Salvation Boulevard (42 page)

Roy nodded, not necessarily agreeing but certainly agreeing to consider it.

“And I want Ahmad Nazami out.”

“That's not going to happen in a hurry,” Roy said.

“He didn't do it. Plowright and Hobson did it.”

“We have a confession,” Lathrop said. “People don't confess to something they didn't do. Especially murder.”

“They do if they've been tortured. Here are my case notes,” Max said, sliding a file across the table. “You can make a case against Plowright and Hobson, and you can make it fairly easily because they did it. If you go to trial with Nazami—and he will not plead, you have my word on that—you will embarrass everybody. This one is bad, and it's out of control. Take a look. See for yourself.”

Lathrop opened the file and began to glance through it.

“Roy, we are not out to embarrass anyone,” Max said. “Mistakes get made. We're all human. You shouldn't be held responsible for some error one of your assistants made. Like putting evidence that some city cop fixed up in front of a grand jury. Or waltzing into court with a fake U.S. attorney. You don't want to be put in the position where you have to say you weren't even aware of what they were doing.”

“Don't try to push me around, Hernandez. I'll make your life hell in this town if you mess with me.”

“I'm not trying to push you around. I'm truly not. I'm showing you the facts, which maybe your subordinates have kept from you.
I'm trying to put you in a position where you have control over what happens.”

“I'll take a look at it.”

“That's all I ask,” Max said. “And once you do, I expect you'll see it the same way we do. There are a lot of risks here, but there's a lot of potential too. I really am not trying to push you around. One thing I was at USW, I was a team player. Still am.”

The next day, around two in the afternoon, Lathrop called Max. He said, “You're on.”

I called Teresa and invited her to see me at my office two days before the grand jury hearing.

I have a room in an office suite in one of the older places downtown near the courthouse. Just like Dante Mulvaney.

I rent from a small father-and-son law firm that occupies the rest. I have the use of their secretary at no charge for incidentals like sorting the mail or showing someone in, but I pay her by the hour if she does something more substantial.

The secretary, a pleasant woman named Karen, buzzed me and then sent my visitor in.

Teresa closed the door behind her and stood there, both bright eyed and awkward, holding some papers in her hand. I got up. Both of us were standing there. After a long pause, each of us trying to figure out where to begin, let alone where to end, she blurted out, “I just came to tell you, I got an e-mail from a publisher. That's what I called to tell you. He has Nathaniel's manuscript.”

“That's great,” I said.

“He's actually had it for about a month,” she said. “Kind of ironic.”

“I guess it is.”

“He really likes it. He wants to publish it.”

“Even better. Would you like to sit down?”

“No. I just came to . . . the publisher, he's so excited about it, he sent me a mock-up of a cover and a few pages . . . to show you, if you want to see them.”

I walked around the desk toward her. It was all there between us, and no matter what, the closer I got, the more electric it felt. She offered the papers, it seemed, just as something to do.

I took them.

“I can just leave them with you . . . computers . . . I can make . . . ”

“Let me look,” I said, shuffling through the pages, then reading.

“We used to argue,” she said. “Well, you know that. About doing academic philosophy. That's what they want, I said, because I was concerned for his career. But the publisher really likes it. He compared it to Eric Hoffer.”

I looked at her blankly.

“He was . . . oh, never mind. Anyway, they want to publish it. I'll send you one of the first copies.”

Actually, I was interested. But I still had a lot of anger in me. About how she—and her husband, from the grave—had messed around with my mind. So, in spite of the fact that the reason to meet with her was to make sure the waters were smooth, I said, with an edge in my voice, “See that? Everyone's prayers get answered.”

Her expression showed that she'd taken it as the slap I'd meant it to be. “I'm sorry,” I said, instantly apologizing, not just for that, but for all of it. “I am sorry.”

“No, no,” she said, “I'm the one who should . . . ”

“I didn't mean it. I want to see the book.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, maybe there are some answers in it.”

“I hope you find what you're looking for,” she said.

“You too,” I said, meaning it.

“I better go now,” she said. “I have a class.”

“ Teresa . . . ”

“Shhh,” she said, soft smile and sad eyes. Then she said, “I'll mail you your copy,” her eyes becoming mischievous and her smile too, “to the office, not your home.”

I held the door open for her as she left.

As she walked out, Gwen came in the front door of the suite. A surprise visit. They walked past each other with polite smiles.

But I watched my wife's eyes. She could have been a cop on foot down in Wolvern on a Saturday night who'd spotted a Mex with prison tats and she gave Teresa the once-over, exactly to see what weapons she had concealed beneath her clothes.

When Gwen reached me, she asked, “Who was that woman?” But it was not a question at all. Not at all.

The next day, when I came home from the last rehearsal of my testimony with Max, Gwen was waiting in the living room.

“I've prayed and prayed over this,” she said intensely. “Can you come back to Jesus, Carl?”

I sighed. “Do you want me to lie to you?”

“You can lie to me. I believe you have lied to me. Over and over. But that doesn't matter. You can't lie to Him. He sees what's in your heart.”

