"A moment. And make it a quick one."
Hutch watched as Abernathy moved over to the low rail that separated the gallery from the well of the courtroom. Meyer leaned close and whispered in Abernathy's ear, the ADA's eyes widening slightly, a small smile crossing his lips. Whatever the news was, it couldn't be good for Ronnie.
Abernathy nodded, said something to Meyer, then turned toward the bench. "Your Honor, I'd like to request a sidebar."
O'Donnell raised a brow, then said to Waverly. "Any objection, counsel?"
Waverly hadn't seen Abernathy's face and still seemed to be riding the high of Nadine's reversal. She got to her feet. "None whatsoever, Your Honor."
She and Abernathy moved to the bench as O'Donnell cupped his hand over his microphone and leaned toward them, the three speaking quietly. Waverly and Abernathy had their backs to the gallery and their faces couldn't be seen, but it was easy to see that Abernathy was doing most of the talking.
Waverly grew rigid beside him, then it was her turn to talk. They went back and forth for several minutes, O'Donnell cutting in occasionally, then the two attorneys returned to their tables—
—and Waverly's expression said it all.
Something very, very bad had just happened.
As Waverly sat, she leaned toward Ronnie and began whispering in her ear. If Ronnie had looked defeated before, she now seemed absolutely devastated, her body sinking deeper into her chair with each word.
The two spoke quietly—and urgently—for several moments as Abernathy threw papers into a briefcase and Judge O'Donnell conferred with his clerk.
Hutch couldn't imagine what had happened, and he was dying to know. He looked over at Andy, Matt and Gus and they were clearly feeling the same.
"What the fuck...?" Andy whispered.
But before anyone else could chime in, Judge O'Donnell finished with his clerk and said to the jury, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to call a recess as we take this matter into chambers. Please report to the jury room and make sure not to discuss the case with one another."
The jurors all murmured agreement, then got to their feet and filed out of the courtroom, several of them glancing at Ronnie. Then O'Donnell stood up and the bailiff called out, "All rise!"
Waverly rubbed a comforting hand across Ronnie's back as they stood, Ronnie now looking bloodless. Lost. Devastated.
Waverly whispered again into her ear, gave her arm a reassuring squeeze, then joined Abernathy and the judge at a doorway behind the bench.
As they disappeared from view and the spectators began to disperse, Ronnie made a sound and sank into her chair, lowering her head to the table.
People in the gallery turned to stare at her as Hutch moved into the aisle and through the gate, pulling a chair up next to her, putting an arm around her, leaning in close. "What is it? What happened?"
Her voice was barely a croak. "I'm not getting out of this. Not now. There's no way they'll ever acquit me."
"Why? What happened? What's Abernathy up to?"
She looked at him, her face streaked with tears. "You warned me this might happen, Hutch. On the train last night."
"What are you talking about?"
"They think they've found the murder weapon."
Something went cold inside. "You mean the knife?"
"Not a knife," she said, shaking her head morosely. "A pair of grooming shears."
— 53 —
"GROOMING SHEARS?" HUTCH said. "What the hell are you talking about? Didn't the autopsy report say Jenny was killed with a knife? She had her throat slit."
"I think so, but now they're saying it could have been the scissors."
Hutch was thrown for a loop. "I'm no forensics expert, but wouldn't they be able to figure that out when they examined her?"
"I don't know. Maybe they can't when the scissors are broken. One of the blades was snapped off at the handle. So it might as well have been a knife."
"You've gotta be kidding me."
"I wish I were."
"Where did they find this thing?"
"In the bushes about a block from the crime scene. Some guy was walking his dog last night and the dog started sniffing and scratching and there it was, covered with dried blood."
"Four months later? That's complete bullshit. The cops would've searched there already."
"I know, I know, but..." She trailed off, gesturing helplessly.
"What else did Waverly say?"
