by Mel Odom
As he gazed at the two pictures, Darnell’s lips quivered for just a moment and he blinked away a tear. Then, once more, he was stone. “Trashae is looking more an’ more like her momma ever’ day.” Tenderly, he touched the photograph of the seven-year-old girl with wild hair and a gap-toothed smile. “An’ Keywon gets bigger every time I see him.” The little boy was five and had tried to look serious in the photo, but his dark eyes glimmered with suppressed merriment.
Darnell cleared his throat. “You see them lately?”
“This morning.”
“They lookin’ good?”
“They are. I had breakfast with them at McDonald’s.”
A chuckle rumbled from deep inside Darnell’s chest. “In the play area, I suppose.”
Heath hesitated, thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have been so specific. Something as simple as taking his grandkids to McDonald’s was never going to happen for Darnell Lester.
“Yeah.”
Darnell smiled a little and put his fingers on the two photographs. He dragged them to his side of the table, and the paper sliding across the metal surface whispered loud enough to be heard in the silence. “Onliest place to take kids that size. I ’member takin’ Deshondra. Her favorite place to go.” He smiled again and darted a look at Heath. “Till she met Mr. Ronald McDonald himself. Had a guy there in the clown suit. Deshondra didn’t care for that at all. Put her off goin’ to McDonald’s for a week.”
“Some people have problems with clowns.”
“You?”
Heath shook his head. Clowns had never scared him. He had worse fears than any guy dressed in a shaggy wig, a red rubber nose, and pancake makeup could give him. Lionel Bridger was the only thing Heath had ever feared.
“Me neither.” Darnell picked up the photographs and slid them into his pocket.
“Deshondra also asked me to tell you that she was praying for you.”
“That’s good. But she should save her prayers for her ownself. Two kids like that can be a lotta hard work.”
“She’s up to it. But she’s worried about you.”
Darnell shook his head. “Nothin’ to worry about when it comes to me. Ever’thin’ that’s gonna be done to me, that’s already in the book. I’m just markin’ time till we get it over with. I’ve made my peace with God.”
“That’s what I want to talk about.” Heath leaned forward then. “That peace you’ve made.”
That was one of the things that had first stood out when Heath had met Darnell Lester five months ago. The man was staring death in the face, constantly watched and surrounded by other death row inmates. During that time, over a dozen condemned men had been executed by lethal injection. Darnell had known a few of them. The condemned were a special breed in the prison, and they had an unstated respect for each other. In the cell blocks, each man stood tall on his own two legs or he died inside.
But Darnell had found God years ago. Warden Billy Wilkins had told Heath that himself when he’d first come to the prison five months ago. Wilkins had a soft spot in his heart for Darnell and had wished Heath well in his endeavors.
“If there’s any man that deserves a change from death sentence to life imprisonment, it’s that man.”
When Heath had first met Darnell, the man had brought his Bible into the interview room, been polite, and read the whole time Heath tried to talk to him. Heath had explained that his father’s law firm had taken on Darnell’s representation pro bono, part of the volunteer work they had to do every year. At the end of that, Darnell had gotten up, thanked him for his time, and left the room.
Heath hadn’t known what to do. He discussed the matter with his father, who had thought this should be a simple pro bono, probably the easiest Heath would ever get the chance to represent. Most of them tended to try to drain a firm’s resources and often wore on the attorney. Lionel had told Heath to let it go.
Although he’d tried to walk away, Heath hadn’t been able to. There was something about Darnell that drew his interest, something that kept pulling him back. Darnell’s calming words about his faith always gripped Heath in a manner he couldn’t explain. After a couple more visits, Heath had gone to find Darnell’s ex-wife, discovered that she’d passed on six years earlier, and found Deshondra and the grandkids.
The next time he’d come to see Darnell, Heath brought Deshondra, who had been visiting her father on a regular basis throughout his incarceration. Deshondra implored her father, and Darnell had agreed to listen.
