“I sold myself out,” Colby said. “A long time ago.”
Kellman disarmed Lopez, pulled his hands behind his back, and cuffed him.
“You are under arrest for the murder of Sean McIntyre,” Kellman said. “You have the right to remain silent . . .”
2.
“Where is Ms. Field?” Judge Lipton was on the bench, ready to get started.
“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Everett Woodard said. “There was some trouble last night.”
“Trouble?”
“Lindy is in the hospital again. There was a shooting and—”
“Shooting? What is going on here?”
“Excuse me, Your Honor.” Leon Colby stood. “Let me try to explain.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear this. I want to bring in the jury and I want to keep this case moving.”
“There won’t be any need for the jury.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Colby looked at Everett Woodard, seeing the surprise on his face. He knew it was nothing like it was about to become. He also knew that the numerous VOICe people in the gallery were about to go ballistic.
“At this time,” Colby said, “the People will accept the plea that has been offered by the defense, in their previous memorandum.” The plea that would send Darren DiCinni to a mental facility and not prison. The plea he had previously refused even to consider.
He was right about Woodard and VOICe. The defense lawyer’s face became a neon sign of shock, then elation. At the counsel table, Darren DiCinni’s eyes registered confusion. Behind Colby, the grum-blings in the VOICe section rose like a wave of auditory outrage.
Judge Lipton said, “Approach the bench.”
When Woodard and Colby were in front of him he leaned forward. “Do you know what you’re doing, Leon?”
“Absolutely.”
“Does your boss know what you’re doing?”
“He will.”
“Do you want a few minutes to—”
“No, Your Honor. We are ready to proceed.”
“You know,” Judge Lipton said, “there are going to be some very upset people around here. And I’m not just talking about the people in this courtroom.”
Colby nodded toward the courtroom wall, at the bas-relief of Justice holding her scale. “Yeah,” he said, “but she’s good with it.”
3.
Iron John Sherman was not good with it. Leon Colby took a clue from the blue vein swelling under the tight skin of Sherman’s forehead.
“Are you completely insane?” Sherman shouted. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Sherman’s arms flailed wildly, like he was conducting the 1812Overture.
“You’re toast,” Sherman said. “Kiss this office good-bye. You big dumb—”
Colby shook his head. “Don’t say it, chief. Wouldn’t want word to get out that you’re prejudiced.”
“Don’t threaten me, Leon. You don’t know who you’re dealing with here.”
“Yeah. I do. Anything else?”
“I hope you like Compton. Because that’s where you’re going. You can do traffic cases the rest of your life.”
Colby felt light, flying for the first time in years. He reached in his coat and took out the letter, tossed it on Sherman’s desk.
“My resignation,” Colby said.
“Then get out of my office.”
Colby took one last look at that office, the place he would never occupy. Plush carpet, fancy desk, expensive artwork.
Some words came back to him then, sounding out in his head like his father’s voice when he was in his prime, pacing at the pulpit. Icount all things but loss—
He saw his father raising his hands toward heaven.
“I said get out, Leon.”
“So long, chief. Just wanted to leave you with a thought: Play hard and play fair.”
“What?”
Colby left without another word.
TWENTY-ONE
1.
Sundays.
They were different now. Sundays were church days. Lindy would usually meet Roxy and Travis and they’d go together.
Travis finally explained his behavior. He had introduced himself to Roxy as a way of getting information on the Marcel Lee case. He hadn’t expected to fall for her, but when he did, he felt he had to pull away so as not to involve her further in the investigation.
Roxy seemed more than happy to forgive and forget.
As did, remarkably, Mona Romney. She approached Lindy tentatively at church, then asked Lindy to forgive her. Unreal, the way God worked in people. They even embraced.
But that wasn’t, to Lindy’s way of thinking, the most astounding thing.
Most astounding was this man standing in front of her, here at another church, a church that rocked with gospel music and pulsed with people who sang like none she’d ever heard.
Leon Colby filled the pulpit with his presence. Six-and-a-half feet of him, the former trial lawyer, preaching for the first time in his father’s own church. He’d called Lindy to invite her.
Shortly after Darren’s sentencing, Colby officially quit the DA’s office. He also unearthed all sorts of records on the Marcel Lee case, which he handed over to Marcel’s appellate lawyer. This time Lindy was sure Marcel would get a reversal. The real story would come to light. And Colby’s testimony before a federal grand jury would help bring indictments against the last vestiges of the underground unit once headed by Judge Roger Greene.
Her heart still ached for Greene. He’d been a good man, she really believed that. But good intentions can lead to bad ends. Street justice was not justice at all. Maybe Greene knew that and decided not to fight for life. He died a couple of days after being shot.
When Leon Colby sermonized, he mesmerized, just like he had with the juries of Los Angeles County. “You all have been so kind to me,” he said, “after my years of wandering. You never forgot about me in all that time. I know you were praying for me too. I know Dad was praying all the time, even when he could no longer speak . . .”
His voice trailed off for a moment.
“But I’m here, and I’m humbled you’ve allowed me to be here, to hear my testimony. I’d like to come back.”
A chorus of voices shouted, Amen!
