City of Angels (The Trials of Kit Shannon #1)

by James Scott Bell

  "Mr. Rogers, I am mindful of the time this jury is putting in."

  "I am only asking for a few hours."

  "Mr. Sloate, have you any objection?"

  With feigned courtesy, Sloate said, "Not in the least, Your Honor."

  "Well, all right, then," said the judge. "Back here at three o'clock to begin. Gentlemen of the jury, enjoy a long, leisurely lunch."

  He banged his gavel with a foreboding solemnity.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  BACK IN CHAMBERS, Judge Wiley Ganges pointed a finger at Heath Sloate. "This is going too far!"

  "Calm yourself," Sloate said, his voice grating to the judge's ears. Ganges felt himself reaching a breaking point. How had he ever allowed a poisonous snake like Heath Sloate to get the better of him?

  This was not what he thought being a judge would come to. A jurist with strings attached, made to dance by some unprincipled puppet master.

  Yet whom could he blame but himself? He had succumbed to the temptations of the flesh, though to this point he had managed to hide it from his own family.

  "You know I will protect you in every way," said Sloate.

  "That is small comfort, Sloate."

  "I am a man of my word. You will have only to make the ruling I have proposed."

  "But you are winning!"

  "Maybe. But Rogers has a way with a jury. I cannot afford to take that chance."

  Ganges slapped his fist on the desk. "What you are doing flies in the face of everything this system of justice holds dear."

  Sloate seemed singularly unmoved. "You just continue to follow my lead," he said, "and all will be well."

  ———

  "How do you account for the locket?"

  Kit faced Ted in the tiny cell in the back of the courtroom. They were alone now, the deputy having locked her inside with her client. While Rogers was presumably gathering everyone back at the office, Kit was determined to get to the bottom of Hoover's stunning testimony. Either the Chief of Police of Los Angeles was lying, or Ted Fox was not innocent after all.

  Ted, looking tired, said, "I can't account for it."

  "Try," Kit said firmly.

  He looked at her with sunken eyes. "How?"

  "Did you take it?"

  "No. I never saw it before."

  "Then how did it get into your house?"

  "I have no idea."

  Kit looked into his eyes. "Was it planted there?"

  "It must have been."

  "By whom? The police?"

  "Who else?"

  Kit let out an angry breath. "Ted, where were you on the night of August tenth?"

  "I've already told you."

  "I don't believe you."

  "You now accuse me of lying?"

  "Yes."

  Ted's face reflected astonishment and, in a subtle way, respect. But he did not answer.

  Kit's mind was now racing, looking for pieces to fit together. And then, somewhere in the back, a picture started to form.

  "You're protecting someone," she said. "And I think I know who it is."

  Ted's eyes told her she was right. He looked at her silently, waiting.

  "Your mother."

  Ted dropped his gaze to the floor. "How did you find out?"

  "I didn't. You just told me."

  Ted looked up, surprised.

  "I had my suspicions. When I went to see your mother, she kept making the sign of the cross. But you're not Catholic. Why would your mother do such a thing? Because she was taken to the Catholic asylum in San Fernando."

  Ted looked as if he were going to protest. But then he slowly nodded. "When the police found her, wandering the street, she was in such a state they took her there. They thought she was just some crazy woman from shanty town. I had to go get her."

  "You didn't want anyone to find out," Kit said.

  "All she has left is her social standing in this city, and I don't want that taken away from her. Ever since my father died, when I was nine, she has sacrificed for me. I know what people like Heath Sloate can do to her."

  "Sloate?"

  "He sold a piece of worthless land to her. You remember that day we drove out to the bluff? That land is ours. Ten years ago my mother bought it from Sloate without my knowing about it. I didn't find out about this until last year. I confronted Sloate, but he said there was nothing I could do. He said if I tried he would see to it that my mother's reputation, everything she has meant to this community, would be ruined. You remember the night I was arrested?"

  "How could I forget?"

  "I asked you about being of sound mind."

  "Yes."

