Trial Junkies (A Thriller)

by Robert Gregory Browne

  And there it was.

  Another reason for the photograph.

  Gus had been living here. Gus was the camera buff. And Gus taken the shot of Hutch and Ronnie.

  What else could it be?

  He had told Hutch flat-out that he liked to watch. And if he and Langer had been watching Ronnie, watching her mother's house, how many other photographs had the old guy taken?

  And what story did they tell?

  HUTCH FOUND THE darkroom on the second floor. The upstairs bathroom had been converted—foil covering the windows, bottles of photo chemicals lining the counter, wash trays, tongs, an enlarger in the corner. There was even a laptop computer and a scanner for digitizing the prints.

  Gus was old-school, all right.

  The room reeked of chemicals, and Hutch had to cover his nose as he stepped inside and flicked on the light. He hadn't wanted Christopher to see whatever was in here. And even though Ronnie was reluctant to confront her mother after their altercation in his apartment, he'd sent her and Andy across the street to wait for him.

  But to be honest, Christopher was just an excuse. If Hutch really was about to find evidence pointing to Jenny's killer, he preferred to do it alone. She was never far from his mind—hadn't been for nearly a decade—and he wanted this moment to himself.

  He had earned it, as Gus would say. His throbbing skull told him that much.

  But as he looked around the room, disappointment began to weigh him down. He had hoped to find a string of photos pinned to the line above the wash trays—a message from Gus.

  But it was empty.

  He quickly checked through the vanity drawers and found nothing but more developing tools. But then his gaze was drawn again to the laptop. It sat there in the corner, next to the scanner and enlarger, its lid down. If Gus had digitized one of the photographs to send to The Grab Bag, could he have digitized them all?

  Stepping over to the computer, Hutch lifted the lid and heard the hard drive whirr to life. The screen brightened and a screensaver filled it—a line of scrolling white text against a blue background that read:

  The simplest explanation is usually the right one...

  Gus's message. No doubt about it.

  Hutch touched a key and the screensaver went away, showing a slideshow application, a single photograph centered on the screen:

  —Ronnie standing in her mother's driveway, holding Christopher high in her arms, both laughing uproariously.

  Hutch tapped the touch pad and navigated to the next photo:

  —Ronnie, Christopher and Lola in the front yard, Christopher clinging to his grandmother's legs, Lola eyeing her daughter with her usual disapproving scowl.

  And the next photo:

  —Lola and Christopher on the porch, Ronnie on the walkway, talking on the phone.

  And the next, this one a night shot:

  —A dark figure leaving the Baldacci house, wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. The same sweatshirt Abernathy had held up in court. The one they'd found covered in blood.

  Hutch paused. Didn't like what he was seeing. He waited a moment, then tapped the touchpad and moved on to the next photo, which showed a change of view, this one a grainy night shot through a car windshield:

  —Two women standing in a vacant lot, lit only by a nearby streetlight. Too far away to be identified. One wearing a business suit, the other in jeans. And that sweatshirt.

  Hutch's gut clinched up. So here it was.

  Sucking in a breath, he tapped the touchpad and moved on to the next photo:

  —A closer view of the two women, the one in the suit clearly identifiable as Jenny, the other with her back to the camera, hood covering her head.

  Was it Ronnie?

  Could it actually be Ronnie?

  Hutch's stomach rolled as he thought about her attempts to manipulate him, the bruise on her mother's head, her dead ex-husband, the attempt to flee the country...

  Were these signs of guilt after all?

  Was this the surprise Gus had promised?

  Hutch's heart wouldn't stop pounding. He looked at Jenny's face, at those eyes, his gut aching in a whole new way.

  His finger hovered over the touchpad... then he tapped it again:

  —A wider shot of the two women. Jenny on the ground now, arms thrashing, the other woman crouching over her, a blade flashing in her hand. Blood everywhere.

  Hutch swallowed, suddenly sick to his stomach.

  Gus had watched a woman die—the woman Hutch had loved—and had done nothing to stop it. And now that Hutch had come this far, he almost wished he hadn't. Wasn't sure he wanted to see what came next.

  Maybe he didn't want to know who the woman in the hoodie was.

  Maybe the truth would turn out to be inconvenient.

  Maybe he had invested too much time and money and a good part of his soul into a lie.

