Dan stared at him, transfixed. He wanted to look as if this diatribe hadn’t shaken him. But it had.
Caldwell finally managed to pull Sweeney away and get him in his seat.
Maria did the same with Dan, tugging at his arm. “Don’t let that man get to you. Don’t let him upset you. We have a plan. We’re going to go through with the plan.”
“Maybe Garrett was right. Maybe I am being selfish, stirring up trouble. Maybe I am being irresponsible.”
“You know what? Maybe you are.” Maria glared at him with almost the same expression Sweeney had given him moments before. “But whether we like it or not, you did file that suit, and we are stuck in the courtroom, and I do not plan to go down in flames. Furthermore, you sister is waiting outside with Jimmy, and she’s counting on you too. So pull it together and let’s finish this trial.”
“Gee whiz,” he muttered, as he took his seat at the table. “Tell me how you really feel.”
She almost smiled. “Sit down and shut up. I’ve got a trial to win.”
Chapter 35
Dan had only known his sister for a few days, but even though he knew intellectually this it was sentimental and irrational, he felt as if he had known her for much longer. And he couldn’t care more about her if he known her forever. Even though she had obviously made some major mistakes, he couldn’t help but admire how much strength she had shown these past few days, strength in the face of physical pain and great adversity, battling helplessness and despair and trying to pull herself together.
The last morning she was in the hospital, finally clear-headed, he and Maria were both in her room. She blinked several times, then said, “Are you really my brother?”
“I really am.”
She shook her head. “Far out.”
Maria found her some clothes to wear in court. She didn’t appear to have any worldly possessions. He didn’t know how she had survived so long and he honestly thought it was best he didn’t know. The doctors said she had no debilitating conditions and that a month or so of healthy living should put her in good shape. Might hold off on the kitesurfing lessons, but bottom line—she would recover.
Dan had a sister.
“Would you please state your name for the jury?”
“Dinah Pleasance Fisher.”
“What is your occupation?”
“I...don’t have one. I’ve been living on the streets for years. Homeless.”
“Are you related to anyone in this courtroom?”
She hesitated a moment. “I’ve been told that I’m Dan Pike’s big sister.”
The reaction from the jury was evident and immediate. Dan wasn’t sure what surprised them more—that Dan had a sister, or that she had to be told about it.
“Perhaps it would be simpler if you explained your background to the jury. Your family history.”
Dinah nodded. He knew this was coming. “My father was Jack Fisher. He was killed and I think the jury already knows about that. But long before he was dead, my mother divorced him and married Dan’s father. After that marriage, Dan was born. That’s why he’s my brother. Half-brother, if you want to be technical. Same mom, different dad.”
Dinah was speaking slowly but deliberately. Probably just as well. This was a lot for the jury to drink in.
“My father was a police officer,” Dinah continued. “Like Dan’s dad. But my dad was horrible to my mother. Our mother. Abusive. Beat her. Called her—”
“Objection,” Caldwell said. “Hearsay. She can’t possibly remember—”
“You’re wrong,” Dinah said. “I do remember. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Overruled,” the judge said quietly. “Please continue.”
“My mother was a wonderful woman, but she didn’t know what to do about him. You can’t go to the cops when it’s a cop beating you up. Cops stick together. I think people are just starting to learn how toxic that cop community can be. He carried a gun, you know? I remember being scared of that thing. I know my mother was. She was afraid he’d get mad one night and shoot her, and then me. The cops would make it look like a suicide or something. My mother cried every night. I cried most nights too.”
Dinah took a deep breath. “She put me up for adoption when I was still very young. Apparently my dad never wanted kids and complained about me constantly, so she gave me to a childless couple she knew. And later divorced my dad, but that happened long after I was gone, so if you want to call that hearsay, fine. It’s true. You can look it up.”
Dan smiled. She was definitely related to him.
