The thought of the boys made him think of Lisa Lynch and he decided to give his eyes a break and find out about the appeal.
Lynch answered on the third ring. “Your ears must have been burning. I was just about to call you. We got it filed late this afternoon, along with a motion that the hearing be expedited. We added an argument to have Jake and T.J. transferred to facilities closer to their homes as a fallback.”
Sloane heard a tone in Lynch’s voice he had not heard before, a lyrical flow to the words. “You sound almost optimistic?”
“I don’t want to get your hopes up, but we may have actually caught our first break.”
“Please, get my hopes up,” he said. “I could use getting my hopes up.”
“One of our newbies here, fresh out of McGeorge, did some of the research,” she said. Sloane knew McGeorge to be the law school at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. “Her law school roommate got a judicial clerkship with the Third Circuit in Sacramento. She’s going to see what she can do for us, try to get this a little extra attention.”
“Hey, I’ll take it,” Sloane said as a shadow danced across the pages on the table.
“Can’t hurt, right?”
“Can’t hurt,” he agreed. The shadows danced again. Distracted, Sloane turned to determine the source. He was about to turn back when the tip of a reddish orange flame snapped like the tail of a whip just outside the window.
Sloane dropped the phone and rushed over to see the outhouse engulfed in flames. Running, he pushed open the back door and started across the field, but as he approached a blast of heat caused him to retreat. Flames leapt into the sky, crackling and hissing and whipping in a demonic dance. Sloane could not get near the outhouse. He dashed back inside, pulled the sleeping bag off his bunk bed, and draped it over his head, trying again. Nearing the flames he saw a post propped up against the outhouse door, the other end wedged in the ground, but each time he took a step forward the flames forced him back.
Catching movement in the dark, Sloane turned to see Bennett and Harper rushing from the main house. Bennett carried two shovels and tossed one to Sloane, then commenced digging at the ground, uprooting the grass and tossing clods of dirt onto the fire. Sloane, too, dug in, the shovel blade grinding against the hard dirt and rocks, but when he tossed the first shovelful, the wind mocked him, catching the soil and blowing it back. He moved to the opposite side, digging and throwing at a frantic pace, advancing until close enough to kick the end of the post and knock it down. Too late. Flames had engulfed the entire structure, a virtual tinderbox. Bennett looked to have conceded the building, digging a semicircle to act as a firebreak to keep the flames from spreading.
Sloane grabbed his shoulder and shouted over the wind and roaring flames. “Molia’s in there!” He pointed at the outhouse. “He’s in there!”
Bennett’s eyes widened and he dropped his shovel and took off, running back to the main house. Sloane recommenced digging, shoveling one scoop after the next, digging, shoveling, digging. His shoulders and forearms strained, and sweat cascaded down his face.
He heard an engine and looked up to see two cones of light bouncing violently across the field. Bennett slowed at the fire and used the blade on the front of the truck to advance. When the blade hit the outhouse, the structure collapsed like a house of cards. Bennett backed the truck up and advanced again, this time getting the edge of the blade under pieces of the burning wood pile and pushing it away from the hole. With the structure collapsed and the flames reduced Sloane moved closer, still shoveling dirt. Bennett continued to lift and push pieces of the pile until Sloane reached the only part of the outhouse that remained, the smoldering elevated shitter atop the skids, its toilet seat melted and deformed.
Molia was not there.
UNMARKED DIRT ROAD
SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS
Jake felt a moment of relief when Atkins instructed Big Baby to get back to his dorm and the man-child lumbered off, like a bear disappearing into the woods. Jake had feared Big Baby was going to be joining them in the woods, free to bugger and torture them. But his relief was short-lived. Atkins loaded them onto the bus and applied the handcuffs, but then he walked back down the aisle a second time and systematically slipped black hoods over their heads.
