Raising Cain (12 page)

Attorney Kent King removed a financial ledger from his office desk, flipped it open, and examined the last two months’ billings.
Client names and case numbers filled the left-hand margin, and retainer balances were recorded in a column on the right. He
ran his finger down the page, to the current status of his income account. A hefty five-digit cash-available figure lay on
the bottom line.

King smiled and shut the book. Business was good, and fees were at an all-time high. He could coast awhile if he wanted to,
or take a sabbatical. There was no pressure to keep rooting clients out of the county’s underworld.

King was a predatory litigator, the wild man of the local bar. Tall, darkly handsome, and well built, he had a penchant for
sports cars and designer suits. And he was constantly searching for the ultimate “gotcha” against Gardner Lawson. King had
risen from the Baltimore slums, and Lawson had been born to privilege. King was street, and Lawson was country club. King
defended evil, and Lawson represented good. And that made them natural enemies.

The intercom buzzed, and King depressed the lever. “Yeah?”

“You have a visitor,” his secretary said.

King glanced at his appointment book. No clients listed this morning. He was scheduled to play golf in about twenty minutes.
“Who is it?” he asked.

“A Mr. Thomas Ruth.”

King rubbed his chin. He’d heard about Ruth through his information highway, the defense attorney scuttlebutt channel. “Send
the gentleman in,” he said.

The door opened and Thomas Ruth entered. He was dressed in a black shirt and pants. His face was grim. They shook hands and
King pointed to a chair.

Ruth sat down. “Thanks for seeing me without an appointment,” he said softly.

“No problem. I’m glad you came in. How can I be of service?”

Ruth leaned forward. “I need advice.”

“I’m in the advice business,” King replied. “Would this be about a man found dead on a country road?” He knew about the investigation
and all its implications.

“I’m not involved in that,” Ruth protested.

King eyed him skeptically. Criminals sat there every day and declared their innocence. “I’m not a judgmental person, Mr. Ruth.
I don’t give a damn if you were, or you were not. It makes no difference to me. I’ll defend you either way.”

“CAIN, my church, Church of the Ark, is a peaceful, law-abiding organization. But…”

King cocked his head.

“Someone else may have committed the crime, someone outside of CAIN, without my knowledge or approval—”

“Hold it,” King interrupted. “You are either involved in these activities or you’re not. Which is it?”

“I have done nothing.”

“But?”

“But i might know who did.”

King picked up a pen. “You might know or you do know?”

Ruth leaned back. “Might know.”

“And did you facilitate the activities in any way? Did you aid them or abet them?”

“No.”

King made a note.

“What if someone was killed?” Ruth continued. “What if I knew about it? Does that make me criminally responsible?”

“I cannot respond to generalities, Mr. Ruth. You have to spell it out for me. Who got killed and who did the killing?”

Ruth looked down.

“You have to tell me if you want my help.”

Ruth reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic bottle. He opened the cap and popped something into his mouth.
King tried to read the label, but it went back into the pocket too fast. Ruth took several deep breaths and closed his eyes.

“You okay?” King asked.

“Hypertension,” Ruth said, “sorry. I have another legal problem.” King stared across his desk. “What about the one we’ve been
discussing?”

“I can’t tell you any more about it. All I can say is that I would never kill anyone. I detest killing. I was afraid that
I might be held accountable just by knowing.”

“If you took no action to aid and abet and you have disassociated yourself from the criminal enterprise, you’re in the clear.
Mere knowledge of a felony is not a crime. But if you did more than know, if you conspired in some way to make it happen,
you’re as guilty as the actual perpetrator.”

Ruth listened silently.

“That’s all I can advise under the circumstances. Unless you tell me more, I’ll have to leave it there. I don’t deal in hypotheticals.
I deal in reality.”

“I understand.”

“What’s the other problem?”

Ruth didn’t answer.

“The other problem?” King’s tee time was approaching.

“My life has been threatened.”

“By whom?”

“A police officer.”

King’s eyebrows arched. “County police?”

“Yes.”

“What exactly did he do?”

“Pulled my car over, cursed me, harassed me, said I’d committed a crime, said I’d be executed for it.”