"That it looks like it matches the wounds, but they won't be sure it's the murder weapon until they run some more tests. She says she'll try to get the judge to exclude it, but she didn't sound hopeful. And if that blood matches Jenny's..." She paused, rose from her chair. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
Hutch stood up with her. "Easy now. Easy." He stroked her hair. "First off, even if they get a match, that doesn't mean they can tie the scissors to you."
She looked away suddenly, said nothing, and Hutch didn't miss the implication.
"Are you telling me they can?"
The tears began to well again. "They're my scissors, Hutch. At least I think they are. I broke a pair and threw them away a couple days before Jenny was killed."
"Jesus Christ..." he said.
She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "It was Langer, wasn't it? He planted them in those bushes."
Hutch nodded. Who else could it be? This had to be part of his sick little game. He had broken into Ronnie's house or had taken the scissors from her trash and used them to set her up.
But why wasn't he in court this morning to witness his handiwork? Whatever went on in that twisted mind of his, you'd think he'd want to be here to enjoy the show.
Hutch still wasn't convinced that Langer had recognized him last night, but what did it matter at this point? The guy had to be stopped. It was time to quit playing amateur detective and take this to the people who could actually do something about it. Make them see what he and the others saw.
He turned to Andy, Matt and Gus, who were now standing at the rail, eyeing them anxiously. He said to Matt, "Do you have that stuff on Langer with you?"
Matt patted his satchel. "Right here."
"Give it to me."
He frowned. "What are you gonna do?"
"Just give it to me."
Matt dug around in the satchel as he stepped past the gate and approached them, then handed the file folder to Hutch. "You're going to the cops, aren't you?"
"No," Hutch said. "I'm taking this straight to the top."
"What?"
Hutch glanced toward the back of the gallery and saw that the bailiff was holding a door open for the departing spectators, one of whom was Nathaniel Keating. Keating gave him that smile again and for a brief moment Hutch wondered if he could have had something to do with the sudden discovery of the knife.
But no, that didn't make sense. This was all Langer.
As Keating disappeared from sight, Hutch squeezed Ronnie's shoulder. "Sit tight," he said. "I'm gonna fix this."
Then he turned and crossed to a desk near the judge's bench, where the court clerk was busy gathering some paperwork. "I need to speak to O'Donnell."
The clerk looked up at him and blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"The judge. I need to talk to the judge."
She eyed him warily. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hutchinson, but he's in the middle of—"
Hutch didn't wait for her to finish. He stepped around her desk and pushed through the door behind it. Heard her calling out to him in alarm as he moved into a short and narrow corridor.
"Mr. Hutchinson—stop! You can't go back—"
The door closed behind him and he kept moving, heading down the corridor until it opened out into a large room with desks, the judge's support staff busy behind them. They looked up at him in alarm as he quickly scanned the room, spotting a door with flags on either side of it.
"Can I help you with something?" a young guy in a shirt and tie said, getting to his feet. Probably one of the judge's clerks.
"No thanks," Hutch said. "I think I've got this."
Then he beelined it for the judge's door and pushed it open. Inside was a large room with a massive desk, a wall of bookshelves, photos and commendations and law degrees decorating another wall.
O'Donnell was seated behind the desk, Abernathy and Waverly occupying chairs in front of it. Startled, they all looked up at Hutch as he burst into the room and threw the file folder atop the judge's desk.
"There's your killer," he said. "Not Ronnie. This trial is a waste of time."
O'Donnell jumped to his feet, looking like a man who had just witnessed a car wreck. "Who the hell are you and what the hell do you think you're doing?" Then he called toward the doorway. "Ed, get security in here—now."
Waverly was on her feet, too. "Mr. Hutchinson, get out of here, this isn't going to—"
"Look at it," Hutch said, pointing at the file. "His name is Frederick Langer. At least that's the name he's using now. He's been stalking Ronnie for months and sitting in that courtroom every day. We have evidence that he may have killed at least four other women in three different states."
