Sins of the Fathers

by James Scott Bell

  “I can’t really talk about it yet, Mr. Klinger.”

  “God told him to do it, is what he says?”

  That much was public information. Lindy nodded.

  “Ah, God maybe isn’t dead,” Klinger murmured, “but he’s out getting a second opinion.”

  “Do you believe in God, Mr. Klinger?” Suddenly, she wanted to know very much what he thought. Maybe because of his age. Maybe eighty-some years on the planet had filled him with burnished insight.

  Klinger turned thoughtful. A burst of laughter and applause came from the sitcom. He flicked it off with the remote.

  “My father was a rabbi, did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “He used to say God created the world in six days. On the seventh day, he rested. On the eighth day, he started getting complaints. And it hasn’t stopped since. I got complaints too, Lindy. There’s so much pain in this world.”

  He paused, looked at the floor.

  “But then I think, we laugh. A God who can make laughter, he can’t be all bad. So why don’t we laugh all the time? This is the question. You know the story of Job?”

  “A little. God took everything away from him.”

  “Ah, you got one little detail wrong. It was Satan who took everything. God just let him do it.”

  “Doesn’t that amount to the same thing?”

  “Only to a smarty-pants lawyer! I had a dream a long time ago. Satan was the producer of a TV show. That’s very close to the truth, by the way. And he wanted me to tell some jokes he wrote. But the jokes weren’t funny. I said to him, ‘You’re not a Jew. Only Jews are funny.’ He said, ‘I am the producer and you will say what I write.’ I told him, ‘No,’ and he fired me. And I never worked again.”

  “Not a very happy dream.”

  Klinger leaned toward her with a glint in his eye. “But there’s more. I went out to the street and started telling my own jokes. I got a million of ’em. And people started laughing. All over the street. And soon there was thousands of people, all laughing at my jokes. And Satan looks out the window of the fancy office building and tells us all to shut up. But I kept telling my jokes, and people kept laughing. And he screamed until he lost his voice.”

  He paused. “So I figure our job here is to make people laugh when we can. Make life easier for the guy next to you. That’s our job. And when we do that, Satan loses his voice.”

  Lindy got up and kissed Emil Klinger on the forehead. “I think God made you just right, Mr. Klinger.”

  He looked at her wide-eyed. “My blood pressure just went from almost dead to whoopee. ”

  Lindy picked up his pill dispenser, sitting on a small table, and opened it. “Don’t forget the blue one before bed. Good night.”

  She kept thinking about God as she spooned out Cardozo’s food and waited for Roxy to show up to discuss the case. Something was eating at her, like a little ferret gnawing at the wires in her brain.

  Maybe it had to do with the way Darren looked at her when he talked about God. Like he had some sort of special knowledge about things divine that she didn’t. Like he was some kind of thirteen-year-old prophet with a hidden message from on high.

  Of course that was absurd. How much can a thirteen-year-old know about anything?

  But then, how much did she know? She told him she believed in God, but what did that really mean? She did have a back-of-the-mind belief, a nonthreatening corner of her mind where she could park God, leave him there to fiddle on his own.

  Then there was Roxy, who was so into the God thing now. When she arrived, and the two of them settled down with Diet Dr Peppers, Lindy brought the subject up first.

  They sat in the front of the trailer, looking at the lights of the Valley. The hot and dry night air blew down from the Santa Susanna Mountains, reminding Angelinos to be thankful for water.

  “Did you go to church on Sunday?” Lindy asked.

  “Yeah, of course.” She seemed fascinated that Lindy would even ask. “You want to come with me again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you thinking about it?”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking about.” Lindy turned slightly on her lawn chair, facing Roxy directly. “What makes Christianity any better or worse than any other religion?”

  “Well, Jesus, for one thing. The main thing.”

  “You think he really happened? Like in the Mel Gibson movie?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “But the part about rising from the dead. That’s kind of hard to buy.”

  “But without that, there really isn’t any difference. I mean, otherwise Jesus is just a guy who died.”

  “Maybe just being good to people is what God cares about, you know?”

  “Jesus was God. Is God.”

  “That’s kind of outlandish.”

  “That’s what it says in the Bible.”

  “The Bible is just one book.”

  “It’s the revelation of God.”

  “What kind of revelation? People hear God all the time in different ways. It’s—”

  “What? What were you going to say?”

  Lindy paused. “Darren says God told him to shoot those kids.”

  “So?”

  “So there you go,” Lindy said. “Maybe sometimes God makes you crazy.”

  “You think I’m crazy?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said sometimes, in this case, maybe Darren.”

  “You’re going to use a God-made-him-crazy defense?”

  “What else have I got? He’s got to be crazy, or he’s going to be fish fried in prison. What do you suggest I do?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Hey—”

  “What are you putting me down for?”

  “I’m not, Rox—”

  “God is real to me.”

  Lindy put her hand on Roxy’s arm. “I’m a jerk. Sorry. I’ll go to church with you again.”

  “Really?”

  “Let’s talk about the case now, huh?”