King jotted more notes. “When and where did this take place?”

“The past few days. On Mountain Road.”

“Anyone witness this?”

“I don’t think so. The area’s isolated. Can you make him stop?”

King smiled. “Absolutely. I can file a restraining order requiring the officer to cease and desist all contact with you unless
he lodges a formal criminal complaint.”

Ruth closed his eyes and put his hand over his face.

“Mr. Ruth?” He didn’t seem to Be listening. The hand came down, but the eyes stayed closed. “With an emergency petition in
civil court I can obtain a hearing in a couple of days. The judge will get him off your back.”

Ruth opened his eyes and nodded in slow motion.

“This doesn’t mean they’ll quit,” King warned. “They could still come at you with another cop. But this particular officer
will have to leave you alone.”

Ruth gazed toward the ceiling. “And the Red Sea parted and swallowed the chariots.”

“What?” King didn’t follow.

“And the waters consumed Pharaoh’s men.”

King finally got it. “At least one of Pharaoh’s men, anyway.” He wrote “Restraining order petition” on his pad.

Ruth began to stand up.

“Hold on,” King said. “I still need information.”

Ruth wavered on his feet, his forehead damp with perspiration. “Got to get some air.”

“One second,” King answered. “I have an additional question, then you can take a breather.”

Ruth steadied himself against the chair.

King looked him in the eye. “I need to know the officer’s name.”

Jennifer raced into Gardner’s office and threw a magazine on his desk. It was midday, and she’d left for lunch at Russel’s
ten minutes ago. But now she was back, red-faced and huffing. “Look,” she gasped.

Gardner put down his dictaphone and picked up the magazine. It was folded open to the center, but he turned to the cover:
Interview
, an exposé-type glossy with worldwide circulation. There was a picture of the granite quarry, and a headline in bold type:
THE RISE OF CAIN
.

Gardner looked at Jennifer. “What is this?”

“Read
it
,” she replied, sitting down to catch her breath.

“A remote county in western Maryland is the setting for a most profound tragedy,” Gardner quoted. “In that pristine locale,
a smooth-talking hate salesman named Thomas Ruth is purveying the latest in lunatic fringe: The Church of the Ark, Incorporated.
This so-called religious organization, which goes by the sinister acronym CAIN, is secluded in a granite fortress, plotting
acts of terror.”

Gardner looked up. “Christ.”

“Keep going. It gets worse.”

“The preacher uses the Bible to conceal his true intent. He talks of faith and love within the compound fence, but across
town, in the African-American community, a man lies dead. Tied up and tortured, the elderly gentleman’s heart gave out. Sources
say CAIN was involved, but they will neither confirm nor deny to which extent.”

“Jesus Christ!” Gardner couldn’t believe it. This was a disaster.

“Keep reading,” Jennifer said.

“CAIN draws its followers from society’s inventory of throwaway lives. To ensure their loyalty and commitment, Thomas Ruth
forces them to walk barefoot through a pit of rattlesnakes—” Gardner put the magazine down. “How in God’s name did this happen?”

“Undercover reporter.”

Gardner turned the page.

Jennifer pointed to a boxed-in segment. “Sallie Allen, Investigative Daredevil,” it said. “She goes anywhere for a story.”
There was a picture of Sallie in the cockpit of a jet fighter.

“Reporters.” Gardner groaned.

“Read the rest,” Jennifer advised. “They even mention us.”

Gardner scanned the remainder of the article. “The county police and State’s Attorney’s office have been powerless to stop
the spread of CAIN. A spokesperson for the prosecutor would only say the matter is under investigation.” Gardner looked up.
“Spokesperson? We don’t even have a spokesperson!”

“No kidding.”

“This is awful,” Gardner said. “What a fucked-up mess.”

“You have to do something,” Jennifer said.

“Do what? Manufacture evidence? We still don’t have anything concrete on anybody, much less Ruth!”

“What about this?” Jennifer pointed to the article.

“What about it? It’s nothing but hype, media BS. There isn’t a straight fact in the whole damn piece.”

“You could convene the grand jury, summon the reporter, try to build a conspiracy case.”

