“I’m an attorney.”
“Oh. You’re the girl who killed that moose.”
“That would be me.” Sam took his arm and helped him down the stairs.
Sadie rushed up to meet them as they entered the lounge. “There you are, Leon. You had me worried. I went up to get you, and you weren’t in your room. I was about to organize a search party.”
Sam switched to Leon’s defense. “He mistook my room for his.”
Sadie chuckled and cocked her head. “That so, Leon?”
“That so, Sam?” Leon winked.
Sam had been the mouse and Leon the cat, his dementia a game an almost believable defense when caught snooping in her room. Why was he there in the first place? Nothing was missing and no harm done that she knew of. He probably ducked into her closet when he heard her coming to avoid a cross-examination, the ruse another attempt to keep her from questioning him.
Justine accused Sam of having no sense of humor. No time like the present to prove her wrong. “Cute joke, Leon. But watch out for payback.”
10
Frank Simmons had to be the craziest principal Haven’s school district ever had…probably a close second to its craziest citizen, Pete Nugent, a burly fireman as loony as he was big. The rain had eased to a slow drizzle, but the baseball diamond was still slick with mud. Zack wanted to win as much as any other man on the team, but not at the expense of a broken leg.
Teams of two and three scattered around the field warming up with stretches, while some picked up a few bats and practiced their swings. Frank signaled a time out and walked past home plate. He leaned against the fence, his face a grayish white.
Pete slapped Frank on the shoulder. “What’s the matter, old man, no more wind in the sails?”
Frank straightened. “Positions, everyone. I’ll hit a few balls to the infield then we can take turns at the plate.” Frank grabbed a bat and did a couple of practice swings. “Pete and Zack, change positions. I’d rather hit off of Zack’s ball than one that might start a grass fire.”
Pete kicked up mud as he stormed to the catcher’s spot. “Zack throws like a girl. You just don’t want to look bad. You know you can’t hit mine.”
Frank threw a second mask over to Pete. “Quit whining and put on your gear. Zack, don’t hold back.”
Zack threw Frank a helmet. “Better put this on.”
“Batting helmets are for women and boys.” Frank threw it to the side.
“Remember, you asked for it,” Zack jibed. When Pete was ready, Zack fired one across the plate. Frank let it fly by.
Pete laughed as he scooped up the ball and sent it back to the pitcher. “What’s the matter, Alice? Afraid to swing?”
Frank scowled as Zack wound up and threw a fastball. Frank swung too hard, and missed, the bat coming around with a smack to the collar bone. There was brave and then there was downright foolish. Frank edged both fronts. “You OK, Frank? Thought I heard a crack.”
“My bones are made of rubber…not to worry. Show me what you got, Zack.”
Frank always swung like he had something to prove…like he was twenty-five and not fifty–six. He swung the bat like he swung his golf club…with way too much aggression.
“Just meet the ball, Frank,” Zack said. “You don’t have to kill it. Try bunting and see if you can get to first.”
“Hey. I’ll do the coaching, if you don’t mind. I started running bases before you learned how to walk.” Frank took a couple of practice swings, so hard his 250 pounds teetered backward a few yards. He regained his balance, and repositioned himself in a batter’s stance.
Zack zipped another fastball, and Frank swung late. “Hey, hot shot. That was outside.”
Zack tugged at his cap. “Ready for a real pitch now, Frank?”
“Give me all you got.”
Zack wound up again, throwing every inch of pent up frustration into his pitch, and Frank swung, a wannabe Joe DeMaggio. Too hard, he stumbled forward and caught the ball at the tip of the bat; the ball hissed backward, bounced off his head, and he dropped to the ground.
Rushing to Frank’s side, Zack checked for a pulse and looked for signs of breathing. Nothing. He started CPR, and yelled to the field, “Someone call 911! Come on, Frank. Breathe. Don’t make me a killer.”
Zack whistled with relief when he felt a faint pulse. Slow, but he was alive—and pallor returned. Zack examined Frank’s forehead where the ball hit and felt a small contusion on the scalp. It was better to swell outside than in; however, the slight bang on the head didn’t explain Frank’s symptoms. Nobody goes into cardiac arrest from being clobbered by their own foul ball. Unless…Frank did swing awfully hard…
Of course.
