Faith and Justice

by Peter O'Mahoney

  The picture-perfect life for a picture-perfect man. At least, it appeared that way.

  Those who knew him were convinced that he was innocent, none more so than his youngest son, but their voices were quickly drowned out by the collective hate of the whole country. The story captured the nation’s attention and they were gripped by the details of his trial—everyone knew someone like Alfred, every neighborhood had one, and they all started to doubt each other.

  “Jake Briggs came and found me the other week, told me to say hello to you. He said that you got his sentence reduced from thirty years to ten, said you were a very good lawyer; someone to be proud of.”

  “Briggs. I remember him. Fraud case, caught red-handed, but we negotiated a lighter sentence for his co-operation. One of the most untrustworthy people I’ve ever met. How’s he doing in here?”

  “He’s found God.” Alfred opened his hands wide and grinned. “He’s become a preacher.”

  “I don’t believe that. There must be another reason for him to take that path, an ulterior motive.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first preacher to take up the vocation in search of power.” Alfred added the comment flippantly, but it struck a chord with Hunter.

  The silence sat in the room for an awkward minute—Alfred scratching his arm, and then his thigh, and Hunter staring at the wall, thinking about the last comment from his father.

  “How are you?” Alfred broke the silence. “You haven’t been here in over a year.”

  “I’m well. Busy, but I’m well.”

  “Married yet? Kids?”

  Hunter shook his head.

  “In love?”

  Hunter shook his head again.

  “And Patrick? How is he?”

  “He’s well.”

  “Max?”

  “Okay.”

  “I would love to see them again.” Alfred’s chest heaved up and down. Talking was using up a lot of his energy. “But I understand if they don’t want to come.”

  “Patrick’s not keen on talking to you, or even about you.” Hunter’s jaw clenched. He felt the emotion threatening to break through the hard wall around his heart, and he didn’t like the vulnerability that threatened his tough demeanor. “Patrick won’t come in here.”

  “And Natalie? Have you seen her?”

  “No.” Hunter clenched his fist, pressing his fingernails into his palm. “I haven’t seen her in over a decade. I’ve looked for her, I wanted to know where she was, but I couldn’t find her.”

  “I received a letter from her.”

  Hunter looked up, shock written across his face.

  “She said she was back home. Back in the USA. There was no return address on the envelope, so I had no way to contact her.” Alfred scratched his calf. He scratched too hard, and was sure that he was now bleeding under his trousers. “If you ever see her, tell her that it was all worth it.”

  “What was worth it?” Hunter leaned forward. “What?”

  “Life.” Alfred offered a half smile. “All of life was worth it. You. Patrick. Natalie. Your mother. My grandson, Max. Every risk we took, every chance, every attempt, it was all worth it. All of it.”

  “Has this got something to do with why Natalie disappeared? Why she went to Mexico to live?”

  “Who knows?” Alfred studied his son’s face. “Freedom is one of life’s great disappearing acts. It’s something that’s completely forgotten about until it’s taken away. I imagine she wanted to be free of… well, all of this.” He opened his hands wide. “I guess she had enough. You could do the same. If nothing is holding you to Chicago, no love, no children, then you should consider starting anew somewhere else, maybe a new country that hasn’t heard of our past.”

  “I don’t need your life advice.” Hunter started to say the word ‘Dad’, but it didn’t feel right. He hadn’t called him that in a long time.

  “I can see it in your eyes, Tex. I know that feeling. It’s fear. Your deepest fear is that you’re unlovable. And I understand it. I understand that you went through so much.”

  Hunter looked away.

  “But it’s the light, not the darkness, that’s frightening you. Running away from your fear doesn’t serve your purpose. There’s nothing enlightening about shrinking away so that you won’t fail—because you will fail. That’s part of the journey. Don’t run from your fears. You are lovable, Tex. Everyone is.”

  Hunter turned to look at his father—half of him was angry that he was receiving life advice from the man that tore his life apart, and the other half wanted nothing more than to listen to his guidance.

  “Tex.” Alfred leaned forward. “Emotional fear isn’t there to tell you not to do something; fear is there to alert you that something is worth pursuing. If you’re scared of it, it means that it’s worth something to you. When you don’t care about the consequences, that’s when there’s no fear. Don’t run from love. Don’t block that out because you’re afraid.”

  His advice was interrupted by the loud tapping on the door, followed by the deep voice of the guard. “Visiting time is over.”

  “Thank you for coming, Tex.” Alfred smiled. “I wanted to see you before I—”

  “Wait.” Hunter held up his hand. “There’s one question you’ve never answered, a question you’ve always avoided. If your time is coming, then you have to answer that question for me.”

  “You know I can’t answer that question, Tex.”

  “You have to. I need to know the answer to that question. Did you do it? Did you kill those girls?” Hunter was firm.

  “You have to move on from this, Tex.”

  “I can’t. You need to tell me yes or no. After all these years, you can give me that. You owe me that. After all the pain I’ve been through, all the hate I’ve faced, I deserve an answer to that question.”

  The guard tapped the door again.

  “Tex, if you want to move on from something, never hate it. Everything that you hate is attached to your heart. If you want to let go of something, if you want to move on, you cannot hate.”