“No way. Their First Amendment lawyers wouldn’t let her near the place. Protected sources, all that bullshit—”

The phone rang, and Gardner picked it up. “Lawson.” His face paled, and he made some notes.

When the brief conversation was over, Gardner hung up the phone and said, “That was Harvis. Someone just used the CAIN sign
at the quarry for target practice.”

“Do they know who did it?”

“There’s more guns in Blocktown right now than there are in the armory. Take your pick.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“No. Not at the moment.”

“You have to do something, Gard, and you have to do it now.”

“Thanks a lot, Sallie!” Gardner closed the magazine in disgust.

“So what’s it going to be? What’s your decision?”

Gardner started to reply but stopped. The escalation they’d feared had begun. The first shots were off the mark, but the next
ones could be
fatal
.

“Well?” Jennifer was waiting.

“We have no choice now. With or without evidence, we have to remove one factor from the equation to defuse the bomb. We have
to bring in Thomas Ruth.”

Brownie rubbed his eyes and stared at the top of his lab table. It was two o’clock, and he’d been in a fog all day. Exhausted
as he was, he hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d wrestled his pillow well into the morning, then drifted into a half-conscious
state of fragmented dreams. His pillow was soaked when he awoke, his head ached, and he was more exhausted than ever.

Brownie examined the stack of files on his work space that he’d bootlegged from other cops. The Ruth investigation was off
limits, the lieutenant said. But there were ways around that. His buddies had loaned him their case files. That would keep
him up to speed until he made his next move.

A copy of
Interview
magazine lay next to the files. Brownie picked it up and reread the CAIN article. He’d circled several words in red ink,
and he reviewed them again: “hate” and “rattle
snake
s.” He studied the page, then turned to the author’s insert. Something was wrong here. The woman was billed as an investigator,
but her investigation was all conjecture. Where were the facts? Where was the smoking gun? The puff piece on Sallie Allen
was as lengthy as the story itself. She was part of the story, and that made the whole process suspect.

Brownie studied the text. The only meat in the entire piece was her description of the snake walk through the valley of death.
“The rattlers are kept in a wooden barrel,” Brownie read. “They are released on the floor, and arrayed in two rows. The initiate
is then required to walk through the squirming mass while the congregation chants in the background.”

Brownie dropped the magazine. The words had triggered a memory

“Daddy, look at this,” Brownie called from the backyard. It was late summer, and he was out trimming weeds along the back
fence. That’s when he saw it, wrapped around the wire. “Daddy!” he called, grabbing it behind the head and wrestling it off
the rusted strand.

“What is it, Joe?” Daddy ambled out to the porch, newspaper in hand.

Brownie held his arm behind his back and walked toward house. “Got something for you,” he teased.

Joseph raised his reading glasses. “What do you have, son?” “This!” Brownie laughed and whipped his arm forward. There was
a three-foot black snake wrapped around it.

“Joe!” Daddy screamed. He fell backward and almost hit his head on the post. “Joe!” His eyes were white, his feet jumping.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?”

“Get it outa here! Outa here!” Scrambling to his feet, Joseph barri-caded himself behind a chair. “Outa here, Joe!”

Brownie backed away and tried to untangle the beast from his arm. Daddy covered his eyes. “Hurry!” he yelled. “Hurry!”

“I’m hurrying, “Brownie said, opening the back gate and running down toward the stream. He finally got it off when he reached
the water. And there he bashed its arrow-shaped head in with a rock.

“Don’t ever, ever do that again, Joe,” Daddy said later. He was still nervous, shaky.

I won’t, Dad,” Brownie promised. He hadn’t meant any harm.

Daddy had never mentioned being scared of anything.

“just something I have,” Daddy explained.

I understand” Brownie said. And he never did it again
.

Brownie suddenly awoke and leaped up from his chair.

“Shit!” he yelled. “Oh, shit!” He rifled through his briefcase and yanked out a folder. It was the autopsy print results,
delivered the day before. He’d reviewed the photos, and begrudgingly accepted Bellini’s conclusion that the marks on his father’s
neck must have come from a chemical reaction of some kind. There were no injuries to the neck whatsoever. None. The marks
that showed up under the ultraviolet light were just a freak anomaly, of no real significance.