Blind Justice

by James Scott Bell

  “Talked to him?”

  “Sort of . . .”

  The nightmares started coming a week after Mike’s death. Howie would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and breathless. Janet and Fred did everything they could to comfort Howie. They would leave a light on in the hallway at night. They even let him sleep for a time on a mat in their room. The nightmares would settle down for awhile, but then another would hit, just as frightening.

  Finally, when Howie was seven, his parents took him in for counseling. Howie was given the usual battery of tests, the standard therapies, even medication. Nothing brought relief.

  Once, when Howie was around thirteen, the family went on a camping trip. It was then, sitting by a lake with fishing poles in hand, that Howie first told Lindsay he thought the devil was after him. He said it matter-of-factly, but it scared the daylights out of Lindsay.

  Howie also told her that he had been trying to bring Mike back from the dead. That scared Lindsay even more. Howie said he would sometimes get up at night, stand in the middle of his room, and try to use a spell to bring up Mike’s ghost. He even tried wiggling his nose like that funny witch on the TV show.

  Howie made Lindsay swear not to ever tell anyone because the devil might come after her too, and he didn’t want that.

  The Patinos moved to California and settled in Agoura, where Fred had landed a great job. Lindsay knew her parents had made the move partly for Howie, hoping that moving as far away from the tragic scene as possible would wipe the slate clean.

  For a few years, it seemed to work. Howie’s nightmares became less frequent. He still had them, and on occasion he woke up screaming, but all in all it was better than before.

  Then one night he came into Lindsay’s room and woke her up.

  “Lindsay,” he whispered, “I talked to him.”

  “Who?”

  “Mike.”

  Rubbing her eyes, Lindsay sat up in bed as Howie told her the story. He’d been over at his friend Barry’s house. Barry’s mom had an old Ouija Board. Howie told Lindsay about this magical board. You could ask it questions, and it would answer them. It would spell out messages from the spirit world. It could contact the dead.

  Lindsay was frightened yet fascinated. Howie was almost crazy with joy. “I asked if I could talk to my brother Mike. The board said yes!”

  “How did it say yes?”

  “You and another guy put your fingers on this slider thing that moves.”

  “It moves?”

  “Yeah. The spirits move it.”

  “That’s freaky.”

  “But it told me I could talk to Mike. So I did. I told Mike I was sorry I let him drown.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then the board said okay.”

  Lindsay shook her head. She had, within the last four years, come to look upon Howie as a younger brother. “How do you know this board thing is real?”

  “I just do. I wasn’t trying to move the slider. Neither was Barry.”

  “How do you know?”

  “At first I thought Barry might be trying to fool me. I kept asking him if he was moving it, and he kept saying no. Finally, I thought of a trick. I asked the board a question that only Mike would know the answer to.”

  “What happened?”

  “It spelled something out.”

  “What?”

  “Lightning.”

  “Now that,” I said, “really would be freaky. But those things have been proven to be phony.”

  “Have they?” Lindsay asked, as if she already knew the answer.

  I shook my head. “They have to be,” I said, but I didn’t sound sure.

  “There’s more.”

  Barry’s mother, Sonia, was into spiritism. It was a little secret in that family. The people in the neighborhood considered her a little eccentric, but that was it. She managed to function without causing any commotion—until the crack-up. A few years after the incident with the Ouija Board, Sonia was picked up on the 101 Freeway, walking naked and drunk along the shoulder of the highway and screaming at people as they drove by. She was, Lindsay heard, placed in a hospital. She never saw her again.

  Before that, however, Sonia told Howie she could help him contact Mike.

  Lindsay never heard all the details of the encounter. All she knew was that Howie, without telling their parents, went with Barry and his mother to a room in an old hotel, where they met with several other people for a séance.

  For a week after that, Howie walked around the house like a ghost himself. His eyes were blank, like they were staring into a fog. Janet and Fred Patino thought he might be on drugs. They decided to take him to a doctor. That’s when Howie ran away from home.

  “He took off,” Lindsay explained, “hitchhiking. It took us a month to find him the first time. The second time he was gone for half a year.”

  “What was he doing all that time?”

  “We never knew for sure. But he was changed. It was like a permanent shroud was placed over him, and he was resigned to the fact that it would never be removed. I only saw a glimmer of hope out of him two times.”

  She paused, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply.

  Howie was working a construction site in Hinton when he first met Rae Richards. She was serving cocktails in a bar about twenty minutes north, a popular truck stop and biker hangout. When Howie told Lindsay about it, he was glowing like a kid at Christmas. He described Rae as “the woman of his dreams” and a very spiritual person. It was clear he saw her not just as a girlfriend, but as a means of deliverance.

  Lindsay and her parents were cautious, and then caution grew to concern when Howie hesitated about introducing her to the family. It was a hesitation that lasted for months. At one point Fred considered forcing his way into the situation, but Janet dissuaded him. Howie seemed happy and was working steadily. Maybe they shouldn’t rock the boat.