  “I hate that we lost our family.” Hunter stood, leaning over his father. “I need to know. Did you do it? Did you kill those girls?”

  “I won’t answer that question.” Alfred Hunter stood and rested a hand on Hunter’s arm. “But Tex, I will tell you this—everything is relative. Even truth.”

  CHAPTER 29

  West Jackson Boulevard buzzed, the constant hum of traffic creating a background of white noise. This was Hunter’s part of the world. He felt a part of the action, part of the lifeblood in the city.

  His office felt like an extension of his home. His place to think and move through a case. A place to disappear into the words on a file. Despite the years that had passed, every time he walked into his office, it filled him with pride, a testament to the ability to overcome the worst odds that life could throw at him.

  Past the reception desk was the door to his separate office, a door that proudly displayed the Hunter family name. There weren’t many places that did that. His office was large enough to dance the tango, if he ever felt inclined, but cozy enough to drink in solitude on the leather couch to the left of the room. Law books lined the right wall, and a signed Michael Jordan jersey hung on the other. He had never liked having “stuff” to fill a room; he would much rather sit in an unfilled space than one full of clutter.

  As such, his large dark oakwood table looked like it’d barely been used. Esther had left a file in the middle of the table, but apart from his monitor, it was the only object on the long space.

  Hunter stopped at the sizable window to take in the view of Downtown Chicago, watching the people walk under the streetlights below, and sat down behind his hefty desk, comfortable in his black leather chair.

  He hated the feelings he had to confront every time he met with his father—that rollercoaster of hate, love, and confusion. He would love to see his father free on the streets again, smiling as he watched the birds fly next to Lake Michi
gan, but he knew that was impossible now.

  Driven by the fact that he felt his father was innocent, Hunter made sure that every avenue for appeal was taken on, confronted, and pushed against. Due to the lack of evidence in the court case, his father had avoided the death penalty—still a reality for Chicagoans in the seventies. The case was built on circumstantial evidence at best; misleading at worst.

  When DNA evidence became a reality, Hunter thought he had a chance to pull his father and mother out of prison. His mother was convicted as an accomplice to the crimes, despite her pleas of innocence and the lack of evidence, she spent her last years incarcerated. Unable to find DNA evidence that exonerated his parents, Hunter had to watch his mother, a once beautiful kind-hearted woman, wither away in prison until her death.

  Hunter opened the file on his desk and scanned over the notes, before walking over to his cabinet and pouring a glass of whiskey. It was the only way he knew how to avoid emotions—alcohol and work.

  Some people got their thrills from painting or hitting the gym or learning a new skill.

  Not Tex Hunter.

  He got his thrills from pushing for justice, and doing the hard yards was a part of that.

  Most criminal cases didn’t make it to trial. Most criminal cases were dealt with long before they confronted the judge for day one—deals with the prosecution, dismissing evidence, or the guilty party turned over to the police.

  But there was a part of Hunter that yearned for the action in the courtroom. He loved the spotlight, standing up in front of the court and the media, and proving all those people wrong.

  As he closed a file on his desk, he looked to the clock on the wall. Just past 10 p.m. An early night. He smiled as he switched off the lights in the office and closed the door. He went down the elevator and out onto the street. After the two whiskeys in his office, as he had read the last of the case files, he’d decided not to drive home, walking to the taxi rank a few blocks down.

  There were a few people out and about, going places under the dim lighting of the street. He had only walked half a block when the rumbling of the “L” train thundered overhead. It was bone-chilling loud, loud enough to drown out any thoughts as it rattled past.

  That distraction, that moment of cover, provided the perfect time for someone to grab him.

  Hunter felt the hand on his left shoulder first.

  He had spent most of his early adult life under the constant threat of attack and trained hard in boxing gyms across the city. Recently, he had turned his attention to Muay Thai, the art of kickboxing originating from Thailand.

  Hunter turned.

  The man behind him tried to throw a wild hooking arm, but Hunter blocked it with his forearm, and then pushed the man back with an open hand to the chest.

  “Turn around and walk away.” Hunter was firm.

  The man dressed in a flannel shirt didn’t look homeless, nor did he look like he was trying to mug Hunter.

  But he did look angry.

  He came at Hunter again.

  He threw another wild hook, and Hunter almost laughed as he moved back from it. He could see it coming a mile away. The wild hook might have worked in a rough country bar, but not against a trained fighter like Hunter.

  The man swung again, and Hunter drove his foot into the man’s abdomen, buckling him under the pressure.

  A taxi horn honked as it went past.

  Hunter didn’t see the man behind him.

  He was hit with a metal rod across the middle of his back, sending him flying forward towards the first man. That man swung hard again, landing a solid right hook to Hunter’s cheekbone.

  Hunter buckled. He moved to his right, still on his feet, turning to face the man with the metal rod.

  The metal rod swung at Hunter again.

  He blocked the bar against his shoulder, the one that took the bullet, and landed a quick hook to the man’s chin. The man fell to the ground.

