Uncertain Justice

Chapter 5

The half-dozen or so closest to him had shaken their heads, murmuring denials as they watched the byplay. Lydia had appeared suddenly, critically inspecting the girl.

"Lydia, I think she needs to lie down for a minute," Miles had said. He'd been uneasy with a woman he didn't know clinging so tightly and wanted to get her back out to arm's length as quickly as he could.

"Bring her in here." Lydia hadn't been happy with Miles' suggestion, but she didn't argue as she led him to the downstairs bedroom. The unfortunate young woman had been barely able to stumble along beside Miles. She'd moaned with each step, her legs accepting less and less of her weight until Miles was completely supporting her.

Miles had eased her down to a sitting position on the side of the bed and bent to remove her shoes. Supporting her shoulders with his right arm, he'd helped her lie flat. As her legs straightened, the girl had gasped with pain and Miles pulled her knees up. It seemed to help a little. He'd propped her knees together so the girl could hold the position without straining.

He'd accepted a cold, wet facecloth Lydia brought from the bathroom and put it over the young woman's eyes. She'd continued to grimace with pain in her lower abdomen, though. Miles had studied her, not sure she was getting any better. He'd caught sight of his hostess looking at the girl also.

"Lydia, someone came with her, right?" he'd asked. "Could you ask her to call this young lady's doctor? Then you go ahead and take care of your party. I'll watch her for a little bit," he'd assured his long-time friend.

Lydia had nodded shortly and left the room, closing the door behind her. She'd shooed everyone outside to the patio where a buffet waited.

Miles had heard the party continuing as he sat with the girl. He'd done his best to help her relax, frequently refreshing the facecloth with more cold water from the faucet. Gradually she'd quieted until she was resting easier, but she hadn't been very alert and that had bothered Miles, though he hadn't known what to do about it. Miles had begun to feel uncomfortable about his assumed responsibility for the girl.

He'd decided he'd go ask about the girl's doctor and get ready to leave the party. Before he did that, he'd gotten up to replenish the cold compress, soaking the washcloth under the water faucet and wringing it out. When he'd come back in the bedroom, the woman was crying and writhing in pain.

"OH GOD, I'M DYING," she'd screamed. She'd squirmed around on the bedcovers for a bit longer and then was still. Without warning, every muscle in her body had convulsed. Arching her back, she'd strained upward until only her feet and shoulders were still on the bed. Hands clasped to her lower belly, she'd screamed shrilly and collapsed back to the mattress. The door had burst open and several curious faces peered in.

"He hurt me ... he hurt me inside!" the girl had babbled, repeating her earlier accusation. Then she'd stopped talking in favor of high-pitched wailing--an inhuman shriek of agony. Shock had spread across the faces of the partygoers. Miles had bent over the girl, trying to hold her as she thrashed around the bed, but the girl had incredible strength. He'd been afraid if he didn't get control of her arms and legs she might hurt herself badly.

"Help me!" the girl had begged. Flustered, Miles had tried but he hadn't known what to do. She'd thrown her legs off the bed and made a move to get off the bed but Miles pressed her back down. His worried eyes had found Lydia's as she pushed into the room past the crowd of onlookers.

"Lydia, I think you better call 911 and get an ambulance," he'd said, his voice breaking and hesitant.

Lydia had turned and disappeared, wasting no time on comment.

Miles felt a sudden wetness as his hand slipped off the girl's left leg in a particularly violent heave. His head had snapped down to see his hand in a pool of scarlet arterial blood gushing from between the girl's legs.

"LYDIA!" he'd shouted. "She's bleeding ... she's bleeding bad! Tell them to get here as fast as they can." He'd been sure he heard an indistinct reply pressing the girl's legs together in an attempt to slow the flow of blood. The classes in first aid the Army offered hadn't prepared him for something like this. He'd been helpless.

He was trying to comfort the girl, holding her down to keep her from injuring herself more when two paramedics had burst in. Standing away from the bed, he'd watched them work a moment before he went to wash up. The sleeves on his jacket had been covered with the girl's blood. When he'd returned to the bedroom, they were rushing her out on a wheeled stretcher. He'd gone home, miserable and alone, wishing there'd been something he could have done for the young woman.

Just before Thanksgiving, after numerous demands by the local media and pressure from various citizen action groups, the police had been waiting for Miles when he got home from a late afternoon visit to the supermarket. In the glare of TV cameras from stations tipped off to the impending arrest, he'd been hauled roughly from his five-year old Taurus. Cuffs had been slapped on his wrists and he was hustled into the back of a patrol car. The groceries had been abandoned in the back seat of his car. The fresh vegetables and meat spoiled before he could arrange bail.

They'd grilled him for nineteen hours and a bit more in the first interrogation--an interview, they'd called it. He'd been told repeatedly they had all the evidence they needed to convict him. Witnesses, the detectives had said, had given them signed statements attesting to the fact that Miles was beating the girl when the guests broke into the room after hearing screams. They had DNA evidence, they said. He knew what that was, didn't he? It proved Miles r***d the poor young girl. They already knew everything, they said.

