Sins of the Fathers

by James Scott Bell

  Someday a robot would be doing this, Lindy thought.

  She got in the line with Roxy and picked out a pack of orange Tic-Tacs. The woman in front of her had a bottomless shopping cart. Finally, it was Lindy’s turn. She handed over the Tic-Tacs.

  “Charlene?”

  The girl, about thirty, said, “Yes?”

  “I wonder if I might talk to you on your break. My name’s Lindy Field, and it’s about Drake.”

  Charlene froze.

  “I need to talk to you about him.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a legal matter.”

  Suddenly aware that other people were waiting in line, Charlene quickly scanned the Tic-Tacs.

  “I’ll be waiting for you over at the Mickey D’s,” Lindy said. “I promise it won’t take too long.”

  Charlene gave no answer. Roxy paid for the Tic-Tacs. They proceeded to the in-store McDonald’s and set up at one of the plastic booths, Roxy in a position to watch Charlene’s register.

  “One nervous girl,” Roxy said.

  “Scared,” Lindy said.

  “Like us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The guy who tried to kill you, he’s still out there. Maybe it was Drake DiCinni.”

  Lindy had thought of that, but the gears hadn’t meshed. “Why would he?”

  “Because he’s nuts?”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “His kid is.”

  “You saying it may run in the family?”

  “I can think of weirder things.”

  “Get us a couple of coffees,” Lindy said.

  “McDonald’s coffee? Are you nuts?”

  Lindy shot her a friendly glare. Roxy smiled, but it fell away from her face in an instant. She was looking over Lindy’s shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Roxy shot to her feet. “Our girl just ran out of the store.”

  3.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Leon Colby sat down on the stool next to Officer Kirby Glenn. Glenn was having a taco at the stand on Olvera Street, right where dispatch told Leon he would be.

  Glenn looked surprised.

  “What, the DA need some free advice?” Glenn said, a bit of lettuce hanging from his lip.

  “Looks pretty good,” Colby said about the taco. He held up two fingers to the guy behind the counter and turned back to Glenn. “Gonna make you fat, though.”

  The officer did not seem in any mood to chitchat. “Just grabbing something on the run. Then I gotta get out of here.”

  “On duty, are you?”

  “Soon enough. Keeping the city safe and all that. Just like you.” Glenn put the crumbling remnants of the taco shell into the wax paper in front of him. He licked his fingers then grabbed a wadded up napkin and wiped them. “You come all the way down here to check my diet?”

  The taco guy plopped a wax-paper–lined red basket with two tacos in front of Colby. Colby reached for the little bottle of picante on the counter, unscrewed the top, and doused the top of his tacos with it. “I like to clear out the sinuses,” he said.

  Glenn said nothing.

  “Like to clear up my cases too.” Colby took a healthy bite of taco.

  “That a fact? Seems to me the one you’re on is pretty clear.”

  “I wish that was so, my friend. Wish that was so.” Colby dabbed at his chin with a paper napkin.

  “What’s not clear about it?”

  “Things around the edges. I just get a bad feeling about things around the edges, you know?”

  Glenn looked as if he did not know, as if he didn’t want to know. In fact, Officer Kirby Glenn looked like he wanted to get out of there as fast as he could.

  Which intrigued Colby. “What do you hear about the McIntyre killing?”

  “Hear? Nothing. That’s RHD.”

  “You know people. People say things.”

  Glenn shrugged and pushed the basket with his taco remnants to the side. “People say a lot of things. I don’t always listen.”

  “So you hear anything on McIntyre?”

  “Just what they say on TV. He was into some underworld stuff, right?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I told you, Colby, I don’t know anything other than what everybody else knows. What’s up with you?”

  “I told you. Edges. McIntyre was on the edge of this DiCinni case. He had an interest. An interest that may have gotten him killed.”

  “Or maybe it was totally unrelated.”

  “Maybe. But that’s not clear.” Colby took another bite, savored it, let Glenn just sit there and watch him. Finally he said, “What’s your interest in DiCinni?”

  “Don’t have any.”

  “No?”

  “I testified. That’s as far as it goes.”

  “You puffed it.”

  “I did what?”

  “Puffed your testimony. You put in a little more than was there. You recall that?”

  Glenn half-smiled. “Since when have you been fired up about that, Colby? That isn’t your rep.”

  Colby didn’t have a response to that. He knew his rep, and he knew Glenn was right.

  “Forget about it,” Colby said. He got up from the stool.

  “Hey, Colby.”

  “What?”

  “Keep that rep clean, you know what I’m saying? Good things’ll happen.”

  4.

  Roxy had a pair of handcuffs on Charlene. Right there in the Wal-Mart parking lot. She had called Lindy on her cell phone to tell her she had the witness.

  “Take those things off,” Lindy said. Charlene looked like a wide-eyed doe with one leg in a trap, looking into the business end of a hunting rifle.

  “I had to convince her to stay,” Roxy said.

  “When did you get those cuffs?”

  “‘You never know’ is my motto.”

  “She’s crazy,” Charlene said breathlessly.

