Presumed Guilty (3 page)

Dallas smiled as she drew herself a bath, threw in some salts from the Burke Williams spa, and settled in for a good, rejuvenating, sweet-smelling soak. One thing she had not tried lately was the venerable art of marital seduction. She knew that was one thing their relationship needed, and the one thing that was almost entirely up to her.

Last night Ron had come home and avoided her, gone swimming, disappeared into his study, and slept there.
Tonight would be different. She would make him remember.
She would make him remember how they were when they first married. She was the one with experience, a remnant of her past, and he had taken her gentle guidance and been transformed by it. But the change in her was no less intense. She was in love for the first time, really in love and not just drawn physically to a man. She loved Ron’s character, his faith, his authority. She trusted him completely. Giving herself to him was as pure a thing as she had ever done in her life.
Part of the reason she felt that way, she well knew, was that she was fleeing an abusive relationship with a true lowlife. Chad McKenzie was a real piece of work — the devil’s work. She barely escaped him, running from L.A. to San Francisco and living the street life.
She’d met Chad when she was seventeen. He was twenty and had a nice little business selling dope to the rich kids on the west side. It enabled him to ride around in a red Corvette and convince her that if she really wanted to get somewhere, it would be with him.
And Dallas was ready to go. Life at home was intolerable, she and her mother fighting all the time. Dallas knew it wasn’t her mom’s fault. Dallas had bad stuff going on inside. Without a father — he

Those first couple of months with Chad McKenzie were exciting. The danger was a turn-on, as good as getting high.
Then the high turned into a nightmare. Getting kicks sexually was, for Chad, a matter of pain. Hers. He was a porn addict, the S and M variety.
She had scars on her soul, carved with the harsh blade of Chad McKenzie’s sadism. He managed to make her feel like all the dirt and scum and trash of the world was, if not all, at least in large part due to her pointless existence.
And she took it. She took it for weeks, because she thought she’d never be worth anything to anybody again.
She was sure that she would be dead by now had she not run away to San Francisco.
Later, when she entered that revival meeting where the young Ron Hamilton was preaching, she knew without doubt that God had brought them together. Here was the thing she wanted most in the world — something that would
last.
Their daughter, Cara, was conceived on their honeymoon, on a cruise down the Pacific coast to Mexico, a gift from his mother.
Three years after Cara’s birth, Jared came along. And the rearing of children combined with the building of a ministry sent their lives on a different course. Their love was as strong as ever, but their energy was tapped by a thousand new demands.
Ten-year-old Cara developed a neuromuscular problem that would require three solid years of mentally draining attention. At the same time, Jared was displaying signs of ADD and a certain steely rebelliousness that Dallas was sure came from her. On more than one occasion she thought of Jared’s behavior as God’s revenge for the pain she’d caused her mother.
Cara healed and even became a top high school tennis player. Jared also displayed some athletic ability, and that calmed his inner waters for a time. When Dallas and Ron were finally able to peer above the troubled waters, they saw they were no longer the kids who’d met at a Jesus rally in North Beach, San Francisco.
She was a mother who had poured all her creativity into her children. From would-be hippie poetess to suburban mom — and a minister’s wife, with all that went with it. Not all of it to her liking.
Ron was rising in the ranks of pastors and speakers. He was on the road more, most often without Dallas and the kids. He developed a more formal bearing, perhaps as a defense to all the people who were starting to want a piece of him.
But their love and friendship was never a question in Dallas’s mind. Even though physical intimacy occurred less frequently, they managed to find time to get away together. Yet even those occasions had somehow dried up over the last few years. Dallas pledged to get them back.
Most of the strain was because of Jared, of course. Their son hung between them like a veil of division, sheer and unmentioned but present in every moment. Jared, the second born, the son. Ron had been so proud when he was born. His face lit up the delivery room. A son!
Jared was this perfect thing, an innocent baby glowing with unlimited potential. Those first few years, Ron could not stop talking about what a blessing their family was. A cute and loving daughter, a smart and curious — though somewhat serious — son. “One of each!” he would often say in those days.
But then came the growing pains and the realization that Jared had in him some traits that were not in line with what Ron had envisioned. And then came the war and Jared enlisting without a word, not a word to either of them.
Then, worst of all, his returning from Iraq a different person. Dallas prayed for him daily, intensely.
But tonight, it would be Ron she would think of, Ron she would bring back to the fold.
As she soaked in the water, Dallas thanked God she was still healthy. She worked at it. She kept in shape, went to the gym. Though her body was changing, developing knocks and pings and obeying the inexorable laws of gravity, she still weighed in at only five pounds above her wedding weight. That was something to be proud of. She enjoyed going to functions with Ron, hanging on his arm, looking good for him.
When she got out of the tub she put on a little body lotion and just a touch of Ron’s favorite perfume. What to wear? She had a lacy white blouse that accentuated the positive, and some tight jeans that nearly eliminated the negative. Seemingly casual, but designed for the male eye. Deadly.
Resistance is futile.
She pulled back the covers of the bed, then went to order dinner from Stonefire Grill, Ron’s favorite eatery. Dallas requested whole barbecued tri-tips, slaw, and mashed potatoes.
She would be the dessert.
At five thirty, the meal came. Dallas set the table, popped a Larry Carlton CD into the Bose.
At five forty-five the call came.