“The adoption didn’t work out. I tried, but that couple had problems of their own and the dad was creepy. I ran away from home. Cops hauled me back. I ran away again. You get the picture. Eventually they gave up on me. I went through a series of foster homes. Some ok. Some abusive. Some perverts. The last one introduced me to drugs. First a little weed. Then speed. Cocaine. Eventually heroin. I became an addict. They threw me out.” She paused. “I was getting ready to run again when my father reappeared. He’d been to court and somehow gotten custody. I didn’t want to go with him. But I had no choice.”
“How long did you live with him?”
“About a year.”
“Let’s come back to that in a minute. What did you do after you left your father’s home?”
“Anything I could. I was eleven and living on the streets.”
“Why didn’t you return to your birth mother?”
“I didn’t think she’d want me. She gave me up once before. I suppose I was angry.”
“Where did you go?”
“To be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot about the next five or six years. Too much horse in the bloodstream. I was doing like a bundle of heroin a day. That’s ten bags, each bag about a tenth of a gram.”
“Is that a lot?”
“That’s enough to kill you. Especially if it’s cut with fentanyl. Miracle I didn’t totally lose my mind. My main dealer lost all his teeth to crack, but somehow, I never got the message. I loved loading up the syringe, finding a vein, feeling it ooze like a warm blanket through my body. One night I went psychotic and threatened some people I didn’t know. Someone found me and the state paid for a stay at a rehab. I was in withdrawal from heroin and benzos, so you can imagine how pleasant I was to be around. I had seizures. Scary stuff.”
“Did it get better?”
“Eventually. I was lonely and filled with hate. Mostly for myself. Nothing made me happy. They tried to teach me how to live healthy. Eat right. Exercise. Yoga. Meditate. When it was time for me to go, I was sad. But I finally felt good, and I felt good about myself.”
“What happened next?”
“I’d made a few friends in rehab, but it didn’t last once we were out. We split up. Everyone had their own lives to get back to. Everyone but me. I got a crap job at a restaurant. I tried to stay clean but it was hard. I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I know, curiouser and curiouser. Some nights I was so lonely. I started to repeat through this endless cycle. Relapse, recovery. Relapse, recovery. Got put in another rehab, inpatient. Then sober living. I was trying, really. But I could never quit the junk. Not for long. Said the Serenity Prayer every day. Didn’t help me. Worked the Twelve Steps enough times to add up to about a hundred and forty steps. Didn’t take.”
“Did you quit trying?”
“No. I went into what they call the Florida Model, cheaper than rehabs. We lived in recovery residences or sober homes, usually with a lot of roomies. I had to go to outpatient therapy and talk about myself. Did a lot of group grope. That kinda stuff. It’s like a whole industry now, all the rehabs and clinics and stuff. Some people told me that South Florida’s addiction-treatment business rivaled its tourism business. Some people called it the Florida Shuffle, called it a racket. Run an expensive rehab, get lots of money. Even the guys who test urine get lots of money. But the patients relapse and go back to another rehab. Like the efforts to treat the disease only make it wors
e. And they know it.”
“And how long did you...cycle through these programs?”
“Almost twenty years.”
The jurors audibly gasped.
“I didn’t blame anyone but myself. The main reason for the Florida Shuffle, if you ask me, is that when you get out of these programs—you got nowhere to go. Nothing you want to do. Some work in treatment centers. It’s the only thing they know. But most just shuffle along till they relapse again. Like I did.
“After that, I gave up. I knew I was never gonna be able to quit the junk. The rehabs were sick of me and no one would hire me. So I lived on the streets. I was a Mole Person for a while. Lived in the flood tunnels downtown. Not as bad as it sounds, actually. At least most of the people were nice. Then this cop started coming around, hassling me. Pawing on me. I don’t know why he targeted me. Maybe I overreacted because he wore a badge and a gun and he reminded me of my father. But he was trying to get close to me and I didn’t want any part of that. So I ran.”
