Sand Sharks (29 page)

My assailant jerked open the car door and ran toward me. By then, I had pulled my .38 from the ankle holster I had strapped
on before leaving the hotel parking lot, a gun Daddy had given me back when I was in private practice and driving around the
state by myself late at night.

Moonlight silvered the barrel as I took aim. “Stop right there or I swear to God I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

A prowl car suddenly drew across the entrance to the parking lot. Flashlights hit Hank Barlow’s face from two directions.
One of the lights belonged to the police officer who had been reading her newspaper while she ate a solitary dinner and kept
her eye on me. The other belonged to Detective Gary Edwards.

The first question he asked me was, “You okay?”

The second was, “Do you have a license for that thing?” which was exactly what Dwight had asked the first time
he
saw it.

Why does a woman with a gun freak men out?

Manslaughter on a sudden provocation differs from excusable homicide
se defendendo
in this: that in one case there is an apparent necessity, for self-preservation, to kill the aggressor; in the other no necessity
at all, being only a sudden act of revenge.

—Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780)

B
y the time they got around to taking my statement, Hank Barlow had waived his rights to an attorney and made a full confession.
It was as if he was glad to be done with all the violence and had a huge need to unburden his soul, holding nothing back.
Afterwards, Edwards let me sit in on his interview with a tearful Mel Garrett, who confirmed the events and conjectures I
had pieced together.

Much as we would like to be infallible, no judge gets it right every time and the consequences of compassion and of sloppiness
are often indistinguishable.

When I sat court for Bernie Rawlings’s brother up in Cedar Gap last fall, I saw a family snapshot of Kenneth Rawlings with
his wife and young son. His clerk told me that Mrs. Rawlings and their little boy were killed instantly when they were broadsided
by a drunk driver, a driver Ken had sentenced to several days of community service when he appeared in court on his first
DWI.

Pete Jeffreys had violated his oath of office in more ways than one, but the thing that got him killed was carelessly giving
probation to a felon without noticing that he was currently in violation of an earlier probation—a stone-cold killer who went
out and carjacked, raped, and murdered a young college student.

“Annie was my cousin,” Mel Garrett said, fighting to hold back her tears. “She and Hank were supposed to get married last
November. At Thanksgiving. I was going to be her maid of honor.”

At our committee meeting on Sunday, Roberta Ouellette had said, “She was on her way back to class after a fitting of her wedding
gown when he grabbed her.”

Too bad none of us thought to ask the name of the groom-to-be.

“He told me that he and his girlfriend usually took summer jobs in the mountains,” said Edwards, “but that you convinced him
the beach would be a good change. I thought you were the girlfriend he was referring to.”

Mel shook her head, her eyes as pink as the streaks in her jet-black hair. “Not me. Annie. She loved the mountains. After
graduation, they were going to work at one of the inns till they could afford to buy an inn of their own. They had so many
plans. When she got killed, Hank was so out of his mind with grief that we were all afraid that he might hurt himself. If
he could have gotten his hands on the asshole that killed her, he would have ripped his bloody heart out.

“Then when the newspapers wrote about how he should have been behind bars and not out on the street, that the judge had screwed
up, that really started to eat at Hank. I thought getting him to come here this summer instead of going to the mountains would
help him, but it was like that appointment in Samarra, wasn’t it? He comes here to get over Annie’s death and the man who
caused it turns up here, too.”

She pushed back the hair that had fallen over one eye and looked Edwards straight in the face. “Honest to God, I didn’t know
that the judge was here that night. All we knew was his name, not what he looked like. That’s why I believed Hank when he
swore he had nothing to do with the murder. I was afraid that if I told about Annie, you’d say he did it.”

I remembered looking across the crowded dining porch when Hank seated Allen and the children, how Pete Jeffreys had come up
to the table and Hank had stood by patiently while Allen introduced the children to Judge Jeffreys. “I’ll bet that’s how he
knew who Jeffreys was,” I said, and Edwards told me that Hank had confirmed it when he confessed.

The rest was as I’d conjectured. He had followed Jeffreys into the restroom and accused him of causing his fiancée’s death.
When Jeffreys tossed him enough money to pay his bill and stormed out of the restaurant, Hank had followed.

“I wanted him dead,” Hank told them. “Dead like Annie. I was in such a rage that I just snatched up that strap and strangled
him. At that point, I didn’t care if anyone saw me or not. But once I’d thrown him into the river and nobody had seen me,
I thought I might get away with it. Then you and Judge Knott came back to the restaurant Sunday morning and she mentioned
the judge who saw me follow Jeffreys into the restroom. I knew I had to get rid of him before he said anything about me.”

He had killed Kyle late Monday afternoon—a crushing blow on the head that he thought would not be noticed with all the other
damages a car crash can inflict on a body, not realizing that blood doesn’t spurt once the heart stops beating. And he had
been incredibly lucky that neither roommate had walked in while he was packing up the would-be actor’s things. After sending
the car with Kyle’s body off that exit ramp late last night, he had pedaled Kyle’s bicycle back to Jonah’s in the rain with
all the loose ends neatly tidied away.

“Except that Judge Knott kept picking at them, unraveling them,” Hank had said. “She was going to help Judge Fitzhume remember
me and I couldn’t have that, could I?”

“He says he didn’t mean for it to go so far,” Edwards told me. “He says he didn’t want to hurt you and he really didn’t mean
to kill Jeffreys, but the judge brushed him off like he was trash. As if the girl’s death meant nothing. He says that if the
judge had just said he was sorry, admitted he’d screwed up, that would have been the end of it.

“But Jeffreys told him, ‘Shit happens, kid. Get over it.’ ” Edwards shook his head at the waste of it all. “He kept saying
that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be, it wasn’t what he wanted.”

“No Innisfree for him,” I murmured.

“Huh?”

“Not important,” I told him.

It was almost midnight before I got back to the SandCastle. Edwards had offered to have someone drive me, but I swore I was
okay. And I was, except for an incredibly sore shoulder. All I wanted was a long hot soaking bath and two more aspirin. I
put my .38 and its holster back into the locked metal toolbox I keep stowed in my trunk and went up to my room with the candles
I’d bought earlier.

When I unlocked the door, I was startled to see that the lights were on.

As was the television.

And a man was asleep on my bed with the remote control in his hand.

Dwight opened his eyes when I closed the door and set the candles on the ledge of the tub. He gave me a drowsy smile and looked
over at the clock radio on the nightstand. “Midnight? I thought you were going to be in bed every night by nine o’clock.”

As I came closer, he registered my torn and dirty red halter top and saw the scrape on my shoulder and sat upright. His smile
turned to concern and all sleepiness disappeared.

“Deb’rah? What the hell happened to you?”

I went straight into his arms for a long slow kiss that made me forget all about my sore shoulder and aching head.

At last we reluctantly drew apart and he said, “How did you get so banged up? What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, as I slipped off my torn halter top and began to unbutton his shirt. “Let’s get in the Jacuzzi
and I’ll tell you all about it.”

^*
See
Up Jumps the Devil

^*
See
Uncommon Clay