The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  They ran into the foothills, high stepping through waist-tall brown grass and scrub. T.J.’s ankles turned on the uneven ground and his chest burned, but panic spurred him on, following until Jake stopped in a grove of oak trees with bent and gnarled limbs. The moon shone through the gaps in the branches in strips of light. Jake fell back against a trunk, chest heaving, gasping for air. He looked at T.J. and started to laugh. “Damn, that was fun.”

  T.J. thought he must be crazy. “Fun? How was that fun?”

  Jake pushed away from the tree, threw out his arms, making a cross in the blue light, the rifle still in hand, and screamed. “Ahhhh!”

  T.J. felt his heart leap into his throat. “What is wrong with you? They’re going to hear you!”

  “Relax,” he said. “No one is coming.” He set the gun against the trunk and walked to where T.J. stood, relieving him of the beer and vodka. Up until that moment, T.J. had forgotten he still carried it. Jake tossed a can to T.J. and sat in the grass. He nearly dropped it.

  “I don’t want one.”

  Jake popped the top on a second can, beer foam spraying, and covered the opening with his mouth, drinking in gulps. He sat back wiping the foam dripping from his chin with the sleeve of his jacket. “Just drink it,” he said. “We earned it.”

  T.J. didn’t open the beer. “You shouldn’t have done it, Jake. You shouldn’t have broken in.”

  “He shouldn’t have taken my license.”

  T.J. paced. “We should go back.”

  “We’ll be gone before they figure it out. You heard your dad. We’re leaving at the crack of dawn.”

  “What about the police officer?”

  “That? That wasn’t a cop. It was a rent-a-cop, a security guard with a flashlight. They can’t do anything.”

  T.J. looked about. “I don’t know, Jake.”

  “Just drink it. One beer isn’t going to kill you.”

  “You broke into that store. You stole this stuff.”

  Jake reached into his pocket and produced his license. “But I got this back.” He took another drink. “Look, it’s not like I stole money.”

  “You stole a gun.”

  “He deserved it for taking my license.” He lay back in the grass. The crickets chirped and the insects buzzed. “Peace and quiet,” he said. “I sure do like camping.”

  “We should go back.”

  “Just drink your beer.” Jake got up and took the can, popping it open, and handing it back. He held out his own can until T.J. tapped it. “Thanks for not running off and leaving me. I owe you.”

  It was the first decent thing Jake had said to him all day. T.J. nodded and took a sip.

  Jake frowned. “Not like that. Drink it like a man.” He put his can to his mouth and tilted it up, throwing back his head, drinking until beer trickled down his chin onto his shirt. When he had finished he crushed the can in his hand and belched loud and long.

  T.J. raised the can to his mouth and Jake put his hand on the bottom, tilting it up as T.J. drank. “Chug! Chug! Chug!”

  Not able to keep up with the flow of beer, T.J. began to cough and sputter, choking. He pulled back, beer frothing down his chin.

  Jake laughed. “Damn, you really are a rookie. I am going to have to teach you some things on this trip.”

  He untwisted the top of the vodka bottle, took two gulps, and grimaced. “Wow, this is rotgut shit.” He handed the bottle to T.J.

  Not wanting to be called a pussy again, T.J. took a sip. The vodka felt like sandpaper sliding down his throat.

  “Drink the beer now. It will help.”

  T.J. did as instructed.

  “Now take another drink.” When T.J. hesitated Jake said, “Might as well. We can’t bring it back to the room with us.”

  T.J. drank vodka and chugged beer. Jake popped open two more beers and handed him one. They got to talking, Jake telling him how school sucked big time and how he’d had a girlfriend, but he dumped her because she was too needy. T.J. didn’t have a lot to say but he listened and tried not to say anything to make Jake call him a pussy again. Before T.J. knew it, he had crushed his third can. The vodka bottle was nearly empty.

  His legs felt unsteady and the trees kept shifting. “I’m dizzy,” he said.

  Jake laughed. “You’re buzzed, dude.”

  “I feel sick.”

  “No, man, you’re just buzzed.”

  “You’re blurry.”

  Jake stumbled, laughing so hard he fell into the grass. “Wasted, man. You are totally wasted. Isn’t this more fun than sitting in the damn room?”