  Roxy poured a long shot of Dr Pepper down her throat then picked up a pad and pencil. “What do you want me to do, chief?”

  “First, I want to get a written statement from Darren’s father. Colby is not going to call him as a witness. Wouldn’t do his case any good and could possibly hurt it.”

  “Hurt it how?”

  “Maybe the jury sympathizes with Drake, doesn’t want to punish him by sending Darren to prison for life. Or maybe the jury hates him, puts the blame on him, so it doesn’t want to punish Darren for having a loser for a dad. Either way, it’s a risk for Colby. Question is, do we call him?”

  “Why would we?”

  “Well, he could help us the same way he could hurt Colby. But he could also say things that would make the jury think he did what he could with Darren, but the kid was just uncontrollable. That’s the problem. Thing is, though, the jury is going to want to hear from him. They’ll think it’s pretty odd if he doesn’t take the stand, and when things get odd in court the jury usually holds it against the defendant. But I have no idea how his father’ll come off. I’m sure Colby’s looking for him. If he finds Drake, he could nail down a statement that’ll haunt us. Let’s see if we can get a statement first. You game?”

  “Game.” Roxy jotted a note.

  “Darren said his dad is religious, taught him about God. I want to follow up on that.”

  “Check. Should I do anything on the parents of the kids who got killed?”

  “No reason. Nothing they did or didn’t do has any bearing on the shooting. In fact, I’m going to try to keep them off the stand.”

  “How can you possibly do that?”

  “First of all, we’re going to stipulate to the fact of the shooting. We’re going to take that off the table as an issue. Cut the legs off Colby. Everybody knows Darren did it, everybody in the world who watched the evening news. So the only reason Colby would put parents on the stand is to generate sympathy
for the victims and increase the jury’s hate for Darren. Which makes the evidence prejudicial. I will make a 352 motion, argue that the prejudice outweighs the probative value, and if the judge denies me, take that issue up on appeal.”

  “Is Darren going to take the stand?”

  “No way. This is going to be an insanity defense. Has to be. That’s the only way to keep him out of prison. You know what’ll happen to him in there, don’t you?”

  Roxy nodded. There was no need for either of them to say more.

  “See what you can find about what went down in Vegas with Drake and his wife.”

  “On it.”

  “We’re going to need a good expert,” Lindy said. “Get on the horn and ask around. I don’t want any county guys. Let’s go private.”

  “Will the court pay for that?”

  “Probably not. I’ve got some money socked away.”

  Roxy shook her head. “Why would you do that, Lindy?”

  A sigh came out of Lindy’s deep place, the place where she dumped the pain of loss. All defense lawyers had such a place. “He’ll die in prison. If he’s not killed they’ll take his soul.”

  “Hey, Lindy,” Roxy said, “you said soul.

  ”

  2.

  “I can’t let you do this.” Brad was on his feet, facing Mona, his face twisted with fear and uncertainty and a bit of the lost little boy she had seen in the early days of their marriage. As a child, he didn’t have much of a home life. No doubt he thought he was losing another home now.

  Mona didn’t care. She couldn’t. There was only so much room in her for caring now, and it was filled up with death.

  “I’m not asking you to let me, Brad. Listen to me for once. This is the way it is.”

  “No.”

  He took a step toward her, a threatening step, unlike any movement she’d ever seen him make. Or was it just her imagination, her interpretive frame, which was all messed up now, twisted and grief-streaked?

  She took a step back.

  Brad’s face hardened before her eyes. Into what? Resolve? Anger? They were in uncharted waters, and Mona mentally thrashed about, trying to find something to keep her afloat.

  “Brad, stop it,” Mona said. “Stop trying to control me.”

  “What about you?” He took another step.

  She started breathing faster. “Brad, stop where you are.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t want you to touch me.”

  “I’m your husband. What kind of talk is this?”

  This time he took two steps and Mona stumbled backward into the kitchen. It was like falling into a cave. She thought she might lose her balance and hit the floor.

  She reached for the countertop with her left hand, found it, steadied herself.

  “You’re not well,” Brad said.

  “I am not crazy!”

  “I didn’t say that.” He put his hands out.

  “Just go away, Brad.”

  “I can’t let you stay like this.”

  “I don’t want to see you right now.”

  “You are my wife—”

  “Stop it.”

  She felt something in her hand and thought, Please stay where youare, Brad.

  Brad’s face had turned into a chiseled rock. The soft light she’d always seen in his eyes was gone, replaced by something that resembled desperation. And she had no idea what a desperate Brad would do.

  Lock her up? Send her to a hospital to get checked out, sedated, probed?

  No way could she go there, do that. Matthew needed her.

  When Brad made his move, hands coming to her shoulders, the thing in Mona’s hand—a hard thing—seemed to move on its own. Her hand was just along for the ride.

  The hard thing hit Brad square in the face.

  3.

  “Dr. O’Connor, my name is Lindy Field.”

  “Yes?” The doctor’s tone over the phone was hesitant. Par for the course with these psychological types. Lindy had gotten his name from an old prosecution witness list and tracked him to County-USC Medical Center.