They'd asked why Miles didn't make things easy on himself by admitting it. They knew he wanted to, they said. Get it off your chest; prove to everyone you're not a cold-hearted bastard. Just sign the confession and everything would be okay. They'd go to bat for him with the prosecutor if he cooperated. They knew he didn't mean to hurt her. Heck, it was an accident, right? He could go home, they'd said--get some sleep and then come back to take care of the problem if he would only sign. Tell them how it happened and they could make all this go away.

Near the end of the questioning, dizzy with fatigue and lack of sleep, disoriented by bright lights and rotating teams of accusers, he'd almost succumbed. He'd asked to see the laboratory report but he was put off. No, he couldn't see the witness statements either. That would all come later. Sign, or things would get worse, they'd said

He'd hung on until he could resist only by retreating inside himself. He'd closed his eyes. He wanted a lawyer, he'd mumbled slowly. He repeated it several times until they'd finally been forced to take notice.

The detectives said lawyering up proved he was guilty. They'd ridiculed him, saying child killers didn't deserve attorneys. They'd shrieked at him, wanting to know how many other kids he'd killed. A pair of big uniformed cops hauled him erect every time he slumped in the chair. They screamed in his ears but he refused to say another word to the officers surrounding him. Eventually it became clear to them he never would.

Twice on the way to his cell, he was shoved against a wall and fists hammered his kidneys when he couldn't respond to commands fast enough. He'd been uncooperative and combative, they'd said. They had only done what was necessary.

§

The ear-splitting crash arrived simultaneously with a blinding flash, leaving behind rattling windows and the acrid odor of ozone. Startled, he twisted away from the patio door and stumbled back into the living room. Turning back to the glass door, he rubbed his forearms to smooth the hair standing on end. Dark clouds had hastened the coming of night; now it and the storm were here.

The picture on the television dissolved into streaks and blurry shapes for a moment and then cleared as the static charge in the air weakened and died. He yanked the patio door shut and closed the Venetian blinds tight across the wide expanse of glass.

Intellectually, he knew it was no protection at all against another close lightning strike but he felt safer. He turned on the table lamp next to the recliner and stumbled across the room to switch on a floor lamp near the entertainment center. Still visible through the blinds, the glaring flashes of lightning were muted a little by the interior lights. He took up the remote and dialed up the sound volume to compensate for the noise of the violent storm.

The show about the hairy mammoths was over and a documentary about maximum-security prisons had replaced it. The host was busy explaining the offenses and sentences for each of the inmates he would interview. Fascinated, Miles sank into the cushions on the couch as a montage of murderers, rapists, and kidnappers paraded across the screen in rapid succession. Each was more muscular than the last and even more covered with gaudy tattoos.

They gazed out of the screen with flat, dead eyes as they explained how unfair it was to be shut way behind bars with no way to better themselves. More than one stumbled over the word "rehabilitation," but they used it anyway to explain why they shouldn't be locked away from their loving families and friends any longer. They were ready to reenter society they said. Cured, they were. They were certain of it.

After a commercial, the narrator discussed the violence the guards dealt with every day. A lieutenant in the prison guards showed the host a collection of knives made from combs, toothbrushes, stray bits of broken glass, and other unlikely materials. He spoke of how many inmates were killed, wounded, and mutilated every year by other prisoners.

Miles imagined himself standing beside each convict, or perhaps submissively behind the brute, a r***d and whipped shell of a man. The terror he'd been feeling for months mounted higher as all the horrors he'd ever imagined about his fate were displayed in crisp, clear high definition on the TV screen.

Eight jurors had voted to send him to prison--he could not get past that--eight jurors! It was too much.

A flood of undigested hamburger and potatoes surged up from his stomach. He ran to the half-bath by the front door trying to hold back the sour mess. Falling to his knees in front of the toilet, he threw up the dinner he'd so recently choked down. Fragments of meat and vegetables spewed forcefully into the bowl until there was nothing left.

The muscles in his stomach kept trying to bring something up, but only bile was flowing now. The acid bit at the lining of his throat. Eventually, even that bitter fluid was exhausted though painful contractions continued for long minutes.

Gradually the dry retching subsided. He stood and wiped his lips with the back of his hand while he stumbled to the sink. He rinsed out his mouth and drank a glass of water to sooth his raw throat. Stripping off his shirt, now badly stained with unpleasant bits of food and stomach acid, he held it under the faucet.

Catching sight of an ashen face in the mirror, he paused to study the reflected image. The eyes were as dead as the prison inmates he'd seen earlier; his face was pale, expressionless. It was undeniably him, but there were harsh lines and creases that hadn't been there before. He could find nothing of the satisfied Army veteran who had set out on a carefully planned retirement a few months ago.

Without thinking, his hand still wrapped in the foul shirt, he c****d his fist and smashed the face in the mirror into a thousand shards.