Long Lost - James Scott Bell Page 0,3

out loud that he knew it wasn’t his fault Robert had died in a terrible way.

But Stevie didn’t believe it. He knew better.

Stevie also knew that he was why his dad went away. He never saw his dad again.

When Stevie turned six he found out that his dad was dead. And learned a new word. Suicide.

He hated the sound of it. It was an evil sounding word.

A word he couldn’t get out of his head.

Part I

1

25 Years Later

“Mr. Conroy?”

Steve heard his name. Like someone calling from the front of a cavern with him deep inside. Inside, where his thoughts were pinging off the walls like a scared drunk’s haphazard gunshots.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“I said you may cross-examine.” Nasty voice. Judge O’Hara, ex-prosecutor, ex-cop, did not like screwups in his courtroom. Especially if they were ex-prosecutors now prowling the defense side of the aisle. O’Hara glared at Steve from the bench, his imperious eyebrows as authoritative as the Great Seal of the State of California on the wall behind him.

“Excuse me, Your Honor.” Steve Conroy stood up, feeling the heat from all the eyes in the courtroom.

The eyes of Judge O’Hara, of course.

Everyone on the jury.

His client.

And his client’s extended family, which seemed like the entire population of Guadalajara, all packed into Division 115 of the Van Nuys courthouse.

Officer Charles Siebel was on the stand. The one who’d claimed that Steve’s client, an ex-felon, was packing. An ex-felon with a gun could land in the slam for up to three years, depending on priors. Which his client had a boatload of. The one hope Carlos Mendez had of getting his sorry can back on the street, free of the law’s embrace, lay in Steve’s ability to knock the credibility out of a dedicated veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department.

And doing it with no sleep. Steve had fought the cold sweats all night. Which always made the morning after an adventure in mental gymnastics. His brain would fire off an unending stream of random and contradictory thoughts. He’d have to practically grunt to keep focus. The chemical consequence of recovery.

“Excuse me, Your Honor,” Steve said, grabbing for his yellow pages of notes. He trucked the pages to the podium and buttoned his suit coat. It fell open. He buttoned it again. It fell open again. A yellow sheet slipped from the podium. Steve grabbed it in mid-descent, like a Venus flytrap snatching its prey, and slapped it back on the podium in front of him.

He saw a couple of jurors smiling at the show.

Steve cleared his throat. “According to your report, Officer Siebel, you saw my client standing on the corner of Sepulveda and Vanowen, is that correct?”

“Yes.” Clipped and authoritative, like the prosecutors trained them to be.

“You were in your vehicle, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Driving which way?”

“North.”

“On what street?”

Officer Siebel and Judge O’Hara sighed at the same time.

Just like a comedy team. The whole courtroom was one big sitcom, Steve playing the incompetent sidekick.

“Sepulveda,” Siebel said.

“At what time?”

“Is this cross-examination or skeet shooting?” Judge O’Hara snapped.

Steve clenched his teeth. O’Hara liked to inject himself into the thick of things, showboating for the jury. For some reason, he’d been doing it to Steve throughout the trial.

“If I may, Your Honor, I’m laying a foundation,” Steve said.

“Sounds like you’re just letting the witness repeat direct testimony.”

Why thank you, Judge. I had no idea. How helpful you are! The DA didn’t even have to object!

“I’ll try it this way,” Steve said, turning back to the witness. “Officer Siebel, you were driving north on Sepulveda at 10:32 p.m., correct?”

“That’s what happened.”

“It’s in your report, isn’t it?”

“Of course.”

Steve went to counsel table and picked up a copy of the police report. As he did, Carlos Mendez, in his jailhouse blues, gave him the look, the one that said, I hope you know what you’re doing.

Ah yes, the confident client. When was the last time he’d had one of those?

Steve held up the report. “The lighting conditions are not mentioned in your report, are they?”

“I didn’t see any need, I was able to see—”

“I’d like an answer to the question I asked, sir.”

The deputy DA, Moira Hanson, stood. “Objection. The witness should be allowed to answer.”

Steve looked at the DDA, who was about his age, thirty. That’s where the correspondence ended. She was short and blond. He was an even six feet with hair as dark as the marks against him. She was new to the office. He hadn’t met her when he was prosecuting for the county