Sins of the Fathers (19 page)

“A prophet in the Bible raised that very same question. His name was Jeremiah, and he was the prophet in Judah when the Babylonian army brought it to ruin.”

Her mind tuned him out. She didn’t want to hear about prophets or Babylon or anything else for that matter.

All she wanted to hear was Matthew’s voice.

If you want to do something, God, do that.

3.

“Come on,” Travis Kellman said. “I want you to meet our pastor.”

“No, thanks,” Lindy said.

“He’d love to meet you,” Roxy said.

The three of them were moving slowly toward the exit with the rest of the crowd. Lindy couldn’t help but notice most of them were well dressed. There was some money here.

“I don’t want to meet your pastor,” Lindy insisted. “He seems like a very nice guy but I—”

“Come on.”Travis was already moving ahead, like a point man in some military operation.

“I don’t want to,” Lindy said.

“Don’t be so shy,” Roxy said.

“I’m not shy. I’m annoyed. I want to go home.”

“Real quick. Do it for me.”

“You playing that card again?”

“What card?”

“The do-it-for-me card.”

“That’s a terrible thing—”

Lindy sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Okay. I’ll say hi to the guy. Then can we go home?”

“Sure. Come on.” Roxy started to make her way through the crowd.

Lindy followed reluctantly. What was she going to say to this pastor anyway?

Make it an experiment,
Lindy told herself.
See what happens.
Maybe you
’
ll get a sign from God! Wouldn
’
t that be a kick in the head?
Maybe God would deliver a little good news about how to handle the
DiCinni case.

The crowd thinned out a bit in the foyer. A relief. Travis was waving to them from the far end, where a smaller crowd had gathered. No doubt that’s where the pastor was, like some human magnet attracting the shards of humanity.

With a sigh, Lindy followed Roxy.

They came to the outskirts of the pack, and indeed Lindy saw Pastor Clark shaking hands and smiling in the midst. And there was something magnetic about him. Lindy likened him to some of the highly successful trial lawyers she’d seen in action.

And then, behind her, she heard a scream.

4.

“Get her out of here!” Mona cried out. She could not believe the killer’s lawyer was here, in her church.

When the lawyer turned, Mona noted with perverse satisfaction that the look on the woman’s face was as wide-eyed as Mona’s soul.

When no answer came—the small assemblage seeming stunned at Mona’s outburst—she looked at Lindy Field directly and screamed again, “Get out!”

Mona was vaguely aware of Brad coming up behind her. She could almost feel the voice coming out of him.
How is poor Mona snapping
this time?

Or maybe Brad had given up on her.

The killer’s lawyer stood shaking her head, like a person looking at a horrible accident from the sidewalk, speechless. Had this been any other woman, Mona probably would have felt sorry for her, maybe even rushed up to her and put an arm around her shoulder and told her everything would be all right.

No, everything would not be all right. It would never be all right. And it would never be all right as long as she was in Mona’s church.

And then, as if the knot of people suddenly came to collective awareness, various people rushed into the breach and started trying to bring order to the situation.

At which point Mona lost all control. “No no no no no.” She repeated the word over and over, like a mantra. It suddenly felt like her only link to sanity. Get rid of the woman and she would be safe. Matthew would be safe. The church was stained now, stained by this lawyer.

She had been right about Brad. He was there with his arms suddenly around her, squeezing her as if to strangle her with calmness. She struggled against his arms and broke free.

“Get her out of here!” Mona looked at the killer’s lawyer. For a long moment their eyes locked. Then Mona was led away by some arms around her shoulders.

5.

Sunday afternoon.

They let him have his half hour on the roof. The caged roof. What they called the exercise yard. He and the other K–10s, in the little cages within the cage.

The deputy unshackled him and in he went, into the iron closet. He knew about closets. Closed spaces didn’t scare him. He’d been in enough of them, locked in darkness. What was outside the closed spaces is what scared him.

They had a thing you could use to do pull-ups or leg raises. He’d seen the others do it, guys with big biceps covered with tattoos.

The ones who talked to him at night.

Smoked all them kids, dawg? Think that make you somethin
’
? I
’
ll
make you somethin
’
. You look me up when you out.

Would he get out?

Yes
, the answer came. Yes. God told him so. He didn’t even have to do a thing.

The deputy locked the cage.

He wondered what his lawyer was doing.What was her thing anyway? The way she looked at him. Like she was interested.

He was interested in her and he didn’t know why. Maybe because he never had a mom or sister.

He sat down in the corner. He wondered why he never cried. He wondered why he wasn’t normal.

Part of him wished he could be normal, but the other part, the stronger part, always overcame that. Because he heard the voice of God.
You
’
re not normal. You
’
re all powerful. You will defeat them all.

He let the voice go on and on, saying familiar things, things he’d heard his whole life. Because he had never been without the voice of God. Never. Ever since he could remember hearing things, he heard the voice.

