A Ghost of Justice (18 page)

40

"Here
," Emily's father said, handing the coins to her from the back seat.  "It's correct change."

She took them by simply holding her hand over her shoulder, not looking at him as she steered for a correct-change line.  After tossing the coins in, she accelerated back to highway speed.  "How far to the next toll?  I'm tired of slowing down so often."

"That was it.  Just take the I-85 exit when we get to Petersburg.  They irritate me, too.  I liked it better when they weren't around."

"Where after Petersburg?"

"Home."

It was still a marvel to Emily how wonderful it was to go home, no matter where in the world she had been.  Now, however, they were taking this man with them, this
sick
murderer, smelling of his own fear, with them, hands tied to the seat.  She was glad when Eric told her Bob and Andrea had prepared her old room for Hardy.  It made little difference to her that it was the easiest one to make secure.  She just didn't want his filth in her brother's former bedroom.  Anywhere but there.  The fact that that room had its own outside entrance had nothing to do with it.

She reached over and switched off the heat.  Sunlight streaming through the windshield was already making the car plenty warm.  Even the clouds of this morning were gone.  The rich blue sky mocked her own dark mood.

John Hardy's eyes darted over to Emily Sheafer's hand as she reached in his direction.  He could take another breath as she simply turned off the heater.  It wasn't until then he realized how warm it was in the car.  He heard every word they said to each other; he could tell exactly what Emily Sheafer was wearing.  Yet he hadn't been aware that he was getting hot.  Or was it 'feverish?'  Hard to tell.

Traffic began to thin as they got further from the toll booth.  As it did, she began to drive faster.  He wondered if 'home' meant she would get to shoot him herself.

He looked out the window and tried to concentrate on the countryside.  There were no flowers blooming, of course, but many of the leaf buds were beginning to uncurl.  The tiny leaves blurred together in a light pale green collage, broken here and there where they hadn't yet opened and the bark showed through.  It was beautiful.  He loved this time of year.  Sometimes it was the only time he ever felt any hope.  Used to be, anyway.

"Damn," Emily said softly.

"What is it?"

"The back-ups are almost out of power.  Do you know where the nearest place might be?  It must be really low.  We don't seem to be soaking up enough power to recharge even with all this sunlight."

He looked over her shoulder at the display.  "Damn," he echoed.  "We'd better try our luck at the next exit."

It couldn't have turned out better.  A tall 'PowerCell Exchange' sign stood to one side of the bridge.  She eased over and drove up the ramp.  Pulling in at the building, she turned to her father and held her hand out for the gun.

He only said, "You do it.  I'm fine right here."

She frowned at him, but got out.  It wasn't even a good try, she admitted to herself as she opened the hood.

After pulling out the two back-up batteries, she glanced inside the car.  To her surprise, her father was leaning forward, talking to their prisoner.  She tapped on the window for the money.

Eric handed out a debt card.

She strode briskly into the store, feeling the wind biting through her jeans.  She burned inside, though.  What the hell would he be talking to Hardy about, anyway, she wondered.

John noticed the way Emily looked at him as she went around the front of the car.  He said it before he realized, and felt embarrassed after he did.  "She really wants to kill me."

"Yes.  She does," the man behind him said.  Then he added, "Don't be too sure I don't."

In spite of his embarrassment, John decided he may as well continue.  He had nothing to lose.  "You haven't, yet."

"So?"  The word was said evenly, almost carelessly.

John turned a little to the left to have a more direct discussion.  "I guess I…was wondering why.  Did my father have anything to do with it?"

"You mean you want to know if your father led us to you, assuming we agreed not to kill you."

He had to cough before responding.  Then he could say, "No, not that.  He didn't know where I was.  He didn't even know I was in town."

"Let me tell you something, young man, so you'll know exactly what is going on.  First of all, you don't owe the fact that you are still alive to your father.  You owe it to me.  For now, you'll owe every minute to me.
"Your father did know you were there somewhere.  He learned because of an item in the Thursday news.  There was this private investigator looking for you and he had just about found you."

"He must have been the one at the museum that night."

"
That
was me. 
He
was dead by then.  Someone shot him that night.  And that was the story that tipped off your father.  It also gave where we were staying so your father came to see us yesterday.  He tried to find out if we knew where you were.  He didn't cone out and say it directly, of course, but he may as well have.  He also tried to convince us not to kill you; that you couldn't have done it.”

"What did you tell him?"

"What do you think?  I told him what the court found.  You were there.  You ought to know.  You're guilty as hell.  You and I both know it."

John straightened back in the seat.  "So, why didn't you shoot me back there?  If it wasn't because of my father, then what kept you?"

"Your father did lead us to you, but only because I realized he would know, better than we could ever guess, where you might be."

"Then he didn't know you followed him."

