Sins of the Fathers (22 page)

“Little thing like you?” He loped his leg over the seat and settled onto the bike. He kept his gun in one hand and stroked the Harley with the other.

“You seem like a farm fresh,” he said.

Lindy blinked.

“Good egg. That’s what my pappy always said.”

Pappy?

“So what’s your handle?”

“Lindy Field.”

“You’re doing a capital case?”

“Not death penalty. A juvenile.”

A light went on in his eyes. “You repping that kid who shot up the baseball field?”

Lindy nodded.

“Oh man, you are gonna need help. And I might be able to give you some.”

“How—”

A horn blared as a dusty red pickup rolled by on the street. Wolf waved at the driver. A woman. He continued to watch as the truck pulled into the house next door, the house he had presumably come from, with the yard and the upset pit bull.

“My woman,” Wolf said. “Been married twenty-two years December.”

“Oh?”

“She stuck with me, all the time I was inside. You don’t just find those kind of women walking around the mall.”

“Right.”All this talk of married bliss from an ex-felon, sitting on her motorcycle with a gun, was too absurd, even for L.A.

“So whattaya want to know?” he said.

A lot of things
. “The man who lives here, with Alice. You know him well?”

Wolf shook his head. “Not too. Been over here a couple times to break bread.”

“What’s his name?”

“Michael something.”

“What’s he look like?”

Wolf described someone very much like the Drake DiCinni she’d interviewed, but when he mentioned the spiderweb tattoo on the back of his neck, that nailed it.

“And you’re sure he called himself Michael?”

“Yeah. That’s all I know about the dude. You saying he’s the kid’s father?”

“What I’m saying.”

“Makes sense.”

“Why?”

“He talked about his kid, but didn’t say much. Got the feeling he was jacked about something. Wouldn’t say. But if that’s his kid, it seems to me a good reason to change your name. Around here people do it all the time.”

“Do you have any idea where he is, or might be?”

Wolf shook his head. “Maybe to see his old lady. She’s gotta be going through hell too.”

Lindy cocked her head. “Drake . . . Michael, he has an old lady?”

“The kid’s mother, yeah. He said they split up.”

“He said he has an ex-wife who is alive?”

“I don’t know if he said ‘wife,’ but they were together and now they’re not. Kinda like a country song, huh?”

“Have you got any idea where this woman might be? The name of any city or anything like that?”

“Nope.”Wolf slid off the motorcycle. “I gotta go tend to my own wife. She’ll be wantin’ me to fire up the barbecue.”

“Wait!” Lindy fished in her back pocket and brought out a wrinkled business card.“Will you call me when they come back?”

Wolf took the card and gave it a glance. “I dunno . . .”

“At least tell this Michael to call me. Tell him I need to talk to him. About his son.”

“I’ll keep this.”Wolf put the card in the pocket of his shirt. “You never know. I may get busted, may need a lawyer. You look better’n most.”

10.

Lindy took the 118 freeway home, so she could roar. She could always go faster on the 118, even though she had to keep a watch for the Chippies. The highway patrol loved to park on the shoulders of on-ramps. It was practically entrapment.

As she roared along, she mulled over her odd encounter with the domesticated biker named Wolf. Was he just messing with her? The whole episode with the gun was weird. Besides which, she’d had biker clients before, and few of them were well versed in the truth-telling department.

And where was Drake DiCinni?

She blasted down the 118 to Topanga, then dropped down into the Valley. On clear days, she could see all the way across the Valley from here, but lately it had been hazy. She hated that. She liked to see where she lived and worked. It gave her a sense of belonging, even hope.

Well, not today. She headed for Box Canyon. When she reached the reservoir she started to feel like she was home, a comfortable feeling. She could talk things over with Cardozo. He would not pull a gun on her. He might exercise his claws a little, but that was as bad as it got.

When she walked in, Cardozo mewed and rubbed the side of her leg.

“How you doin, huh? Been watching the homestead for meanies?”

She was about to turn on the TV news when she saw the blinking message light on her machine. Her cell phone was still hooked up to the charger in the kitchen. The message light on the cell was also flashing.

Lindy chose the machine first. It was Roxy. “Where are you? Why don’t you have your cell? Call me immediately.”

The message on her cell phone was also from Roxy. Lindy held down the 1 key, Roxy’s speed dial.

She picked up after the second ring.

“Hey girl,” Lindy said. “What’s the big—”

“I’ve been trying to reach you—”

“I know and now—”

“Haven’t you heard?” Roxy’s voice was rising.

“Heard what?”

“Darren . . .”

“What’s wrong?”

Roxy took a deep breath, almost a gasp. “He hanged himself.”

11.

Mona carefully cut around the lawyer’s head. As she did so she looked into the eyes of the image staring out at her from the newspaper. What was behind those eyes? How could this woman defend guilty people?

How could the system of justice, so called, allow lawyers to make such a mockery of the truth? If only they could be cut down before they did more harm.

Mona finished removing the head from the body and placed it on one side of the large piece of butcher paper she had laid out on the table. The collage was coming together, a permanent reminder of what was at stake. A tribute to Matthew and his teammates.

It was beginning to look a little like those Mafia charts she’d seen on TV shows. At the last VOICe meeting, she suggested that copies of pictures be swapped among the victims’ families so all of them would have reminders of the dead. It seemed like a good idea to the majority, a way of sharing the grief.

