Witness for the Defense (33 page)

“Coke, right?” I asked Sarah and shifted to the side to make room.

“I’m fine.” She eyed my full glass of scotch. “I thought the trial was concluding tomorrow.”

“It is.” I patted the seat I’d vacated. “Sit down and tell us what Patterson said. When is he going to dismiss the charges?”

Sarah folded her arms across her chest. She looked like a sixth-grade teacher after she’d caught one of her students tossing a spit wad past her head. “I’m not going to talk about it here.” She faced her father. “How many has he had this time?”

Sarah obviously wanted to pick a fight about my drinking, and I didn’t blame her. She’d been more than understanding the night before. But her patience seemed to be at an end. Her problem was she’d picked the wrong time to take a stand.

“He… has a name,” I jumped in before Avery could answer. “And he…will decide how many he…has.”

“Who appointed you his guardian anyway?” Avery said. “Lighten up.”

“If it happened only now and then, it wouldn’t bother me,” she said. “Last night I gave him the benefit of the doubt.”

I looked at her stern face and smiled, wondering if the benefit of the doubt was the only thing she gave me last night.

“This is ridiculous,” she went on. “He’s finishing a very important trial first thing in the morning.”

Avery was trying his best to suppress a smile, but couldn’t hold it. He burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Sarah growled.

I held up my glass. “I ordered this over an hour ago.

Sarah gave me a look as if to say I was playing her for some kind of idiot.

“Really,” I said, holding it up again. “There’s no cubes, because they melted long ago.”

“Honestly,” Avery said, chuckling. He held the palm of his hand in front of his chest as if he was taking an oath. “He hasn’t taken a sip since we’ve been here.”

Sarah gave me a quick apologetic smile before she jerked her head at her father. “But it doesn’t look like you can say the same, does it?”

“Ah, a few beers once in a blue moon shouldn’t be a big deal.”

Sarah patted her father on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” she said and sat next to me.

“So what happened?” I asked. “When do I go back to work?”

Sarah’s eyes dropped as she nervously fidgeted with the salt and pepper shakers to the left of her. That’s when I knew she didn’t have good news.

“Patterson refuses to drop the charges.”

“But why? Miles changed his story.”

Avery started to say something, but Sarah put her hand on his arm to stop him. “They never got a chance to talk to Bobby before he was killed,” she said. “All they have is your word.”

“And we know what that’s worth,” I scoffed.

“So what’s Patterson going to do at trial? Read the kid’s preliminary hearing transcript to the jury?”

“I’m afraid so.”

If I’d detested Reineer before, I loathed him now. Without Bobby to say he’d lied at the prelim, I stood a good chance of being convicted.

I was tempted to drink the Chivas, with or without the ice. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“My Blazer or one of your cars?” Avery said with a grin. “Who gets to take me home?”

I smiled at Sarah. “Looks like it’s my turn.”

Sarah reached for her father’s hand to help him up. “We’ll leave your Blazer here.”

“Let’s take his,” I said. “Mine’s already been here this long anyway….”

“Fine,” Sarah said, and as Avery walked past, she gave him a friendly scowl. “Although we should make you walk.”

When I stood to follow them out the door, Sarah’s eyes met mine. We both looked at one another, waiting for the other to say something. I was at a total loss. She had no idea I didn’t remember anything about the night before. I didn’t know what to do.

Thankfully, Avery broke the awkward moment. “Are you guys coming?” he shouted as he held the front door open.

As our eyes parted, Sarah gently placed her hand in mine. “I think we better talk,” she said. “I’m sure you know what it’s about.”

“I sure do,” I lied.

Avery sat beside me as I followed Sarah’s tail-lights onto the main highway. He was just drunk enough to moan at every bump in the road. As we left the traffic of the city behind, he craned his neck to look at the speedometer.

“She’s sure going awful fast with the rain and all.”

I couldn’t resist. “Only forty-five,” I said and grinned. “But I’m sure after six beers, it must seem like we’re both going about ninety.”

“Very funny,” he said and rested his head back. But his eyes remained fixed on Sarah’s Lexus in front of us.

“About your closing argument?” he mumbled. “What’s the plan?”