Claustrophobic, Jake felt an initial rush of anxiety and thought he might suffocate, but the masks were thin enough to breathe through, if not to see through, and he found a rhythm to his breathing, sat back, and tried to relax. The darkness was disorienting, but Jake did his best to again keep track of the time, counting the minutes and listening intently to the way Bradley continued to grind the gears. They were climbing a grade. He’d counted thirty-two minutes when he leaned far to his left, assuming the bus was taking another switchback. Instead it came to a stop. If they’d been traveling an average of twenty-five miles an hour they had only traveled between ten and fifteen miles, but because the road had been so winding, it was likely less.
Moments after stopping Atkins plucked the masks from their heads. With the engine off, the only sound was the metallic clink of the key against the cuffs and Atkins ordered that they get off the bus, form a single line, keep their mouths shut, and await further instructions. The sun had faded farther behind the mountain tops. It wasn’t cold, but compared to the searing heat of the day, Jake got goose bumps on his arms. Bradley had parked the bus in what appeared to be a man-made turnabout at the end of a dirt road. Three large boulders, too perfectly spaced and bigger than any others nearby to have been left by nature, blocked a footpath that continued up the hill and disappeared into the shadows of the trees.
As De la Cruz unloaded the horses Atkins barked orders at them to remove the supplies from the back of the trailer. He produced military-style backpacks and gave them orders on how to load them, the coiled, black plastic hoses first; the bags of insecticide, poison, fertilizer, and string. He ordered T.J. to turn around and extend his arms and loaded the first pack on his back. T.J.’s knees bent under the weight. Atkins tied a shovel across the top, horizontal with T.J.’s shoulders. Finished, he shoved T.J. out of the way. T.J. stumbled and fell to his knee. Jake helped him up.
Atkins set up Bee Dee and Henry with similar packs, saving Jake for last. When he fit the pack on Jake’s shoulders, Jake estimated the weight to be fifty pounds. He didn’t know how long they were expected to hike, but he was beginning to feel no matter how far, he could handle it.
“You’re a strong boy, aren’t you, Stand-up? A regular hero.”
Jake felt Atkins open up his pack. He couldn’t see what the guard shoved inside, but he could feel it, and whatever it was, it made the pack significantly heavier.
“Time to hike,” Atkins said.
KNOCK-ME-STIFF RANCH
GOLD CREEK, CALIFORNIA
Bennett jumped down from the cab, grabbed his shovel from Harper, and rejoined Sloane. In the distance the wind carried the wail of sirens and Sloane lifted his head long enough to see red lights shimmering through the leaves of the darkened oak trees, advancing down the road. Harper left, rushing to unlock the gate.
Sloane and Bennett used the shovels to lift and toss the pile—a wall, portions of the roof, the door. With each red-hot piece Sloane expected to find some part of Molia’s blackened body beneath it, but when they moved the final, biggest section they saw nothing but blackened and smoldering ground.
Sloane looked at Bennett, the wind whipping his hair back off his face. “Where the hell is he?”
Bennett shook his head. “Maybe he got out.”
“The door was wedged shut.” Sloane yelled into the wind. “Tom? Tom!”
Bennett too began to yell, but the approaching sirens and the howling wind swallowed their words.
“Wait! Wait!” Sloane raised a hand, listening. He walked in a circle, hands cupped behind each ear. “Tom! Tom!”
He heard the sound again. Someone coughing, then a voice calling his name.
Bennett stopped beside the shitter a
nd pounded on the wood with his fist. “Tom! Tom!”
“Here!”
Bennett grabbed at the closed lid and just as quickly pulled back his hand, wincing in pain. Sloane picked up his shovel and shoved the blade under the melted plastic, prying it off. He and Bennett stepped up to look down in the darkened hole. Tom Molia stood at the bottom, four feet deep, bare chested, coughing spasmodically into his shirt, which he pressed tightly over his nose and mouth.
Inside the bunkhouse Molia sat at the table being treated by paramedics, a sleeping bag draping his shoulders. He continued to cough, but now it came in short bursts and not nearly as harsh as when Sloane and Bennett first pulled him from the hole. He had immediately fallen to his knees, back arching and body retching. Sloane feared the detective had seared his lungs, but one of the firefighters said the use of his shirt had likely saved Molia from a lifelong affliction.
