The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  Robotically, Jake stepped from the car. A light breeze blew his hair off his face. The mist held the briny smell of the Puget Sound. Sloane popped the trunk and Jake retrieved his suitcase and lugged it up the porch steps. A lemony ammonia smell greeted Sloane as he stepped into the kitchen. Alex had cleaned while waiting, the blue marble counters spotless. Sloane asked her and Charlie to drive down from Camano Island and clear his house of alcohol, but the truth was he wanted them there for support when he brought Jake home.

  At the sight of Jake, little CJ Jenkins wiggled from his father’s arms and ran on tiptoes from the living room into the kitchen, laughing and jabbering. The sight of the three-year-old boy brought the first genuine smile to Jake’s face. He slipped the headphones from his ears and picked him up as Charlie and Alex stood watching.

  “Hey, CJ.”

  CJ held up a purple stuffed animal. “I have a dragon.”

  “I see that.”

  “But he’s not real. What are those?”

  “Headphones. You want to listen?”

  Jake placed one of the headphones near CJ’s ear. CJ pulled away and pressed a palm to his ear. “Too loud.”

  Jake gave Charlie a one-arm hug, which was like trying to wrap an arm around a refrigerator. He matched Alex in height, five feet ten.

  “What are you doing here?” Jake asked.

  “Your dad told us you were coming home, so we wanted to come visit,” Alex said.

  Jake glanced back at Sloane. “He’s not my dad and this isn’t my home.”

  “We just wanted to see you,” Alex said, touching Jake’s shoulder. “You’ve grown. I think you might have me.” She touched his head. “I like your hair.”

  Jake let CJ slide to the ground.

  “You want to play Legos?” CJ asked, apparently recalling Jake’s stash in his closet.

  “You go ahead,” Jake said. “You can have them if you want.”

  CJ raced across the living room and up the stairs.

  Jake looked around. “What am I supposed to do here?”

  Sloane did not have video games or an Xbox and had only basic cable. “We can take the boat out and do some fishing later.”

  “It’s freaking raining out. It’s always raining here.”

  “It’s supposed to clear up,” Charlie said.

  “Yeah,” Jake scoffed. “Like in August… for a week.”

  Jake started to put his earphones back over his ears. “Uh-uh,” Sloane said.

  “What?” Jake looked and sounded incredulous.

  “In your room or outside you can listen to your music. When you’re down here it stays off.”

  “Whatever.” Jake stepped past him, pulling open the Dutch door, and shoving the screen with enough force to bounce it off the side of the house. Halfway down the lawn he reached inside his pocket and produced a pack of cigarettes, shaking one out and turning his back to the wind to flick a lighter.

  Sloane started for the door but Alex interceded. “David, don’t. You have bigger issues to deal with than his music and smoking.”

  “Tina said a boy needed rules.”

  “He also needs room to grow and make his own decisions.”

  Sloane looked to the window. Jake sat on the picnic table with his back to them, facing the gray landscape and smoking his cigarette. The wind had caused small whitecaps. “Yeah, well, we can all see how well he’s doing so far.”

  “The more you push him the more he’s going to push back.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Give him his space. And love him.”

  They went into the living room and sat.

  “I’ve made a few telephone calls,” Alex said. “One of the best substance abuse programs is right at Virginia Mason.” Sloane had asked her to try to find something close to his office downtown where he could take Jake during the day. “And I’m looking into a grief counselor here in Burien, for both of you.”

  “What are you going to do with him while you’re at work?” Jenkins asked.

  Sloane had given the matter more thought on the plane. “Carolyn is always complaining she has too much filing, and John has a big criminal matter with a lot of documents that need organizing. This way I can keep an eye on him and maybe we can interact in a manner other than father and son.”

  Jake walked in the kitchen door and slipped the headphones from his ears. “You trying to figure out what to do with me?”

  “We’re just visiting, Jake,” Alex said. “I was going to make dinner. Any special requests?”