  The boat stayed steady all the way up to the point where Howie announced he and Rae were getting married.

  Everything after that was a blur of activity, with Howie rushing headlong into marriage. The family did finally meet Rae, and she had a certain plucky charm about her. But something rubbed Lindsay the wrong way from the start.

  “I just didn’t trust her,” Lindsay explained. “And she knew I didn’t trust her. It was the way she looked at me. It was the first time in my Christian life when I felt a sense of evil.”

  “You just felt it?”

  “Sensed it. But I couldn’t put my finger on anything. I knew if I tried to stop the whole thing, Howie would be crushed. I guess I just decided to close my eyes and hope for the best. Big mistake.”

  I nodded as she looked at the floor. “You said there was another time Howie seemed happy.”

  “Yes, when Brian was born.”

  It was almost a year to the day after the wedding when Brian Patino—nine pounds, twelve ounces—was born. It was the biggest day of Howie’s life, even bigger than when he got married. Here was another person—a living, breathing human being—that Howie had helped bring into the world. It proved once and for all that Howie was not a loser, that he could do something fine and lasting. He told Lindsay it was also a way to make up for Mike. A life for a life.

  It wasn’t long before Howie’s joy reverted to the deep-seated sorrow that had been his before. He wouldn’t talk much about it, not even to Lindsay, but it was clear that the marriage wasn’t a happy one. Rae was the one calling the shots in the marriage, and she was the one making the decisions about Brian and just what would be done with him. Howie talked to Lindsay about it but never pressed his complaining for fear of Rae’s wrath.

  At one point Lindsay asked if Howie wanted another child. He said something curious in response: “That’s not possible.” Lindsay never got an explanation for that.

  “That’s pretty much how things remained,” Lindsay said, “until Rae’s death.”

  I pondered this for a moment, then said, “I never knew Howie had all
this going on inside.”

  Lindsay nodded.

  “But doesn’t it explain the devil part?” I asked. “I mean, all that guilt and suffering. Wouldn’t that result in his imagination coming up with all this?”

  “I don’t believe that,” Lindsay said. “People can open doors to demonic influence. It can be something as little as trying to cast a witch’s spell in your bedroom, or it can be a big door, like trying to communicate with the dead.”

  “Doors? What’s that all about?”

  “I’m saying there are things that people can do to open themselves up for oppression.”

  My head had developed a righteous ache. I wasn’t buying any of this. It was too strange. Lindsay believed it and was calm and rational about it. But that wasn’t enough.

  “I want to have Howie examined,” I said.

  “By whom?”

  “A doctor. A psychotherapist.”

  “He’s been through that before.”

  “I know. But I want to focus in on the night of Rae’s murder. I want to see if we can get into Howie’s head, bring back the past, and get a grip on what really happened. Is that all right with you?”

  She looked at me steadily. “You’re the one defending him. If you think it will be helpful, then do it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But what will you think if it turns out to be true?”

  “If what turns out to be true?”

  “If Howie really did see the devil? What are you going to do then?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHAT WOULD I do, indeed?

  If Howie saw “the devil,” it was either a delusion or real. I didn’t believe it was real. That left delusion, and that meant Howie’s mental state at the time of the killing was an issue. While the old diminished capacity defense is no longer available in California, an expert may give testimony about a defendant’s background and perceptions and his mental condition at the time the offense was committed.

  I had just the expert in mind to do it.

  On Tuesday, the day after Howie’s prelim and my devilish discussions with my client and his sister, I phoned Dr. Hendrick Brown’s office, which also happened to be his condominium near downtown Los Angeles. He wasn’t in, so I left a message for him to call me.

  Then I called Mandy.

  I got Rick.

  “Mandy’s at camp,” he said.

  “What camp?”

  “A day camp.”

  “That narrows it down nicely. Thank you very much.” I was being a complete jerk, but it seemed by now to be my habitual response to Rick Wilson. He was not a bad guy at all, I knew that, but he was married to my ex-wife. My typical American male pride sat on one of my shoulders, whispering in my ear to make Rick as uncomfortable as possible.

  “I can have Barb give you a call when she gets in,” Rick said.

  “I would just like to know where my daughter is. I would like to be included in the planning stages from time to time.”

  “Barb felt, I think, that you pretty much leave those decisions to her.” He had an understanding tone in his voice that irritated me more. I didn’t want my ex-wife’s new husband to be right about the situation. He was, though. I palmed off to Barb a lot of the day-to-day stuff concerning Mandy. And I knew why. I had enough troubles getting through each day myself without having to micromanage my daughter.

  That didn’t stop me from fanning the flames of my irritation. “So now you’re an expert in what Barb thinks? And you’ve been married to her what, a year?”

  “I’ll have Barb call you.”

  “Don’t you know what camp Mandy’s at?”

  “It’s a nice camp, a church camp.”

  “Church camp? What’s that all about?”

  “Our church sponsors it.”