  Pushing past his trepidation, he let his finger hover again, then finally tapped the touchpad, bringing the next photograph into view:

  —A close-up of the killer crouching over Jenny's body, a bloodied broken scissor blade in hand, her face turned toward Gus's camera, unaware of his presence, and clearly visible in the streetlight.

  And Gus had been right. Hutch was surprised by what he saw, the phrase Dysfunction Junction once again springing to the front of his mind.

  But he also felt such a feeling of relief that he could barely contain himself. Because it wasn't Ronnie in the photograph.

  It was Lola.

  Lola Baldacci.

  She had killed Jenny. She had set her own daughter up—the phone calls, the dog hairs, the bloody sweatshirt, the broken scissors.

  Hutch stood there, trembling, trying to wrap his head around this revelation, trying to figure out why Lola would do something so heinous to her own flesh and blood...

  And for the second time that night, he heard Ronnie scream.

  — 63 —

  THE TABLOIDS HAD a field day. Called her Looney Lola, the doting grandmother who wielded a deadly knife in the dark of night.

  Or something along those lines.

  In the aftermath of it all, Hutch didn't care what the vultures had to say. His only concern was Ronnie, who, for the second time in her life, had walked into a room to find that someone she loved had taken—as Ronnie herself put it—the express route to heaven.

  Or maybe hell in this case.

  Dysfunction Junction.

  When she and Andy first stepped into Lola's house, Ronnie had been nervous, their confrontation still weighing on her mind. She hadn't meant to hurt her mother. Lola had stumbled as Ronnie wrenched Christopher away from her and had hit her head on a low-hanging lamp. The last time Ronnie had seen her, she was sitting on the sofa holding her forehead with her hand.

  So Ronnie had no idea what she was walking into. She had seen a light in the kitchen, and thinking Lola must be awake, had handed Christopher over to Andy. Then she took a deep breath and crossed through the living room, surprised her mother hadn't heard them come in.

  As she called out, however, she got no response, hearing only an odd thrashing sound, as if someone were tossing and turning in bed.

  "Mom?" she called again, but still got no answer.

  She stopped when she stepped through the doorway. Found Lola hanging by a short rope from the light fixture, her face blue, her eyes bulging, her body still swinging.

  Ronnie screamed, shot forward, grabbed a kitchen knife and cut her mother down, shouting for Andy to keep Christopher out of there!

  Keep him out!

  But it was too late for Lola. She was beyond help. Had died right there on the floor. Died in her daughter's arms.

  And the note they found on the kitchen table read:

  You left me no choice

  — 64 —

  "I DON'T GET it," Monica said. "Why would Ronnie's mother do that to her? Why would she set her up like that?"

  They were all sitting at their usual table at The Monkey House, Ronnie con
spicuously absent, Hutch once again back to his root beer regimen, now two weeks sober after resetting the clock.

  "She wanted Christopher all to herself," Matt said. He had brought along a friend—a desk clerk he'd met at the Dumont Hotel, who seemed very much enamored with him. "She had always blamed Ronnie for the death of her own son, and I guess she figured this was her way of getting him back and getting rid of the 'rotten' one at the same time."

  Tom shook his head sadly. "In a way the cops weren't too far off. It turned out to be a custody case after all, and Jenny had the misfortune to get in the middle of it."

  Matt nodded. "When Ronnie complained to her mom that Jenny's firm was representing her ex-husband, Mom must've seen it as an opportunity."

  "Looney Lola indeed," Andy said.

  "But what about Ronnie's ex?" Monica asked. "Was that Lola, too?"

  Matt nodded again. "That seems pretty likely. The cops found search records on the computer in her bedroom related to murder for hire, so they're thinking she must have arranged a hit. And if Ronnie was convicted, Lola would be free and clear to take custody of the kid. They'll know more when they find a shooter."

  "If they ever do," Hutch said.

  Nadine, who had decided to join them at their invitation despite her lingering feelings of guilt and humiliation, studied her rum and Coke morosely. "I don't know about you guys, but I've certainly learned a lesson from all of this."

  "And what's that?" Hutch asked.

  "Never ever ever jump to conclusions."

  "Amen," he said.

  A-fucking-men.

  HUTCH PUT RONNIE and Christopher on a plane to Italy that night.

  After spending the last two weeks at Hutch's apartment, fending off calls from the media, Ronnie had decided she needed to get away for a while, just her and Christopher. Fortunately, they both had passports they'd gotten for a trip to Canada a few years back.