For Mona, it was a way to get the pictures she needed to complete the chart. The only picture she did not want was the picture of the killer. She would not dignify him by placing his face on the same page with those who had died at his hand. She would, however, put on his lawyer. She needed an object to absorb her hate.

The Bible said to hate what was evil.

The aesthetics of sticking the pictures to the page did not concern Mona. She used double-stick tape. But she carefully calculated where to place each one. She supposed this was some form of therapy, and then promptly forgot all about such trivial things. This was deadly business.

The phone rang, startling her. For some reason she picked up this time. Something told her it was one of the VOICe members.

It was Brad.

“I had to check on you,” he said.

Yes, she supposed he had to.

“I’m doing fine,” she said.

“Have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“Oh, Mona. I wish I could be there with you. Can I come over?”

“What news are you talking about?”

“The defendant, he tried to kill himself.”

Mona felt a cold knife pass through her. “Tried?”

“They saved him, apparently.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“I appreciate your calling.”

“Mona, you sound so formal. It’s killing me what’s going on between us.”

“I’m sorry, Brad.”

“When can I see you?”

“I’ll let you know.”

After hanging up, Mona sat in front of the faces again. She was glad she couldn’t see the killer. Suicide? That would have been one way to finish the story.

I wonder if it was a ploy to gain sympathy.

12.

The Los Angeles County–USC Medical Center was a jutting, monstrous organism of a structure east of downtown. With wings seeming to sprout from other wings, it had a Hydra-like quality about it, as if it would always be growing some nasty new appendage.

In truth, it needed to grow, though it had more square feet than the Pentagon. Already it treated about 800,000 patients a year, mostly poor, mostly emergencies—people shot, stabbed, beaten, or broken up in accidents of one kind or another. And inmates from county jail in life-or-death emergencies.

After checking at the desk, Lindy located Darren’s room on the fourth floor. A cop stood at the closed door.

“I’m Darren DiCinni’s lawyer,” Lindy said.

“And?” the cop said, his expression unflinching.

“I’m going to see him.”

“Not now.”

“I said I’m his lawyer. I want to see him.”

“How do I know?”

“Know what?”

“You’re a lawyer.”

“Oh, please.” She fished out her bar card and showed it to him.

“I don’t really care,” the cop said. “I have my duty.”

“Your duty does not include separating people from their constitutional rights.”

He folded his arms but didn’t move.

“Let her in,” a voice said. Lindy turned and saw Larry Lopez.

“How you doing, Lindy?” He smiled.

“Larry. Long time.” She didn’t smile back at the prosecution’s chief investigator in the Marcel Lee case. Lindy’s blistering cross-examination of him almost got her thrown in jail for contempt.

“Missed you,” he said.

“You want to tell me what happened to my client?”

Lopez shrugged. “He used a strip of blanket around the neck, twisted it into a knot himself. Pretty bad attempt. He passed out but didn’t cash his chips.”

“He wasn’t on suicide watch?”

“Somebody must’ve blinked.”

“I’ll bet.”

Lopez indicated the cop. “Don’t be too hard on my guy, huh? Just doing his job.”

“Aren’t you all,” Lindy said.

“You got the right to talk to him. I’ll give you ten, how’s that?”

“More if I need it.”

Lopez nodded.

Inside, curtains separated three beds. An old man snored in the second bed, which helped dull the beeping of a monitor. The smell of sanitized death permeated the place.

Darren was in restraints in the third bed. Leather anklets held him to the rails. Lindy could see a jagged burn around his neck, reddish fading to purple. Darren turned his head slowly to see her.

“Hello, Darren.”

He looked at her a moment then let his head roll back to the side.

Lindy took a chair and sat by the bed. Darren looked like a little boy, sick, staying home from school.

“Tell me what happened. Can you?”

He did not look inclined to talk.

“Anything we can talk about?”

Darren didn’t move.

“If you don’t talk, I’ll have to sit here and do all the yapping. That’s not a very pleasant sound, so they tell me.”

Nothing from Darren. At least he did not tell her to go away.

“Well, I guess you want to listen to me for a while. That’s your choice. You know we are having a preliminary hearing soon. People are going to get up on the stand and talk about what you did. The judge is going to listen and decide whether to make you stand trial. There will be a trial, no doubt about it. I’m going to fight for you no matter what. I just want you to know that.”

The old man in the middle bed snorted loudly, as if commenting on her assertion.

“Hey, you remember last time we talked? You asked me about God. I just wanted you to know I went to church and I’ve been thinking about God lately. You know what I think? I think that church isn’t the place to find God.”

This got Darren’s attention. He looked at her and seemed curious.

And suddenly images filled Lindy’s head, memories, and they led her to something that needed saying.

“Funny,” she said. “When I was a little girl, maybe about six, I remember getting lost at Disneyland. Can you imagine a better place to get lost? But I got really scared. I was there with my mom and dad and little brother. And we were walking down that Main Street they have there and we stopped for a minute to look in a shop. It was pretty crowded. I looked out the window and saw Snow White walking by outside the shop. Now you have to understand that Snow White was my favorite character of all time. I wanted to be Snow White. I wanted to dress like Snow White and sing like her. The only thing I didn’t want to do was eat a poison apple and live with dwarfs in the woods.”