“Where did you go?”
“Walmart.” She grinned. “Not to shop. To live. I slept in the parking lot, under a car or maybe on a blanket or inflatable mattress if I was lucky. Then these guys with the funny accents started coming around. Tellin’ me how pretty I was and I could make a lot of money just posing for pictures. Well, what was I gonna do? Not like I had a ton of options.”
Dan clenched his eyes shut. I should have been there. I should have been there.
“It’s wasn’t hard work,” Dinah continued. “It was just...dirty. They put me in a room and told me what to do. I knew the camera was on me, but I pretended I was alone, just being silly. They changed it up a lot. Didn’t want the audience to get bored, I guess. I danced naked. Jiggled. Touched myself. Used sex toys. Pretended like I was turning myself on. Faked orgasms. That kind of stuff. I don’t remember too much of the details. They kept me junked up and that made everything easy. Also made it easy to forget.”
“How long did you do this?”
“Something like a year. They moved me around a bunch. Just a few months ago moved me to the new building, but what did it matter? They were all the same.”
“You were doing these live-stream sex shows until...”
“Until four nights ago. When my brother Dan found me. And saved me.”
Dan felt a clutching in his stomach. Don’t cry, he told himself. Do not cry.
“Thank you for that background, Dinah,” Maria said. “I’m sure that was difficult and unpleasant, and we very much appreciate your honesty. Now I’m going to ask you to return to the part of your childhood that you skipped. Because I think the jury will now be able to understand how it happened. And why it’s so important to this case.”
Dinah nodded. “About the time I was ten, my father came looking for me. He hadn’t been happy about the adoption, and my mom had dumped him, married someone else—Dan’s dad—and he was pissed about it. And I guess the best way he could think of to get revenge on Mom was to track me down. So he did.”
“What exactly happened?”
“I was between families. And he had some kind of court order. I’m sure the authroities thought it looked like a great deal—an actual dad with a job, a responsible law enforcement officer. Looked like a dream come true.”
“Was it?”
Her head sagged. “No. He was cruel just like he’d been to my mother. Mean. Hit me. Hard. And...” She drew in her breath. “And he abused me.”
Maria bit down on her lip. “And when you say he abused you...”
“I’m talking about sex. He had sex with me. His own daughter. I didn’t like it but what could I do? I depended on him. He outweighed me and he had a gun. And—And—” Her voice choked. “He was my daddy.”
“How long did this continue?”
“Months. I was helpless. Then one day we were getting groceries and my mom spotted me. She recognized me, even after all these years. She tried to get me away from him but she couldn’t. Then she sent her husband over.”
“Dan’s father.”
“Right. Boy, do I remember that night. Like it was happening right now. I was cowering upstairs but I heard every word. They knew about the incest. I don’t know how. Probably wasn’t hard to figure out if you knew my father. Dan’s dad offered to take me off his hands, but my dad refused. He laughed at him. He threatened him. They were both cops, so who were they going to call for help? It was bad.”
“Then what happened?”
“My mom showed up. With a gun. She took a shot at my dad. Barely creased him. He took the gun away and laughed at her. Now there’s nothing you can do about me, he said. Neither one of you. Come after me and I tell the cops your wife took a shot at me. She goes to prison. I keep your daughter forever. And as if that wasn’t enough, he hit my mom. Real hard.”
“What happened next?”
“Dan’s father rushed him. Started pounding him. Jack screamed. ‘One more punch and your wife goes way for attempted murder.’ So Dan’s daddy stopped. I could tell he didn’t want to, but he stopped.”
Dan felt his fists clench. “And then?”
“Jack laughed. Said he’d be dropping by for more of the same, to slap her around whenever he felt like it. You can’t be with her every second, he told Dan’s dad. I remember his words so well. He said, ‘Life is sweet. I got my sex bag and my punching bag. Life is perfect.’ My mother tried to get the gun away from him, but Dan’s father held her back. I remember what he said too.”