"Of course not.  He saw us once, but we let him think he lost us in the traffic."

John leaned against the headrest.  Although he hadn't really believed his father would have betrayed him, it was good to have reassurance.  The rest of what Sheafer said, he also believed, but it didn't make any sense.  He had to know more.  "You still haven't said why you didn't kill me in the cemetery," he ventured.

"No.  And I don't have to."

Nothing more gained, and Emily was coming back with the new power packs.  There would be no more talk.  He felt increased unease.  John thought it was the way Sheafer said the last sentence, but he wasn't sure.

He would have left that night if he had been able, would've gone to the rail yard and found an open boxcar.  But he didn't have the strength.  The hot shower left him feeling much better.  It must be a simple cold.

Thinking about it seemed to make him cough.  He closed his eyes, suddenly drained.

The driver's door opened, bringing in freezing air and a jostling heralded Emily Sheafer's return to the driver's seat.  The ice remained, even after the door was closed.

Emily said something softly to the elder Sheafer but he couldn't hear it.  After a moment he heard the click of the car's sound system being started.  He winced inwardly, expecting a blast of loud noise - something she probably considered music.

But what he did hear made him raise his head and open his eyes.  Mozart caressed his ears.  Not just his ears but his whole person.   It didn't cure his unease, but he felt a palpable if small relaxation.  Woodwinds, with a bassoon giving solid bass, undulated sweetly until an oboe held a note high above them and fell into a familiar melody.  It wasn't until the clarinet took over that he knew where he had heard it before.  He had played part of it himself in high school; the very part that was soloing now.

He lowered his head.  That spring had been the best time he ever had.  It was the only year he held the First Chair, earning the privilege of the solo.  The coming fall had meant college and away from home to UNC-G, where Lonni was going.  It didn't matter what he majored in, just as long as they were together.

They stayed so right through Christmas of their senior year.  He had changed majors several times: History to English, to Art, to Math, even, then back to History.  But he had lost time and it would take him a fifth year to finish.  That was all right with himself and the school, but his mother didn't like it.  Neither did Lonni.

In fact, she dumped him, even though they had been engaged the previous summer.  She said he was too flighty, not dependable.  That was what she claimed.  It hurt, too, but not as much as the real reason.  He found
that
out in March.  She had been seeing other guys - plural.  For years.  He still felt a used fool for it.

The music ended.  In the silence before the next piece he remembered the name.  "Serenade for Winds," he whispered.

41

The
car swayed ever so slightly as Emily shot a glare at Hardy.  She couldn't believe he knew the name, let alone anything at all about classical music.

She forced her attention back to the road and her driving, but she kept glancing over now and then.  His head leaned a little forward as he listened closely, bloodshot eyes unfocused.  Hardy appeared to recognize all of it.  Yet she had selected a couple of rather obscure Mozart concertos.  And this guy seemed to
know
them.  She knew he did, because sometimes his head nodded a tiny bit to the tempo, anticipating the flow of the melody, the timing of standout notes.

No.  She refused to believe this of the brute who killed her brother.  He could not  possibly have any appreciation of beauty.  She stoked her hatred, remembering the teacher Steve was, recalling the autopsy reports.

The traffic began thinning more as they left Petersburg behind.  She maneuvered around a slow transfer van and pressed down on the accelerator.

For the next several miles she diligently ignored Hardy.  When she looked again, he was still listening.  By now the clarinet concerto was playing from the speakers.

Angrily, she cancelled the music.  A few punches and she started a collection called 'The Best of Wagner' going.  No one's favorite except aficionados.

From the back, Eric said, "Slow down, Em."

The interruption of her thoughts irritated her, but she dutifully glanced at the speedometer.  She was nearing eighty.  It was a wonder she hadn't been pulled over already.  She let off the pedal and the speed dropped quickly to just under seventy.  "Sorry," she said and set the cruise control.

"Just watch it a little better from now on.  And do the limit."

"Okay," she said, then dismissed the speeding incident immediately, keeping a furtive eye on Hardy.  No one knew Wagner anymore.  She reset the cruise, letting her speed drop to sixty-five.

The romantic strains of the
Tannhauser
overture swelled to fill the car.  After a few minutes she checked on him.

He was leaning back against the headrest, eyes closed and lips parted slightly.  Sometimes he made throat-clearing sounds or coughed, but all the time his mouth made little motions to the music.

Quickly looking back at the highway, she discovered she was biting her lip.

Hardy's reverie was broken by Eric Sheafer saying, "What is it, Em?"  Hardy opened his eyes and turned enough to see Emily.

Her jaw was set so tight he could see the muscles.  Knuckles white on the wheel., her lower lip was curled between her teeth.

"Nothing," she blurted.  Then she mashed the cancel button on the stereo and Wagner's most eloquent work dropped away to silence.