  “Yeah, Enrico’s Pizza; it’s in California.” He retrieved his suitcase and started up the stairs, stopping on the step where he had watched his mother bleed to death.

  Sloane started toward him. “Jake,” he said.

  “I don’t need a bunch of freaking babysitters,” he said and continued up the flight.

  THE TIN ROOM

  BURIEN, WASHINGTON

  The following morning Sloane felt punch drunk, physically and emotionally spent. He hadn’t slept. When he closed his eyes he had a vision of a smiling Tina reaching out to him, but as he reached for her a trickle of blood escaped the corner of her mouth, the trickle becoming a torrent of red that spewed down the front of her white robe. He got up early. Alex too was awake, getting a bottle for CJ. She suggested exercise to relieve his stress.

  Sloane ran up the steep hill from Three Tree Point to Burien, and by the time he reached The Tin Room he was gasping for air and perspiring profusely. Father Allen sat on a barstool with his back to the plate-glass window, alternately sipping a mug of tea and picking at a bran muffin in a stream of morning sun. When Sloane walked in Allen slid off the seat to shake hands, and Sloane thought Allen looked like a college kid home from school on summer break with his head of unkempt blond curls, baggy shorts with pockets to the knees, brown sandals, and a T-shirt that said ZEPPELIN LIVES. In actuality Allen was thirty-seven with degrees in theology and psychology. Along the way he had acquired a heavy dose of common sense. Sloane took a minute to greet Dan House, the Tin Room owner, and his mother, Chirlee, before sliding onto the stool beside Allen. Kelly brought him a hot tea and a tall glass of ice water.

  “I thought you were ducking me because I kicked your butt in our last game of one-on-one,” Allen said.

  “You played well,” Sloane said.

  The priest considered him over the sound of a soccer game on the television and the rattle of plates in the kitchen. “No response? No comeback? No quip?”

  “Sorry to bother you so early,” Sloane said.

  “I’m a priest; if someone isn’t bothering me at an odd hour of the day or night I’m not doing my job.”

  Sloane sipped his tea. One of the bartenders peeled lemons. Kelly carried a stack of glasses from the kitchen to arrange on the shelf beneath the hanging sheet metal roller. “I need some advice, Allen. It involves Jake.” Allen waited. “He’s back living with me.”

  “I don’t sense a lot of joy in that statement.”

  Sloane explained what had transpired. Finishing, he asked, “Any words of wisdom?”

  “Such as Jake is crying out for help? I think you know that already.”

  “He doesn’t want my help; he doesn’t want to be here.”

  “That’s what he’s saying; it isn’t likely what he’s feeling. Violent outbursts and mood swings can be associated with the alcohol or drug abuse, but the real question is what is driving Jake to the alcohol and drugs.”

  “Pain,” Sloane said, knowing well the agony of a child who witnesses the brutal murder of his mother.

  “The problem with you is you’re always stealing my diagnosis.” Allen was equally familiar with Sloane’s background, and knew that Sloane had also witnessed the murder of his mother. “One of the characteristic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder is the person reexperiencing a trauma either through nightmares, flashbacks, or intrusive thoughts—you can’t get an image out of your head.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

>   “Another is avoidance. The person will avoid the activities, places, and people he associates with the trauma. You said Jake seemed tired to you, listless, that he’s constantly wearing his headphones, listening to music.”

  “He’s trying to tune out these intrusive thoughts,” Sloane said, feeling more guilt for making Jake shut off the music.

  “When he should be sleeping he’s likely up late, listening to music, trying to avoid whatever it is that comes in the night. A prolonged lack of sleep can have a pronounced effect on a person’s ability to function and to concentrate, and on his mood. The alcohol and drugs became a means to escape.”

  “So it isn’t just an act of defiance,” Sloane said.

  “It’s an act of self-preservation. So is pushing you away.”

  “Because he associates me with Tina’s death.”