“An Al Pacino would be fun.” I glanced to see what his reaction would be. “I’ll eloquently inform the jury that my client is guilty.”

“Isn’t that the one where Pacino represents a judge accused of rape?”

I made a sharp turn around a curve. “Justice for All.”

“I think I had too much to drink,” Avery said, his face ashen. “And all these damn curves sure don’t help.”

He covered his mouth with his hand, and I panicked. “Do you want me to stop?”

Avery took a deep breath and exhaled. “No, I’m all right.” Removing his hand from his mouth, he gestured to the roadway in front of us. “After the next curve the road straightens out.”

When I glanced to make sure Avery was fine, he lurched forward, squinting at the roadway. I

jerked my head and saw Sarah’s brake lights veiled in a cloud of smoke. The Lexus was in a four-wheel skid, heading directly at a sharp curve.

“What the hell’s happening?” Avery screamed as the taillights sailed over the shoulder into the darkness.

I slammed the brakes, and the Blazer came to a sliding, screeching halt. We ran to the edge of the cliff and froze—watching metal and glass explode off Sarah’s Lexus as it bounced from tree to tree and toward the riverbed far below.

Chapter 37

It was after midnight. We had already paced every inch of Sarah’s recovery room at Mendocino County Hospital. The loud clacking of Avery’s steel-toed shoes sounded strange in a place where everyone’s foam-cushioned soles squeaked.

Three rescue teams had worked for more than an hour to free Sarah from the wreckage, which ended up headfirst against the last tree before a hundred-foot plunge to the river below. She was lucky to be alive.

We met with the portly Dr. Jonathan Slocum immediately after Sarah’s surgery. He’d informed us that even though she was still unconscious, he didn’t feel any of her injuries were life threatening.

“Seven broken ribs, a pierced lung, and a broken arm was all we found,” Slocum said, as though she’d only skinned her knee. “In a few months she’ll be just fine…as long as she comes out of that coma.”

I was on the edge of a chair, holding her hand, sickened by the sight of all the tubes and wires coming out of every part of her. As she fought for her life, I couldn’t help but wonder how she could have accidentally lost control on a road she’d driven thousands of times before. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident after all. I reflected back on the threat Reineer had made. He said I’d regret what I did to him in court just hours before she ran off the road. Was Sarah his revenge?

I wondered how he could have managed it from inside his cell. But the answer was simple. I’d been around long enough to know how easy an inmate can control what goes on outside. All Reineer would need is a recently released inmate or one of their friends to do the dirty work.

The sound of Avery’s boots approached from down the hall. He was concerned that Sarah had been out of surgery for over two hours and still hadn’t regained consciousness. He’d left ten minutes earlier to locate Dr. Slocum to find out why.

He walked past me without saying a word and gripped the bed’s side rail as he bent over to give his daughter a kiss on the cheek. “The doctor doesn’t seem that concerned,” he said.

“Then why hasn’t she come out of it?”

Avery reached for Sarah’s hand and gently cradled it in his as he sat in the chair next to me. “Probably just the shock to her system.” A look of concern crossed his face. “But it could also be the buildup of pressure inside her cranium.”

“Meaning what?”

“Bleeding inside the skull,” he said. “If that happens, they’ll have to relieve the pressure.”

“How?”

The retired judge slumped back into the chair. His face was pale, his eyes droopy and red—the same color as the blood smeared on the front of his shirt from when he’d held Sarah in the ambulance.

“They’ll have to drain the fluid.”

The sheet over Sarah’s chest rose and fell every time she took a breath. “She has to be all right,” I said. “There’s so much I have to say to her.”

“She will be…And there will be plenty of time to tell her how you feel.”

“When I saw her fly off that embankment, I thought I’d lost her forever,” I said and hesitated. “It’s happened to me before.”

Avery gave me a concerned look.

“The same thing happened to my father….He didn’t survive.”

We both looked at Sarah. Her breathing was noticeably louder.

“Maybe we should get someone.” I reached for the bed rail to propel myself upward.

Avery grabbed my arm. “Her respiration, heartbeat, everything is being monitored at the nurses’ station. They’ll know way before we do if something’s wrong,” he said as her breathing became less labored. “Tell me what happened to your father.”

