“Come on, Lara,” he said passionately, completely undaunted. “What’s the big deal? I want you. I want to show you that I can please you this time. I’ve been thinking about this all day, thinking of what I was going to do to you.” He stood and dropped his pants. “The kid’s asleep anyway.”
Lara’s mouth fell open and she hissed at him, “Stop that. Another time, I said. I have Josh now. I just buried my sister, for chrissake.”
Benjamin glared at her and then jerked his pants up and zipped them. “Can’t someone else take the fucking kid?” he said. “Why do you have to get stuck with him? Is he going to live with you permanently?”
He was a nice date, Lara thought, seeing him standing here like a spoiled and petulant child, but it seemed to stop there. Once you passed dinner and light conversation, he transformed right before your eyes into the epitome of an asshole.
And his comment about wanting to please her was nothing but an outright lie. There was only one person Benjamin England strived to please: himself.
“Go home, Benjamin,” she said, angry at herself for ever starting up with him again. She should have known better. She hadn’t purged the detective from her mind. Just the opposite. England’s inadequacies made Rickerson’s strengths seem even more pronounced.
“And yes, he’s going to stay here with me permanently. The kid has no one else and I care about him. For your information, I care about him a hell of a lot more than I care about you right now.”
“I see,” he said with a sneer. “I guess you don’t give a shit about my feelings…don’t care what I want?”
Now she didn’t even feel anger. This man might be a Rhodes scholar, but he was such a jerk that she could feel nothing for him at all. “Get out,” she said, narrowing her eyes and fixing him with a cold stare from her slate gray eyes, the kind of look she used when things got out of hand in the courtroom. “And don’t call me again. Go track down your murderous client Thomas Henderson. I hear he’s out on the streets again.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “And that was uncalled for, the remark about Henderson. Once a prosecutor, always a prosecutor, Lara darling. Have you forgotten? You’re supposed to be a judge.” He did a pivot turn on his expensive Italian shoes and stomped out of the condo, his footsteps echoing on the wood flooring, slamming the door behind him.
Lara jumped when the door slammed and then she fell back on the bed. She pulled the pillow to her chest and hugged it. Possibly she was looking too high up the social ladder, dating high achievers like England. Their egos were simply too inflated. They didn’t need her; they were in love with themselves. She’d always identified with people who were more down to earth. Her parents were good, basic people. Rickerson was…she had to stop it.
She recalled all the Friday nights she’d sat home alone through the years, all the New Year’s Eves that came and went. Years ago, she used to peek through the curtains and watch Ivory get into the car with Charley. Lara never had a date on Friday night, and Friday night was date night. Even when she did go out with a boy, he wanted to take her out on Monday or Tuesday, any night but Friday. Ivory was gorgeous. Ivory dated the handsome football player. Her big sister had all the confidence in the world in the classroom, and absolutely none when it came to socializing, particularly with the opposite sex.
Lara stopped herself. Ivory was dead and she was alive.
Josh came into the room in his pajama bottoms, rubbing his eyes. “What happened?” he said. “I heard the door slam.”
“Oh,” Lara said. “Don’t worry about it. It was Benjamin. He’s gone.”
Josh turned to go back to bed and then paused in the doorway a few moments with his back turned. “I wanted…” he said, and then stopped.
“Yes, Josh?”
“I just wanted to say that it means a lot to me that you got me out of that place—that foster home—and that you care, you know.” He turned his head around and looked at her over his shoulder with Ivory’s piercing blue eyes. A second later, he disappeared.
Rickerson called Lara at eight o’clock the following morning, just as she was rushing out the door to drive Josh to school. It was a long drive and she’d barely make it back in time for court. She told him she’d call him back later unless it was urgent, thinking she’d fill him in on the “game man” when they talked.
“I need you to help me,” he said quickly. “I need to find out where Evergreen’s son is, and it’s not in his personnel jacket. I managed to get my hands on it, but the son was still young then and in school. None of that information is valid now. It hasn’t been updated in years.”
“I don’t know anything about where he is now.” Then she recalled her conversation with Irene Murdock. “Look, let me go or I’ll be late. I’ll check it out and call you, but Ted…”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve got to drop this thing with Evergreen. He doesn’t limp and the whole thing is just a bunch of bullshit. I go along with you that it has to be someone at the courthouse, but it just isn’t Evergreen. It could be anyone, absolutely anyone.
“Shit,” she said, hanging up on Rickerson and rushing out the door, where Josh was waiting for her. “I’m going to be late for court.”
Then she let the tension go and walked slowly with him through the parking lot, enjoying the morning air, the sun. Let them wait, she said to herself, glancing at the young man next to her. There were priorities in life, she decided, and she’d finally captured one for herself that really mattered. A career was a career and a man was a man, but a person who really loved you as she knew Josh could, in time, and asked nothing but that you return their love was a real rarity.
Her heart swelled. She didn’t really need a man anymore. She had Josh. It was almost as if she had a son.
And Josh was dealing bravely with the tragedy that had been forced down his throat. He was trying to go on with his life.
He wasn’t alone in that quest. Lara was doing the same thing. Some nights she thought of Ivory and cried alone in her bed.