"We?" Abernathy said, then turned to Waverly. "What's going on here?"
"Just look at the file," Hutch said. "We think he may have set this whole thing up to make Ronnie look guilty. The sweatshirt, the scissors—you might even be able to trace the dog hairs back to him."
O'Donnell's face was red with rage. "Young man, I don't know who the fuck you are, but you almost gave me a goddamn heart attack just now, and if you think for a minute that I give a shit about whatever's in this folder, you're sadly mistaken. This is a court of law and you have no right to come barging in here like some goddamn psychopath."
The judge's gaze shifted and Hutch heard voices in the doorway behind him. He turned as three uniformed security men, including the bailiff, rocketed into the room and grabbed him by the arms.
Hutch swiveled his head toward Abernathy. "If you care anything about justice or whatever your office is supposed to stand for, then you'll look at that file. You're prosecuting the wrong—"
"Get this son of a bitch out of here!" O'Donnell shouted. "Lock him up!"
Hutch struggled as they started dragging him toward the doorway. "Do your fucking job," he said to Abernathy. "Veronica Baldacci is not a killer."
"Oh?" Abernathy said, on his feet now. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I just got a call from the lab with confirmation that not only is Veronica Baldacci a killer, she's one of the most brutal I've ever had the displeasure to meet. I know it, the judge knows it, and so does her attorney. Right Karen?"
Waverly was silent, but the answer was plain on her face.
Abernathy smiled. "So what do you have to say about your girlfriend now, asshole?"
— 54 —
THEY PUT HIM in a cell downstairs.
He sat there for the rest of the morning and late into the afternoon, convinced that the discovery of the scissors would pretty much seal the deal for Abernathy. Ronnie was toast unless Hutch could get the ADA or the judge or even Waverly to listen to reason.
But he'd pretty much blown any chance of that ever happening.
What the hell had possessed him to barge in on them like that? What weird glitch in his thought process had led him to believe they'd be receptive to the ravings of a post rehab has-been?
Hutch had always been a creature of impulse—impulses that had often gotten him into trouble—and now here he was again, a victim of his own irrational behavior. Worse still, Ronnie would suffer because of it, too.
But he refused to give up. There had to be a way to get her out of this.
The question was how?
With Frederick Langer possibly in the wind, how could they ever prove anything against him? Hell, they didn't even know where he lived, for chrissakes—and following him had been an exercise in futility, not to mention humiliation.
Hutch might have his heart in the right place, he might actually (for once in his miserable life) be playing the good friend, but right now Ronnie needed a miracle worker, and Hutch had spent the last nine months just learning to stand up straight and not piss himself.
The truth was, the only thing he'd ever been any good at was acting, and even that had turned out to be a sham perpetrated by Jenny's father. He'd gotten lucky and the show had managed to beat the odds and become a hit, but once he left, his career had spiraled, along with the rest of his life.
So what exactly was he looking for here?
Redemption?
Forgiveness?
He had no fucking clue. He just didn't want to see Ronnie go to jail. To see her spend the better part of her life—maybe her entire life—separated from that little boy, or even the cold fish of a mother who blamed her for everything wrong in her life.
The truth was, Hutch cared far more about Ronnie than he had ever intended, and had actually begun to see the possibility of a future with her. A relationship that wasn't based on benefits, but on—and here was that word again—love.
Jesus.
What the hell did he know about such things? Hutch was a rolling disaster and had proven that quite nicely today, thank you. Even if Ronnie were to go scot-free, why would he inflict himself on her? She may have worshipped him from afar, but all she had to do was get up close and stay there long enough, and the feeling would quickly fade away.
Just look at him now. Sitting here in a jail cell throwing a pity party of the highest magnitude. Who the hell wanted to hang around with that?
Nobody, that's who.
Even Hutch needed a break from himself.
HE DIDN'T KNOW what time it was when Waverly showed up. Court was obviously done for the day, but without the benefit of a watch or a window, his timekeeping skills were poor to nonexistent.
