Page 35 of The List


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Bennett headed straight for a small skiff tied to an aging dock. No time was taken to lock the front door. The file indicated that Bennett liked to say that if somebody broke in, he sure as hell wasn’t going to have a door to fix too. So he never locked anything. The outboard roared to life and Bennett started upstream for what the file noted ashis usual Thursday afternoon of solitary fishing. Once the man was out of sight Barnard immediately entered the cabin.

He went directly to the kitchen and popped open the refrigerator. Lining the shelf inside the door, exactly where the file said, stood four vials of insulin. Through gloved fingers he examined each. All full, their plastic seals intact—except one. Half full. Obviously the one currently in use. He carried the used vial to the sink, then removed an empty syringe from his pocket. Puncturing the rubber seal with the long needle, he worked the plunger, slowly siphoning a full syringe, expelling the medicine down the drain. He repeated the process two more times until the vial was empty. From another pocket he found a bottle of saline mixed with arachis oil.

Essence of peanut.

He filled the syringe and injected the contents. He repeated the process until the vial returned to its original half-full level. Theonly difference, now it contained salt water and poison instead of life-giving insulin.

He rinsed the sink thoroughly and replaced the tampered-with vial in the refrigerator. Eight hours later when Melvin Bennett injected himself he’d notice little. But within a few moments he should be in shock. The high concentrations would hit in an instant. To make sure there would be no heroics, he unplugged the house phone from its jack. There’d be no cell phone calls either, as he would be outside, close by, with a jammer working.

By morning Melvin Bennett would be dead.

All he’d have to do was maintain a vigil and confirm the inevitable.

12:04P.M.

BRENT SCOOTED OUT OF THE MILL AND DROVE STRAIGHT INTOConcord. He had a general idea where to look, and it took only a few minutes to spot the boxy white van with its distinctive red, white, and blue markings. It was stopped in the opposite lane next to a dilapidated aluminum mailbox.

He pulled the Jeep up beside.

Ashley glanced to her left and instantly reacted, slamming the gearshift into park and jumping out of the right-hand seat. Without saying a word she opened the driver’s door and climbed into his lap, kissing him long and hard, one of her Grand Canyon kisses as she liked to call them. Suddenly, he wasn’t sitting in his father’s Jeep on a tree-lined drive three blocks over from his parents’ house. He was back in high school. Over twenty years ago. In the front seat of his ’65 Ford Galaxy.

At Eagle Lake.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked, when they stopped kissing.

“You didn’t like it?” Ashley said.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You worried about another girl?”

“Not particularly. I’m not going steady.”

To emphasize the point, he displayed the senior ring still on his finger. “You, on the other hand, do have a problem.”

He motioned to the chunk of gold and topaz held in place by a rubber band. It belonged to a two-letter jock who played center field in baseball and guard for the basketball team. Whom he doubted would appreciate having his girl kissed.

“You worried about him?” she asked, unconcerned.

He didn’t want to be used as a way to make a boyfriend jealous. “Should I be?”

“I’m not.”

She was hard to figure. They’d been friends since grade school. Riding bikes. Swimming in the lake. Playing as children and teenagers do. Only during the last year had they become close, spending most of their time only talking. Before tonight, there’d been no indication either wanted to burn the bridge from friendship to lovers.

She straddled his lap in the middle of the front seat, short shapely legs bent at the knees. He gripped her supple waist, his fingertips almost touching.

“What do you want, Brent Walker?”

She loved to ask questions like that, always more interested in others than herself. It was one of the reasons he found her so fascinating. She reveled in sharing dreams and aspirations. Their conversations always steered toward where they’d be twenty years from graduation. She was so different from other girls.

“I want to be a lawyer,” he said.

“Since when?”

“Since a few days ago when I decided. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Going to defend the weak and protect the poor?”