  “You’re a percipient witness,” Roxy said.“We will do the talking.”

  Lindy shook her head. “I have to apologize for my associate. Take those cuffs off, Roxy.”

  “She was trying to get away. She knows something.”

  “The cuffs. Off.”

  Roxy reluctantly unlocked the cuffs. She looked like she might have had some words with the Wal-Mart checker.

  “It’s true you don’t have to talk to us,” Lindy said. “But it would help.”

  “I know who you are,” Charlene said. “I seen you on the news. I can’t talk to you ’cause of what he’ll do if he finds out.”

  “Drake?”

  Charlene nodded.

  “He beat you?”

  “It’s none of your business. I just can’t talk about things.”

  So she really was a doe looking into a hunter’s rifle. Only the rifle was in the hands of Drake DiCinni.

  “You understand that anything you say to me will be held in confidence. Nobody has to know we talked.”

  “I don’t have anything to tell you. I don’t know anything about the kid. Drake doesn’t care what happens to him . . .” She put her hand to her mouth.

  “What does that mean? Charlene, tell me what you’re talking about.”

  She shook her head violently.

  “Listen to me, Charlene. Drake isn’t the only one who doesn’t care about Darren. Nobody in the world cares about Darren. Except me, Roxy, and one other lawyer. That’s it. That’s all he’s got. And if I don’t do something soon, he’s gonna end up in prison with a bunch of men who will take very bad advantage of him, if you know what I mean. I’m desperate here, and I need something, anything you can give me.”

  Charlene shook a little, then looked at the sky. Lindy thought for a moment she might cry.

  Lindy waited.

  “It’s like this,” Charlene said. “Drake doesn’t want to have anything to do with the kid, okay? He told me so. He hates what happened. He said the kid was no good from the start. He did everything he could to make the
kid do what he said. He did stuff to the kid that was stuff I wouldn’t do, but it wasn’t my place to say anything.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not gonna say.”

  “Listen, if he beats you, you can get help,” Lindy said. “We can help you.” She handed her a business card. “This has my personal number on it.”

  Charlene wouldn’t take the card. “I don’t want any help.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want, okay?”

  Lindy wanted to shove the girl in a car and get her to a safe house. Abused and wanting it. An all-too-familiar story. She settled for putting her card in Charlene’s shirt pocket.

  “Charlene, what did Drake do to Darren? This is really important.”

  “Stop trying to make me say.”

  “Did he beat him?”

  The look in Charlene’s eyes made it plain that Drake did all that and more.

  “Why?” Lindy said. “Why would a man do that to his own child?”

  “That’s just it,” Charlene said with a sudden defiance.

  “That’s what?”

  “The kid. Darren. Whatever his name is. The kid isn’t his.”

  SEVENTEEN

  1.

  The district attorney for the county of Los Angeles, Jonathan “Iron John” Sherman, always reminded Leon Colby of the little quarterback who played for Cal when Leon was at UCLA. Wiry, fast, tough. Hard to bring down. Could kill you with a trick play.

  Sherman had the same qualities—same intensity in his eyes, the same slight yet deceiving build, a build that had lulled many a defense lawyer into false security during Sherman’s early years with the DA’s office. But after a few poundings, word got around. Never underestimate Iron John—he got the nickname by refusing plea bargains. The man loved to go to trial and win.

  As Colby entered Sherman’s office, he wondered how much Iron John knew about Colby’s desire to win something himself—this room. Colby thought he could fill the office nicely. He was even decorating it in his mind when Jonathan Sherman sat in his big, black leather executive chair and said, “Nice work so far on the DiCinni case.”

  It sounded exactly like what it was, a mere warm up, a prelude to the real reason he’d been called to Mahogany Row. “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean it. Really. You have that wild child, Field, in there. If this wasn’t such a bad case for her, I’d be worried about a little sympathy factor from the jury.”

  “She may get it yet.”

  Sherman waved his hand. “I’ve seen a little on TV. You got nothing to worry about. We have nothing to worry about.”

  Sherman put his feet up on the desk. This bit of forced informality surprised Colby. Sherman never had a hair out of place or a suit with a superfluous crease. He looked like he was trying too hard to put Colby at ease.

  “So what’s the occasion?” Colby said.

  “Just wanted to have a little strategy session with you, is all,” Sherman said.

  “It’s a little late for strategy, isn’t it? We’ve already had opening statements, the first wits—”

  “I’m not talking about the DiCinni case, Leon.”

  Colby looked at him, tried to read the iron eyes. Couldn’t. They glinted like polished stones, and then Sherman laughed and pulled his feet down. “Let’s not get all fancy here, Leon. Cards on the table, what do you say?”

  “What cards you got?”

  “Here’s what I know. I know that you have your eyes on this chair.”

  Colby opened his mouth but Sherman put his hand up. “Hey, listen, I’m not bent out of shape about it. Ambitious deputies, it goes with the territory. Shows a little moxie too. I’m not upset about that. If we were to go into the election, of course, I’d be sitting pretty strong. I’m a popular guy, did you know that?”

  Colby knew it.