  Allen nodded. “You were there. You’re part of his nightmare. He sees you and he recalls that night and what happened. You also have to consider this from Jake’s perspective. Where were you the last nine months? What interest did you take in his life, his studies, his friends, in his schoolwork?”

  Sloane didn’t answer.

  “Is it a difficult question to answer or just to hear?” Allen raised his voice.

  “I had that trial and then the aftermath with Barklay.”

  “Uh-huh. And now you want to gallop back into Jake’s life and take on the role of ‘Dad’ again. Here comes David Sloane, the knight in shining armor to save another day.”

  The bartender stopped peeling the lemon. Sloane leaned closer. “What else was I supposed to do, leave him there?”

  “Why not? You left him there for nearly two years and didn’t care what happened to him.”

  “That’s uncalled for, Allen.”

  “What? This isn’t the reaction you expected? Did I disappoint you?”

  Sloane paused. “Touché.”

  Allen offered a sympathetic grin. “Now you know how Jake felt. You’re drawn to people who need your help; we’ve talked about this before. Well, now you have someone telling you to fuck off. He doesn’t want your help. You weren’t there when he needed you, so why should he accept your help now?”

  “It isn’t what I wanted, Allen. I thought it best for Jake, and Frank never said there was anything wrong.”

  “So when did you start trusting Frank? From what I know of him he’s immature and narcissistic.”

  “He said he wanted a second chance at being Jake’s father. Things seemed to be going okay.”

  “He abandoned Jake when he was a child; he wanted nothing to do with him. You don’t think Jake remembers that?”

  Sloane massaged his forehead. He had a headache. “And I did the same thing, didn’t I?”

  “In Jake’s mind, yes, that’s exactly what you did. You gave him up. Then you abandoned him.”

  “I thought it was the right thing. I would have had to destroy Frank on the witness stand. Jake had already lost his mother. I didn’t want to take his father.”

  “He’d already lost his father, years before you were ever in the picture. Maybe you thought you were doing the right thing. Maybe it was noble, perhaps even Solomon-esque, but do you think a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy saw it that way?”

  “No.”

  “And then he gets a call from a strange woman who invites him to come back to Seattle for an unexpected visit, and he sees the man he considers his father seemingly moving forward with his life without him, seemingly happy. Was it not shortly after he returned to California from that visit that Frank says the changes began?”

  Sloane had done the time line in his own head when Judge Glazier asked about changes in Jake’s life that could have caused his behavior. “Nine months.” Sloane said.

  “What happens after the summer is over, David? Do you ship him back to Frank?”

  Sloane looked out the window. “He said I wasn’t his father.”

  “You’re not his father—not biologically and not practically.”

  For a while neither man spoke, the sound of the soccer game and the clatter of dishes and voices in the kitchen filling the dead air.

  “And now you have another problem,” Allen finally said.

  “I brought him back to the place he watched her die.”

  “There you go, stealing my diagnosis again.”

  “I need to get him out of there.”

  “You need to ease him back into the environment, just as you need to ease back into the role of parent. Your friend Alex is right; you can’t start laying down a bunch of rules and start telling Jake what he can and can’t do. He doesn’t see you in the role of parent. You’re just another authority figure telling him what he can’t do, and it is authority he is rebelling against. Until you tackle the bigger issues, fighting him on his music or his smoking is just something for him to fight with you about.”

  “Has anyone ever accused you of being subtle, Allen?”

  “Catholic priests major in guilt, you know that.” Allen put his hand on Sloane’s shoulder. “This is going to take significant time and effort, not to mention a great deal of patience. You know that, don’t you? You know this is not a problem you’re going to be able to fix by marching into court and outsmarting everybody.”

  “Whatever it takes to make this right, Allen; I promised Tina I’d take care of him.”

  “Forget what you promised Tina. Guilt is never as good a motivator as love, David. Act out of love. Do it because you love your son.”

