“Maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. But if you haul me up on the stand, that’s what I’m going to say. So you just think about this, Kincaid, and you think about it real good. Do you really want me up on that witness stand? ’Cause I don’t think you do.” He gave Ben a good hard push, enough to knock him back against the wall. Then he jerked his head around. “C’mon, boys. Let’s go home.”
Eleven P.M. Several hours had passed in the main conference room, but for all intents and purposes, the persons sitting inside were no further along than they had been before.
“I’m lost, Ben,” Christina said. “I’m sorry to be so clueless, but I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“We’re going to call Catrona, just like we planned.”
Christina’s eyes fairly bulged. “Did you hear what that man said to you?”
“I’m not worried about his threats.”
“You should be! Even if you don’t have the sense to understand that you’re endangering yourself and your friends, you should understand that he plans to commit perjury. He’s going to tell all kinds of lies.”
“I’ll be questioning him as a hostile witness. I’ll prove he’s lying.”
“You mean, you’ll try. He’s not a stupid man, Ben. Not by a long shot.”
“Well, we have to do something!” Ben slapped his hand down on the table. “Maybe they didn’t cover this in Trial Tactics 101, but after the prosecution finishes its case, the defense starts. That means tomorrow morning at nine A.M., Judge Cable is going to ask me to call my first witness. And I’d damn well better have one!”
Loving rushed into the conference room carrying a cordless phone. “Skipper—we got a phone call. From Sergeant Matthews.”
“What does that son of a—”
“It’s not for you,” Loving said breathlessly. “It’s for Keri.”
Slowly, Keri’s head lifted. “Wha—”
“They’ve found your brother.”
“Kirk?” Her lips and mouth opened, in a strange, mixed expression. “Where is he?”
“He’s on the roof of the Bank of Oklahoma Tower. And he says he’s going to jump.”
43
THREE ARMED POLICE OFFICERS led Ben and Keri through the cordon surrounding the Bank of Oklahoma Tower which, at fifty-plus stories, was the tallest building in Tulsa. They took the elevator to the highest level, then rushed up the stairs to the roof.
When Ben emerged through the hatch, he felt as if he had entered another world. Two helicopters were hovering overhead, casting focused beams of light on the otherwise dark tableau. Police officers were swarming over the roof, though they kept a respectful distance from the lone man at the far edge. Only one plainclothes officer stood within twenty paces of the man, an electronic bullhorn dangling from one hand.
Arlen Matthews, of course. Flung into Ben’s face once more, like a cancerous scab that just wouldn’t heal.
The whole scene was all too eerie for Ben, too reminiscent of the night he had been arrested—the copters, the cops, Matthews. That night, of course, it had been a show Matthews and his buddies put on to scare and intimidate him. This time, however, it was all too real. Kirk Dalcanton stood poised on the edge of the roof threatening to jump. One baby step is all it would take. He could do it long before anyone got close to him. No one could possibly stop him.
“Get him!” Keri screamed, as soon as her eyes had adjusted enough to understand what she was seeing. “Someone stop him!”
“They’re trying, ma’am,” a nearby uniform explained. “But there’s not much they can do. He says if they come any closer, he’ll jump. And he looks like he could do it.”
“How did he get up on the roof?” Ben asked.
“No clue,” the officer replied. “We think he must’ve snuck in during office hours, then hid in the stairwell till after most of the security officers got off. But that’s just a guess.”
“But why here?” Ben asked. “There must be other places where it would be easier to kill yourself.”
“Easier, yes. But few more certain.” The officer cast his gaze toward the horizon. “If he takes that step off the edge of the building, ain’t no power on earth that can save him.”
“Someone has to help him!” Keri cried. “Please!”
Officer Matthews spoke into his bullhorn. “Kirk, your sister is here.”
The effect on Kirk, on his lone silhouette poised on the edge of space, was immediate. “No! Send her away! I don’t want her here!”
“Kirk, she cares about you.” The electronics made Matthews’s voice seem weird, inhuman. “She doesn’t want to see you come to any harm.”
“I said, keep her away! I—I don’t want her to see me like this.”
“Then come away from the edge. Let us take you home.”
“There’s nothing for me there. There’s nothing for me anywhere.” All at once, Kirk fell to his knees. “It’s all over for me.”
“Don’t talk like mat, Kirk. It’s never over. Not unless you make it over.”
Ben watched the terrifying tableau from the rear. Keri clung tightly to him.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked her. “Do you know what he’s so upset about?”
Keri did not immediately respond.
“Keri?” He took her by the shoulders and lifted her up to his eye level. “Keri, if you know something, you’ve got to tell the police.”
Her voice was quiet. “I know what’s wrong with him.”
He pulled her closer. “Keri, does this have something to do with the case?”
He was interrupted by Sergeant Matthews. “Can you give me some hint what to say to him? Something that might persuade him to step away from the edge?”
Keri hesitated before answering. “Tell him he’s forgiven.”
“Forgiven? What did he do?”
She shook her head. “Just tell him—tell him it doesn’t matter anymore. That it’s all over.”
Matthews frowned. “Could you give me a little to go on here? The more information I have, the better able I am to do my job.”
“That’s all I can say.”
Matthews frowned, then returned to his previous position, the closest he could come to Kirk without sending him into a panic. “Kirk … listen to me.”
Kirk’s head jerked up. “What?”
“Kirk … you’ve been forgiven.”
“You’re wrong,” he shouted back. His face was wet, illuminated in the cascading beams of light from the helicopters circling overhead. “I can never be forgiven. No punishment is enough. Even God has turned His back on me.”
“Now listen to me, Kirk, I don’t know what church you went to, but when I was growing up, they taught me that God never turns His back on anyone. We’re all sinners. But God forgives us.”
“Not this time.” His eyes slowly turned toward the edge of the building. “Not now.”
“Don’t do anything crazy, Kirk. Let’s just talk awhile. There’s no hurry.”
“It’s over,” Kirk said, monotone. He inched closer to the edge. “Time to end it.” His body swayed back and forth, teetering on the brink.
“Kirk, listen to me!” Matthews was turning one way, then the other, looking anywhere for help. “We’ll do whatever you want. We’ve got your sister here. Look, I’ll send her out to talk to you. She—”
“No!” he shouted, and a second later, he was gone.
Ben and Keri rushed to the edge, just in time to see his body dropping out of sight, drifting downward like a skydiver without a parachute, plummeting silently out of their view toward the harsh reality of the pavement fifty stories below.
“Kirk!” Keri screamed. She fell, her face cradled in her hands. Ben knelt beside her, steadying her, holding her tight. “Kirk!”
But it was much too late. No one could do anything for Kirk now, not Keri, not Ben, not Sergeant Matthews, not even God. There was nothing in Kirk’s future now but a cold hard death and, if Father Danney was right, the afterlife, which no matter what form or shape it took could not possibly be crueler to Kirk than the life he had finally left behind.