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  “I was trying to flush out the killer. Everything was too relaxed, too pat. I wanted to stir the batter up, to throw a wrench into the killer’s complacency and get himself to expose himself.”

  “So you tried to kill Mr. Crichton?”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill him. I was right behind him all along. The distance from the giant’s ladder to Crichton was only about five feet—an easy jump, especially since I knew what was coming. He was never in any danger.”

  Mike and Chuck stared at him, mouths gaping. Ben couldn’t tell who appeared more outraged.

  “That is the most lame, bullheaded, irresponsible plan I’ve ever heard,” Mike said, incredulous. “What if you had missed?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You sorry sack of shit.” Chuck was on his feet now, swaggering toward Ben. “I want this prick out of here, Mr. Crichton. I want him fired.”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Crichton said, staring intently at Ben. “Does anyone else have any questions for Lieutenant Morelli?”

  No one spoke. Chuck planted himself, arms folded across his chest like Mr. Clean, and glared at Ben.

  “If there’s nothing else,” Crichton said, “then this staff meeting is adjourned. Mr. Kincaid, I would like to see you in my office.”

  “I have to meet a friend who’s waiting for me,” Ben said, checking his watch. “I’ll drop by when it’s convenient.”

  The other lawyers stared at him. He’d come see Crichton…when it was convenient? For him?

  Crichton smoldered without comment. “As you wish, Mr. Kincaid. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  53

  ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Ben strolled into Crichton’s office, a manila folder tucked under his arm. Crichton was leaning back in his chair, dictating.

  “Glad you could make it,” Crichton said, peering over his reading glasses. “Hope I didn’t interfere with your plans.”

  “Don’t worry about it. What did you want to discuss?”

  “I’ve spoken to Harry Carter about your work on the new assignment. He’s not pleased with your performance.”

  “Well, that’s what he does best, isn’t it?”

  “Harry is a very important member of our staff. When he makes a negative recommendation, well…that’s difficult for me to overlook.”

  Ben sat down in one of Crichton’s chairs. “Let’s not pussyfoot around, shall we?”

  Crichton stiffened slightly.

  “I’ve been talking to a friend of mine named Loving. He’s a private investigator. At my request, he undertook a search for Al Austin, the long-lost member of the XKL-1 design team.”

  Crichton’s feet dropped to the floor. “You did…what?”

  “Loving had a long conversation with the man. He’s a funny dude. Seems he didn’t like some of the corporate policies being implemented here at Apollo, so he quit. More than just quit, actually. Disappeared. Seemed to think it would be best if no one at Apollo had any idea where he was.”

  “Austin was always a borderline crazy. Paranoid. Probably an alcoholic.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s what he said you’d say. Anyway, he claims that after the XKL-1 was manufactured and distributed, a design defect was discovered. A defect that made any vehicle using that suspension system unsafe. Especially on rough or bumpy terrain.” He looked directly into Crichton’s eyes. “Such as the dirt field outside a football stadium.”

  “Austin was fired because he was accused of sexual impropriety by several female employees. We had no choice.”

  “Uh-huh. He said you’d say that, too. He said all four women who filed complaints disappeared before he or his lawyers could even talk to them. Apparently, they were bestowed with rather lucrative retirement plans.”

  “We had no choice. If we hadn’t made them happy, they would’ve sued.”

  “I think you were creating a smoke screen, Crichton, just as you’re doing now. The point is that the XKL-1 was and is unsafe.”

  “That has never been proven.”

  Ben reached into his manila folder and began withdrawing documents. “Loving had a heck of a time finding Austin. He was holed up in western Oklahoma—don’t bother asking, I won’t tell you where. Bought a chicken farm, and that’s what he does for a living now. Says he’s much happier. Which I don’t doubt.”

  Ben passed the top document to Crichton. “I guess Al thought that since Loving had gone to so much trouble, he deserved to be rewarded. So Al dug up his personal copies of these reports, copies you didn’t know he had.”