“You believe,” I said, “and that's fine with me. I don't, and maybe, I don't know, maybe someday I'll see the light again, but I can't now. I love you, Gwen. I respect what you believe. I'm not going to fight it. I want to reach across it.”

“I have prayed for you, Carl,” full of fervor for her faith but cold as ice for me. “I really, truly have, but you have to open your heart.”

“And close my mind?” I snapped back at her. “Shut off my mind? It's not all heart, not all soul. We have minds too.”

“He wants you back. He really does.”

Her righteousness made me furious, but I pressed my anger down. “I understand,” I said as carefully as I could, breathing slowly, “but it's not something I can do.”

“When I testify tomorrow, I'm going to tell the truth,” she announced. “I've prayed over it. And He says tell the truth, even if it is about your husband.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“I'm going to say that we were in no danger at all. That we were in His hands, that He would have protected us.”

“Maybe His way of protecting us, protecting you,” I barked, “was having a husband who was there to kill the son of a bitch.”

“Those things about Paul,” she said, deaf to me, shaking her head against my reality, “perhaps he had fallen into sin when that Jezebel seduced him. But Pastor Paul Plowright is a man of God. When he awakes from his sleep, he needs to come back to his church and continue God's work. He will humble himself and apologize and ask God's forgiveness. He doesn't need ours, only His. Then he can continue his good work, His work.” Her eyes shone with stubborn certainty.

“What about Hobson and his thugs, intimidating other women and raping them?”

“That's slander and lies, Carl. Can't you see that? Who told us about that? Gangsters. A Mexican gangster with a fake video who was trying to blackmail good people. We can't fall for that.”

“This is crazy,” I cried out, watching my world fall out from under my feet.

“No, it's you who've gone crazy,” she said, announcing her accusations, one by one. “You were seduced by that woman. Not just into sex and the sin of adultery but away from God. You went crazy and became obsessed. You went mad, Carl, but you can come back. Join me now. Pray with me. Accept Him back into your heart. Save yourself.”

“Do you understand what will happen if you tell the grand jury that it wasn't self-defense, that it wasn't in defense of you and Nicole?”

“That's in God's hands,” she said, absolving herself in advance of anything that might ensue. “You've sinned against the Commandments. Adultery, killing, bearing false witness—”

“Didn't you hear Jerry Hobson saying he was going to kill Nicole? He said that right in front of you.”

“He said he was going to get rid of a problem,” she said, easily dismissing it. “That only meant send her away. Paul Plowright and Jerry Hobson are good people. They could not have done bad things.”

“Gwen, think about this.”

“I have prayed about it. I have His answers. I must give His testimony.”

 

Here I sit, in the hallway, outside the room where the grand jury is meeting.

There are bailiffs here. There are two lights, a green one and a red one. If the green one comes on, I'm free. Free to get up and go wherever my feet want to take me. If the red one comes on, it means that the grand jury has decided that there is probable cause to charge me with a crime, probably felony murder or murder two. Then the bailiffs will hold me and wait a few moments until someone comes out and informs me of the charge on which I'm being arrested.

The DA didn't renege on his deal with Max. He just shrugged. With Jorge Guzman missing, probably somewhere in Mexico, and Plowright in a coma, there were three witnesses to the shooting. He'd put all three on, and let the grand jury decide what the grand jury wanted to decide.

I was, of course, not present to hear either Nicole's testimony or Gwen's.

Max had gone over Nicole's testimony with her, and we both presumed she remained solid and that her testimony supported mine.

I also presume that Gwen told the grand jury exactly what she told me she intended to tell them.

At least I knew what she was going to do. I was able to explain that even if my wife thought she was in God's hands and that His invisible shield protected her—and all of us—I had not been able to see that shield. I had no way to sense or otherwise perceive His protecting presence, and therefore I did what seemed sensible when an armed man was pointing his gun at me and at two unarmed women.

Here I sit, in the hallway.

Grand jury decisions only require a simple majority. In our state, the grand jury is usually made up of seventeen people. It doesn't have to be, it can be as few as thirteen or as many as twenty-three. The law only requires an odd number to avoid tie votes.

Today's magic number is nine. Nine out of seventeen to vote to indict or not to indict me.

We don't know, but the demographics suggest that thirteen or fourteen of the grand jurors are Christians, a category that includes Catholics and all Protestant denominations. Twelve or thirteen believe in miracles. Ten believe in the devil.

Gwen's testimony, however else she sees things, includes certain facts. Hobson had a gun. I had a gun. She, Nicole, and Plowright were unarmed. Even if she chooses not to credit it, we had, all of us, heard someone say, on video, that Hobson employed people who raped, tortured, and physically intimidated people. And that he intended to do at least something about Nicole.

It comes down to this. Will at least nine people think I should have stayed my actions because Gwen had informed us that we were safe, under His protection?

Or will at least nine people think that I was right to act on the facts as they appeared to me in this earthly, strictly secular reality? That whatever God thinks or wants, it's still up to us, each of us, to figure things out for ourselves.