Harper had taken Molia’s clothes to the house to be cleaned. In between coughs, Molia thanked her, and Sloane knew his friend would be okay when Molia added, “You can burn those.”
While the paramedics attended to Molia, Sloane and Bennett stepped outside to talk with Sheriff Matt Barnes, who arrived not long after the fire engines. They left the two lanterns inside and stood at the edge of the wedge of light that spilled out onto the darkened porch. The wind had finally died down, now a low howl, like the sound of distant, baying wolves.
“Could it have been an ember from an old burn pile, Dave?” Barnes asked. “With the wind whipping around—”
“He smelled gasoline,” Sloane interjected. “I smelled it, too. And I don’t care how hard the wind was blowing, Sheriff. You’re not going to convince me it was the wind that blew a post up against the door.”
Barnes’s face pinched and his eyes narrowed, giving Sloane a hard stare. “I don’t suppose you know why?”
“Oh I know why. You’re damn right I know why. Because we’re pushing buttons that some people don’t want pushed.”
“Judge Earl?”
“He’d be one. Victor Dillon. Probably Archibald Pike and a few others.”
“Pike? What’s he got to do with this?”
“I paid a visit to the courthouse this morning. I was just laying out some cheese to see which rat scurried from his hole. Pike came first.”
“What were you doing at the courthouse?”
“Did you know Sam Goode sued the county for cost overruns building out Fresh Start, and that the Estate of John Wainwright sued the county for gifting the land to Victor Dillon.”
“I think I recall reading about both those cases. What do they have to do with anything?” Barnes asked.
“Goode is also the contractor of record on a set of construction drawings to remodel the judge’s home.”
Barnes scoffed. “Remodel? Judge Earl wouldn’t change an inch of that house. It was built by his great-grandfather. It’s like a museum.”
“Then what did he do with the eight-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar loan he took out from Winchester First Street Bank?”
Barnes’s face pinched again.
“Here’s the thing, Sheriff. The judge also took out a one-point-five-million-dollar loan to buy the Sutter Building. That’s the exact amount he awarded to Goode in his suit against the county. And do you know whose security guards sit in the lobby of that building twenty-four-seven guarding it like it was Fort Knox?”
Barnes shook his head.
“Victor Dillon’s. Dillon also has some connection to a limited liability company called Trinity Investments that has half a billion dollars in assets in an offshore financial center in Aruba set up under a web of other limited liability companies, and I can tell you that whoever set it up knew what they were doing. Guess the mailing address for Trinity?”
“The Sutter Building?” Barnes said. Sloane didn’t comment further. “Pardon me for asking, Mr. Sloane, but what does any of this have to do with your two boys?”
“Fresh Start remains profitable if it remains full. Judge Earl keeps it full.”
“Wait a minute. What are you suggesting? Judge Earl is taking money to put kids away? What evidence do you have to support something like that?”
“What evidence? His sentences are completely out of whack with any other county in the state and he rushes kids through the system before they ever have the chance for an attorney or for their parents to protest. Why? Being a mean SOB is one thing. Being a mean and stupid SOB is another. Judge Earl doesn’t strike me as stupid, Sheriff.”
“No he isn’t. Some say he’s brilliant.”
“So then why would he do it? Why do something so blatantly wrong?”
“It doesn’t mean he’s taking bribes.”
“Maybe not, but it’s another thread to Victor Dillon, and when you have enough threads you have a web.”
Barnes ran a hand over his face and mouth. “Mind sharing where you’re getting all this information?”
“Not at the moment.”
Barnes simmered. “Then let me say that what you have, in my humble opinion, is just that, threads. Can you tie any of these threads together?”
“I’m working on it.” Sloane looked back inside the bunkhouse to where the detective remained seated. The paramedics had begun to put away their equipment. “But what happened tonight tells me we’re getting closer.”
“Closer to getting yourselves killed,” Barnes said. “And that’s my business, Mr. Sloane. This is my job. This is my county. I don’t want to believe something like what you’re suggesting could be, and I’m saying could be, going on under my nose, but that doesn’t mean I’m disinterested either. I would have appreciated a phone call giving me some notice. I might have been able to prevent what happened tonight, posted one of my deputies to keep an eye on the place. Next time you might not be so lucky.”