The signs had been there all the time—Frank’s frequent indigestion, rubbing his arm, shortness of breath whenever he crossed the room.
Distant wails. “Help’s on the way, Frank.”
Within seconds after arriving, the paramedics had Frank on a gurney and loaded into the bus. As the ambulance sped off, Zack ushered a prayer for Frank’s recovery. If Zack’s suspicions were right, Frank would not be returning to work any time soon. As the only teacher at Haven Central with an administrative license, Zack would probably be moved up to acting principal before the week was out. He wanted Frank’s job, but not like this.
11
Harlan Styles sauntered into the visitation room where Darnell Washington waited. “Tell me you’ve got some good news, Darnell.”
Washington tugged at his suit. “We’ve got her…Knowles. I checked the PI’s info and I’ve had a bunch of confabs with Hilderman. I threatened to sue the city for negligent handling of evidence and prosecutorial misconduct.”
Harlan smiled. A crumb…not enough to satisfy…not even a career ender. “Miss Perfect? Thought you said she was the most thorough prosecutor you ever dealt with. Besides, what’s a civil suit gonna do to get me out of here?”
“The law bends to the highest bidder, Harlan.”
“I know some folks can buy their way out of a jam. Done it myself a few times to beat a couple of drug raps. But I don’t see how it applies here. Knowles won’t budge no matter how much money you throw her way. Hilderman’s no crook, either.”
Washington leaned back in his chair and snickered, the way he did when he knew he had someone cornered. “Even brick walls fall down, Harlan. Hilderman has a lot to lose if this case goes sour, if we keep the case tied up in courts for years to come. I told him we’d take it to the Supreme Court, if necessary.”
Washington might find Hilderman’s plight amusing, but what good would a case in Supreme Court do Harlan now? He needed out. He squeezed his head. “I can’t wait years, Darnell. You’ve got to get me out of here. I don’t care what you have to do to make that happen.”
“Glad you said that, Harlan. I do have a plan.” Washington tapped his file against the table. “Hilderman doesn’t think the case is worth the expense, so he’s willing to cut your sentence if we drop the suit.”
Life couldn’t be that simple—nothing came to Harlan Styles on any kind of platter…least of all, a silver one. “Doesn’t sound like Hilderman. He’s almost as hardnosed as Knowles.”
“I upped the ante. I told him Knowles was a whack job and we had the proof. She should never have been allowed to try your case, but the city let her.”
Harlan smiled—the first since he’d been put in prison. “You seem pretty sure of yourself, Darnell. Must be Saint Samantha’s sins are pretty severe.”
“You should have seen Hilderman’s face when I told him she had an abusive childhood. The psychiatrist’s report indicated that Sam suffered from a suppressed desire to take revenge against her perpetrator—her father.”
“How does that help me, Darnell?”
“Feeds right into the theory of prosecutorial prejudice. She’s trying to get back at her father by putting you away.”
“Might work, at that.”
“But…”
Another continge
ncy? Washington’s deals always sank his clients deeper into the pit. “But…what?”
“It’ll cost you pretty to cover my tracks…how I got this information.”
Every time Washington took a deep breath, Harlan paid pretty…so pretty he’d have to rob a bank to pay Washington off. “Money’s no problem. You know that. I’ll get it from somewhere.” Maybe his brother Reg could find some action. “How are you going to get a judge to release Knowles’s juvie record?”
Washington stiffened with Harlan’s challenge.
Pride goeth before a fall. That’s what his foster mother said when she pushed Harlan into a closet for hours on end to think about what he’d done wrong. He’d spent so much time thinking about his sins, he learned how to pick locks.
Washington leaned forward. “When it’s pertinent, there are ways.”
“Sounds impressive, Darnell.”
