Extreme Justice Read Free

sometimes pick up the Oklahoma City DJs like Bob & Josh, his personal favorites, but it was too late in the day for their on-air hijinks. KWGS was great for news, of course, but there were times when Ben just wasn’t in an NPR mood.
    Ben loved his new car. After his Honda Accord had bitten the dust, he’d been forced to select a new means of transportation. He chose a Ford Aerostar, a minivan. Although he had no kids to tote, he’d always wanted to drive a van, to have the feeling of something big and powerful surrounding him. And it was very useful for gigs, hauling sound equipment around. He and the band were planning to tour during the summer; when that happened, the van would be invaluable.
    Ben parked the van on the street and hoofed it to the rooming house where he lived. It might not be one of the swankiest neighborhoods in Tulsa, but it was close to Earl’s club, barely a ten-minute drive. He just wanted to change clothes and get a bite to eat before he returned for the anniversary show.
    As he approached the house, he saw his landlady, Mrs. Marmelstein, puttering in her front garden. She was facing away from him, digging up mounds of soft loamy soil with her trowel.
    “Bit late for tulips, isn’t it?” he said, hovering over her shoulder.
    Mrs. Marmelstein glanced up at him and smiled. “Late? Why, Benjamin Kincaid, you don’t know a thing about gardening, do you?” She was wearing a print dress, blue with a white blossom pattern. She had lived eighty-two years, and Ben suspected she’d had that dress for at least eighty-one of them. “They have to be planted in the fall if you want tulips come April.”
    “But, Mrs. Marmelstein”—he leaned closer and whispered—“it is April.”
    “April? But we only just had Halloween.” She frowned. “Benjamin, are you playing a trick on me?”
    No, he thought sadly, you’re playing a trick on yourself.
    It had been like this for the last six months. In September, she had suffered two heart attacks, one right after the other. Although she had recovered, she was not the person she’d been before. Sometimes the change was so profound it frightened Ben. It was like talking to an entirely different person.
    Her speech gradually returned, but the blow to her health had advanced her Alzheimer’s with a vengeance. Granted, she had been a bit dotty for as long as Ben had known her, but during the past few months she had become increasingly senile. Ben tried to help where he could; he ran errands, paid the bills, collected the rent. But he knew his efforts were just a tap dance against time, and it broke his heart.
    “I’m sorry, Mrs. Marmelstein,” Ben replied. “You’re the gardening expert, not me.” And he could always buy blooming tulips at a nursery and plant them in the garden. She’d never know the difference.
    Mrs. Marmelstein glanced at her watch. “It’s a bit early for you to be home, isn’t it, Benjamin? I don’t think your bosses will appreciate your taking the afternoon off.”
    “Mrs. Marmelstein.” He drew in his breath. What was the nice way to handle it? He could barely remember anymore. “I haven’t worked at the law firm for years.”
    She sniffed. “Well, I’m not surprised. Coming home in the middle of the afternoon. Honestly.” She started back at her gardening, then stopped. “By the way, you have a visitor waiting in your room. A female.” She could not have put more disapproval in her voice had she been saying “she-devil from hell.”
    “That would be Christina, I assume?”
    “Who else?” She eyed him with profound suspicion. “Benjamin, you know I don’t approve of my gentlemen boarders receiving females in their rooms without a chaperone.”
    “Mrs. Marmelstein, we’re just friends. And coworkers. Were, anyway.”
    “I don’t care if she’s your long-lost sister. I don’t like it.”
    “Listen, what if I ask Christina if she’d like to go to the flea market with you this Saturday?” Tulsa had one of