Chapter 27
Ben knew he should probably check first with her receptionist, but he wasn’t in the mood. He darted past the woman before she could stop him and zipped into Granny’s office.
Granny was concentrating on the pile of papers on her desk. Apparently she sensed his presence; she looked up abruptly and cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t folks back in Oklahoma know it’s polite to knock?”
“We know,” Ben answered, “but politeness is a courtesy that has to be earned.”
“I see.” She leaned back in her chair, a playful smile on her lips. The top two buttons on her blouse were unbuttoned, which, when she stretched back like that, became impossible to ignore. “What can I do for you, Mr. Kincaid?”
“I just came by to drop off my preliminary exhibit list.” He opened his briefcase and withdrew a piece of paper.
Granny took it greedily. “Hope there are no big surprises here. I really hate surprises-” She stopped. “I think you’ve made a mistake, Kincaid. There’s nothing written on this paper.”
“Of course there is.”
“I’m looking at it, Kincaid. It’s blank.”
“Nope. I wrote down my exhibit list right there.”
“I telling you, there’s nothing-”
“It’s written in invisible ink.”
Granny blinked. “Invisible ink?”
“Sure. You know, lemon juice. Didn’t you have a childhood? Wait, don’t answer that. I probably don’t want to know.”
A wry, not very amused smile played on her lips. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
“Nope. Just my way of fulfilling my legal obligations. In conformity with the customs and procedures of Magic Valley County. At least as they appear to me.”
“Kincaid, everything I gave you was perfectly readable-”
“So is that. You have to hold it close to a lightbulb.”
“A lightbulb?”
“Right. Let it get hot, but not hot enough to burn. The words will emerge. Of course you won’t be able to photocopy it. But I gather that’s not a problem here in beautiful downtown Magic Valley.”
Granny pushed herself to her feet. “All right, Kincaid, let’s stop pussyfooting around. What is it you want?”
“You know what I want. I want all the documents you’re obliged to produce-you can keep the decoys-in normal photocopyable black ink. Not red, not green, not purple. Black.”
“If you want black ink, you could have them retyped.”
“I could if I had the time, which I don’t, or the money, which I don’t.”
“Life’s tough all around, Kincaid.”
“Especially when your opponent doesn’t play fair.”
“Now wait just a minute. There’s no obligation to produce photocopyable documents in the Rules of Criminal Procedure.”
“I’m not talking so much about the rules of criminal procedure as the rules of common decency.”
She wrinkled her forehead and moved toward him with a look that, if Ben hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought was almost flirtatious. “That’s an oxymoron, Mr. Kincaid. There’s nothing common about decency.”
Especially in this town, he thought, but managed to restrain from saying. “If you don’t give me copies I can use, there will be consequences.”
She pushed out her lower lip. “Aww. Are you gonna tell on me to the judge?”
“No, I think that would be a waste of time. I’m going to tell on you to the reporters.”
“The-what?”
“I thought I’d start at the Magic Valley Herald. I’ve already made contact with a fellow there who’s very interested in this case. I’ll tell him what you’ve done and let him spread it to his readers-you know, all those people who elected you to office.”
She snorted. “No one in this town will be remotely sympathetic to you or your client, Kincaid.”
“Then I thought I’d tell the same story to the Seattle Free-Press. An ambitious woman like you-you can’t be planning to stay in Magic Valley all your life.”
Her face grew cold and stony.
“While I’m at it, I thought I might have a chat with the state attorney general.”
“The attorney general!”
“Yeah, I’ve heard he’s pretty interested in gross miscarriages of justice.”
All traces of amusement bled out of her face. “What is it you want, Kincaid?”
“I’ve already told you. You’ve still got the originals. You can make copies a lot more easily than I can have them retyped. You should’ve done it in the first place; it would’ve been a lot simpler than this red-ink ploy.”
“I’ll take it under consideration.”
“That’s not good enough.” He pushed out of his chair. “See you in the funny papers.”
“All right, all right. I’ll tell the copy squad to get on it. I don’t know how long it’ll take, though.”
“The trial starts Monday. If we don’t have the documents well in advance, I’ll be petitioning for a continuance.”
“Judge Pickens will never-”
“So we won’t waste time with him. I’ll go straight to the state supreme court. On an interlocutory appeal of right.”
Her head lowered; her lips pressed together. “I’ll get you the damn documents.”
“Good. I’m glad we were able to work this out amicably.”
Granny gave him a seriously unamicable glare. “Will there be anything else?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Ben reminded himself to tread carefully. He had promised Peggy he wouldn’t do anything that would expose her, and he wanted to keep his word. “I want all the information you’ve got on Alberto Vincenzo.”
“Vincenzo?” Her head twitched ever so slightly. “Who’s that?”
“The man who clobbered my investigator’s head last night. Either him or someone working for him.”
“Your investigator?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “Was he hurt?”
“He’s got a nasty bump on his head, but he’ll be okay. But I understand you have some DEA information on his assailant, or his assailant’s boss, and I want it.”
“And who told you that, may I ask?”
“Sheriff Allen, that’s who.”
“Sheriff Allen! But he’s-”
“Yeah, I know. He’s supposed to be on your side, and I’m sure he is. But it turns out he’s also an honest man, and he has a conscience. So he told me the truth.”
“I’m going to have to have a word with the sheriff.”
“That’s good, Granny. Chew the man out for having a conscience. You don’t want that sort of thing catching on in your department.”
“The issue is confidentiality.”
“No, Granny, the issue is fairness. And now the issue is safety. I want to know that my staff is safe.”
“So you’re not suggesting this has anything to do with the Gardiner murder?”
Ben had tried to avoid this, tried to get at the file in a way that wouldn’t throw any suspicion on Peggy. “Well, it’s awfully suspicious that the man has taken such an interest in my investigator, isn’t it? But bottom line, I don’t know if it does or it doesn’t. Either way, I want the file.”
“If it doesn’t relate, I have no obligation to produce it to you.”
“My investigator has been assaulted-”
“And I’m sure Sheriff Allen is hard at work on the case. You, on the other hand, are a private citizen. You don’t have any business butting into the investigation and you don’t have any claim to the files.”
“And if it does relate to the murder?”
“If isn’t good enough.”
Ben drew in his breath. “I have reason to believe Gardiner was using Magic Valley’s hot new designer drug-Venom, right? If so, he probably had contact with Vincenzo.”
“And you think that creates a motive for murder?”
“It’s a better motive than you have for the man you’re holding behind bars. I can see a major drug dealer committing murder before some myopic conservationist. And I think the jury might also.”
“You’re really stretching, Kincaid. I suppose you’re just desperate.”
“Maybe Gardiner and Vincenzo had a falling-out. Maybe Gardiner threatened to turn him in.”
“You’re speculating.”
“Of course I’m speculating. And do you know why I have to speculate? Because you won’t give me the file!”