  She readied her pen over the legal pad on her kitchen table. “I wonder if I might ask you a couple of questions about mental competence in a minor. I just have—”

  “Ms. Fields, I—”

  “Field.”

  “—can’t simply give out such information over the phone.”

  “I’m not asking you for expert testimony here, doctor. I merely want to get some guidance. I didn’t have anyone to turn to, and I’m sure that this could lead to your paid testimony.” A thought struck her. “You have not been contacted by the district attorney’s office in the matter of Darren DiCinni, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Then if you could just point me in the right direction? I’m sure you’ve read about the case.”

  “Yes. Terrible.”

  “I need to get into my client’s head. Of course, until you and I have an agreement I cannot reveal very much. But hypothetically we can talk about the possibilities.”

  “That is very difficult to do,Ms. Fields.”

  Lindy ignored the error this time. “Can you at least tell me about some of the danger signs and potentially troubling mental situations for young teenagers?”

  “That will take us into an entire field of study, you know.”

  “Sure.”

  “Without foundation as to the facts, it’s very hard to speculate.”

  “Let me ask you this: Is it possible for adolescent boys to be subject to powerful delusions, hearing voices and the like?”

  “Of course that’s possible. The delusions and the manner of false auditory suggestion are subject to the maturity level of the individual minor. That takes into account all of his background and so on.”

  “Of course. But for a kid of thirteen to do something like this, what’s the likelihood he isn’t legally incompetent or insane?”

  “Those are legal definitions—”

  “Just as a preliminary opinion, based on experience.”

  There was a long pause. “It’s not likely.”

  “What are the percentages—”

  “Ms. Fields, I’m afraid I need to get back to my rounds.”

  “Just a few more quick questions.”

  “Why don’t you schedule a consultation with me?”

  “To be honest, I have to be very careful about doling out the bucks on this one. Can we agree to meet just to see if it’s possible that you would be interested in taking on this case?”

  “I don’t think I’m going to be taking on any expert testimony for a while.”

  “Is there anyone you can recommend?”

  “To be quite honest, Ms. Fields, this is a very explosive case. I don’t feel comfortable making recommendations right off the top of my head. Tell you what, I’ll ask around, and if anyone bites I’ll give you a call.”

  “That would be—”

  He hung up without asking for her number.

  4.

  “Mr. DiCinni, you’ve been a bad little boy.”

  Leon Colby folded his arms and sat on the corner of his desk, giving himself the advantage over Drake DiCinni, who slumped in the spare, county-issue chair. It was the way he liked to talk to reluctant witnesses. Gave an immediate sense of who was in control.

  Only Darren’s father, sitting there like a caged squirrel, said with his body he wasn’t buying the power game. Which only made Colby all the more determined to see him squirm.

  “You can’t hold me here,” DiCinni said. Colby noticed that the cop who had escorted DiCinni to this interview wore a half smile as he leaned against the open door.

  “That’ll be it for now, Officer,” Colby said. “I’ll let you know when Mr. DiCinni is finished talking to me.”

  “That’d be now,” DiCinni said. But he didn’t get out of his chair.

  Leon Colby leaned forward. “Where have you been, sir?”

  “I don’t have to answer that. You’
re buying yourself a lawsuit here. The county—”

  “You’re not going to sue the county or anybody else,Mr. DiCinni.

  You want to sit in front of a jury, with your record, and try to convince them you’ve been wronged?”

  “My record isn’t so bad.”

  “Not so good, either.”

  “No felonies.”

  “I see you’ve been charged with felony assault.”

  “They dropped the charge.”

  “You’re Mr. Clean, I suppose.”

  “I don’t make trouble.”

  “You’ve got trouble right now, don’t you?”

  The squirrel shifted in his chair, swinging his knees around from one wall, where Colby had his calendar, to the other,where a framed picture of his mom and dad hung.

  “My kid? You think I had something to do with that?”

  “You want to tell me why he did it?”

  “How am I supposed to know? He’s a freaky kid, always has been. Probably got a drug bath in the womb from his good-for-nothing mother.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re very concerned about Darren.”

  “What do you want me to say? That I’m all broken up about it?

  You want to know what? I’m relieved. I couldn’t do anything with him. Maybe the state can get him the help he needs.”

  “You saying he’s crazy?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter. I’m interested in what a jury’s going to think. Maybe they’ll think Darren is a very bad kid.”

  “What do you want from me? To help you out? You want me to testify against my own kid?”

  Colby studied the squirrel’s pointy face. The nose and chin looked like they’d been put in some sharpener. “I just want to know the truth about what happened. I want to know about your relationship with Darren.”

  “What for?”

  “To satisfy my curiosity, let’s just say.”

  “Forget it.” DiCinni stood up.

  “Sit down, Mr. DiCinni.”

  “I don’t think I will. You want to arrest me, try. We’ll see what your boss has to say about that.”

  “Don’t go too far away from town, Mr. DiCinni.”