“Sam Knowles never should have tried your case, Harlan. We’ll make sure the public knows she used your case to get revenge…not justice. The stink would be noticed from here to San Francisco, and that’s something Hilderman wants to avoid. Seems he’s up for a promotion, and it wouldn’t look good if one of his subordinates was disciplined for prosecutorial misconduct, especially for a case he helped win.”
“I thought Hilderman and Knowles were tight.”
“If the price is right, there’s not a soul wouldn’t turn on their own mother. If Knowles backs down, Hilderman takes over. Simple as that.”
Street thugs knew Knowles’s reputation for taking the hard-line approach to all her cases. It’d take more than a few threats to get her to back down, even if Hilderman tried to make her.
“I don’t care what you have to do to get me out of here. Just do it. I’ve got a score to settle.” Careless words that had tripped off his tongue faster than his brain could process his thoughts. Prison did that to a man, mushed his mind.
“Be careful, Harlan,” Washington warned. “Talk like that could ruin everything. In fact, Hilderman told me he had to register a threat you made to Knowles at the sentencing hearing.”
“The PI told me she sleeps with all her lights on. I made a joke, is all.”
“From now on, you’ve got to be a model prisoner, if you want out of here. Go to those Bible meetings—get some religion. We’ve a good chance to make this happen, Harlan…”
Washington paused, and Harlan braced for the catch. With Washington, there was always a catch.
“That is, if you’re willing to sing.”
“I don’t know, Darnell. Sounds risky.”
Washington whistled. “Hilderman’s after Ingram. If he shakes off this lengthy civil suit, busts up the Ingram family, he’s a shoe-in for his promotion. You got more goods on Ingram than Jay does.”
Thanks to Brenda.
It was her idea to use the pharmacy to front both crime-lords. He shouldn’t have listened, but the money kept Brenda supplied with drugs and expensive perfume. Made sense now, why Jay had been so generous to hire Darnell. Harlan had been set up—Jay’s retribution for the double cross. If Harlan turned on Ingram…Jay got rid of two headaches at once.
No one crossed Ingram and lived.
“What did you do, Darnell? Why didn’t you come in here with a dagger and get it over with?”
Washington laughed. Harlan glared. If he lived long enough to get Knowles, Washington would be next. “I fail to see the humor in this.”
“I know we’re doing a tango with the devil, but don’t shut your coffin lid, yet. I think we can pull this one off. Hilderman’s offered protection.”
Lies…more like Ingram would slice Harlan in more ways than a Sicilian pizza. “None of this was supposed to happen. How did the charges go from criminal negligence to murder? You told me not to deal when they first arrested me. You said they’d never be able to make the charges stick. You know as well as I do, Ingram’s going to get me. Well, let him. I got no reason to go on living without Brenda. She left me.”
“I heard. You’re over-reacting, Harlan. I told you, you’ll get protection and there’re a lot of Brendas out there for you to pick from once you’re out of here.”
“Nothing else you can do? No way to get Ingram out of the equation?”
“Here’s the problem. I can’t shed enough reasonable doubt where Kiley’s death is concerned. You’ve got to pay up somewhere.”
Harlan stiffened. “I didn’t kill Kiley. She was a brat, but I didn’t kill her.”
“So you say, but Knowles’s evidence, except for the TOD typo, is solid.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t care what the evidence looks like, I didn’t kill Kiley. I’m a sinner going straight to hell when I die, looks like that’ll be soon, thanks to you and Hilderman, but I’m not a child killer, never killed anyone on purpose, for that matter.” Visions of Knowles in a pool of blood tickled his fantasies. “At least, not yet.”
Washington slapped the file on the table. “I told you to quit talking like that. Threats won’t get us anywhere.”
“Are you telling me I have to confess to something I didn’t do?”
Washington sat back down, his eyes pleading. “You only have to give up Ingram. If we can get your sentence reduced…maybe even house arrest…will you do the time and sing?”
Not even Washington believed Harlan’s innocence…only Brenda could clear him and she’d sooner swallow a pit of vipers than come forward.
Washington put the file back in his briefcase, closing it with an aggravated zip. “It’s all I got. We either run the legal gamut with a civil suit—and, if we do, we’re talking years before a settlement is reached—or, we take Hilderman’s deal. As your attorney, I recommend you start practicing your scales.”