  "That wasn't about me. It was about mother. I wanted to know if that contract would be good if she entered it under duress from Sloate."

  Kit frowned. "But why were you running from the police?"

  A half smile toyed with Ted's face. "I threatened Sloate that day. Told him I was going to break his neck if he didn't take that land back. Not a smart thing to do, I suppose."

  Kit could not disagree. That was playing into Sloate's hands. "Go on."

  "That night a cop wagon pulled up to my house. So I took off."

  Shaking her head, Kit said, "Flight is always construed by the police as a sign of guilt."

  "Now you tell me. I thought they were arresting me for the threat to Sloate, not for the murder that occurred the night before. I think he set me up."

  Of course! But how were they ever going to show it? How could they if Ted remained resigned?

  She said, "Are you just going to let Sloate run you to the gallows? What do you think that will do to your mother?"

  Ted put his head in his hands.

  "You can't just give up," Kit said.

  "Why not?"

  "It's your life!"

  "What life? We are particles of matter stitched together. Darwin taught us that."

  Kit's hands balled into fists. "Darwin! Is Darwin God?"

  "No," said Ted. "But Darwin has shown us there is no God."

  "Then Darwin is a fool! And so is anybody else who believes that twaddle! You are not just particles, Mr. Fox. You are a man. You are a living soul. You have a purpose."

  "What purpose would that be, Miss Shannon?"

  "Do you remember that night we met? At my aunt's home?"

  "Ah yes, the social event of the season."

  "You told me something then. You said that you were going to fly someday."

  "That seems far away."

  "Tell me why you want to fly."

  "I don't anymore."

  "Then tell me why you once did."

  For a moment Ted seemed to stare off into the past. "I remember, when I was a boy, when we were in England. My father took me to the cliffs at Dover. It was a clear, clean day. And as I looked out over the channel there, I remember a gull floated—just floated—by us. He was so close I could almost touch him. He didn't flap his wings at all, just rose on the breeze, as if . . ."

  Pausing, Ted looked as if he were reliving the moment, free of this holding cell, free of everything.

  " . . . as if to say to me, 'Come on! Why don't you join me?' And right there I felt something in me. I still don't know what it was, but it was so real."

  "Did you ever consider that it might have been the voice of God?"

  Ted looked at her with a certain incredulity, but said nothing.

  "God is seen in His creation," Kit said. "The heavens declare His glory. We cannot help but respond. Perhaps it was God who told you to take man into the skies, like the gulls."

  Ted's eyes, tired though they were, danced. "And don't you have more than a bit of the divine spark in you, Kit Shannon. In your tongue, at least."

  For a moment Kit forgot about everything else. Here again was the man she had met that night. But just as quickly the reality of the situation came crashing back. "You are going to have to take the stand and tell the jury exactly what happened," Kit said.

  "No, Kit. I won't do it. I can't."

 
Kit shook her head. If he would not take the stand in his own defense, there was nothing she—or Earl Rogers—could do. But could she just stand idly by while he let himself get convicted? There had to be some way.

  And then, like some bright light flashing into a dark room, an answer came.

  "I must go," she said.

  "Where?" Ted said.

  Kit called for the guard.

  ———

  Earl Rogers sat in the dark corner, in a booth away from the crowd. He wanted a drink. Wanted it bad. The locket had done it. Sloate had the upper hand now. Rogers could sense, even without talking to Kit, that the jury had been duly impressed.

  The locket! It smelled to high heaven, but there it was.

  He looked at his sandwich for the third time without picking it up. His stomach tightened, his nerves shredded. Pinpricks of gooseflesh popped out on his arms. What was happening to him? Had he finally come to the end of the line, the great courtroom lawyer, about to lose to the worst of all possible opponents, Heath Sloate?

  No! Always he had found a way. He would now.

  Wouldn't he?

  "Mr. Rogers?"

  His head snapped up. A young man smiled at him. Rogers was in no mood for conversation. "I'm having my lunch."