  “Hell, yeah,” T.J. said, his outlook brightening.

  “You know what’s even more fun?” Jake held up the rifle and got to his feet. “Shooting targets.”

  “You’ve done it?”

  “Lots of times. My uncle Charlie takes me to the driving range.”

  T.J. laughed in a burst.

  “What?”

  “You said driving range.”

  “I did?” Jake laughed and patted him on the back. “You’re all right, you know. I thought you were a dork, but you’re all right.”

  “Thanks—”

  “For a pussy!” Jake shoved him in the back. “Come on.”

  He led them higher up into the foothills where the oak trees and scrub became more dense. He stopped in a small clearing. “Look at that!”

  “What is it?”

  They walked closer. It was the frame of an abandoned car, rusted and riddled with bullet holes. It had no tires or glass, the headlights like hollow eye sockets on a skull.

  “Target practice!” Jake said. He turned and paced, counting to ten. “Okay,” he said. “Me first. Then you. Then me.” He leveled the gun, put the stock against his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The kick caused the barrel to jump, the shot echoing like a canon blast.

  “Damn, I think I missed.” He handed T.J. the gun.

  T.J. mimicked Jake’s movements but when he pulled the trigger nothing happened.

  “You have to cock it, like in the movies. Cock the handle.” T.J. cocked the handle of the rifle and snapped it back. “Try it now,” Jake said.

  T.J. took aim, pulled the trigger. The gun kicked so hard it flew from his hands and landed in the grass, but a metallic ping rang out.

  “I hit it,” he said, turning to Jake. “Jake, I hit it.”

  But Jake was not looking at the car or at T.J. He was looking straight ahead, slowly raising his hands.

  FIVE

  MULE DEER LODGE

  TRULUCK, CALIFORNIA

  Sloane awoke to the sound of running water, Molia in the shower. Molia said he wanted to get an early start, and he wasn’t kidding. Judging by the light outside the curtained window, it was just after dawn. Sloane swung his legs over the side of the bed and gave his body a moment to wake. The cool air brought goose bumps to his bare skin but helped revive him. He hadn’t slept much, and in those brief periods when he had drifted off, sleep had been more fitful than sound. If he was having trouble waking, he could only imagine how difficult it would be getting Jake out of bed. He’d need a crane. T.J., on the other hand, was likely up, showered, and packed, anxious to get going.

  Sloane had checked on the boys after they returned from the general store, but whatever spark had lit Jake earlier in the evening had extinguished. He returned surly as ever, and T.J. also did not seem happy. When Sloane asked what candy they had bought Jake muttered, “The store was closed.”

  Sloane padded barefoot across the room and out onto the porch. The temperature was brisk. When he knocked on the door to room 7 it popped free from the jamb, confirming his suspicion that T.J. was up and eager to set out. “Jake? T.J.?” Even in the dark, with the shades pulled over the windows, he could see the two empty and unmade beds. He flipped the light switch. The two candle sconces above each bed flickered on. Two backpacks remained against the wall. He checked the bathroom and also found it empty. Exiting the room, he walked to the end of the covered porch and looked
down to the bank of the creek but did not see either boy.

  Reentering his room, Sloane found Tom Molia in his shorts, using a towel to dry his hair.

  “You get the boys up?”

  Sloane sat on the edge of the bed and worked socks over his feet. “They’re not in their room.”

  “Did they go out to the creek?”

  Sloane shook his head as he slipped on a hiking boot, tying the laces. “I looked.”

  “So maybe they went into town?” Molia did not sound confident.

  “No way Jake got up this early on his own.” He tied the laces. “Something’s wrong.”

  “What could have gone wrong?”

  Sloane tied his second shoe. “I don’t know, but I’m going into town.”

  Molia dropped the towel on the bed. “Hold on. I’m going with you.”

  Truluck looked like a town waking, most of the shops not yet open, the boardwalks clear except for a man sweeping outside the general store. Sloane saw no sign of either boy. When he looked back to the general store he noted a piece of cardboard over one of the panes in the door and realized the man was sweeping up bits of glass. Sloane crossed the street with a feeling of trepidation.

  “Excuse me.”

  The man stopped sweeping, looking down at them.