  Ben pointed to the top page. “I bet you’ve seen this report before, haven’t you? Your initials are on it. After the first field reports came in suggesting there were problems with the XKL-1 design, Apollo ordered a series of tests. The testing was quite extensive. No doubt about it: the XKL-1 was unsafe. And you, and Bernie King, and everyone on the design team knew it.”

  “The testing was inconclusive. Improper control group, wild extrapolations from insufficient data—”

  “Don’t bother, Crichton. I’ve already read the report.” He passed across the next document in his stack. “Here we have the minutes of a series of meetings held by the Apollo Board of Directors. It seems they learned about the safety problems, too. And they had to decide what to do about it.”

  Ben pointed to the bottom of one of the pages. “Evidently some of those meetings were a bit on the dull side—notice all the doodling in the margins. I particularly enjoyed that cartoon with the small child being mangled by the XKL-1 suspension system. You Apollo guys sure have some sense of humor.”

  “I see nothing incriminating about this,” Crichton said unevenly. “On the contrary, this seems to me to be the work of a conscientious corporation trying to discover the truth.”

  “Trying to discover the truth? Yes. The question is: what did they do with the truth?” Ben tossed the final document in his stack to Crichton. “This document outlines the cost-benefit analysis performed at the behest of the Apollo directors. They determined that the cost of redesigning the system, implementing the new design, altering the manufacturing equipment, recalling the XKL-1 and marketing the new product would be almost two hundred million dollars. Not enough to sink Apollo by a long shot, but a sizable chunk of change nonetheless.

  “As you can see, if you’re reading along, Apollo then analyzed the costs attendant to retaining the current design. The only real cost item was the lawsuits that would predictably arise as people were injured by the defective system. They estimated that approximately twenty lawsuits a year would be filed, and that the average plaintiff could be bought off—excuse me, that a settlement could be reached for about a quarter of a million bucks. A quiet settlement, before any publicity got stirred up. In short, even if this went on for forty years, it would still be cheaper to retain the old design.”

  Ben looked at Crichton sharply. “Guess what they decided to do?”

  Crichton cleared his throat. “The business of a corporation is to make money. If business suffers, everyone suffers.”

  “Spare me the trickle-down rationalization. This corporation decided that it would be cheaper to allow people to be mutilated and killed than to spend money implementing a new design. So they just sat back and counted their millions while people like Jason Nelson died.”

  “There’s no need for sanctimonious—”

  Ben flung the report into Crichton’s face. “These ten pages are the documents you removed from the production to the Nelsons and their attorney. You misrepresented the contents of the documents to me, and based upon that misrepresentation, I got summary judgment against them. If the Nelsons had received these documents, as they should have, they would have blown me out of the water.”

  “Litigation is a cutthroat business. We play hardball at Apollo. We have a duty to our shareholders—”

  “This is the most cynical, cold-hearted exercise in unrestrained greed I’ve ever heard of! Corporations should use their vast resources to help people. Instead, you le
t this anything-for-the-bottom-line mentality fester until it creates monsters like Rob Fielder and the XKL-1.”

  Crichton pushed himself out of his chair. “You’re so goddamn naive. This is corporate America, Kincaid. Everyone does it! Why do you think soft drink companies still use those bottle caps that poke people’s eyes out? Why do so few cars have airbags? Corporations don’t exist to contribute to the common good. They exist to turn a profit.”

  “Well,” Ben said, “since you feel so righteous about this, you won’t mind if I take my information public.”

  Crichton folded his hands in his lap and settled down. “All right. What do you want?”

  “First, I want you to go before the Board and tell them the XKL-1 has to be scrapped, and all existing models must be recalled.”

  “That would cost millions—”

  “And you’ll do it! Or I’ll go public with these documents, and you’ll have consumer groups, government agencies, and probably a class action suit breathing down your neck.”

  Crichton’s teeth rattled together. “Very well. What else?”

  “Five million dollars to the Nelsons. No strings.”

  “That lawsuit is over.”

