Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

And now the jury looked uneasy, even angry. Like they’d been arguing. Perhaps they’d settled on a charge less than murder. Manslaughter, maybe.

It never occurred to me they’d let the bastard walk.

But that’s exactly what they did.

The foreman read the verdict aloud from the verdict slip. “On the sole charge of murder in the second degree, we find the defendant, Mel Bennett, not guilty.” And the packed courtroom actually burst into applause.

Outside, on the courthouse steps, the foreman told a ring of reporters: “We thought Mr. Bennett was credible when he swore he cared for Lisa Canfield and would never harm her. And when his mistress, Fawn Daniels, refused to answer, many of us felt there was reasonable doubt. Maybe she—”

But he was talking to the air. Mel and his entourage swept out of the courthouse and the reporters flocked around them like gulls at a fish market.

Smiling for the cameras, Mel said he had no idea who’d killed poor Lisa, but he was sure the authorities would find the person responsible. He offered his sincerest condolences to her family.

“How does it feel to be a free man?” a reporter shouted.

“I was never worried,” Mel said solemnly. “I knew I could count on a Valhalla jury for a fair shake.”

Scrambling into a gleaming red Escalade, Mel roared away, waving to the crowd, grinning like he’d just scored the biggest touchdown of his life. Or gotten away with murder.

When the prosecutor was interviewed, he griped that Mel Bennett got a Valhalla verdict. A reporter asked him to explain, but he just shrugged and stalked off. Implication? What do you expect from a hick-town jury?

And he was right. Valhalla is a small town. By New York or even Detroit standards, most folks who live up north are hicks. More or less.

My extended family, Canfields and La Mottes, are redneck to the bone, and proud of it. My uncle Deke’s clan, the La Mottes, are the roughest of our bunch, jackpine savages who grow reefer and cook crystal meth in the trackless forests. The rest of us are solid, working-class citizens. Blue collar, for the most part.

All but me. I’m Paul Canfield, the first of my family to earn a bachelor’s degree. I teach political science at Valhalla High School. My relatives call me Professor. A compliment or an insult, depending on the tone.

After the trial, on a golden, autumn afternoon, our small clan assembled in my uncle Deke’s garage, still stunned by the verdict. We’d intended to hold a delayed wake in honor of my sister. Lisa Marie was dead, but at least the monster had been punished. Or so we’d expected.

Instead it felt like Lisa had been slaughtered all over again. Along with her unborn child. A Canfield baby none of us would ever hold.

But there was beer on ice, hot dogs and potato salad already laid out. And folks have to eat.

So we gathered around the banquet table in somber silence, Canfields and La Mottes, in-laws and cousins. But with none of the usual good-natured banter. No one spoke at all. Until my mother, Mabel Canfield, turned to me for an explanation.

“I don’t understand it, Paul,” she said simply. “How could this happen? Where’s the justice in it?”

“Justice doesn’t actually exist, Ma. It’s only a concept. An ideal.”

“I still don’t—”

“When people go to court, they expect to win because they’re in the right. But the truth is, every trial is a contest. Like a debating match between lawyers with a judge for a referee. The jury chooses the winning side and we call it justice. And usually, it works pretty well.”

“Not this time,” my cousin Bo La Motte snorted. “The jurors were morons.”

“No,” I said, “they were just home folks. Like us. Mel Bennett’s a professional salesman and that jury was just one more deal to close. He had a sharp lawyer and the prosecutor thought the case was a slam dunk—”

“It should have been!” Bo snapped. “Lisa’s blood was splattered all over Bennett’s damn car!”

“But the Daniels woman had keys to that car. When she took the Fifth and refused to say where she was at the time of Lisa’s death, the jury had reasonable doubts. And they gave Mel the benefit of those doubts.”

“Is there any chance at all that Daniels woman could actually have done this thing?” my mother asked.

“No,” Uncle Deke said quietly. “I had some people look into that. Word is, she was shooting pool at the Sailor’s Rest when Lisa was run down. She’ll probably claim she bought dope or committed some other petty crime to justify taking the Fifth, but her alibi is rock solid. She didn’t kill Lisa, Mel Bennett did. I expect Fawn collected a fat payoff to cover for him.”

“Then I say we should pop that bastard today,” Bo said. Burly and surly, my cousin Bo is the hothead of the family. He inherited his father’s straight dark hair, obsidian eyes, and black temper. But in school, nobody ever picked on me when my cousin Bo was around.

“Popping Bennett is a great idea, Cousin,” I said, “as long as you’ve got no plans for the rest of your natural life.”

“Bull! No jury in the world would convict me! They’d—”