“It ain’t my peace, Counselor.” Darnell grinned good-naturedly. “It’s the Lord’s peace, an’ he was kind enough to give it to me.”
Since taking on Darnell Lester’s case, Heath had studied instances where the death penalty had been enforced. He’d read a lot of testimony about how the convicts’ last words were of forgiveness and sorrow and God. Heath didn’t believe that those men truly meant what they were saying. It was just their last time to be heard, and many of them were still in denial about what was going to happen to them. They’d watched too many movies and had wanted to go out as stars.
Or maybe they were just scared, afraid of what might be waiting on them for their sins. Some of them were probably afraid that nothing at all awaited them on the other side.
Heath wasn’t a true believer. He had his doubts and fears. Darnell had talked to him about those, always pointing to Jesus and the sacrifice he made to wipe away all of Heath’s sins. Heath had listened out of politeness, but he hadn’t bought in.
Lionel Bridger had attended church with his family. A lot of his clients did, and it had been good for him to be seen there. Church was good PR.
When he had been small, Heath had marveled at all the events in Jesus’ life and how Jesus had gone through his service to his Father. Especially that story with the moneylenders. Heath had particularly liked that one.
If he was pressed, Heath would admit that the closest he had ever seen God work was in Darnell Lester. Lester clung to his faith wholeheartedly but with a sense of peace and forgiveness, not some kind of fervor of the holy righteous.
“The fact is, Darnell, you’re a force for good in your daughter’s life and in the lives of your grandchildren.” Heath spoke earnestly. “That shouldn’t be taken away because of the man you were all those years ago.”
“That man was me. Ain’t no gettin’ around that. I pulled that trigger, an’ I killed that young man stone dead. All for a twelve-pack an’ a carton of smokes, an’ maybe enough cash money to buy my next chunk of rock cocaine.”
The image of that wild-eyed man in the convenience store filled Heath’s mind. Darnell Lester had looked a lot different. His hair had been unkempt. He’d been wearing his old Army jacket and stained slacks he’d kept from working at some fast food restaurant. His addictions had leaned him out to flesh over bone, and his eyes had been red-rimmed and jaundiced yellow. The doctor said if Darnell hadn’t been brought in, he’d probably have died from his organs crashing within a matter of weeks.
Heath shook his head. “No. You’re not the same man you were then. And you’re not as bad as you think you were then.”
“I killed that man.”
“You shot him, then you tried to save him.” Heath paused. “Jointer came in shooting. You were out of the Army maybe a year. Someone shot at you, and you shot back. That was misjudgment and you were under the influence, but that was also how you’d been trained to fight in Iraq. That was reflex.”
“Murder’s murder, Counselor.”
“It is. But there are degrees of murder. Different penalties for crimes committed.” Heath leaned forward. “You shouldn’t die, Darnell. Not by lethal injection. I can’t get you out of here. That’s nowhere even close to the table. But I think, under the right circumstances, I can get the sentence flipped to life imprisonment.”
Darnell leaned back in his chair. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be in here. It’s hard. Powerful hard. Lotsa long hours an’ rememberin’ what life was like on the other s
ide of these bars an’ walls.” His voice quavered for just an instant. “Hard to keep it together some days.”
“I understand that, but there are other days when you see Deshondra and those grandchildren.”
Darnell closed his eyes for a moment. “Those are good days.”
“Deshondra doesn’t want to lose you. You’re the only parent she has left. Even with you in here, she’d rather have that than nothing at all. I’m hoping that you would too.”
“Okay, Counselor. I hear you.”
“I have to have your permission to continue pursuing this. There are people who will ask you.”
“Let me pray on it. I’ll get back to you.”
“All right, but there’s something else I have to tell you. My unit got activated. I’m leaving for California on Friday. I don’t know for sure where I’m going from there or how long I’ll be gone.”
“That’s fine.” Darnell put one of his knobby hands over Heath’s. “Then I’ll be askin’ God to look over you too.”
11
“MR. PIKE?”
