at herself.

  It wasn’t likely that anyone would recognize Sharon in the photo. Only her jawline and right arm were visible on the far left side of the picture as she extended a hand to comfort Midge Rathermore. Midge’s fat face was turned slightly to one side, her eyes large and frightened, clutching Sharon’s jacket as the guard led the teenager from the courtroom. Sharon thought that Midge was the most pitiful human being she’d ever seen. There was a rule against cameras in court, and this shot had been taken from out in the corridor, with the lens trained through the window in the hallway door. Sharon scanned the accompanying story, saw that it contained nothing she didn’t already know, and was preparing to turn the page when a headline on the lower left caught her eye. She blinked, then frowned.

  Someone had murdered Howard Saw in his office. Had strangled the cheap little shyster. There was Saw’s picture, his piggish face wreathed in a smile. True, it was an oily smile, which suited Howard to a T, but a smile nonetheless. As prosecutor in the Donello case—and given her personal loathing for people like Wilfred Donello, who dealt in kiddie porn—Sharon had been secretly glad that bumbling, porky Saw had been on the other side. The case against Donello hadn’t been that strong, and a real-live bang-up attorney might’ve walked the guy. Now that she was on the defense side of the table, she wondered whether she could ever work up much zeal for representing a sleazebag like Donello. She doubted it, and thanked
her lucky stars that she was working for Russell Black, who took on only the cases for which he had the stomach.

  So it had been Saw’s office where Sharon and Black had seen the ambulance as the two of them had left the courthouse. While Sharon had been in the sham of a certification hearing for Midge Rathermore, someone had squeezed the life out of Howard Saw right beside the pudgy lawyer’s desk. The killing had taken place only a block from what was now Sharon’s office. She couldn’t work up a single tear over Saw’s death, but the idea of a murder not five minutes’ walk from where she was to make her living raised goose bumps on Sharon’s neck the size of spider eggs.

  She cast the newspaper aside with a shudder. Then she slugged down the rest of her drink and hustled off to waken Melanie.

  While Melanie ate breakfast, Sharon showered and changed into baggy white shorts, a man’s pale blue button-down shirt with the cuffs rolled up a couple of turns, and white Reebok sneakers along with fuzzy ankle socks. Then she gathered up her purse and briefcase, went downstairs, and sat across from Melanie to jockey the eleven-year-old into finishing off her oatmeal and scrambled eggs. Finally Sharon piled her belongings into the Volvo’s front seat while Melanie, carrying what looked to be a half-dozen Sega Genesis video game cartridges, scooted into the back. Sharon hit the switch to raise the electronic garage door, and backed into the street for the two-block journey in brilliant sunshine to Sheila Winston’s house.

  At first Melanie had been really grumpy over her mother’s leaving her for the day—and Sharon, feeling the need to spend the entire weekend with her daughter, had felt slightly guilty and hadn’t blamed the child—but the news that she was to spend the time at Sheila’s had brightened her considerably. Sheila’s daughter Trish was two months younger than Melanie and in the same class at school, and was one of the only kids around who could clean Melanie’s plow in the video games. Sharon had recently splurged for two new cartridges, Nestor’s Quest and Shadow of the Beast, and Melanie had practiced on the new games for hours, laying a trap for the next time she face the invincible Trish Winston. As Sharon drove down the tree-lined street with red brick and white frame houses on either side, she kept one eye on the rearview and watched Melanie. The child sat up straight with the video games in her lap, screwing up her features, and Sharon decided that Melanie was putting her game face on.

  Sheila’s home was in the middle of the second block, a sixty-year-old dark red brick with a wooden front porch and suspended porch swing. The house was in perfect condition, eaves and windowsills freshly painted, and the lawn was clipped and edged as though ready to have its picture taken. Sharon’s own yard teemed with springtime weeds, and a twinge of guilt shot through her as she pulled to the curb. To hell with it, her lawn could wait its turn like everything else in her life. Today Sharon had work to do. She and Melanie went up the walk at a fast clip and rang the bell.

  Sheila answered in seconds. She wore white baggy shorts and a pale blue shirt turned up at the cuffs. She eyed Sharon’s identical outfit and burst out laughing. “Well, at least we’re not going to the same party,” Sheila said. She wore pale pink lipstick, and her straightened hair was fluffed out around her head like the outline of the Liberty Bell. Sheila’s skin was the color of light coffee. That Sheila was black seldom crossed Sharon’s mind, and she doubted that Melanie noticed the racial difference at all. Once, when Sheila had come over to help Sharon with yard work, Sharon had noticed Mrs. Breedlove watching from across the street, and her head had been dubiously tilted to one side. It was the generation gap. Sharon’s own dad would have had a cow over his daughter buddying around with a black person, and according to Sheila, on hearing that his little darling was palling around with some white-bread bitch, Sheila’s father would likely have trotted out his shootin’ iron. Generation by resistant generation, Sharon thought, the racial hatred is dying away.

  Sharon spun around to model her clothes. “My shirt’s a shade darker, I think.”

  “It’s going to look darker on you, anyhow,” Sheila said. From inside the house Trish peered around her mom to bat coal black eyes and wrinkle her button nose at Melanie. Melanie wriggled between Sheila and the door frame, and the two little girls made a beeline for the back of the house. As the children disappeared through the sitting room, Sheila said, “Well, come on in. Geez.”