  “That lawsuit is over because you lied to me. If you hadn’t misrepresented the nature of the missing documents, we’d still be in court, and they’d be in line for one of Apollo’s quarter of a million dollar Christmas presents. Five million won’t make up for the loss of their son. But it’s better than nothing.”

  “All right. What else can we do for you, Kincaid?”

  “You can pay Gloria Hamel’s medical bills. Including her plastic surgery. And give her some money to carry her through this period of mourning and recovery. Two hundred thousand ought to do it.”

  Crichton’s eyes widened. “Surely you’re not suggesting Apollo is responsible for what happened to her?”

  “No, not directly. But she needs help and you can give it to her. Consider it compensation for all the misery you’ve inflicted since the XKL-1 was implemented.”

  “Fine.” Crichton checked his calendar. “The Board meets tomorrow morning. I’ll present your package to them then.”

  “I’ll be waiting to hear the result.”

  “And if they refuse?”

  “Then I go public with the documents.”

  “You are a lawyer representing the Apollo Consortium. You owe us a duty of zealous loyalty. In fact, those documents are covered by the attorney-client privilege. It would be a gross ethical violation to disclose them to the general public.”

  “I don’t give a damn. If the Board doesn’t cooperate, I’ll send copies to every newspaper in the Southwest.”

  “I’ll see that you’re disbarred.”

  “And I’ll see that you’re arrested. Negligent homicide. Aiding and abetting, at the least.”

  Crichton laughed, but the laugh sounded very hollow. “That will never stick.”

  “Do you really want to take the chance?”

  There was a long silence as the two men stared at one another across a much too small expanse of carpet.

  “Have you no sense of propriety at all?” Crichton asked. “No sense of loyalty?”

  “To you? No.”

  “You were hired to assist the Apollo Consortium.”

  “I wasn’t hired to be a patsy.”

  A hideous grin spread across Crichton’s face. “You still haven’t figured out why you were hired, have you?”

  Ben raised his chin. “What do you mean? I was hired to work on your litigation team.”

  Crichton shook his head. “You stupid fool. Blinded by your own egotism. Surely you didn’t believe all those nauseating compliments I paid you?”

  “I…don’t know what you mean…”

  “You were hired because we learned you had represented the Nelsons on a prior personal injury matter. Period. We were searching for something we could use against them in their suit against Apollo—something to force an early settlement and ensure their silence thereafter. We learned from the court records that your lawsuit for the Nelsons involved mental injuries as well as physical. If we could find a doctor’s report, or perhaps a deposition transcript, indicating that one or both of them had mental problems…well, obviously, that would undermine their credibility. It would reinforce our argument that the Nelsons were paranoid, unbalanced people desperately searching for a scapegoat.”

  “Surely you didn’t think I would give you access to any incriminating records from a prior lawsuit.”

  “No, I didn’t. Not a self-righteous snot like you. Not if you knew. But you may recall, one of the first things Howard Hamel did after offering you this job was to arrange for the transfer of your files.”

  Ben pressed his fingers against his temples. “That’s why your attitude toward me changed after I won the lawsuit.”

  “Did you think I would shovel out that nauseating crap forever? It made me sick, believe me. But we needed your files. Or so we thought. Little did we know, you were such a stupid, unquestioning soldier, so eager to please your new masters, you won the case on your own. You didn’t need the medical files; you did it with some fancy legal footwork. No matter—the result, was the same. But as soon as the case was over, I assigned you to Harry and put you on the track the hell out of here.”

  Ben could feel the bile churning in his stomach. “You’re disgusting, Crichton. And the worst thing is, you’re a perfect exemplar of this whole disgusting operation.”

  Crichton made a tsking noise. “Sticks and stones.”

  “I’ll be calling tomorrow as soon as the Board meeting ends. And I’ll be calling from the lobby of the Tulsa World.”

  “I’ll be waiting with bated breath.”

  “You may consider this my resignation.” Ben stood up and started toward the door.