Then he thought he understood.  "I think it bothers her that I know classical music, Dr. Sheafer."

After a moment Sheafer said, "Is that true, Em?"

Emily reached across the space between them, Hardy flinching at the sudden motion.  But all she did was open the glove box, pull out a pair of sunglasses and slap it closed.

"I don't give a damn what he knows," she said.

A moment of hesitation, then the elder Sheafer said, "I don't give a damn either.  At this point."

John Hardy blinked.  What did
that
mean?  He heard a rustle of paper from the back.

Emily glanced for an instant over her shoulder.  "What's that," she demanded.

Eric said, "A plan."

"For what, may I ask?"

"You may ask, and I will tell you.  But not now."

If Hardy's hands hadn't been tied behind him he would have smacked himself on the forehead.  Instead, he coughed twice, then sneezed.  This conversation's bare hints were extremely frustrating for him.  Emily he readily understood, but Eric was the definition of vagueness.  And his were the statements that concerned Hardy's own future.

They were crossing the southern fingers of Lake Jordan.  It was then her father leaned forward and started talking to him again.

"How is it you know classical music, Hardy?"

Their prisoner was visibly startled at having a question put directly to him.  Emily would have smiled at his discomfiture, but it startled her a bit, too.  And the question was so innocuous.  Damn near friendly, she thought with an upsurge in her anger.

"I…ah…used to play the clarinet," the bastard said.

"In school?"

"Yes, sir.  I started in middle school."

"Are you any good?"

Emily listened closely, wondering where this was going, wondering what her father's ulterior motive might be.  A glance at Hardy showed him sitting stiffly, facing forward.

He said, "Probably not anymore, but I did well enough in high school."

"Play anymore after that?"

"Yeah…yes sir.  Through college."

"Why did you give it up?"

Confusion began to eat at the edges of Emily's anger, though it remained predominant.  What was this course of questions going to accomplish?  What good was it to learn the entire musical history of John Hardy?

"I…didn't have… I just wasn't able to, Dr. Sheafer.  Anyway, I wasn't really that good.  Maybe so-so for an amateur."

"Okay.  So you went to college.  UNC-G, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

All at once it came to her: make him feel comfortable so that he confesses even before he knows it.  Then maybe her father could get over this thing that was keeping him from pulling the trigger and he'd kill Hardy.  They could roll him over a guard rail, into one of the ravines they were passing.  It would be more than fitting, she felt.

"What attracted you there?"

"Nothing."

The response came too quickly.

"Come on.  All the way from Richmond, with four good schools of its own?  There had to be something.”

Emily wasn't prepared for the answer.

Hesitantly, Hardy said, "It was a girl."

"Oh?" Eric prompted.

"I…we dated in high school and she wanted to teach.  I'd rather not talk about it."

Emily was breathing heavily, feeling her nostrils flare.  She didn't understand why.  Sure, she hated him for what he had done.  But this anger was different.  It went beyond the rage she had developed on this search-and-capture mission.

Then it hit her, physically jolting her, causing the car to again swerve under her grip.

"What was that, Em?"

"Ah…nothing," she said, trying to get back to the revelation.  "Just…something in the road."

It wasn't fair, she thought.  It just wasn't fair, damn it all.  Damn him!

Eric accepted her explanation and continued with Hardy.  "What did you major in?"

"History and English."

"That wasn't all, though, was it?  You majored in Art and Math, too.  Didn't you?"

"How do you know so much about me?  And why do you care?"

Biting her lip, Emily worked her jaw back and forth, listening intently.

"The police were very thorough," Eric said.

"Not thorough enough, damn it," Hardy said as he continued to take a more defensive stance.

"Why?" her father asked.

"Because…" he said, voice acquiring a pained sound.  She heard him whisper, "Oh, God."

Unable to stop herself, she looked at him for a careful second.  He was staring straight ahead.  She could hear the air sucking in and out as he breathed, rapidly, tightly.  With an effort, she held her hands steady on the wheel and kept the car in the lane.

"Because," Hardy started again.  "They didn't…"  He faltered, voice now shaky.  "Damn it, I didn't do it!"
The car was silent but for the ripping whine of the tire treads on the pavement.  Emily waited, willing for someone else to end the quiet.  For her father to deny Hardy his claim of innocence.

After an eternity Eric finally spoke.

"The court says you did.  The evidence was overwhelming."

She could see him from the corner of her eye, slumping in the seat, heard his sigh of frustration and exhaustion.  He coughed twice, hard.

"I know," he moaned.  Another sigh, a softer cough.  "I guess I would have convicted myself…based on the
evidence
," he said, his voice soft but tainted with irony.

"Is that why you never said anything to us about being innocent before?"

Barely audible, Hardy said, "Yeah."

Why
, Emily's thoughts screamed in anguish. 
Why did this monster have to have feelings?