  An image of Mandy walking blank-eyed down a city street with free magazines in her hand suddenly popped into my head. “What church is that?”

  “Church of the Hill out in Chatsworth.”

  “What kind of a church is it?”

  “Just a regular church.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “If you’re unsure about it, come visit.”

  “No thanks. Tell Barb to call me.”

  I hung up. It took me a few minutes to calm down and realize what a boor I’d been. Then I stopped myself. I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, that I was wrong.

  Anytime I thought about being wrong, I pictured my father. He was not the type to ever admit being wrong. He had an iron will and a steel pride. Not once in all the time I knew him did I ever hear him apologize—for anything.

  Once, we were watching a movie on TV, a John Wayne flick called She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. At one point in the movie, John Wayne rebukes a soldier, saying, “Don’t apologize. It’s a sign of weakness.”

  I remember Dad mumbling, “Right on.”

  Even after those times he beat me up, he never apologized. I once overheard him arguing with Mom about it. She said something about his being unfair to me, and he said that didn’t matter. It was going to toughen me up, and I needed toughening because I was a “mama’s boy.”

  But I would gladly have taken more of the physical punishment if once, just once, Dad had told me I’d done a good job on something. Anything.

  He never did.

  I was thirteen when he died. He hung on to life for a week in the hospital before his heart stopped for good. I only saw him there once. He was gaunt and weak. I was sure—and I’m sure he was too—that this would be the last time we spoke to each other.

  As I look back on it now, even though I was uncomfortable around him, I was waiting for the grand gesture. A hug. A plea for forgiveness. Some parting words of affirmation.

  Instead, I got mostly silence.

  Just before I left, he said “Don’t mess things up for your mother.”

  Those were the last words he ever said to me. Four days later he was dead.

  The night after the funeral I decided to sneak out of the house and get rip-snorting drunk. And I decided to do it with the only friend I had at the time.

  Howie Patino.

  He was more than willing, as was the wino who hung out near the liquor store and bought us the bottle with the money I gave him, along with an additional buck for his trouble.

  Even though I was sick the next day, I remember that night as one of the happiest of my life.

  It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and with each sip of wine I became lighter and lighter, like I could fly from Orlando to Los Angeles and back again with barely a flap of my arms.

  Howie and I began making plans for our futures. For once I was able to think about it without wondering how Dad was going to put me down.

  Howie said he wanted to be a jet fighter pilot. He wanted to go to war against the Commies and blast them out of the sky.

  I said I wanted to become the biggest millionaire in the world. I was going to have my own fleet of yachts and go to all the great spots in the world where millionaires go. I was going to drink champagne all the time and own my own football team, and then people would know that Nick Denney’s kid had so far outdone his old man that nobody could remember the dead guy anymore.

  As I said more and more, Howie sat there slapping his legs and saying, “Yeah, man! Yeah, man!”

  Well, I didn’t make my millions. I became a lawyer scouring for clients just so I could afford a place to live and drink. I wondered if the old man could see me and wondered what he would think. Sometimes the only thing that would make those thoughts go away was a drink.

  I spent an hour in my office making disjointed notes on Howie’s case, then got a return call from Dr. Hendrick Brown.

  “You were an expert on a case I tried,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Attempted murder, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right. The guy who shot his wife and said he couldn’t remember it.”

  “As I recall, she was somebody who deserved to be s
hot. Kind of a big lady with a mouth to go with it.”

  “Doc, that kind of opinion is inadmissible in a court of law.”

  “I’m talkin’ about my world now, which is the court of reality. Anyway, Jake, what can I do for you?”

  “I’d like you to examine a client of mine.”

  “You name the time and place. I’ll name the fee.”

  We haggled about the fee part, but I set up a tentative date for him to see Howie.

  At one o’clock Triple C came to my office. We had the names of two people we were going to interview in Hinton. I was going to take the old lady who lived across the street from the Patino house. Trip would see the bartender at the place where Rae had most recently worked. Maybe one thing would lead to another. I was hoping that all this would lead to something, anything, because at this point we didn’t have a lot.

  And we were just about to find out we had even less than we thought.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DAPHNE BARTH’S EYES were filled with suspicion as she peeked at me past the chain lock on her door.

  “My name is Jake Denney, Miss Barth.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m investigating the murder.”

  “I already talked to you.”

  “I’m not from the police, Miss Barth. I’m the lawyer representing the defendant.”

  Her face came close to that hideous countenance I feared. “I am not going to talk to you!”

  “Now, Miss Barth—”

  “You leave decent people alone!”

  There were two ways to handle this. The first way, the hard way, was to threaten her with a subpoena and the prospect of being dragged into court—dragged would be the actual word to use—and grilled on the witness stand. I’d probably get her scared enough to talk for awhile, but how much good information I’d get would be another story.

  I chose the other way. “You’re right, Miss Barth. Absolutely right.”

  She looked puzzled. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re right about decent people needing protection from our system. There’s only one way to do that, and that’s to make sure the truth comes out.”