And then flew open. Who’s balding slightly in the back?
Chapter 20
FIRST THING NEXT morning, Ben drove south and parked beside the tree-lined sidewalks of Warren Place. He couldn’t help but marvel as he stepped into the glass-enclosed elevator in the ritzy main office building. This was a first-rate office facility, far nicer than the dump he had operated out of downtown. Ben knew that Jones and Loving had taken office space, but he had no idea they might be able to get—or be able to afford—anything half as nice as this.
He stepped inside the elevator and pressed 7. How is it, he wondered, that he had practiced law in a dump for years, most of the time barely making enough to pay the rent, and now these two nonprofessionals were set up in ritzy digs on the South Side of town?
The bell rang, he stepped off the elevator …
… and into the arms of a huge barrel-chested, muscle-bound man.
“Skipper! It’s you!” Loving said. He wrapped Ben into his arms and squeezed like a boa constrictor. “I can’t believe it’s really you!”
“It’s good seeing you too, Loving,” Ben said, shaking off the viselike display of affection. Ben could remember when Loving was too uptight to put his arm around another man, much less embrace one in public. Actually, he had preferred that.
“Back home again. Back to the fold. I can’t get over it!” He pulled away, still clinging to Ben’s arm. “So, it’s gonna be like old times!”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“I can’t get over it!” he repeated. “Even though Christina told us you’d be back.”
Ben arched an eyebrow. “Did she now?”
“Oh, yeah.” He escorted Ben down the corridor toward the outer door of their office. “She said you’ve run away before and you’d run away again. But you always come back.”
“How insightful of her.” Ben opened the door and took a step inside.
The office was magnificent. Maybe not the White House, but to Ben, it was like a professional dream come true. Plush wall-to-wall carpet. Beautiful mahogany desks. Tasteful adobe walls. And all the best office gizmos—copying machines, fax machines, computers. Even telephones with lots of little buttons.
“How did you afford all this?”
“The office space didn’t cost as much as you prob’ly think. You know, since the oil biz went bust, there’s been tons of empty office space around town. They’re practically giving it away. Truth is, we’re not paying much more than you used to pay for that dive downtown.”
“You mean all the time I was sweating in that hellhole, I could’ve been here?”
Loving cleared his throat. “That’s about the size of it, yeah.”
“From now on, you’re in charge of real estate. Where’s Jones?”
“Over here.” They rounded a corner and, to Ben’s surprise, found another equally large and tastefully decorated office area. Jones was hunched over his computer, typing away.
“What’s up?” Ben asked. “Hacking into the Department of Defense?”
Jones hurriedly typed another line into the computer, then shut it off, long before Ben had a chance to walk around and peer over his shoulder.
How odd, Ben thought. What’s the big secret?
Jones brushed imaginary dust off his lap and rose. “It’s great to see you again.”
“Same here. I see you’ve been keeping busy in my absence.”
“Oh, nothing important. Just a little typing I needed to catch up on. It’s really good to see you again.”
“Well, thanks.”
“And surprising. I mean, I know Christina said—”
“I know what Christina said.” Ben tried not to be irritated. “Where is she, anyway?”
Jones checked the clock on the wall. “Class.”
“What?”
Jones looked flustered. “I mean, you know … Christina has class. Lots of class. She’s … one classy lady.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you could hardly expect a classy lady like her to be hanging around with bums like us.”
“Uh-huh.” Ben peered intently at his former secretary. Something weird was going on. “I talked to her earlier and told her about Earl’s legal problems and that I was thinking about helping. Now that I’ve decided to get involved and he’s formally retained me, I’d like her to get started on—”
There was a pounding on the outer office door, followed by several loud banging noises. Finally, the door opened a crack. “Could one of you bums help me?”
It was Christina. Ben ran to the door. She was carrying three heavy boxes stacked so high she couldn’t see over the top. “Let me take one.”
Christina didn’t argue. With a grunt, she passed two of the boxes to Ben, then pushed the door open with her foot.
“Thanks,” she said breathlessly, after they dumped the boxes on Jones’s desk. “Like my new outfit?” She was wearing a bright lime green shirt that stopped just above her navel, a short neon orange skirt, and knee-high Day-Glo boots. “Very retro-chic, don’t you think?”
“I think you look like Julie on The Mod Squad,” Ben answered. He peered into the top box. It was filled to the brim with dusty files, photocopies, documents. “What is all this stuff?”
“Everything I could dig up in a few hours on the Professor Hoodoo murder.”
“You started already?”
She shrugged. “No time like the present.”
“But I didn’t tell you I was taking the case. I wasn’t sure myself.”
She winked. “I was.” She reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a stack of files. “I’ve been to the courthouse and the newspaper morgue. I made copies of everything they had on the first Earl Bonner murder case.”
“Don’t call it the Earl Bonner murder case. He didn’t do it.”
“Maybe not, but he sure as shootin’ pled guilty to it. And that made it the Earl Bonner murder case. Now and forever.”
“Unless we do something about that.” He opened the top file and found the same grisly photograph Prescott had been waving around. Same blackened body. Same hideous graven smile.
“Think there’s a connection between the two murders?” Christina asked.
“I’m sure someone wants us to think so. Someone wants to convince the world that both murders were committed by the same man. Earl.”
“But why?”
“I can’t say for sure. But if you want to throw the police off your track, this is a darn good way to do it. The police have a tendency to go after the obvious answer, and to investigate only long enough to collect evidence in support of that one, first-blush theory. Real life is often a good deal more complicated.”
Christina nodded. “I didn’t know how much work you would want to do now. Since they haven’t actually filed charges against him yet.”
“I want to do as much work as we can possibly do now. Barring a miracle, they’ll bring charges against Earl. And once they do, it’ll just be a matter of days before the preliminary hearing. Best to dig up as much information as we can beforehand.”
“You told me they backed off after Tyrone came forward.”
“They didn’t change their minds about who’s guilty. They just knew they had more work to do. They’re tap-dancing around the speedy trial requirement.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The right to a speedy trial was supposed to be a civil rights protection for defendants. It turned out to mostly help prosecutors. Prosecutors know that, as soon as they file charges, the speedy trial clock starts running, and they’ll have only a limited amount of time to put together their case and get it to trial. Consequently, more often than not, they wait until they have everything they need, then file charges. They’re ready, but the poor defendant, who may not have had a hint it was coming, has to slap everything together as quickly as possible. It gives prosecutors a big advantage.”