After she dropped Josh at school, she headed back to the government complex. She parked in the underground garage and quickly made her way into the building.
Picking up her messages and a cup of coffee from Phillip, Lara went into her chambers and closed the door. She wondered what Rickerson had uncovered regarding Phillip. Having him right outside her door was agonizing; she was having trouble concentrating on her work. It was already nine-fifteen and they were calling from the courtroom. “Tell them another fifteen and I’ll be there,” she said, immediately dialing Evergreen’s extension.
“Louise,” she said when his secretary answered, “this is Lara Sanderstone.”
“Yes,” the woman said with her scratchy voice. “He’s not in today. He took the day off.”
“Oh,” she replied slowly. “You know, Louise, I was going to see his son perform, but I misplaced the date and the address. Do you have that information?”
“Just a minute,” she said, putting Lara on hold.
A few seconds later, she returned. “I have the symphony calendar right here. He’s very good, you know. A very accomplished musician. The next performance is Friday evening at eight o’clock. Of course, you know where the concert hall is in Santa Barbara, don’t you?”
She didn’t but she would find out. She thanked the woman and hung up and called Rickerson. “He’s a flutist with the Santa Barbara Symphony. I don’t have his first name, but there’s a performance on for Friday evening at eight o’clock.”
“You got a date Friday?” Rickerson said.
“You want me to go with you?” she said. “What if Evergreen is there?”
“Hey, it’s a free world. We can buy tickets and go to a concert like anyone else. Maybe it’s time to make him sweat anyway. He could do something rash.”
“Right,” Lara said, her hand flying to her neck. Something rash could mean her career. “I don’t know if I like that.”
“Look, it’s doubtful that Evergreen travels
all the way to Santa Barbara for every performance. I want to try to talk to his son, and he might be more willing to talk if there’s a woman there. When he learns I’m a cop, he might clam up and we’ll be wasting our time.”
“Why do you want to talk to him? I thought you just wanted to confirm he was the person in the picture.”
“Tell you Friday,” he said. “I’m about to get the address to that apartment he rents. It’s a tough one. They’re going through all their cancelled checks to see what apartment they apply his money to every month. Evergreen must have leased it under another name, but has the balls to pay for it with his own checks. Guess he thinks he’s invincible. Never thought anyone would start looking under his bed. Kinda know what I mean?”
The whole time they were talking, Rickerson was smacking gum in her ear.
“God,” she said, “that gum is annoying.”
“Better than cigars,” he tossed out. “We got a date or not?”
“We’ve got a date,” she said. She started to hang up and then thought of something. “Didn’t he write the apartment number on his check? If he didn’t, how would they know how to apply the funds?”
“How the hell do I know? But he didn’t. You saw the checks. There was no apartment number on them. Maybe he encloses a note or something.”
“I guess that’s possible,” Lara said. “Did Evergreen’s account reflect any large withdrawals?”
“Nada,” Rickerson said, “but he might have a safety deposit box somewhere loaded with cash. Or he could have an out-of-state bank account.”
Lara lowered her voice to a whisper and kept her eyes glued on the door. “Did you find out what Phillip was doing with the money he borrowed? The name of his bank is Orange National. I just remembered.”
“Lara, I wasn’t going to tell you this until Friday, but it was Evergreen’s son in the photograph. We verified it yesterday.”
“No,” she said, shocked.
“I told you he was involved in this mess. I’ve been telling you all along.”
“No,” Lara said again. After taking a few moments to digest what she had heard, she continued, whispering, “Even if it was his son in the pictures, that doesn’t mean Evergreen is a killer—or even a pedophile, for that matter. Phillip could have been one of those young men in the photos like I’ve been saying all along. Maybe he and Evergreen’s son were both victimized by this unknown man in the pictures. You said the man would have a limp and Evergreen doesn’t limp. Also, Phillip used to work for Evergreen. That’s not such a wild assumption that he knew Evergreen’s son.”
Rickerson was silent. “Orange National Bank, right?”
“Right.” He hung up and Lara raced to the courtroom.
Chapter 20
During noon recess, Lara brought a sandwich and walked into the park across the street, sitting there and eating it alone, enjoying the sunshine. No matter what was going on right now, she decided, she was going to stop and smell the roses. Life was too damn short. Look what had happened to Ivory.
Before her sister’s death, Lara had worked through most of her lunch hours. But then she had worked through most of her life, coming down to the courthouse on weekends, staying late every single night, taking work home all the time. What did she think would come of it—that someone would give her a medal, pat her on the back? In San Francisco, members of the Judicial Counsel were probably right now deciding her fate. But these fears were not the ones haunting her, causing her to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Even the suspicions about Evergreen she could handle. There was only one thing that Lara could not accept, would never accept. She’d released a man who had murdered her own sister.
“This arrived today,” Phillip said, handing Lara a letter when she walked through the door.
“Shit,” Lara said, reading the text. It was a letter from the Judicial Counsel stating a review date in two weeks on the charges of impropriety. Her breath caught in her throat. She had prayed it would just go away. She had been wrong. “You read this?” she asked. She knew he had.