  "I can see that," the man said. He stuck out his hand. "Bloomfield's my name. I write for the Examiner. And I have to tell you, Mr. Rogers, I think you're going to do it."

  "Do what?"

  "Win. Mind if I sit?"

  Rogers hesitated, then nodded his head toward the opposite bench.

  "I'm covering the trial," Bloomfield said.

  "I thought your paper had Tom Phelps on the case."

  "There's a little friendly competition. That's why I'm here. I was hoping to get an exclusive story from you. And to offer you a bit of help."

  "Help?"

  "I know something. Something about Sloate. Maybe something I shouldn't know, but I know. Interested?"

  Rogers eyed the reporter. "I'm listening."

  "Let me buy you a beer."

  "No, I—"

  "I insist. Waiter!"

  The kid already had his hand up, and the prospect of one glass of cold beer was one Earl Rogers found inviting. Most inviting. He did not protest further.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  THE CABBIE WAS ACCOMMODATING, pushing his horse to get Kit to San Fernando as quickly as possible. But would it be time enough? Would Rogers think her as crazy as the inmates she would soon see?

  The Mission at San Fernando was an adobe structure, white against the dirt of the farmland. Inside the walls of the courtyard, Kit could see trees with gnarled branches and a few dark-skinned mission Indians engaged in various labors.

  Just beyond the church, with its crowning cornice topped by a cross, lay a somewhat larger, though flatter, building. On the facing wall Kit saw a row of small windows, each with black bars like a jail cell.

  The asylum.

  "Wait here," she ordered the driver.

  Kit hopped out and approached the forbidding wooden doors at the front of the building. She tried to open them. Locked. She knocked.

  No response. Behind her, a crow made a cawing sound. She turned and saw the bird sitting on a branch in dead tree.

  Kit knocked on the door again. This time she heard a latch, and the door opened.

  A padre wearing a brown robe cinched at the waist with a rope stood in the dark doorway. His eyes squinted at the sun. "What is it, daughter?" he said.

  "Father, my name is Kit Shannon. I wish to speak with Thomas Ryan."

  "Eh?"

  "He is in your employ, I believe."

  "I know Thomas, but I do not know you." The priest's florid face was rigidly set. He did not move from the door.

  "If you please, Father, I am here on a matter of business."

  "We care nothing of business here, daughter. This is a place of refuge for the infirm. For them, business is of no concern."

  "My business is with Mr. Ryan." Kit felt her growing impatience bubbling to the surface.

  "Mr. Ryan is occupied."

  "Please."

  "I am sorry." The priest began to close the door. Kit put her hand on it. This seemed to surprise the padre even more than her presence.

  "You are a Franciscan," she said.

  The priest, eyes wide now, nodded.

  "Was it not St. Francis who prayed to the Lord to be an instrument of his peace? That where there is despair, he would sow hope?"

  "Why, yes."

  "That is why I am here, Father. As an instrument of the Lord's mercy. Please believe me when I tell you this is so."

  The priest paused, studying her face. Then he opened the door for her.

  Inside, the spare chamber was dark. A wooden table with a lone candle sat in the corner.

  "You may wait here," said the priest. He grabbed a large ring of keys from the table and unlocked a door behind it.

  "Father?"

  "Yes?"

  "May I go with you?"

  The priest paused and regarded her closely. "What is behind this door would disturb you."

  "Please."

  "Very well," said the priest. He motioned for Kit to follow him. "But stay close to me."

  They entered a long hallway. It smelled like a stable, only worse. Kit noticed straw along the floor, but not fresh straw. There were doors with barred windows along the corridor. A low moan came from somewhere, like a wounded animal. But it was not an animal. It was a human being. Kit looked at the priest. He seemed not to hear it.

  Then a scream sounded! At Kit's right, a hand stuck out through the bars of one of the doors. The fingers, inches from her hair, were gnarled, clawlike. She gasped in horror and stumbled back.

  "Watch it there!" the priest said, moving Kit to a more central position in the corridor. Then, with his keys, he rapped the knuckles of the extended hand. Another scream, and the hand withdrew.

