A Murder of Justice Read Online Free PDF Page A

“None!”
    Frank rapped the steering wheel and smiled.
    Frances Morrow bored in. “You give us all these downtown arguments about the Constitution. . . . You’re talking about Puh-toe-muck living. About how you folks in Great Falls live. I tell you what”—righteous anger rolled in her voice—“I tell you what —you come down to where I live. Or you go over to Bayless Place. You’ll find one thing, Mistuh North, Missus Brady—you’ll find the only thing wrong with guns is that the wrong people got them.”
    Madison, recognizing a dramatic closing line when he heard one, took a break for a commercial. Frank imagined North and Brady wondering what the hell had just hit them.
    T wo large wooden desks dominated the center of Frank and José’s small office. Years earlier, they had pushed the desks together so they could work facing each other. A random collection of file cabinets and bookcases lined the walls. Above the bookcases on one wall was an Ipswich Fives dartboard that Frank had picked up in a London secondhand shop, surrounded by holes in the drywall attesting to sloppy marksmanship. The single window faced south, its sill home to an eclectic parade of potted plants over the years. Today, a variegated pothos shared its perch with a struggling African violet that Frank had bought at Eastern Market and a spider plant that Tina Barber had given José.
    José stood looking out the window. He turned slowly when Frank walked in. He glanced up at the wall clock.
    “You run this morning?”
    “Yeah.” Frank saw that José had already made coffee. He picked his mug up off his desk, regarded the dark brown remainder of yesterday’s coffee, poured it out, then poured a refill. The coffee was scalding.
    “Frances Morrow,” he said, and blew across the steaming mug, “on—”
    “Joe Madison this morning.”
    “Yeah.” Frank tried another sip. “Where’d we—”
    “O’Brien case.”
    Gears meshed. The picture materialized. Big woman. Filling the doorway of the small brick house. “Gray sweats,” he recalled.
    “Redskins jersey,” José added. “Mean like no tomorrow.”
    The phone rang. José answered. Listened. Hung up.
    “Emerson wants to see us.”
    Walking down the hallway toward the stairs, Frank noticed a weariness around José’s eyes.
    “You sleep last night?”
    José shook his head. “Going home, I stopped by Daddy’s.”
    “Oh?”
    “He wasn’t home. Mama said he was still at the church.”
    A single light far up in the rafters illuminated the altar and pulpit. His father sat in a front pew, head bowed.
    José put his hand on his father’s shoulder. Titus Phelps reached up and covered his son’s hand with his own.
    “Getting late, Daddy.”
    His father looked at him, then to the altar. He moved over. José sat down beside him.
    Titus Phelps paused as if listening to a voice inside himself. “Just sitting here, talking with Jesus.”
    “You heard about over on Bayless Place?”
    His father turned to him. “You ever wonder, Josephus, what keeps us safe? Truly safe?”
    “Go on, Daddy.”
    “You’re my oldest son . . . a policeman. You’re strong . . . you’re smart. But you can’t keep us safe.”
    Titus Phelps listened to his private, inner voice, then nodded in agreement.
    “It’s inside us, Josephus, the power to keep ourselves safe. So we don’t have to fear the night. So we can trust our neighbors.” He paused, then, voice picking up momentum, continued: “That power is in us. Each of us. And if we don’t use it, it goes away. And if that happens, we won’t be safe, no matter how many police we have . . . even if they’re all as strong and as smart as my son.”
    The words had rolled through the church toward the farthest pews in the back. José knew he’d heard the beginnings of a sermon yet to be preached.
    T hey were now at the stairway. Frank reached out and squeezed José’s shoulder. “Let’s see what’s on Emerson’s mind.”
    They