Lying on the creeper under the eight-year-old Ford pickup that had shelled its transmission, Pike Morgan dropped a leisurely hand down to the heavy crescent wrench lying on the ground beside him. He kept a high-capacity .45 and a shotgun in his apartment not far from the garage where he worked, and he kept a .38 revolver in his boot. Getting to the boot would be too obvious in his present position, but a mechanic having a wrench close to hand was no immediate red flag.
Unless a professional killer had finally caught up with him.
Then again, if one of those guys had found him, if his luck had finally run out, he would already be a dead man. They didn’t hand out warnings to someone like Pike. They wouldn’t want to give him a chance.
Pike reached overhead, caught the pickup’s frame, and propelled himself on the creeper. He slid out from under the vehicle but held on to the crescent wrench and the frame in case he needed to strike or scoot back to safety under the truck.
The second bay of the small garage held an older SUV that needed transmission repairs as well. Monty hadn’t come back from lunch yet. The small office on the other side of the room was empty. Classic rock blared from the boom box sitting on the office window ledge, an old one by the Rolling Stones. “Hey, you, get off of my cloud.”
A small boy, maybe eight or nine, stood a few feet away. He was Hispanic, his hair sticking out and uncombed, wearing a frayed Dallas Cowboys jersey that was too big for him. The short sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows. That little detail told Pike the kid had a mom. A lot of them in the neighborhood didn’t. He looked scared, but that was the reaction Pike usually got from people.
Pike was big and broad; he didn’t work at it, but putting in long hours in a garage helped fine-tune his naturally powerful physique. He preferred working on motorcycles. That was what he’d done since age fifteen. Most of the time. The last four years, though, he’d had to stay away from bikes.
Mulvaney had offered to get Pike some other kind of training, something that would take him away from mechanic work entirely, but Pike didn’t want that. He’d given up too much of his past already. He wanted to hang on to part of it. Mulvaney and the US Marshals hadn’t been happy about that, but it was his life. He allowed the deal he’d been forced into to compromise his way of living only so far.
Pike released his grip on the crescent wrench and sat up on the creeper. The kid backed away a step. Dressed in work boots, grease-stained jeans, and a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, his long hair wild and three weeks of beard on his face, Pike knew he looked like a Neanderthal. He was tan, and some of the color came from Indian heritage. He blamed his dark eyes on his blood too, but he couldn’t have named which tribe it had come from. He was state-raised and had never known his parents. Muscles rolled in his arms as he folded them on top of his knees and looked at the kid.
“I know you?” Pike’s voice was a deep bass rumble.
The kid shook his head. “No, Mr. Pike.”
“Just Pike. I don’t answer to mister.”
The boy nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Pike waved that away. “You got a name?”
“Hector.”
“Like the Trojan warrior?”
A shy smile twisted Hector’s lips, but he was still nervous. “Yeah, like that.”
“Cool name.” Pike wiped his hands on the red rag beside the creeper. Through the open garage doors, out on the gravel parking lot, he didn’t see a vehicle waiting. Sometimes, in this neighborhood, the kids were bilingual but the parents weren’t. The parents would send the kids in to tell him or Monty they needed someone to look at their cars.
Only the trio of cars awaiting pickup and the two junkers Monty had bought for parts sat in the lot. Beyond them and the security fence, the narrow street ran through a neighborhood that had been challenged by poverty and dismissal by the rest of the city. Tulsa was like that, split into subdivisions between haves and have-nots, between whites, Hispanics, African-Americans, and other ethnicities and financial brackets.
The city was a lot like Dallas, actually. Pike still didn’t exactly feel at home here, but it was familiar terrain. Mulvaney had wanted to send Pike somewhere north or back east, or maybe out to Phoenix. Lots of witness relocation took place out there. Pike hadn’t wanted to go that far. People were still looking for him for what he’d done, for those he had betrayed, and he didn’t want to be anywhere he would stick out. Oklahoma was as far as he’d been willing to go.