  Hutch had agreed to send them to a small villa he'd rented, with a promise to join them whenever Ronnie was ready.

  She had faced the revelations about Lola with courage, but it couldn't have been easy to discover how much her own mother had despised her. This was, after all, the woman she had continued to love despite being blamed for everything wrong in their lives.

  Hutch admired her more than ever for that courage. Loved her more than ever—he wasn't afraid to admit that now. He had fallen and fallen hard. And he only hoped that she still felt the same about him.

  He supposed only time would tell.

  For several days after the discovery of the photos, Abernathy and Meyer had made noise about charging Ronnie with Failure to Appear. She had tried to run, after all, and they felt it would be a miscarriage of justice not to arrest her for it.

  They had a sudden change of heart when public and press sentiment against Ronnie did an abrupt one-eighty, painting her as the innocent victim of a crazy woman and an overzealous prosecutor. A martyr who had suffered more than enough these last several months.

  So the charge was never made and Ronnie left the country unencumbered.

  Hutch never heard from Nathaniel Keating again, although he did sometimes feel a slight ache in his side where the Filipina towel girl had punched him. This was nothing compared to the six stitches in back of his skull, however. The wound seemed to be taking forever to heal and often brought on pounding headaches.

  As promised, he never heard from Gus again, either. He had given the police a full description of the old guy, but he doubted it would do them any good. Gus—or whoever he was—didn't strike Hutch as the type to be careless. He would lay low for a while, then find a new state, a new city, a new protégé to help him ply his trade.

  As for Frederick Langer, when the police arrived at the abandoned apartment building, he was nowhere to be found. It was assumed that he had survived Hutch's punishment and fled, until two days later, when his gutted body was discovered in a warehouse dumpster not six blocks away.

  Gus's handiwork, no doubt. Tying up the loose ends. The police were now coordinating with law enforcement in several other states, using Langer's DNA to see if it was a match for any of the murders Matt had discovered through his research.

  Whenever Hutch thought of Lola Baldacci hanging herself, he couldn't help wondering about the sheer convenience of the act. He'd seen those proud, judgmental eyes of hers too many times to believe that she was the type to take her own life. And he suspected that this was Gus's handiwork as well. An execution, perfectly timed for maximum impact.

  Maybe the old guy had done everyone a favor.

  The world certainly wouldn't mourn Lola Baldacci.

  AFTER RONNIE AND Christopher were gone, Hutch spent his time wandering around his apartment, walking the city streets when he felt restless, riding the train, toying with the novel he knew he'd never finish. He even tried to rid himself of his smoking habit, an ongoing struggle he wrestled with every day.

  He sometimes thought about heading back to L.A. to start looking for work, but in the end, he simply stayed put. And to his surprise, when he took those walks, he often found himself standing in front of the criminal courthouse, debating whether or not he should go inside.

  It might be fun to watch another trial.

  One that wasn't so personal this time.

  And maybe if he listened carefully to the evidence and didn't jump to any conclusions, as Nadine had warned...

  He might actually get this one right.

  —ACKNOWLEDGMENTS—

  There are several people who helped me with this book:

  Author Brett Battles, who listened to the idea for a series and told me it was a great one.

  Author Cindy Gerard, who read the manuscript and offered invaluable insight into the story and characters, serving as cheerleader along the way.

  Author Debra Webb, who found a few inconsistencies that needed to be cleared up.

  Author and attorney J.D. Rhoades, who didn't wince too much when I told him about some of the legal maneuvers I had planned for the story.

  Kent Holloway, writer and forensics specialist and Facebook friend who answered my urgent questions about knife and scissor wounds.

  Christine Ruriani Aisenberg and Lisa Riley Emig, who patiently responded to my questions about Catholic funerals.

  Actor/director Terry Kinney, who generously agreed to answer questions about the acting profession (and gave me a wonderful line about getting lost in a character's energy and the choices making themselves).

  My agent and friend, Scott Miller, who spends a large part of his day dealing with crazy writers like me.

  And, as always, to my wife Leila, who puts up with a lot but never stops believing. I promise the next one will be written much faster, hon.

  Thank you all.

  If you enjoyed this book we hope you'll check

  out Robert Gregory Browne's other

  exciting thrillers, including

  Kiss Her Goodbye

  and

  The Paradise Prophecy

  Both available at Amazon Books.