Strange, but Dallas had almost sensed he would say that when she picked up the bedroom phone. It was all too perfectly dreadful. She had made all these plans, and they simply had to be dashed, didn’t they? Wasn’t that the trajectory of their lives? Wasn’t this going to be some bad soap-opera moment?

“Is there some trouble?” she said.
“I have to talk to someone is all.”
“Why so late?”
“I have to take a drive. Not too far. But I just can’t predict . . .” She waited for him to explain. He didn’t.
“So I’ll call you later,” he said.
“What about dinner?”
“I’ll grab something.”
“I got Stonefire.”
Pause. “Put mine in the fridge, huh?”
And then he was gone.

Dallas sat on the edge of the bed. Was that a hint of avoidance in his voice? Or was there something more, something like her husband not telling her the whole truth?

Feeling ridiculous in her sexy outfit, she kicked off her shoes and pulled off her jeans. She could breathe again. She unbuttoned her blouse and threw it against the wall. Putting on her robe, she went downstairs, grabbed the Stonefire bag, and stuck the whole thing in the refrigerator, slamming the door. The clock on top of the refrigerator fell to the floor, and a huge chunk of the face broke off.

The motel had a sickly sameness to it and looked like a thousand others along a thousand freeways and roads. The parking lot was about half full. A couple of Hispanic men in undershirts leaned over the rail of the second story taking in the view, which consisted of the parking lot, an Applebees restaurant, and an auto-parts store.

I drove to the end of the parking lot, as Melinda had instructed me. I pulled into one of the last spaces near a cinder-block wall. She would be in room 105. It was around on the other side of the motel, facing north. At least from there you could see some mountains.