Watching Sarah’s every movement, we both sat back in our chairs.

“I was ten years old and asleep when my mother’s screams had awakened me,” I said, remembering. “My father was drunk, beating her unmercifully. I ran downstairs, and like I had many times before, yelled, cried, and pounded on his chest begging him to stop hurting her. Normally, that’s all it would have taken. But this time was different. He was out of control. He wouldn’t stop no matter how much I pleaded. I was sure he was going to kill her.

“He pushed me aside and lifted my mom by her hair and slammed her face into the wall. He laughed as he let go of her semiconscious body, which fell limply to the floor. When I saw her lying there with that unforgettable look of fear on her swollen and bloodied face, something in me snapped.

“I ran to my bedroom and grabbed my Louisville slugger. I had to stop him. By the time I got back, he was kicking at her stomach, daring her to get up. I walked behind him and raised the bat over my head. Then with every ounce of muscle I could muster, I exploded it on the back of his skull. His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor.

“But either I was too small or he was too big, because in a matter of seconds he staggered to his feet and turned to me, blurry eyed while reaching out for me to hand him the bat. I was petrified when the bat fell from my hands onto the floor. We both watched as it slowly rolled to his feet. Still woozy, he leaned over to pick it up, but almost fell. Righting himself, he focused on me and then the bat as he slowly lifted it over his head. I cowered, covering my head with my arms, waiting. My mother jumped on his back, hitting and scratching while yelling at me to leave.

“The next thing I remember, I was out the front door, running as fast as I could. I’d no idea where I was going, only that I had to keep running. If he ever caught me, he’d kill me for sure.

“I was on the main highway when I heard his car start, followed by the sound of tires spinning on the dirt road in front of our house.

“He was coming after me.

“I ran and ran, hoping he was too drunk to get very far. Then from behind, I heard the screeching of tires as the car fishtailed onto the asphalt. The car was directly behind me.

“I had to get off the road. To my left was a ledge with at least a hundred-foot drop into a rocky ravine. To my right, a sheer cliff face. I knew I couldn’t outrun him, but there was no place to go. Just maybe, he’d calmed down, I thought. I stopped and waved my arms for him to stop. But the engine got louder and the headlights brighter. The car was picking up speed. I stood paralyzed in the middle of the road.

“When the lights were on top of me, the car veered onto the dirt shoulder. The back end slid around in the loose dirt until the car sailed over the edge.

“His car never touched anything but air until it hit the bottom of the ravine, where it exploded on impact.

“I never knew if my father wanted to kill himself that night. But, I did know one thing for sure as I watched it burn—he would never hurt my mother again.”

Avery reached for my hand, a gesture I found uncomfortably touching. So much so that I had to pull away or risk a flood of tears. Why was I telling him this now? I’d never told anyone but Uncle Joe, and the painful truth of it had been bottled up inside me for so long it almost felt at home there. But now—looking at Sarah, so silent in that hospital bed—I felt if I didn’t tell Avery, the secret would explode, leaving me hopelessly poisoned, contaminated, maybe dead. Perhaps I had to tell him so my behavior over the past few weeks would make some sense to him—and by proxy to Sarah. Or maybe I just needed it to make sense to me.

“I ran into the house and my mother was lying on the floor. If it wasn’t for the clothes I wouldn’t have recognized her. Her face was…He’d crushed it with my baseball bat.”

Avery shook his head as I tried to compose myself.

“He was always drunk,” I said. “And it looks like I’m no better. The going gets tough and the first thing I do is turn to the bottle.”

“Damn it, Hunter,” he said. “Quit comparing yourself to your old man. You can choose not to be like him. You already have.”

I had to smile for the first time in hours. That was the Avery Harris I remembered—no robe and a little heavier around the midsection, but the same old bark.

“She’s always been fond of you, you know.” He was whispering as if Sarah could hear him.

“What do you mean by always?” I asked. “We never really knew one another until just recently.”

“She would come into my court and watch you. She admired and respected your ability. She always said she wanted to be as good as you in court.” He then chuckled. “Actually, I think she admired you so much because you were one of the few who would stand up to me. I couldn’t intimidate you.”