“Uh, yes…“m sorry,” he said. “But look, I’m sure everything will be fine. They might issue an official reprimand or something, but they’re not going to remove you from the bench. I mean, you didn’t do anything everyone else doesn’t do. I know. I’ve worked for a lot of judges, remember?”
Lara glanced at the clock. ‘There’s only one thing you don’t know, Phillip. The budget came out last month and it doesn’t look good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Next fiscal year, we’ll be minus one position. It calls for substantial cutbacks, even on the bench.”
“Really?” he said. “We’re already shorthanded. How can they do that?”
“Easy,” Lara said, staring down at the paper in her hands. “They can get rid of me. I’m the low man on the totem pole anyway. Now, with these charges, I don’t know if I stand a chance.” She walked past Phillip, reached for her robe on the hook, and then stopped. “And do me a favor please. Here’s my keys. Get my briefcase. It’s in the trunk of my car. I need it to take some files home tonight on this case.” They now had a full jury panel, and the Adams trial was well underway. Lara needed to review all the details.
“Gonna burn the midnight oil, huh?” Phillip said.
“You got it,” she said, heading out into the corridor. “If I want to keep my job, I better be damn good at it.”
“I object,” the district attorney said. “He’s leading the witness.”
“Sustained,” Lara said quickly.
The witness was the school psychologist who had first reported the sexual abuse of the Adams child. The district attorney tried a different approach.
“Mrs. Mendelson, can you tell the court the circumstances around your report that Amy Adams was being sexually abused by her father?” the D.A. asked.
“The child told me her father spanked her the night before. I asked her how he spanked her and she said, ‘With his hands.’ I went on to ask her where on her body he had spanked her, and she pointed to a place between her legs.”
“Her genitals? Is that correct?”
“Correct. I even showed her an anatomically correct doll we have just for situations like this, and she again indicated her genitals.”
“In your eyes, you fully believed this child had been sexually abused and was at risk for additional abuse? Is that correct?”
“Yes, it is.”
“No further questions,” the D.A. said, sitting back down at the counsel table.
Lara leaned over the bench to the woman, who was standing to leave. “You’re not excused yet. Please remain seated.” She turned to the defense attorney. “You may begin your cross.”
“Mrs. Mendelson, isn’t it true that you showed Amy Adams this doll prior to her telling you that her father had touched her genitals? Didn’t you actually hand her the doll and point to the doll’s genitals, saying, ‘Is that where your daddy touched you?’”
“No, I didn’t,” the woman replied flatly.
“Mrs. Mendelson, isn’t it true that you have reported over fifty cases of possible sexual abuse at your school, and of those fifty cases, only eight have been substantiated?”
“Yes, that’s true, but there were—”
Lara leaned over and peered at the witness. “Please confine your answers to the questions. Answer yes or no.”
“Yes,” she answered, her mouth compressed in a line.
“We have no further questions, Your Honor.”
Lara felt she could have rendered a ruling now, but this was not a court trial. They had a jury impaneled. It had gone faster than Lara had ever imagined, primarily because the defense had used up their peremptory challenges the first day and the people appeared satisfied with just about everyone. Even the D.A.‘s office appeared to be sympathetic to this man and his plight, and they were the ones charged with prosecuting him.
Other than instructing them and overseeing the attorneys, ruling on specifi
c points of law, Lara’s greatest impact on this case would occur at sentencing. Adams had committed the crime under great duress, but he had no means to deny it. There were, however, numerous mitigating circumstances. Lara knew the case would fall under the interest-of-justice section of the law, allowing her substantial leeway in imposing sentence. The system had fucked up and their fuck-up had destroyed many lives. The school psychologist had been overzealous and had led the small child in her statements. She was either lying or didn’t remember. This kind of mistake was not an easy one to admit.
“Will counsel please approach the bench?” Lara said while the witness stepped down.
When the two attorneys were standing there, she leaned forward and whispered, “I’m going to call recess now. I want to see both of you in my chambers.”
“Why?” the district attorney said. They were just getting started, had just this morning delivered their opening statements.
Lara glared at him until he turned and walked back to the table. “This court’s in recess for thirty minutes,” she said, tapping the gavel lightly and slipping from the bench. The jurors filed out of the courtroom and were escorted by the bailiff to the jury room.
The attorneys followed Lara into her chambers. “Gentlemen,” she said once they were all seated facing her desk, “I think this trial is a waste of the taxpayers’ money as well as Mr. Adams’s money. As he is presently unemployed, I don’t see the point of this.” She turned to the district attorney. “From what I’ve read and heard so far, this case should be disposed of by means of a negotiated deposition. Adams is going to be convicted and I’m going to suspend his sentence. This whole thing has been nothing short of a disgrace. We all have egg on our faces—the whole system that allowed this to happen.”
Parker Collins, the district attorney, was a hyperactive young man. He sprang from the chair in an uproar, his voice a high-pitched whine. “We already approached them with a plea agreement. We even offered a suspended sentence and they refused. Even the victim in this case just wants it to go away. Steinfield here wants a new Mercedes and doesn’t give a shit who pays for it.”
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