Leaning against the bars of the cage, the voice had its way.

And then, suddenly, a new thought. A brand-new one. It came into his head as clear as a guard’s voice telling him it was shower time.

Clear and new and full of power.

Join me,
God said.

TEN

1.

Lindy woke up Monday morning with a spiritual hangover.

That’s what she thought of it, anyway. Too much religion, too much thinking of otherworldly stuff.

The incident at the church was still an open wound. By now she had calmed down from the anger and the hurt. Roxy told her who the woman was, the mother of one of the kids Darren shot. Lindy guessed she was entitled to freak. But at a church? What kind of religion did they teach there?

She tried to forget about it with coffee and KNX Newsradio. The morning report hit on political intrigue down at city hall, where the mayor was trying to explain to the Latino community why he hadn’t appointed a Hispanic as police chief. Just another contribution to L.A. politicians’ usual political flummery. There was some sports news, but thankfully nothing about the DiCinni case.

That’s because they were in the purgatory between a ruling on Darren’s competency and a preliminary hearing. And Lindy had her work cut out for her, not to mention a contempt citation hanging over her head.

The hearing was scheduled to resume at eleven o’clock. That gave Lindy time to fire up her laptop and look at the
L.A. Times
online. Before that she made a quick check of her email. When she did, she saw a message waiting for her with the subject line
Your inquiry re:
police.

She opened it.

You inquired about information re: conspiracies. What do you know?

And that was it. No name. She looked at the email address, a cryptic mix of letters and numbers from some server she didn’t know, and certainly not from the conspiracy Web address. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. Web sites often forwarded emails to other addresses. But it was a little curious.

Now the author was asking her for information. She would have to tread carefully, or risk committing thoughts to email that could be distributed anywhere.

She replied:
Who are you? How
’
d you get started in all this?
and sent it off.

Probably a dead end, but at this point she would take anything.

She clicked her bookmark for the conspiracy blog site. No updates since her last visit.

She surfed a little more, scanning some legal sites, then her cell phone chimed “Dream On,” the Aerosmith tune that was Roxy’s ring.

“What’s up?” Lindy said.

“Meet me at Starbucks. I’ve got stuff for you.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve been earning my keep.”

“Anything good?”

“Just get here.”

Their usual meeting place, for any reason, was the Starbucks on Platt in West Hills. In good weather they had a favorite table outside.

Lindy pulled up her Harley and saw Roxy waiting.

Lindy ordered a triple-venti white-chocolate mocha and sat down. “I’ve got half an hour, then it’s back to court. So what’ve you got?”

“It’s what I don’t have that bothers me.” Roxy pulled a pen-scratched piece of yellow legal paper from a manila folder. “Your client’s father, Drake DiCinni?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t trace him. He doesn’t have a backward trail.”

“What’s that tell you?”

“Maybe the guy’s real name isn’t Drake DiCinni. Maybe he changed it.”

“Which would bring up the question of why.”

“Sure.”

“What else?”

“Maybe he’s covering his own trail. Maybe he’s gotten rid of some records.”

“Can he do that?”

“Some can. I’ll keep looking. But there’s also the chance somebody
else
tinkered with his records.”

“Who?”

“That’s the question. It’s all speculation right now. I’m just throwing things out. In any case, it looks like there’s something majorly off in this guy’s background.”

“But that might not have anything to do with Darren. He might have other reasons for covering his tracks.”

Roxy nodded. “And you don’t believe that for a minute, do you?”

Lindy smiled. “Maybe I’ll just go pay Mr. DiCinni another visit this afternoon. You want to come?”

“I’m meeting Travis. We’re going to the Getty.”

“Tough life—” Lindy looked up and almost fell out of her chair.

“Hello, Pastor Clark,” Roxy said.“Lindy, you remember our pastor.”

Up close, he looked down-to-earth. He wore jeans and a burgundy T-shirt with his church’s logo on it.

Lindy looked at Roxy. “What a coincidence.”

“All right, I set it up, okay? Clark asked me what the best way to talk to you was.”

“You’re not going to yell at me, are you?” Lindy said.

“No, no yelling,” he said. “I wanted to apologize for what happened at church on Sunday.”

“No problemo, Reverend.”

“May I?” Clark indicated a chair. Lindy nodded, and he sat. “Mrs. Romney, the woman who screamed at you, she was clearly out of line, even though you might understand why.”

“Of course I do. She lost a son. I’m defending the accused.”

“And I wanted you to know that I’m very sorry it happened, and I hope you might give us another try sometime.”

Lindy grimaced. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. You want a notorious defense lawyer in your midst?”

“Believe me, we have others.”

“Notorious?”

“Maybe not notorious.”

“I wouldn’t want to cause a disturbance. This woman probably would rather I didn’t show up.”

“You’re welcome any time.”

“Thanks. Really. And for what it’s worth, you preach a . . . you do a really good job preaching.” She looked at her watch. “And speaking of apologies . . .”