  “She’s already in,” Sharon said.

  “I noticed.” Sheila put her hands on her waist. “Got time for coffee?”

  “No way. Miles to go and all that. I owe you one, kid.” Sharon had met Sheila in PTA, when Trish and Melanie had been second-graders, and as single mothers they had found they had a whole lot in common. Sheila, in fact, had carried a drama minor while majoring in psychology, and the two women went to a lot of plays together. They also kept each other’s children and leaned on one another’s shoulders quite a bit, and the racial difference eliminated any feeling of competition between the two. Sheila didn’t cross the barrier where dating was concerned, and Sharon’s liberation didn’t extend to interracial flings, either, so the two of them hit it off better than sisters. “I’ll try to be back by five,” Sharon said.

  “Don’t knock yourself out. I’m on the outs with Randall, so don’t guess I’ll be going anyplace.” Sheila rolled her eyes. “End of another beautiful friendship.”

  “I know the feeling. I’m pretty sure I burned a bridge last night myself.”

  Sheila leaned against the doorjamb. Her smile faded. “Shar,” she said, and then cleared her throat before saying, “I was watching The System last night. There was a name in the credits …”

  “It’s him.” Sharon folded her arms and regarded the porch beneath her feet. “What can I tell you? It’s him.”

  “Does Melanie …”

  “No, she doesn’t. Not yet. If he’s finally getting a few TV parts, well, this isn’t the last time he’ll be on. That’s the way it works: once you finally get a part your name goes on the list. We’ll be seeing him again.” Sharon chewed her lower lip. “You didn’t tell Trish who he was, did you?”

  Sheila raised a swearing-in hand, palm out. “Not me, no, ma’am. It’s your business. But I think you know that, some time, some place, somebody’s going to spill the beans. Especially if he’s going to be a regular on the tube.”

  Sharon regarded her toes then looked slowly up. “I know you’re right. It’s a bridge I’ll have to cross. I’ve just got to think on the best way of breaking the news to her.”

  “It’s probably going to make her want to see him in person, you know,” Sheila said. “Our little girls are growing up.”

  “I know that, too.” Rather sadly Sharon walked to the end of the porch. She turned back. “Thanks for being a friend, Sheila. It’d be tough without you, you know?”

  Sharon did her best to shake the blues as she used the McCommas Street overpass to cross Central Expressway into Park Cities, switching the FM dial from Melanie’s favorite rock station over to Country 96.3, but the song on the C&W station loomed up to haunt her. “Lookin’ for Love in All the Wrong Places.” Just perfect, Sharon thought. Then she decided that if she couldn’t beat ’em, she’d join ’em, and threw back her head to sing along, belting out the words at the top of her lungs as she tooled her ancient Volvo among the Highland Park mansions. At the corner of Hillcrest and Beverly Drive, a black Mercedes pulled up beside her at the stop sign. There was a fiftyish woman with blued white hair at the Mercedes’ wheel, and she directed a curious stare in Sharon’s direction. Sharon smiled and waved at the woman, and sang even louder.

  Two bad things in one night, Sharon thought. First the shock of seeing Rob on television in all his splendor, followed by the nagging dread that someday soon Melanie was going to demand to see her father. Then the scenario with Stan Green, the hunk of a homicide cop sulking in her bedroom as he yanked up his pants. Actually, since she’d never had any feelings for Stan other than lust, his storming around might h
ave been comical if it hadn’t been for the possible consequences. Now, in her very first case as a defense attorney, she had two males on the other side, one she’d kneed in the balls and the other she’d expelled from her bedroom. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Sharon thought, then no telling what those two he-man yo-yos might do with their dander up. She didn’t know whether or not to tell Russell Black that in addition to the incident with Milt Breyer, she’d now made a jackass out of the investigating detective in the Rathermore case as well. Telling Black was something else she’d have to think on. She didn’t want to involve her new boss in her personal problems, but they might spill over into the courtroom at some point. So should she tell Russ? It was hard to know.

  She adjusted the radio volume, gave the Volvo the gas, and left the Mercedes in her dust at the intersection. The blue-haired woman angrily beeped her horn.

  The law library at Southern Methodist University fronted Hillcrest Avenue like a gothic fortress. The building was three stories high and a half block long. Behind it lay the campus, stretching a mile or two to the northeast, consisting of red brick dorms and classroom buildings, tree-shaded walks and manicured lawns, and with-it students in Docker pants and polo shirts hurrying back and forth among the buildings. Over it all towered the dome on top of Dallas Hall, dead center in the campus quadrangle. Sharon parked across Hillcrest from the college, in front of the University Bookstore in a two-hour zone, and checked her watch, She didn’t have any idea how long her research at the library was going to take, but needed to keep up with the time so that every two hours she could hurry back and move the car. Parking anywhere around SMU was a bitch; on campus without a permit sticker was a no-no because the campus cops would write a ticket in a heartbeat and then send a series of nasty duns through the mail if one didn’t pay the fine. Sharon dug in her purse and checked her Walkman to be certain that the batteries were ready for action. Then she locked the car, lugged her purse and briefcase to the corner traffic light, and pressed the button on the pole. In a few seconds the light clicked from red to green, north­ and southbound traffic on Hillcrest came to a halt, and Sharon started through the crosswalk. The library building loomed nearer and taller.