  The man with the flannel shirt helped his friend, pulling on his shirt, exposing a tattoo on the man’s forearm. A man stood behind Hunter, across the street, and dialed nine-one-one. When the two men saw him on the phone, they scampered away.

  Hunter was in no mood to chase them.

  “You alright?” The man dressed in a suit approached Hunter. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  “I’m good.”

  “The lady at nine-one-one wants to know if you recognized either of the men?”

  “I didn’t recognize their faces.” Hunter rubbed his shoulder. “But I’d suggest the Nazi tattoo was a giveaway about who he’s friends with.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Esther attacked her keyboard with intense vigor, punching in notes while they were fresh in her head. Her investigation skills weren’t as polished as her boss’, but she thrived on the challenge. Being involved in the cases, being part of the action, let her know that she was alive, pumping adrenalin through her veins.

  She barely stopped punching the keyboard as Hunter strode into his office, his morning coffee in his left hand, his expensive briefcase in his right.

  When she did look up, she saw his swollen lip and lightly bruised cheek.

  “Oh my gosh.” She gasped. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  “I had a chat with the wrong people.” He grunted. “Did you see anyone follow you last night when you left the office?”

  “Me?” She thought back to the previous night. “No. Nothing. Do you think it was a targeted hit last night?”

  “They didn’t reach for my wallet, and they didn’t try to take my briefcase.” Hunter stood up straight, despite the pain surging through his back. “The man that attacked me had a Nazi tattoo on his left arm.”

  “You think it’s the White Alliance Coalition making a statement?”

  “Anderson’s trial starts tomorrow, and the cops don’t have a public lead for the church shooting. The pressure is mounting on everyone.” Hunter’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “And the media are getting desperate. They want a lead. They want something on this story. This story is selling papers, people are hungry for an answer, and every day they’re getting closer to making the link between the White Alliance Coalition and the church shooting. It’s not a good look for the police department when they have a shooting at a Sunday mass, and they have no one to give to the public. The media want a suspect, so they’re creating one themselves. The pressure is building, and they’ll continue to get front-page news every day this isn’t solved.”

  “But why attack you? You aren’t the one making accusations.”

  “I’ve stepped close to them, and they’re protecting something.” Hunter slowly removed the phone from his pocket. “Or someone.”

  His phone buzzed again.

  He unlocked the screen.

  Two photos, nothing more.

  No text. No words.

  “But you think one of them is involved in the church shooting?”

  “I’m not sure…” Hunter’s focus had turned to the message.

  He stared at the picture on his phone—a color photo of their office front door, and a photo of the door to his apartment.

  Clear. Bright.

  Recent.

  Slowly, he turned around and looked at the door.

  “What does the message say?” Esther asked.

  “Nothing. It’s only a photo.”

  “Of?”

  “Our office front door.”

  “And that’s it? No message?”

  He called the number.

  Nothing.

  It had already been disconnected.

  Esther reached across, grabbed Hunter’s phone, and Googled the phone number. “There’s nothing on file about the number. It must be a burner phone.”

  He turned to look at the front door. “Esther, you need to be very careful over the coming days. If you’re in the office alone, I want you to lock the door. Make our clients buzz in. Don’t work late. Don’t be here after dark. If you don’t feel comfortable at any time, cal
l me. I’m going to talk to building security and make sure they’re extra vigilant.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Do you understand me?” Hunter’s stare was unflinching. “I want you to be safe.”

  “Okay.” She nodded apprehensively. “Do you think that photo is about this case?”

  “Esther, it’ll be better if you take a few days off while the trial is on. Don’t come into the office at all.”

  “No,” she argued. “I know the risk, I know what can happen, and I want to come to the trial. I want to help with this case.”

  “No.” He shook his head while thoughts raced through it. “I won’t let you get attacked again, not after what happened in the Sulzberger case.”

  “I promise I’ll be careful, Tex. I won’t leave late. I’ll lock the office door. I promise.”

  He looked at her, his eyes narrowing as he stared down at the person who knew him the best. “Only if you stay safe. Only work during daylight hours. I’m not going to let you get hurt again.”

  But the way the case was building, he wasn’t sure if that was true.

  CHAPTER 31

  The dark wood paneling in the courthouse was the perfect foil to dampen the enthusiasm. It provided a somber mood to contrast Tex Hunter’s exhilaration, a sedative for his eagerness.

  As he walked past the empty rows of wooden benches, which looked like they were borrowed from a church, he took three long deep breaths. His heart was pounding in his chest, his jaw was clamped shut, and his fist clenched the briefcase tightly.

  It was an hour before the case was due to begin, but the junior prosecutors were already at their table, eagerly awaiting the arrival of their lead, Michelle Law. The two young lawyers, who looked like they were fresh out of law school, smiled at Hunter as he placed his briefcase on the defense table.

  Amos Anderson followed him into the courtroom moments later, his eyes darting around the room as he tried to take it all in. This was the place where his fate would be decided. This was the room where his future was on the line. He looked up at the empty jurors’ box, separated from the rest of the courtroom by a long wooden barrier that sat hip height, and he wondered what it would be like to sit in those seats. What would it feel like to judge someone’s guilt? How much pressure would a person feel knowing that they had the power to take a man’s freedom away?