  “Fine. Of course, we’ll give you the customary two weeks.”

  “Don’t bother,” Ben said, “I’ll leave today.”

  54

  “SERGEANT TOMLINSON, I’D LIKE you to meet my friends Ben Kincaid and Christina McCall.”

  After Mike introduced them, Ben extended his hand to the lean figure lying on the St. John’s hospital bed. He still had tubes attached to his nose and mouth, the lower half of his body was in a cast, and dark circles underscored his eyes. His coloring was fairly normal, though, and he appeared strong. “Glad to meet you.”

  “I want to congratulate you on that astonishing undercover work you did,” Ben said. “You showed a lot of promise as a homicide detective.” He nudged Mike. “Didn’t he, Mike?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. I suppose.”

  “I should be congratulating you,” Tomlinson said. “I understand you found the creep after I let him get the best of me.”

  “You saved a girl’s life by doing what you did.” Ben kept his inevitable tag to himself: saved her life for another three days.

  “How are you feeling?” Christina asked.

  “Much better,” Tomlinson replied. “Still sore in places. Legs ache when I try to move them. If you see my wife outside, though—don’t mention it to her. Karen tends to worry.”

  Imagine that. “I saw your daughter outside,” Ben said. “She’s a cutie. How’s she taking it?”

  “Oh, Kathleen is fine. Except she keeps wanting to crawl around on my cast and stitches. The doctor doesn’t approve.”

  “I can imagine. So, Mike,” Ben said pointedly, “wasn’t there something you wanted to tell Sergeant Tomlinson?”

  Tomlinson’s eyes perked up.

  “What?” Mike said. “Oh…er…well…I guess I wanted to say…you did all right, Tomlinson.”

  “Oh. Thank you, sir.”

  “Not perfect, of course, but certainly not bad. You showed a lot of guts out there.”

  “And that’s what you wanted to tell me?”

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  “Oh.” The gleam faded from his eyes. “Thank you.”

  Mike turned away, then stopped. “Oh yeah. One o
ther thing. I approved your transfer to Homicide.”

  “You—” His eyes ballooned. A vivid smile spread across his face. “Why—thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Very very much. I won’t disappoint you, sir. I promise. Thank you very very much.”

  Mike grinned. “My pleasure. You earned it, kid. Say, if you get bored, you can swap notes with Buddy, the guy who hid the girl. He’s in a room just down the hall. We found him in a warehouse off Eleventh. He was seriously torn up, lost a lot of blood, but I think he’s going to pull through.”

  “That’s great,” Tomlinson said. “I’m glad someone else came through this alive.”

  Yeah, Ben thought. Someone.

  “Don’t kid yourself, Tomlinson. If Fielder hadn’t been stopped, he would’ve killed every name on the Kindergarten Club list. You’ve saved a lot of lives. Right, Ben?”

  Ben was no longer standing by the bed. He was facing the window, staring out at the sun setting across the western horizon.

  Mike saw something glistening in Ben’s hand. It was a golden necklace, a half-heart with a jagged tear down the center.

  Mike and Christina exchanged a meaningful look. If there was something they could do, they’d do it. But there was nothing. It would just take time.

  A nurse came through the door pushing a wheelchair.

  “Who’s that for?” Mike asked.

  “You,” she said briskly.

  “Now wait a minute—”

  “Don’t bother arguing, Mike.” Christina steered him into the chair. “You’ve been putting off these tests since you tangled with Fielder. For all we know, you could be hemorrhaging in a hundred different places.”

  “But—but—”

  “Save it.” She waved at the nurse. “Take him away.”

  The nurse pivoted by the door. “Oh, Mr. Kincaid?”

  Ben turned his head a fraction from the window.

  “There’s someone outside who would like to speak to you.”

  Ben returned his gaze to the window, then, a few moments later, left the hospital room.

  He found Shelly in the visitor’s lounge. She was dressed in a formal business suit—probably came straight from work. She was holding a baby girl in her arms, trussed up in blue ribbons and a white frock.