Res Judicata (15 page)

Was that why he was staking out our place?

I remembered that dinner we had, that look that went between Biff and Chuck. It was funny at the time. Now it wasn't funny at all.

Those guys had been in this together right from the beginning! Just the thought of it made my blood start to, like, throb. It was as if my head had turned into this giant pulsating blob or something.

It was so cruel. It was so mean. Biff had never loved Andy! He might never even have liked her. He'd just been using her. He must have seen her in court or something. He must have heard what a nut she was when it came to that do-gooder stuff. He must have known that all you had to be was some kind of poor oppressed person—some, say, uneducated janitor, for instance—and she'd take your case on, no questions asked.

I thought back to the first time we saw that article in the paper about Chuck. How had we noticed it? Had Biff brought the newspaper to the table? Had he kind of pushed it toward Andy? Was it a setup?

And why did they want Andy on the case so bad anyway?

Was there something about the case that would have scared off a, like,
reasonable
lawyer?

I didn't know. I couldn't remember. I couldn't think. I was so mad. I wanted to kill them.

I wanted to kill Biff most of all. He hurt Andy. He broke her heart. He did it on purpose! I didn't care how big he was. I didn't care that he was “an officer of the court.” That was my mother he messed around with. I started to think Andy was right after all. He was a bad, bad guy.

Chuck suddenly lurched up in bed, grinding me into the floor. He turned on the light. He groaned. He scratched. He leaned down hard on my head, then pushed himself up off the bed. (I was going to have a face like an angelfish by the time he was done with me.) He wandered down the hall, went into a room and closed the door. I heard water—at least I think it was water—running.

He was in the bathroom! This was my chance. I slithered out from under the bed and power-crept to the front door. I had my hand on the knob when I remembered the file. I could hear Chuck humming. I hoped he was in there for the long haul. I deked back to the card table and switched the folders.

I was halfway down the street before my heart caught up with me.

Stalking
Any repetitive approach behavior done by one party
that makes another fear for his or her safety.

Andy was sleeping like a baby when I got back. She hadn't even noticed I was gone.

Biff, though, was another story. I peered out the front window. He was there again. I saw him move in the shadows.

That's all I needed.

I picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“We have a stalker,” I said.

I waited until the police came to arrest him. Biff seemed to argue with them for a while. Then they cuffed his hands behind his back. Just before they pushed him into the squad car, he looked up at the window.

I gave him a big thumbs-up.

One down, and one to go.

Patent
A legal document issued by a government to an inventor.
As the owner of the patent, the inventor has the right to
keep any other person from making, using or selling the
invention covered by the patent anywhere in the country.

The next morning I told Andy I was too sick to go to school. Usually I have to prove I just punctured a lung or lost a limb to get away with that, but this time she fell for it. I must have looked terrible. Near-death experiences can do that to you, I guess.

As soon as Andy left, I got to work. I found Shannondoah's note in my jeans, ransacked the apartment until I scrounged enough money for lunch—as usual these days, there wasn't a thing to eat in the kitchen—then raced down to the library.

Shannondoah said she was there every day. I hoped she meant it. We needed to talk.

Gamers. Homeless guys. The Old Tars Senior Citizens' Book Club. All the usual suspects were there, but no Shannondoah.

I asked the librarian if he'd seen her. He squinted at me like I was moving in on his territory but finally talked. “She was just here a second ago. Said she had an appointment on Spring Garden Road. You could probably cat—”

By the time he said “—cher,” I was out the door.

Left to the courthouse, right for everything else.

I chose right. I saw the sun sort of
ping
off that blond hair of hers. She was a good block ahead but not covering much ground in those high heels. I started deking and dodging my way toward her through the pack of people heading downtown.

I got caught on the wrong side of the lights at Queen Street and she gained some ground on me. I really had to boot it when the
Walk
sign came on.

I hollered, “Shannondoah!” She kept going. I didn't know if she heard me.

I hollered, “Shannondoah!” again, this time at the top of my lungs. She heard me. (Trust me. She heard me. People in Tibet heard me.) She turned around. She tilted her head and flashed one of those floodlight smiles of hers. She stopped and waited for me to catch up.

She gave me this naughty-boy look. She went, “Now, how did you know my name?”

I went, “Ah...”

Right. Oh yeah. I forgot about that. We'd never introduced ourselves. As far as I was supposed to be concerned, she was just some lady I ran into at the library.

Looking back, I realize I should have just said, “I recognize you from the paper” or something like that—but I didn't.

I got myself all worried that she'd be suspicious if she found out I knew stuff about her. She'd put two and two together and realize I was Andy's son. She wouldn't talk to me anymore. She wouldn't believe I was on her side.

I panicked. I was standing there with my mouth open, trying to think of other reasons a kid like me would know her name. I could only come up with one.

The worst possible one.

Next thing I knew, I was raising an eyebrow at her like I was some underaged lounge lizard and going, “I made it my business to know your name. You're a very attractive woman.”

Normally, I guess, you wouldn't want someone to laugh when you said a thing like that, but I was so relieved that she did. There was at least a chance she thought I was joking.

She went, “Why, aren't you sweet! Now what are you doing downtown on a school day?”

Perfect entrée. “Ah...you left this at the library.” I handed her the note. “Thought it might be...
important
.” I pictured her opening it up and kindly explaining what each item on the list meant, one by one.

“Oh, thank you!” she said. “I was wondering where that got to.”

She put it in her purse and kept walking.

So much for the entrée. How was I going to bring it up now?

She kept chitchatting about the weather. It took me about a block and a half to mentally get as far as “There's something I want to, you know...like, ask you...” when she suddenly stopped and said, “Well, it's been nice talking to you. This is where I'm going.”

No, she couldn't go yet. I had to find out what she knew about Chuck.