“I don’t see a car, Hector. Maybe you got a bicycle?” Pike had gotten a reputation in the neighborhood for repairing kids’ bicycles for free. Monty usually didn’t have the time between running the business, working on the trannies, and raising a family. At closing time, Monty went home to his wife and three kids, and he coached little league baseball and basketball teams. That schedule didn’t leave a lot of time for free work.
Pike usually worked late because he didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do. He got paid for piecework, a percentage of each job, instead of hourly—almost like a partner—so Monty didn’t kick about it. After Monty went home at six, Pike cracked open a beer, blasted the jams, and turned wrenches. As a result, Monty was bringing in more work than ever.
Working on the bicycles paid off too. The kids told their parents about the big guy down at the garage who was so nice, and the parents who needed repairs and could afford them came calling.
Hector shook his head. “No bicycle. I’m not big enough.”
Pike grinned at the kid. “Sure you are. They got bicycles your size.”
A flush of embarrassment darkened Hector’s face. “I’m not big enough ’cause the other kids would take it away from me.”
“Oh.” Pike muted the anger that instantly vibrated inside him. He remembered being Hector’s age. The only thing that had saved him in the state-run facility and the foster homes that had followed for a while was his size. Still, he hadn’t had eyes in the back of his head.
Not until Petey had come along.
That old pain rocketed through Pike and caught him by surprise. Memories returned in a deluge: the young teen Petey had been, all rawboned knees and elbows and attitude. Then the piece of bullet-ruptured meat the Diablos had left behind. Pike clamped down on those feelings quick.
Hector fidgeted.
“So what are you doing here, Hector?” Pike felt the strain in his voice, but he thought maybe the kid wouldn’t notice.
“It’s my sister. Erendria.” Hector stopped speaking.
Pike waited, knowing the boy wouldn’t go on until he was ready. Pike understood—he’d been the same way at that age. There wasn’t much that Pike had control over as a kid, so he’d worked at controlling himself. He still did. When you didn’t have anything, you concentrated on keeping your world small: nothing you cared about, no friends, nothing to carry when you had to move on.
The kid didn’t have it that bad. He had a sister, and that meant he had fam
ily. Of course, a family brought a lot of trouble, too. You could maybe protect yourself, but you couldn’t protect a family all the time. Petey had taught Pike that. Living outside yourself, looking out for something more than was inside your skin, was risky.
The kid wet his lips and squeezed his hands into small fists. “I’ve heard people say you sometimes do things. Sometimes you help people that can’t help themselves.”
Pike shook his head. “You heard wrong, Hector. I work on cars. I work on bicycles. That’s what I do.”
“I know. I heard that. You work on people’s cars and you let them pay you out.”
Monty hadn’t been a big fan of that, either. He hadn’t wanted to get known as a garage that gave out credit. If he started doing that, he’d lose his shirt, and the profit margin was thin as a frayed shoestring anyway.
Pike had invested in people on his own, after hours so Monty wouldn’t get caught up in all the work or the financial risk. Monty knew about it, but it was something they just didn’t talk about. A few times, Pike had gotten burned on deals. People had stiffed him, or they’d gotten themselves in jams and couldn’t pay him back. It was no big deal. Money came and money went. That’s how it was with money. Petey never had understood that, and he’d gotten killed trying to hang on to too much of it.
“You said you didn’t have a car.”
Hector shook his head. “No car.”
“Your sister have a car?”
“She wishes. Erendria is seventeen, but she’s loco.” Hector twirled a finger around one of his ears.
“Girls can get like that.” In fact, they could get completely psychotic. Pike had seen those.
“She’s not a bad girl. She’s my sister. But she’s in trouble.”
Pike pushed himself up and walked across the garage to the ice chest where he and Monty kept their drinks. He opened the chest, sorted through the bottled water and the beer, and found two Cokes. The kid had followed at his heels. Pike handed one, dripping wet from the melted ice, to Hector and kept the other for himself.