  “Yeah, the Times even said I was the best DA in the last thirty years, and it’s hard to please those people. They have this county-oversight complex that just drives me nuts. Hey, can I pour you a drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’ll just take a snort.” Sherman had a wet bar in a rosewood cabinet. He poured some amber liquid—Scotch, probably—into a stippled glass. Then he turned to Colby and said, “What I have to say to you now is going to rearrange your brain.”

  2.

  “Talk to me, Darren.”

  He stared blankly at Lindy, shook his head.

  “Tell me about your father.”

  Now the eyes started to ignite. “No.”

  “Tell me what he did to you.”

  He shook his head.

  “What did he do to you all those years, Darren? The beatings. Tell me what he did.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No, I’m not going to shut up. You need help. And you can get help, but you need to be up-front with me. Tell me now, tell me what your father did to you. How did he do it? Did he do it—”

  “You don’t know anything—”

  “—with a rod, a wire, his hands? What?”

  “—you don’t know what you’re doing—”

  “Why, Darren? Do you think you deserved that?”

  “Yes!”

  The answer brought her up short, like a seat belt locking on a hard stop. “Nobody deserves that, Darren. Especially not a child.”

  “Yes, I did!”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “Why did you think you deserved that, Darren?”

  He looked at his hands as veins began appearing under the skin of his neck.

  “Why?” Lindy demanded.

  “To get the devil out,” Darren said. He looked up at her. Tears were forming in his eyes. “He’s still in there and I have to get him out.”

  “Darren, you’re just a boy.”

  “Shut up!”

  The on-duty sheriff’s deputy hurried over. “That’s it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lindy said.

  “Make her shut up!” Darren cried.

  “On your feet.” The deputy began to unshackle Darren’s table cuffs.

  “I’m not finished here,” Lindy said.

  The deputy pulled Darren to a standing position. “You are finished,” he said, pushing Darren ahead of him.

  “Stop!”

  They did not stop. She was losing him. She had tried to force things, and now she was losing him.

  Oh God, don’t let me lose him.

  God. Darren. The devil in there.

  She jumped off the hard jail bench.

  3.

  “What I want to tell you, Leon, is the following.” Jonathan Sherman sounded like he was about to deliver one of his famous closing arguments. Rock-hard logic that few defense lawyers ever had the legal jackhammer to crack. “I don’t like being the DA.”

  “You could have fooled me,” Colby said.

  “I fool a lot of people. That’s why I’m here. But this is too much flesh pounding, too much time with city council members with sweaty foreheads and receptions with money men and their plastic wives. It’s not very satisfying, not as satisfying as putting some drug dealer in the can for the rest of his natural life.”

  Leon nodded.

  “But I clearly cannot go back to being a deputy. Which leaves me with private practice, some cushy rainmaking job at a big firm. But the problem is, Leon, I don’t like those people either. I’m sort of a loner, if you want to know the truth.”

  He paused, looked out at his panoramic view of downtown L.A. “What I really want to be is attorney general.” He turned back to catch Colby’s reaction.

  “That’s not a bad thing,” Colby said. “Sacramento is a nice place to—”

  “No,” Sherman said. “A.G. of these United States of America.”

  “Isn’t that an appointed position?”

  “Sure is. And if the national election goes like the polls say, I’ve been assured from the inside that I’m their guy. See, Leon, I can play politics when I ha
ve to.”

  “I would say so.”

  “But what I don’t need is a big black eye before that day comes. One lousy case, as you’ll find out, can make your life miserable up here.”

  “What do you mean, as I’ll find out?”

  With a big, political smile, Sherman said, “Why, Leon, you’re going to be the next DA. I’m going to hand the office to you.”

  “I’m not sure I—”

  “You’re going to come off big after the DiCinni conviction. It’ll be a good way for me to go. I am not going to run for reelection.”

  A shocker.

  “It’s all part of the big picture,” Sherman said. “Here’s what I get: I go out a success, I take time off to be with my family—and I make sure everybody knows about that—and then I sponsor the first African-American DA in the history of Los Angeles. The party will love that.”

  It was a good political plan, cynical and effective.

  “So how does that sound to you, Leon?”

  In truth it sounded very, very good. It sounded like a dream on a silver platter. “You’ve put in some thought on this.”

  “That’s the secret of any trial, isn’t it? Preparation. There’s just one thing . . .”

  Colby’s prosecutorial antennae went up.

  “Judge Greene came to see me,” Sherman said.

  “Greene? What for?”

  “About DiCinni.”

  “He doesn’t have anything to do with DiCinni.”

  “Yeah, but as presiding judge he naturally takes an interest in the judges he supervises and what goes on in their courtrooms. And he has expressed a concern.”

  “About what?”

  “About the integrity of the police witnesses you’ve got. He came to me because he wants to keep it quiet, for the sake of this office and the whole administration of justice. So I’d kind of like to know what you know.”

  Colby cleared his throat. “Are you asking me if every one of my witnesses is squeaky clean?”

  “If I asked you that, I know what the answer would be. So that’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking if anything is going to leak out of this trial that could be potentially embarrassing to me. To us.”