Do something, Cyril.

Do it now.

Now!

I went, “Oh yeah? Really? Funny. Me too.” I looked up and realized we were standing outside the Sensual You Beauty Spa.

She gave my shoulder a little slap and said, “Well, I'll be! Aren't you the new man? I couldn't get my husband to try any of this girly stuff!”

Girly stuff. Okay. Not ideal but, whatever. I couldn't let that stop me. I did a quick check around to make sure no one from school was looking, and then I headed in behind her.

It was one of those groovy-cool places where everything is white and shiny, and all the people who work there look like they should have their own
TV
show. Shannondoah fit right in.

I didn't.

The receptionist went, “Hey, Shannondoah! You're a little early today. Make yourself comfortable, and I'll tell Lawrence you're here. In the meantime, can I get you a cucumber infusion or a yam smoothie or anything good like that?”

Shannondoah sighed in that nice way of hers and said, “I'm fine, I'm fine.” She sat down in the waiting room.

The receptionist turned to me and said, “And what can I do for you, sir?” I hadn't thought that far yet. All I really wanted was a few more minutes with Shannondoah.

I was going to say “A haircut,” but I checked the price list sitting on the counter. A haircut cost sixty bucks! That was ridiculous. I didn't have sixty bucks worth of hair on my entire body.

Now what?

It would be way too embarrassing to say “Nothing, thanks,” especially with Shannondoah sitting right there.

I stood there, stunned and sweaty, like the kid at the head of the cafeteria lineup who agonizes between the chicken wrap and the hot hamburger special as if he's trying to figure out which one to ask to the prom.

The receptionist scratched her neck with a pencil and tried not to look irritated.

I scanned the price list again. There was only one thing there for under ten bucks. That's about what I had in change. I didn't care what it was. I pointed to it. “I'll have, you know, that,” I said.

She smiled and lifted her eyebrows way up. She leaned in close to me. She whispered, “Sure. No problem. Lawrence can do you too if you don't mind waiting.”

I took a seat next to Shannondoah. Time to man-up. No use putting it off any longer.

I said, “So, like, what are you here for?”

She laughed. “You're not supposed to ask things like that in a spa. You could get an answer you'd rather not hear!”

I went, “Oh, no, sorry. I meant, what are you in
Halifax
for?”

She laughed again. “Now how did you know I wasn't from these parts?” She nudged me in the ribs with one of those long nails of hers. “Sounds like you've been doing your research too!”

I went, “Ah, yeah, sort of,” and blushed. Luckily, she thought it was cute.

“I guess you know who my husband was then,” she said.

I nodded. She smiled but in a kind of sad way.

“I was here for the trial.”

I went, “Oh, right... But that was ages ago, wasn't it? How come you're still here?”

She looked deep into my eyes, reached over and took my hand, then said, “Well, you're very attractive too, you know.”

My heart thumped. She let out a big laugh. I started laughing too. She totally nailed me.

“Seriously,” I said.

“I am serious, honey! You're a very attractive young man. But you're right. That's not why I'm still here. I'm still here frankly because...well...I don't know...something just doesn't smell right.”

I went, “You're not still talking about me, are you?”

That made her laugh too. Good. Couldn't hurt.

She went, “No, no, you're fine, darlin'. I meant something's fishy, you know.”

“Like what?” I said.

She moved her lips around like “Should I tell him or shouldn't I?” I opened my eyes wide and tried to look all innocent and harmless.

I could see this smile sort of passing under her face as if she wasn't totally falling for it but, like, whatever.

She didn't say anything for quite a while. Then she went, “Do you know anything about the trial?”

“Not a lot,” I lied. “Someone supposedly tried to save your husband from a fire or something, but he died and they charged the guy with manslaughter. Something like that.”

She put her magazine on the coffee table and took a big breath.”Yeah, that's more or less it. Chuck Dunkirk? The guy charged with killing Ernest? He got off, you know. I guess the jury figured he panicked and threw the stuff on the fire without realizing it would explode.”

“How do you feel about that?” I said.

She surprised me. “Well, I was sure upset about it at first, but I've sort of come round, I guess. I think the jury did their best with the information they had. I mean, it's true. He could have just panicked. I don't know what I'd do if I saw a fire. Maybe I'd go and do the same thing...”

This wasn't going where I hoped it was going to go.

“So what's fishy then?” I said.

Shannondoah pushed back her hair and looked up at the ceiling for a second. “Well, it's just that the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why there was even a fire in the first place. Sea lice—that's what my husband was working on—they aren't flammable. Believe me, if they were I would have set fire to them ages ago! I hated those ugly little things. I don't know what Ernie saw in them. All I know is that he wouldn't be doing anything with a fire around them. There'd be no reason.”

Sounds like Chuck hadn't figured this out as well as he thought he had.

“And another thing,” she said. “Why wasn't there a fire extinguisher? Why weren't there lots of them? This was a lab, for goodness sake! Labs always have fire extinguishers. They have to. There are laws about these things, you know...”

She was on a roll now.

“But there's something that bothers me even more than that. The stuff the guy threw on the fire was called Power Powder. He was using it to clean the floors. That's what I don't get. Why did the university still have it? That company had gone out of business ages ago. You want to know why? Because the stuff exploded all the time!”

She put her hand over her mouth and turned away for a second. I should probably have just dropped it there, but I couldn't. She was my best chance for figuring out what was going on here. I convinced myself I was doing it for the both of us.

I waited a second. Then I said, “So, um, what do you think happened? Do you think this Chuck guy was involved somehow? That he did something on purpose?”

She was poking at her eyelashes with her fingernails. Her mascara had gotten wet, but she was acting like this was just a regular touch-up.

“No, I don't think so. At least, not anymore. He's just some poor working guy, trying to make a living. Why would he do that?”