Then another surge of singing and waving hands filled the place, and Lindy thought heaven would certainly be filled with a joy like this.
After church Colby stood around, talking to well-wishers. He asked Lindy to wait, and when they were finally alone he said, “Thanks for coming. I was hoping you would.”
“To be honest, I had to see this with my own eyes. I don’t know if I would have believed it otherwise.”
Colby smiled, a nice easy smile that Lindy had never seen on him before. He looked at his feet for a moment. “And I was wondering if you were doing anything for dinner tonight.”
“Leon, are you asking me out?”
“Guilty.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Colby laughed. “That’s got to be a first for you.”
And for a moment, she really didn’t have the words. Then she said, “Is this one of those times when the Lord is working in mysterious ways?”
“And it won’t be the last.”
Of that Lindy was certain. “Okay, Leon. You’re on.”
She was smiling as she got on her Harley, which Wolf had fixed up in return for some legal work on his brother’s case. She pulled out onto the Inglewood streets and then the 405 freeway.
But she didn’t go straight home.
2.
“How are things today?”
Darren looked at Lindy with soporific eyes. “My head feels squishy.”
His voice was still. Not a voice that had known horrors beyond most imaginings.
When he spoke, he did not gesture. His words had a numb dispassion about them. Lindy knew this was because of the meds, which would be a part of his world, probably forever. His head would always feel squishy.
They were on a bench in the sun yard. The state hospital in Lancaster was, all things considered, the best Darren could have hoped for—if he knew how to hope. He wore a white cotton jumpsuit, a definite improvement over the stiff orange of the K–10 jail inmate.
“Anything I can get for you?” Lindy said. “I can bring in books and—”
“When do I get out?”
That question again. He asked it every time she came. He had no concept of time, nor of the likely duration of his sentence. “Just keep getting better,” she said, “and we’ll see.”
At least he was better off here than in prison. One reason she came once a month was to check the conditions. If this state institution messed up, which it had in the past, she’d be ready for them with a civil action.
But the main reason she came was to see Darren. He’d been here eight months now, after the agreed-upon plea. He’d be here for years before his first limited-release hearing and the inevitable public outcry. And Lindy would be there to speak up for him. She’d be there because she was his lawyer.
A light stirred behind his eyes. “Where’s God?”
It was the first time he’d mentioned God since the trial.
Lindy didn’t answer at first. The doctors warned her not to upset the delicate structures they were building up in his mind.
Darren’s tone grew more insistent. “Where is God?”
Careful. Careful.
“There’s no need to be afraid, Darren. Ever again.”
“Where is God?”
“Darren, you don’t have to be afraid.”
“Where?”
Lindy silently prayed for the right words. “The one you thought was God, the one who told you to do the bad things, he’s not going to hurt you again.”
Darren looked confused, but in a new way. His mental faculties were being mashed around by the psychotropics, so his expressions usually had a chemical sameness about them. Not now. He was straining toward something.
“Why does God do bad things?” Darren asked.
“God doesn’t do bad things.”
“How do you know?”
“Because God is always good.”
“He’s not.” He frowned, as if trying to understand.
“I have never lied to you, Darren. Do you know that?”
He nodded tentatively.
“And I never will. God is always good.” She paused. “I want to tell you about God, Darren. Really tell you. Do you want me to?”
He nodded again.
“I’m learning all about God. And Jesus. Okay?”
Another nod.
“All right then. I’ll keep coming back and we’ll learn about Jesus and God and all of that. We’ll learn it together.”
“Together?”
“Yes.”
He looked at his hands then. Like he was studying them. He looked at them for a long, silent moment.
Then, suddenly, he began to shake. At first Lindy thought he was going into some sort of seizure. She was about to call for help when Darren said, quietly but firmly, “I did bad. I did bad.”
He paused a moment, quivering in his coveralls. “I did bad. I—” A sob smothered his words. He sucked in a labored breath, his face clenched in palpable anguish. And then he put his head in his hands, muffled wails surging.
Lindy put her arm around him, absorbed his trembling. And knew he’d experienced a breakthrough. She didn’t need a doctor to tell her that. So she wouldn’t wait to tell Darren. When he calmed, she would tell him about the love of Jesus, about God the Father, the true Father to them both. She’d tell him all she knew, and stay until he understood.
“Together,” she said, stroking his hair. “You and me.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Scott Bell is the bestselling author of Deadlock, Breach ofPromise, and the historical legal thriller series the Trials of Kit Shannon. A winner of the Christy Award for Excellence, Jim is a columnist for Writer’s Digest magazine and teaches fiction at Pepperdine University. He lives with his wife, Cindy, in Los Angeles.
Visit his website at www.jamesscottbell.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe an enormous debt of thanks to the following people:
Cindy Bell—my wife, first editor, and best friend.
Karen Ball and Erin Healy, for their insightful editorial help.
Sue Brower and “Team Zondervan,” an absolute joy to work with.
The lawyers who go into criminal courtrooms every day seeking justice for the accused and victims alike, especially the public defenders and prosecutors who do the often thankless work of making our constitutional system work.
The men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department, who struggle long and hard to keep our city safe.
We want to hear from you. Please send your comments about this book to us in care of [email protected]. Thank you.
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