“I know they cut down a lot of trees.”
She leaned back in her chair, pushing her feet against her desk. The hem of her already short skirt slipped up her thighs. “They do a hell of a lot more than that. The logging industry made this town. Without logging, Magic Valley wouldn’t exist.”
“You mean this area would all just be a huge, untouched, virgin forest? That’d be a shame.”
“What I mean is, there’d be several thousand people with no way to make a living. Once upon a time, this area was one of the most poverty-stricken, economically depressed parts of the country. Starvation and malnutrition were rampant. Logging changed all that.”
“I really don’t see what this has to do-”
“Everyone who lives here is indebted to the logging industry. Everyone. It’s our lifeblood. It runs through our veins.” She sat upright. “So you can imagine how we feel when a pack of would-be anarchists who don’t even live around here stroll into town and start spiking trees and blowing up equipment, trying to shut the logging operations down. From our perspective they’re like vampires.”
“I really don’t see the connection with the Gardiner case.”
She shrugged. “You’ve chosen sides, Kincaid.”
“All I’ve done is-”
“You may not realize it yet, but you’ve made your choice. A very dangerous one. And I suspect you’ve done it because you’re basically a good-hearted person who’s only heard one side of the story.”
“I’m here to try a lawsuit. Not to get involved in local politics.”
“Let me do you a favor, Kincaid.” She scribbled an address on her notepad. “My father has worked for WLE Logging all his life. He’s one of the top foremen at their sawmill just north of here. I’ll tell him you want to make a visit.”
“That’s not nece-”
“I think it is. You need some perspective. After all, you’re an officer of the court. And you’ve aligned yourself with people who are avowed lawbreakers.”
Ben bristled. “If they break the law, it’s for a reason. In the great American tradition of civil disobedience.”
“As best I recall, Thoreau never blew anyone up.” She tore the top sheet off her notepad. “Look, if you’re going to jump into the boiling cauldron, you ought to at least have some clue what’s cooking.” She handed the address to him.
Ben reluctantly took the piece of paper. “Could we possibly talk about the case now?”
Granny grinned, damn near irresistibly, Ben thought. “What do you want to know?”
“Why did you arrest my client for this murder?”
“Because he did it.”
“Could you give me a little more?”
“He had motive, means, and opportunity. Call me simpleminded, but I think that’s enough to bring charges.”
“The motive, I assume, would be Zak’s hostility toward the loggers and the logging industry at large.”
She did not quite look him in the eye. “At the very least. And he certainly had the means. Those Green Rage nuts make no secret of the fact that they’re stockpiling bomb components. To the contrary, they advertise the fact to terrorize the loggers. Every time I turn around they’ve torched another tree cutter or eighteen-wheeler. Those people are insane.”
“It isn’t insane to want to keep the forests from being flattened.”
“Oh, yeah? And how about dressing up in a Sasquatch suit?”
Ben reddened a bit. “I don’t know that the Sasquatch sightings had anything to do with Green Rage. For all I know, it could be a logger plot to make Green Rage look ridiculous.”
Granny leaned back and laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Ben tried to bring the conversation back to the case. “What about opportunity?”
“In case you don’t know it, your man admits he was in the forest around the time of the murder, although he says he was just smooching with some Green Rage floozy. I agree that he was in the woods-planting the bomb that killed Dwayne Gardiner.”
“Even if Zak planted a bomb on the tree cutter, and Gardiner had the misfortune to set it off, that wouldn’t be first-degree murder. It’s just bad luck that Gardiner was around when the bomb went off.”
“I disagree with you. First of all, planting bombs is a felony, and if someone gets killed in the perpetration of a felony, he can be charged with felony murder, which is a first-degree murder charge in this state. But it doesn’t matter.” She paused, allowing Ben to wonder for just a moment. “Because the autopsy report showed that Gardiner had been shot.”
“What? But I thought-”
“Yes, the body was caught in the explosion and burned. We almost didn’t do an autopsy, especially since the fire didn’t leave much to be examined. But being the dutiful soldiers we are, we did the tests. And it turned out the man had been shot.”
“Then he was already dead.”
“We don’t think so. The gunshot appears to have caught the poor man in the shoulder. I’m sure it hurt like hell, but it wasn’t fatal. It was the explosion that killed him. Nonetheless, the fact that he had been shot just before the explosion tells me there was a second person present-a second person with the express, premeditated intent to kill him.” She folded her hands on the desk. “And that, Charlie Brown, is why Zakin has been charged with first- degree murder.”
Ben couldn’t argue with her logic. He would’ve drawn the same conclusions himself. “Anything else linking Zak to the murder?”
“Tons. Footprints. Fingerprints. You name it.” She leaned forward. “Seriously, Ben-and I’m just talking lawyer-to-lawyer now-I don’t want to jinx your good deed for the day, but you’re gonna lose this case. We’ve got that murderous zealot dead to rights. And let me tell you, when the sentence comes down, it’s not going to be pretty. Judge Perkins has a reputation.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Then you know he won’t let Zakin off with a life sentence. That boy’s gonna fry.”
Ben squirmed in his seat. “Appreciate your sensitivity.”
“With all due respect, Ben, the smartest thing you could do is drive your rental car back to the airport and get the hell out of here. This town is on edge. Everyone’s afraid Green Rage will succeed in closing down the logging and they’ll all be out of jobs. Plus we’ve got a drug problem like we’ve never had before. One of those new designer drugs-about ten times more potent than crack-is all over town. We call it Venom because it’s deadly poison to the people who use it. Screws up their head. Tears them apart.”
“And this just happened?”
“In the last few months. It came out of nowhere, and the next thing we knew it was everywhere.”
“I’m sure that’s-”
“The point is, Magic Valley is a tinderbox, Kincaid, and you don’t want to be caught in the middle when the explosion comes.”
Ben pushed himself out of his chair. “I will expect you to send me any exculpatory evidence. And all your exhibits. And your witness list.”
She sighed. “You’ll get it. You’ll get it.” She slid out from behind her desk and sashayed across the office till she was standing even closer to him than before. “And then maybe, when this unpleasant mess is all over, you and I can relate to one another on a more … personal basis.”
Ben coughed. “What do you-”
She leaned closer. “Like I said, I’ve done some checking on you, Mr. Kincaid. You’re an impressive individual.” She touched his shirt, only for an instant, but more than long enough to send an electric charge coursing through Ben’s body. “I’d like to get to know you better.”
Ben took a step backward, bumping into the chair. “I’d better go,” he said, trying hard to modulate his voice. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
As he passed through the door, he caught a last fleeting glimpse of her, a look of sly amusement on her face, wiggling her fingers. “Stay in touch.”