  THREE

  THREE TREE POINT

  BURIEN, WASHINGTON

  Back at Three Tree Sloane did not go immediately inside. He sat on the picnic table, staring out at the snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountain range. Allen was, as usual, right. Sloane might have had the best intentions when he conceded custody to Frank, but that was from the perspective of an adult. It was doubtful Jake saw it that way. The boy had just lost his mother. That day in the courtroom he also lost his father.

  When his cell phone rang Sloane initially ignored it, but checked caller ID and wondered whether there was some truth to the belief that people could sense when you were thinking of them. The last time he had seen Detective Tom Molia was when Molia came out from West Virginia after Tina’s murder.

  “Tom?” he answered. He wondered if Jenkins had called to advise Molia of Sloane’s situation.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting some great legal thinking,” Molia said.

  “Not much thinking going on here, Tom, legal or otherwise. How’ve you been?”

  “I’ve been better, actually. I’m in California. My mom passed last week.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I appreciate the condolences, but she lived to the ripe young age of ninety-three and had a great life. We should all be so lucky, huh?”

  Sloane thought of Jake, just sixteen, and how the boy had hesitated when Judge Glazier asked him if he wanted to die. “We should all be so lucky,” he agreed.

  “You sure I didn’t catch you at a bad time? If you have something else going on…”

  “No, Tom, it’s fine. Things are a bit out of whack here at the moment.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Thanks but no, just stuff, you know. What’s up?”

  “I’m having a little problem with the probate of my mother’s estate here in Oakland. It’s not a huge issue, but it involves a life insurance policy my parents took out many years ago. The company’s no longer in business and the successor is balking. I was hoping a strongly worded letter on your stationery might catch their attention better than my feeble threats to drive out to Rhode Island and start shooting like John Wayne in True Grit.”

  Sloane didn’t want to turn Molia down, but he also didn’t have the time. “I’m heading out for a few days with Jake, Tom. But I could have Tom Pendergrass handle it for you if that would be okay.”

  “That would be fine. I’m betting they’re bluffing and will fold quicker than a shirt in a Chinese Laundro
mat.”

  “I’ll call the office and have Tom get in touch with you directly.”

  “Much obliged. Where are you and Jake headed?”

  “Don’t know,” Sloane said. “Haven’t made any plans yet.”

  “You feel like doing a little hiking?”

  Sloane sat up straighter. “Maybe.”

  “I brought T.J. with me. After I get things settled with the estate we’re heading up into the Sierras above the gold country to do a little hiking and fishing. I used to go with my dad. He said sleeping in a tent and breathing fresh air cleared the soul and the body. T.J. and I pick different spots around the country every year. This year we had the choice made for us when Mom died.”

  The offer was tempting, but Sloane was reluctant to get anyone else involved in Jake’s problems. “It’s not that simple, Tom. Jake’s having some real issues.”

  “Tell me about it. What boy his age doesn’t?”

  “This goes beyond the normal problems, I’m afraid.”

  “So shoot, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t want to burden you with this while you’re handling your mother’s affairs.”

  “Now you’re just insulting me.”

  Sloane took a breath and started. For the next several minutes he laid out the situation as best he could.

  “Okay,” Molia said when Sloane had finished. “So it sounds like hiking and camping are just what you both need, get him away from there and give you two a chance to spend some time together.”

  Sloane was tempted. “He’s unpredictable. I’m worried he could be volatile.”

  “Like I said, what boy his age isn’t? Listen, the invitation is extended. If you change your mind just call and we’ll pick you up at the airport. We’re planning on heading out Wednesday and spending the night in a town my dad and I used to stay at, get a wilderness permit, and start out early Thursday morning. You’re welcome to join us, and I know having another boy his age would thrill T.J.”

  “Thanks, Tom. I’ll think about it.” Sloane disconnected and looked out again at the mountain range. Maybe it was fate Tom Molia had called. Maybe the mountains were just the thing he and Jake needed. They’d be miles from other people and from temptation and in an environment over which Sloane would have complete control.