“We didn’t know what we had, Sheriff. We’ll keep you advised going forward.”
“Do.” Barnes shook Bennett’s hand. “I’ll keep a patrol car at the gate,” he said and walked off the porch into the dark.
ELDORADO NATIONAL FOREST
SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS
The initial grade was a wicked struggle. Jake’s thighs and calves burned. He heard the others huffing and puffing and the occasional sound of a shoe slipping in the loose rock. Bradley rode the horse at the front of the line with a lead line attached to the donkey, the animal laden with two big packs. Atkins brought up the rear, tall in the saddle, the butt of a rifle protruding from a scabbard.
Jake noticed T.J. faltering and offered encouragement. “Keep your head down,” he whispered. “Try to focus only on your next step. Don’t look up.”
After a half hour they crested the top of the mountain. The trees thinned. Scrub and boulders prevailed. Jake caught his wind as they started down the back side, but going downhill wasn’t any easier than climbing up. The weight of the pack felt like someone pushing him from behind and forced him to plant each step to keep from stumbling into T.J. His knees ached from the pounding. Atkins showed no sign of easing the pace.
Jake did his best to continue to keep track of the time and their direction, but night began to fall, and soon they were hiking in moonlight. The temperature dropped, cold enough that the animals’ breath marked the air. Jake, covered with sweat and hollow with hunger, felt chilled.
T.J. had the unfortunate luck of being directly behind the donkey, which was farting a horrific ammonia smell. After one blast, T.J. turned his head, stumbled on a partially hidden root, and went down. The line came to an abrupt stop.
“Get up,” Atkins said from his saddle.
T.J. didn’t respond. He just knelt there, head down.
“I said, get up.”
T.J. was crying. Jake reached down to help him.
“Leave him alone, Stand-up.”
Jake ignored Atkins and grabbed T.J.’s shoulder. “Come on, T.J., get up.”
Atkins climbed off his horse and shoved Jake out of the way, the weight of his backpack causing him to f
all back against the hillside. “I said leave him alone.” He stood over T.J. “I gave you an order. Get up.” He emphasized each word.
T.J. did not move.
For a moment Jake thought Atkins might pull T.J. to his feet, but that would have been too humane. Instead he walked to the horse and grabbed the rifle from the scabbard. Then he squatted on his haunches in front of T.J. “Look at me.”
T.J. did not.
“I said, look at me.” T.J. raised his head, their faces less than an inch apart. “You get up and get moving. You understand?”
“I can’t,” T.J. said, his voice soft, meek.
“You can and you will.”
“I hurt my ankle.” It sounded like the excuse that it was.
Atkins stood and stepped back. “Do you know what we do to a horse that goes lame?”
Jake’s heart hammered in his chest.
“We shoot it, in the head, and leave it for the other animals to rip open and pull its flesh from its bones.”
Jake took a step forward. “T.J., get up—”
Atkins whipped the rifle at him. “Stand-up, you shut your mouth or so help me God I’ll drop you where you stand.”
Jake took a step back. Bee Dee and Henry looked on, eyes wide with fear.
Atkins turned again to T.J. “We have no place to leave you. So I’m going to give you to the count of three to get up and get moving. I won’t reach four. You can’t walk; the other three are going to start digging a hole.”
Jake couldn’t swallow. Even in the dark he could see Henry had gone pale. Bee Dee was looking from T.J. to Atkins, as if about to do something.
“One.” Atkins cocked the rifle. T.J. did not move.
“Two.” Atkins shouldered the rifle and took a step closer, lowering the barrel inches from the top of T.J.’s head.
Jake felt his knees go weak. Get up. Get up, T.J., God damn you. Get up.
The forest became devoid of all sound. Blood pulsed inside his head, ringing in his ears. Whether or not Atkins paused a split second longer between two and three, Jake would never know, but the moment felt like an hour. He watched Atkins finger the trigger, noticed Bee Dee about to step forward.
The Conviction Page 24