Harlan squeezed his head until he thought he’d pass out, then let go. Yeah, he’d belt out an entire opera if he had to, his swan song. Once he was out, though, he’d hum a different tune. Knowles claimed she only wanted justice for Brenda’s kid. What about justice for Harlan Styles? Once Ingram heard about the deal, whether Harlan rolled or not, the clock would start ticking on Harlan Styles’s death parade. If it had to be, it had to be, but Justice demanded a life for his life, too. That was the verdict in Harlan Styles’s court of law.
12
She glanced at the clock as she picked up the handset on the fourth ring. She’d slept for three hours. “This is Sam Knowles.”
“Sam, it’s Justine. I got worried when you disconnected. So I called Aaron. He told me about Leon giving you a hard time. The old man sounds like a hoot. Wonder why he yanked your chain like that?”
Something Sam wondered about, too. “Nothing was missing in my room, but there’s a fresh batch of hyacinths on my table.” Sam yawned and rubbed her eyes. “So what’s up?”
“I promised to let you know if I heard anything. Styles’s defense team requested a resentencing review for later this week.”
“Not on the grounds of the ME’s wrong TOD? Styles has no alibi for the corrected time.”
“Something else is going on. Abe’s had all kinds of meetings with Darnell Washington, He won’t tell me anything about them and said not to bother you with the case details, that he had everything under control.”
Every prosecutor had at least one case go sour in spite of planning for every contingency imaginable. Asa Abbington had to go to retrial because Judge Normandy accidently left a microphone on during a private chat and was heard pronouncing the defendant guilty before the jury returned. The law most often worked satisfactorily—eventually in favor of justice. But at times, the guilty did go free. Fear caught in Sam’s throat to think Styles still might walk after three years of constant vigilance, and all because of a typo.
She’d been so thorough, read and re-read her briefs, pored over evidence with a microscope. Kiley Smith cried out from the grave, and Justice might be forced to turn a deaf ear. Sam screamed a silent prayer. Oh, God. Justine calls you the Great Avenger. Please don’t let Kiley’s death go unpunished.
Anger pushed aside fear, anger over Abe’s intrusion. He had no right to be making any kind of deals with Darnell Washington without consulting Sam. Why hadn’t he called her, asked for her input? This was her case, not Abe’s. She should pack her bags right now and leave for Manhattan, give Abe a piece of her worried mind. Aaron would understand…he was a lawyer, too. She could always mail in her fine. As for Jonathan Gladstone—she didn’t owe him anything if she never went to see the property. “I can be there tonight.”
Justine screeched. “You’ll do no such thing. Abe was afraid you’d say that. He said if you argued to remind you he was your teacher and you were the student. He can handle it.”
Sam laughed. “One crazy professor, for sure. But, yeah, I did learn a lot from him, and I used every trick he taught me to earn that conviction.”
Justine sighed. “I’m worried about you, Sam, worried you won’t let this go. It’s time you trusted someone else with this burden.”
“Abe?”
“No, God.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. When’s the last time you asked for God’s guidance with this case?”
Of course, she’d prayed for intervention, but as Justine suspected, she’d never asked God for wisdom. “An eye for an eye, Justine…isn’t that what the Bible says?”
Justine squealed like a mouse in a trap. “I give up trying to put sense into you. But don’t you dare give up on your vacation. Abe will find a way to keep that jerk in jail.”
“Urgh.”
“I’ll take that as a yes, you’ll stay in Haven as planned?”
Justine would have taken a no for a yes, and Sam had no defense against that kind of determination. “Keep me posted. See you soon. Oh, and bring my spare laptop and some clothes when you come.”
“I’ll have to get your laptop back from Abe. He said he needed to check some files.”
More intrusion. Sure, she’d let Abe keep an extra key in the event of an emergency…like a fire, or if she didn’t show up to work for a couple of days. Not to help himself to her laptop whenever he felt like it. She had personal stuff on there, stuff Abe had no business seeing.
The Other Side of Darkness Page 9