The Blackstone Commentaries Read Online Free PDF Page A

no seven, months away. I’ve been running for reelection nonstop from the day I took office. I should be used to it. Play it safe.
    He recalled Carver then, standing next to Trainor’s cruiser, the flares on the highway tinting one side of his lean face, everything about the man touching something taut in all of them. Dugan recalled a rainy day in Alabama years before, before the preacher even. After so many years, that memory still burned.
    â€œOne digit of a license plate, a doubtful make,” Eddie continued from the front seat, worrying the idea hard, now that he had his teeth in it. “Even doubtful colors on a car, an impression of seeing someone you think was driving you know only by newspaper photos in the first place, or maybe you passed him once or twice in the hallway at the veterans’ hospital—that’s where Carver works.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œMaybe passed him on one of the rare occasions Pemberton actually goes out to the V.A., and that impression while you were in the process of being rammed off the road by some damn fool about to shoot a pistol in your face.” Eddie turned his head slightly toward the backseat as he spoke, but his eyes followed the white line pulling them down, down through the darkness into the valleys and flatlands and warm, close air, into the arena where all this would be played out. “You heard Mort, Charlie, it’s lousy. Hell, it probably was Pemberton in that car, it probably was his car. He’s always been a crazy sonuvabitch, trying to be a respected member of society, a county commissioner, a surgeon and a bad boy all at once, whoring around and hanging out with a bunch of damn outlaws like he does. Christ, he’s over forty—you’d think he’d grow up.”
    Dugan didn’t say anything.
    â€œWell, he just overdid it this time, like everyone’s been expecting for years, yourself included—you’ve said it often enough. But you got no casehere. It’s simple political suicide, you pursue this, and that will impact a lot of other people beside yourself. People need you, Charlie. This county needs you. Poke around a bit more—‘Investigation continuing’—then drop it because you can’t prove squat. It’s an ugly court case.”
    Eddie knew how much Dugan hated losing in court. It wasn’t TV—it didn’t pay to go to court just to lose and say you went to court, as though that might be proof of some kind of justice. That wasn’t justice. It was bullshit, and people weren’t that blind or stupid. Better not to go, to back off and bide your time. Dugan was always saying that, putting the leash on his deputies. Everything came around, given a little time and patience. And he’d always shown a lot of patience and made the time. But that was a big part of what he was beginning to realize felt wrong now. Somehow there wasn’t any time for this one.
    As Dugan listened, he knew Eddie was right. He didn’t want to believe what Carver believed, that not only had it been Pemberton’s car, but he’d been driving it. Pemberton was one mammoth political iceberg that had been floating out there in the dark a long time, since well before Charlie had appeared in Blackstone County. And Pemberton was an arrogant sonuvabitch, and just crazy enough to do something like this. If true, it was more than a slap in the face for Dugan and county law enforcement; it challenged the very notion of law, maybe even God. The man thought himself exceptional.
    â€œThat’s the problem, Eddie. Everyone’s been expecting something like this, and whether or not it’s in the paper, they’re going to know about it and, true or not, draw their own damn conclusions. Moreover, whether they know or not doesn’t change it for me. I gotta know if it’s true.
    â€œYou know,” he went on, trying to lighten things up after a long silence from the front