  “Sorry to bother you. Have you seen two teenage boys?” Sloane asked. “One’s about—”

  “Yeah, I seen ’em,” the man said, voice unfriendly. “Came in last night trying to buy beer and cigarettes.”

  “Beer and cigarettes?” Molia asked.

  “One of them had a fake ID from Washington State. I confiscated it and put it in the cash register. Last night I get a call in the middle of the night telling me the alarm here at the store went off, that someone broke in. I had a hunch who it was. When I looked in the cash register and saw that the license was gone I knew.”

  “Those are our boys,” Sloane said.

  “They might have been your boys last night,” the man said. “This morning I’m betting their butts belong to Judge Earl.”

  HARRY N. MORSE JAIL

  TRULUCK, CALIFORNIA

  A sharp pain woke him. When he opened his eyes, the pain spread across the top of his skull, which felt as though someone was using a saw to cut through the bone, about to crack it straight down the middle. Jake was looking at a brick wall with a tiny window, both foreign at first, but as the cobwebs cleared his recollection of the night returned. Sitting up, the jail cell spun and twisted, and he collapsed back onto the mattress, nauseated.

  “You going to throw up, you get yourself to that toilet because I ain’t cleaning it up.” The police officer spoke through the bars, remaining seated at a desk in a small cluttered room. “Wake your friend. The two of you have an appointment this morning.”

  T.J. lay sprawled across another cot in the same cell, his right arm hanging limp over the side, head back, mouth open, snoring. Jake pushed off his cot to his feet, the ground unsteady. He walked over and kicked the bottom of T.J.’s tennis shoe. T.J. startled, momentarily resisted, then bolted upright. The sudden movement caused the blood to rush from his face, leaving him pale as a sheet. He fell back, hit the edge of the cot, and rolled hard onto the floor. Had Jake not felt so awful himself he would have found it funny.

  “Got to wake up,” he said.

  T.J. lifted his head from the floor and considered their accommodations—a single metal sink and toilet, the two cots. Jake watched as the stark reality of where they were pushed past the fog of alcohol and T.J. started to cry.

  “Don’t cry,” Jake said, the pain in his head now pulsing. “You’ll get out of here. I might not, but you will. I’ll take the blame. I’m going to jail anyway.”

  “My dad’s going to kill me,” T.J. sobbed.

  “He’s not going to kill you. I’ll tell him it was my fault, that you tried to stop me, that I forced you.”

  T.J. sat up and took a deep breath, a heaving sigh before he managed to make it to the edge of the cot and sit. “I think I’m going to puke.”

  The officer rapped on the bars with a baton. It felt as though he’d rapped on Jake’s head. “You boys have a nice evening last night?”

  “I want to call my dad,” T.J. said, and the mention of a phone made Jake check his pockets for his cell phone. It was gone.

  “You had that chance last night. You declined.”

  “Can I call him now?”

  “Nope. You’re going to see Judge Earl now. He decides what you get to do. You got two minutes to make yourself presentable, and I’d suggest you do. Judge Earl does not like to be kept waiting, and we have a twenty-minute ride ahead of us.”

  WINCHESTER COUNTY COURTHOUSE

  WINCHESTER, CALIFORNIA

  Thirty minutes later Jake stepped from the backseat of the police car, feeling worse after the winding ride. The windows did not lower and the air inside the car had been stifling hot. Throughout the ride Jake suffered alternating hot flashes followed by cold sweats and a burning sensation scratched the back of his throat. Several times he had to resist the urge to vomit, pushing the bile taste back down. T.J. looked as bad as Jake felt, his face the color of ashes in a fire pit, with dark circles under his eyes.

  Handcuffed at the waist, Jake squinted up at the bright sun as the officer led them across the parking lot toward a three-story stone-and-brick building surrounded by a manicured yard that looked more like a mansion than a courthouse. The hedges were perfect rectangles, and despite the heat the grass was lush and green. Brilliant-colored flowers filled flower beds and overflowed baskets hanging from old-fashioned lampposts. At the top of the incline the courthouse rose atop a foundation of unfinished blocks of granite, orange brick with white, terra-cotta trim. Fixed atop the third story, like the top tier of a massive wedding cake, shone an impressive bell tower, the sun glinting off its metal dome. Pediments and pillars adorned a massive entrance at the top of a steep and wide staircase, but the officer led them toward a glass door entry at ground level. Jake noted a bronze plaque embedded in a corner foundation stone chiseled with the year 1898 but didn’t get the chance to read anything more than one word, BOYKIN.