“Which was?”
“He said, ‘Not now. Not like that.’”
Dan could barely contain himself. He breathed fast and hard, trying to keep it all locked away inside. But it didn’t work. The tears trickled out just the same. He’d figured it all out days ago, but hearing it said out loud in open court was an entirely different situation.
His father had shot Jack Fisher. And for a damn good reason. There was no other way to stop him.
Maria was visibly shaken, but she continued. “Do you know what happened after that?”
“To my dad? No. As soon as he left for work, I took all the money I could find in the house, ran away and never came back. I didn’t care if I starved. I wasn’t living with that any longer. What I didn’t know was—apparently my dad wasn’t coming home either.”
Because that was the night of the fatal shootout. His father saw an opportunity to get rid of this despicable man and he did. He had no way of knowing Ellison could see him in the mirror. But even when Ellison fingered him, he never lied. He said he wasn’t guilty, because in his mind, he did the right thing. He protected his family. He did what had to be done, knowing he would do time. But his wife would be safe. Dinah would be safe.
And his little boy would survive.
Which he did.
His father became judge and jury. And executioner.
And he was not about to question his father’s decision. He delivered a sentence that was—
Wait a minute.
He felt a tingling inside his brain. He closed his eyes to focus.
Sweeney. Shelters. Children.
Something was tugging at the right hemisphere of his brain, trying to get his attention.
Partners. Off-duty. Cartel.
He was getting closer. But what was it?
Tattoos. Silence. Kramer.
He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to miss the testimony, but he had to connect the dots.
Mirror. Gunfire. Certainty. I am completely certain.
His eyes popped open. Oh my God. He could see it all now. For the first time in his entire life, it all started to make sense.
Sweeney was already in deep with the cartel and Jack probably was too, which would explain why he and Sweeney knew each other and where Jack got sudden bursts of cash. Sweeney was in the passenger seat the night of the shootout. He’s probably the reason Ellison spoke up, instead of protecting a fellow police officer. He’s probably the reason most of the records pertaining to Dinah disappeared. Sweeney knew
it all but he sat on his ass and allowed his father to go to prison. Where he died.
As he always suspected. Sweeney was behind it all from the start. But why was he in that cop car?
There will still be a reckoning, Dad. Once I know everyone is safe.
“Your honor,” Caldwell said, “I have to object to this entire line of testimony. This is a pathetic effort by the plaintiff to transform a convicted criminal into—”
“Overruled,” the judge said quietly.
“I haven’t even finished.”
“Overruled.”
“Your honor, this isn’t even—”
His face tightened. “Counsel, you have been overruled, and if you speak again, I will hold you in contempt of court and you will be the one trying to invent some explanation for your time in jail.”
Caldwell took her seat.
Maria resumed. “Anything else, Dinah?”
Her voice waivered, but she continued. “I think I was suffering from some kind of PTSD. That’s what the rehab therapists told me. I was poor and unguided and stupid. A prime candidate for the worst people. I went from bad to worse and the whole twenty-five year Shuffle.”
Maria nodded. “I’m so sorry you had to experience that. We like to think of ourselves as a progressive, caring society. But it’s obvious that some people still slip through the cracks.”
Dinah lifted her chin. “Don’t worry about me. I’m gonna be okay now. I’m determined to stay clean. And for the first time in forever, I’m not alone anymore.” Her head turned and her eyes filled with tears. “I got a brother to look after me now.”
There was no cross-examination.
Chapter 36
Dan told himself not to worry. They had done everything they could do to win this case and rehabilitate his father’s name. And even if they didn’t prevail—he had learned what truly happened with his father and why Jack Fisher died.
More importantly, he had a sister he never knew about before. She’d had a hellish life, but all that was about to change. He would make certain of it. That what he wanted most—and he knew it was what his father would want as well. His father had already done so much to protect Dinah. He would continue his father’s work.
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