He was sitting there still feeling sorry for himself, still wondering how he could fix things for Ronnie, when the gate at the end of the cell block rolled open and a pair of heels clicked down the hallway toward him.
Then Waverly came into view wearing a somber, weary expression. "You look pretty relaxed for a man behind bars."
"Gotta save my energy for the big escape tonight. Did you look at that file?"
"Forget about the file," she said. "I'm not here for that."
"What, then?"
"I spoke to the judge after court and blamed your irrational behavior on your misguided sense of loyalty. When he isn't shouting obscenities, he can be a reasonable man."
"He's letting me go?"
"Only if you agree to cooperate with the police."
Hutch balked. "About what?"
"You sure you don't know?"
There was a look on her face that said he should, but Hutch was clueless. "Are you talking about the Tillman suicide? They already grilled me about—"
"This is a lot more important than Tillman. Or you sitting in a jail cell."
"Okay..." Hutch said, feeling guarded now but not sure why. "Then what are we talking about?"
"They want to know where she is, Hutch."
He frowned. "Where who is?"
She studied him carefully, as if assessing his sincerity. "You really don't know, do you?"
"Know what? I swear to Christ if you don't spit it out I'm gonna reach through these bars and throttle you."
She studied him a moment longer. "During court this afternoon, we took a short break and Ronnie went to the restroom. She never came back."
Hutch gaped at her. "What?"
"She went to your apartment, assaulted her mother, then grabbed her son and took off for parts unknown." Waverly paused. "And the police think you helped her."
PART FOUR
Closing Argument
— 55 —
"KEEP THEM COMING," Hutch said. "I'm gonna be here a while."
The bartender splashed single malt into the glass, and as Hutch went to pick it up, a hand reached out from behind him and touched his wrist.
"Easy, Brando. You sure you want to go t
his route?"
It was Matt. Andy standing next to him. The Monkey House was fairly crowded, but it didn't look as if they'd broken a sweat finding him.
Hutch caught their gazes in the mirror behind the bar, then grabbed the shot glass. "What do I have to lose?"
"Oh, I don't know," Andy said as he slid onto the stool to Hutch's left. "Ten months sobriety?"
"Too little, too late," Hutch told him, then knocked the liquid back and felt its warmth, like the embrace of an old friend.
Matt took the stool to his right. "Don't do this, man. We're all hurting right now, but it doesn't have to come to this."
"What do you know about it?"
Matt tossed an AA coin to the bar. An ancient RIDE CLEAN, RIDE FREE medallion that had spent a lot of time in someone's pocket.
Hutch looked at him in surprise and Matt shook his head. "Not mine, my old man's. He was twenty years sober, then spent his last one at the bottom of a bottle until he plowed into a tree and killed himself and his two passengers. My niece and nephew."
"Jesus," Hutch said. "You're really cheering me up." He set the glass on the bar and signaled to the bartender to hit him again. "How come you never told me about this?"
"I'm sure there a lot of things we don't know about each other, Hutch. We spent all that time in that house, we had a lot of laughs, but how often did we bear our souls? We were too young, dumb and full of cum for any of that nonsense."
Hutch smiled. "Isn't that the truth."
"Hey," Andy said, "I'm not all that old, and I've got the other two covered on a pretty regular basis—so what's your point?"
Hutch laughed now, shaking his head. "I really missed you two idiots, you know that? I missed all of you. I didn't even realize it until I came back. And I sure as hell didn't think I'd wind up falling for one of America's most wanted."
"What happened with the police?" Matt asked. "Do they still think you helped her?"
"Who gives a shit? They hammered me with a bunch of questions, but they didn't have anything to hold me on so they finally let me go. I'm sure the tabloids will say I'm the mastermind and the money behind the whole thing. And the truth is, the way I've been feeling lately, I probably would have been if Ronnie had really pressed it."
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