I gave three quick knocks, as she requested. I waited a moment, heard nothing inside. Then I saw the peephole darken.
She opened the door. “Come in, quickly.”
She closed the door and put her arms around me, burying her head in my chest. I very properly patted the middle of her back with one hand and said, “It’s okay. I’m here, you’re going to be fine.”
She didn’t let go of me. I could feel her chest heaving. I could smell her hair. It was vaguely scented, hinting of spice.
I guided her to the bed and sat her on it. The only other furniture in the room was a stark functional chair and a desk with a lamp. I stayed standing, and that’s when I noticed she was wearing something very sheer and revealing. It did not surprise me, because that’s the world she lived in. But I backed up three steps and tried not to look at her below the neck.
“Now tell me who is after you,” I said.
“The people. The people I work for.” She was lacing and unlacing her fingers as she spoke, looking down at them. “They beat up one of the other girls. I saw it. They were laughing about it. I couldn’t stand it. I screamed and ran out. One of them ran after me, telling me to come back or I was going to be sorry, and I better not think of going to the police or I was going to be dead.”
She looked at me and I fell into her eyes. She said, “I was so scared I couldn’t stop running. I thought they were going to come after me in a car. I had my coat on and a few dollars and I hopped a bus and then the Metro Link, which is how I got here. I used a credit card for the room. But now I’m afraid they’ll trace the transaction somehow and find me. What do I do?”
“You have got to go to the police.”
She started to say something, but I cut her off. “It’s the way things work. We can’t do this alone. You can’t deal with people like this by yourself.”
“No police!”
I thought of Jared then. The way Melinda said
No
was a lot like the way he used to say it when we were fighting the battles at home.
I paced in front of the curtained window, thinking. “What about getting out of town?”
She looked up.
“I can give you some money,” I said. “You could start all over again somewhere.”
The idea seemed to strike a chord with her. “Where?”
“Almost anywhere. I know some great churches and ministers around the country. I could tell one of them about you, and he would help get you set up in a new community.”
“You really think so?”
She suddenly looked so young. All that hope in her face, like a child who’s just been told her lost puppy was found.
“It’s perfect,” I said. “It’ll be a chance for a fresh start.”
Tears were starting to form in her eyes. If she had not stood up and come to me, I do believe with all my heart that none of this would have happened. That was the moment, the key, the breaking point. At least that’s what I tell myself on nights I can’t sleep and the memories play, unbidden, in my mind.
When she put her arms around me this time it was softer. I made no move away from her.
When she put her head on my chest it was gentler, almost a caress.
I put both my hands on her back and kept them there. I don’t know how long we were like that, but when she turned her head up toward mine everything exploded, and I knew things would never be right again.

She realized in the blackness that her nightmare was over, chased away by her desperate waking. A shimmer of what she deemed hope flashed across her mind, like a sliver of distant lightning in a storm-swollen sky.

She reached for Ron again, felt only the cold, empty spot on the bed.
No, he would not be there. He had not shared their bed for a week. He slept in the study, wouldn’t tell her why. Just holed up,
mumbling excuses.
Even more troubling, Ron had asked Bob Benson to preach for him yesterday, Palm Sunday. Ron always preached both Palm Sunday and Easter. Something was terribly wrong, but Ron wouldn’t say what.
She looked at the clock by the bed. Four thirty-seven. Too early to be awake.
Sleep was out of the question.
Her head was full and heavy, a bag of nails. The throbbing behind her eyes that started last night began again.
Then she saw red lights flashing. Outside the window.
It wasn’t just in her dreams.
Police car, she thought. Why? Next door, the teenager, Craig. He was in with some pretty questionable people, and who knew why the cops were here? Drugs? Stolen property?
A loud knock on the door. A pounding that was not friendly.
The red lights . . .
Another knock. Full, loud, relentless.
One of the kids. Something happened to one of the kids. Accident? Death?

She got up, heart accelerating. In the dark she reached for her robe. She rushed out the bedroom door, bits of awareness popping up like the lights of a city as night falls. Halfway down the stairs she saw the front door open and a police officer standing there.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and saw, on the porch, her husband. In handcuffs, with another police officer holding his arm.

“What is this?” Dallas heard her own voice, felt herself plunge forward.
The first cop put his hand up. “Ma’am, stay where you are, please.”
“Ron!”
Ron turned to her. “Call Jeff Waite,” he said.
Dallas looked at the cop inside the house. “Please tell me what is going on.”
“Call a lawyer, ma’am,” he said.

Jefferson Waite returned her call a little before nine in the morning. She’d left two messages on his cell phone, knowing he would be asleep like the rest of the normal world. Knowing, too, he would call just as soon as he could.

“What is it, Dallas?”
“It’s Ron. They arrested him.”
“Arrested? What for?”
“They didn’t say. They didn’t tell me. Aren’t they supposed to