  Inside, the officer unlocked an elevator and pressed the button for the third floor. Exiting, they walked down a sterile corridor past framed portraits of bearded men in black robes to another locked door. The officer ushered them inside a windowless room, instructed them to sit on benches, and removed their handcuffs and belly chains. Jake rubbed at his wrists. T.J. lowered his head in his hands, moaning and looking even worse.

  Jake leaned over. “Everything is going to be fine. Just—”

  The officer tapped Jake’s shoulder with a billy club as he passed to a door on the opposite side of the room. “Shut it.”

  When the officer opened the door a man’s voice filtered in. The officer pulled back his head and carefully closed the door. “When we go in you go straight to the table in front of the judge’s bench. You stay on the left side and you remain standing. Keep your mouths shut. You got it?”

  Jake and T.J. nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  The officer opened the door, waited a beat, and nodded for Jake and T.J. to enter. As they did, another boy walked past in the opposite direction. Maybe fourteen, the boy considered them with red, swollen eyes before he looked down, shaking his head.

  Walking to their designated spot at the long oak table, Jake took a moment to survey the courtroom hoping to see David and Tom Molia sitting behind them. It looked like something out of a western, nothing like Judge Glazier’s modern courtroom in Martinez. Wooden folding seats, like the kind in an old movie theater, faced a railing with decorative metal screens that separated the seats from the single, sturdy table. A man in a three-piece suit stood at the opposite end directing his comments to an enormous man in a black robe with a bald pate and full, soot-colored beard. At first Jake thought the judge was standing, but realized he was seated behind the elevated bench. The hand-carved name plate read HON.
EARL J. BOYKIN.

  Boykin ended the conversation and glanced at Jake and T.J. over the top of half-lens reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose before lowering his head, licking his finger and flipping pages, reading.

  T.J. wobbled, put a hand on the table to momentarily steady himself, then collapsed into one of the burgundy leather chairs. The officer started forward, but Jake grabbed T.J.’s elbow, speaking into his ear. “Get up,” he said.

  T.J. reluctantly rose.

  “Hold on to the edge of the table,” Jake whispered, keeping a hand on T.J.’s elbow. When he looked up, the judge was staring at him but resumed reading. For the next few minutes, the only sound in the courtroom was the ticking of a grandfather clock mounted on the wall. When he had finished the judge let the pages drop, removed his reading glasses, and sat back, rocking with his elbow propped on the chair arm, his index and middle finger extended to his temple. He considered Jake and T.J. for what seemed like forever, the squeaking chair blending with the sound of the ticking clock. A red velvet curtain hanging from a ceiling curtain rod framed the judge between two arched windows that admitted enough morning light to make the artificial gas lamps hanging from the ornate ceiling unnecessary.

  “It sounds like you boys had yourself quite a night last night,” he said.

  HIGHWAY 89

  WINCHESTER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

  Sloane sat in the passenger seat with one hand gripping the handle above the window as Tom Molia punched the accelerator and the tires squealed, fighting to grip the asphalt. Sloane shoved his feet into the floor mat each time Molia passed a car with seemingly too little space before the next blind hill or turn.

  The store owner didn’t have the full story, or didn’t want to give it, but the facts he did provide were more than enough for Sloane to fill in the blanks. Jake’s sudden change in attitude after dinner had been a ploy to use a fake driver’s license to buy beer and cigarettes. The man refused and confiscated the license. This apparently led to a confrontation, with the man forcibly removing Jake from the store. Sometime later that night, Jake broke into the store to retrieve his license and in the process he decided to take a six-pack of beer and a fifth of vodka. What Jake didn’t know was that apparently every store in Truluck had been wired with a silent alarm. What was less clear was T.J.’s role in the affair. According to the store owner T.J. had been intent to buy candy and had tried to convince Jake to leave, which meant T.J. had likely been an unwitting participant. Why the boy had gone back to the store with Jake, however, remained an unanswered question.