  "Come," he ordered.

  Kit followed, aware now of every sound, every movement, but not looking behind the doors. The images in her mind were frightful enough.

  Finally, at the end of the corridor, the priest unlocked another door. Through this Kit passed into a large room. She gasped.

  The room was filled with human misery. Some bodies, seemingly lifeless, lay curled on the floor, while others moved in purposeless circles. Various sounds emanated from the mass, incoherent and despondent. Kit saw two inmates secured to the walls by leather straps.

  A number of priests walked about, occasionally stopping to pray or speak with one of the unfortunates. There were some men in white clothes who carried buckets and brushes and were cleaning here and there. Another man with a pail of water and ladle was giving a drink to one of the restrained men.

  Kit recognized the water-bearer as Thomas Ryan.

  "Thomas," the priest called.

  Ryan looked at them. His mouth dropped open when he recognized Kit. "Miss Shannon!"

  "Hello, Thomas."

  He came to her and took her hand. "I never expected."

  "May we talk?" Kit said.

  To the priest, Ryan said, "May we go outside, Father?"

  "Ten minutes," said the priest.

  "Thank you." Ryan motioned for Kit to follow. He led her out a side door to a small courtyard on the side of the building. "Do you bring news of the trial?" Ryan said.

  "Some," said Kit.

  "I have not been able to come." Ryan looked at the ground. "You are helping to defend this man?"

  "Yes."

  "Is he the one who killed my girl?"

  "No."

  Ryan brought his eyes up to Kit. "Then who?"

  "Thomas, that's why I've come. I need your help."

  "Me?"

  "I need to ask you some questions, and I haven't much time. Will you help me?"

  He smiled. "I would do anything for you, Miss Shannon."

  "Thank you, Thomas."

  And then she began the most important interview of her life.


  Chapter Thirty-six

  KIT ENTERED THE COURTROOM at five minutes past three. Her body was buzzing. She had to talk to Rogers before the trial commenced.

  She saw familiar faces, including John Barrymore, in the gallery. And Aunt Freddy was there, this time with Corazón by her side. When Corazón smiled at her, Kit felt a sense of calm wash over her. But it left quickly when she discovered that Earl Rogers was not in the courtroom.

  She saw Judge Ganges talking to Heath Sloate at the bench. Next to Sloate stood a policeman. Something had happened.

  Kit moved down the aisle and through the gate. Ted was at the counsel table. "Where's Earl?" she whispered.

  "He hasn't come yet," Ted said.

  "What is going on at the bench?"

  "I don't know. This police officer came in, and he and Sloate have been talking to the judge."

  Kit rushed to the bench. Even before she got there, the judge's face exploded with consternation. "Young woman!" he said.

  "Where is Mr. Rogers?" she said.

  "You get back to the gallery now!"

  "This is a conference in open court," she said. "And the defense has a right to be part of it!" Kit felt Sloate's eyes boring in on her from the side.

  "I will have you cited!" Ganges said.

  "Wait," said Sloate calmly. "We might as well inform Miss Shannon as something of a representative of the defense."

  Ganges said, "Well, all right then."

  "Go ahead, Judge," said Sloate.

  With barely concealed contempt, Ganges looked at Kit and said, "Your employer was picked up in the gutter, dead drunk."

  An invisible hand grabbed Kit by the throat.

  "This officer," Ganges said, "reported it. Rogers was so far gone they took him to a hospital. Well, that's conduct I won't stand for. If he has such contempt for the law I, as a representative of the law, have the power to remove him from the case."

  Kit fought to keep control. "What are you saying?"

  "What I am saying, young woman, is that Earl Rogers is no longer the attorney for the defendant. Mr. Sloate and I are discussing a new trial and who might be assigned to do it."

  Kit looked at Sloate, at the judge, then back at Sloate. There was now no question in her mind. These two had conspired. They had been conspiring all along. Yet the brunt of her anger was at Earl Rogers. Drunk! How could he do this to Ted? To her? How could he have been so uncaring?