Presumed Guilty, page 23
5.
“Dallas, I know where Jared is.”
Dallas pressed the phone to her ear, as if that action could take her to her son through some scifi transference. “Is he all right?”
“He’s in jail.”
“What?”
“They found him up in Bakersfield, pulled him over for some rinky-dink traffic thing. They ran a check on him and found out there’s a bench warrant for him for missing his court date. So they brought him here to the downtown jail.”
“Where Ron is?”
“Sort of a weird coincidence, isn’t it?”
Was it? Why would God have the two men in her life in the same jail at the same time? There had to be a reason, there had to be meaning, and she prayed that it would reveal itself.
“He’ll appear before a judge on Monday morning,” Jeff said. “I’ll go with him.”
Dallas looked at the clock in Cara’s kitchenette. Six thirty. Past visiting hours.
“At least we know where he is,” Dallas said. “Jeff, will he be safe in there?”
“It’s only ’til Monday morning. Then we can bail him out.”
6.
The eating area was segregated too, and staggered by time. Now it was the white inmates’ turn. Jared parked himself at a metal table on a metal stool at the far end of the mess hall.
The meal tonight was some sort of macaroni and cheese. Jared wasn’t sure it was even macaroni. The “cheese” was most likely made from some secret industrial powder also used for caulking ships.
He would be glad to get out of this place.
He hadn’t taken two bites when someone said, “You’re marked.”
The old guy from his cell had slipped in next to him.
“What’s that?” Jared said.
“Marked. Means you got something coming at you. And you don’t know when it’ll happen.”
Little hot needles pricked Jared’s skin. The guy was serious. Jared looked at him a moment, noticing as the guy chewed his food that one of his front teeth had a gold cap. “Can I get moved?”
“Not much time.”
“Well, tell somebody, tell a deputy — ”
“They don’t care. They hear this all the time. You gotta watch your own back, Fish. That’s it, that’s all, the way of the slam. You don’t look like you’ve done time before.”
Jared shook his head.
“It’s all over you, man.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I have a reason.”
Jared waited. “You want to tell me?”
“Sure.” The old guy took another bite.
“So?”
“They want you in hell,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Hell. The lake of fire.”
Great. A crazy man. He was in a cell with four skinheads and a loon.
“Thanks,” Jared said dismissively.
“Same as they want your old man.”
Jared flinched, looked at him. “What about my father?”
“I know who he is. I know who you are.”
Feeling exposed before a hundred prying eyes, Jared spoke low. “How do you know?”
The guy shrugged.
“Tell me.”
The man said nothing. He shoveled a piece of bread in his mouth.
No, Jared decided, this was all crazy stuff, and all he was doing was encouraging more of it by listening. It was always possible too, that the old guy just liked messing with people’s heads. Something to do to kill time.
“I don’t care what you know,” Jared said. “Just leave me alone.”
“They won’t leave you alone.”
“Who?”
“The minions.”
“What?”
“Of Satan. They’re real.” When he said this he set his jaw as if to underscore how serious he was. His gold tooth flashed like a warning light.
Certifiable nut. If he could survive another day he’d be clear of him, and the others. Hell. The old guy’d mentioned hell.
Perfect. Hell was just what Jared deserved.
You did it, boy. You got what you wanted. What was that illusion you had about Tiana and Jamaal? What were you thinking, man? This is the place for people like you, and no doubt whatever happens on the deuce you’re going to end up here again, or a place like it. What does it matter if some guy punches your ticket now?
He looked around at all the blue-clad inmates in one big sardine can. They called him Fish — jail lingo for First In, Special Handling — and that was what he was, so the sardine comparison worked. Only nobody was going to give him special handling again. Everybody was better off with him out of the picture. His mom, his dad, his sister, and certainly that woman with a kid who couldn’t catch a break. He wasn’t going to be anybody’s break.
The fear left him. His acceptance of death gave him a perverse hope that he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore and wouldn’t be the cause of anyone else’s suffering.
And then chow was over, and he’d only eaten a few bites. It didn’t matter. It was only an imitation of food here. He didn’t feel hunger at all as he was marched back to his cell along with the other sardines. Nobody spoke — no one was allowed to speak — but he heard whispers. The whispers were directed at him.
Didn’t matter anymore.
He got into his bunk and looked at the ceiling for a couple of hours, narrating moments of his life. They came on the big screen, like an ESPN video replay, complete with voice-over.
Jared Hamilton breaks his nose, ladies and gentlemen, when Freddy Van Horn throws him a baseball from the next driveway and he doesn’t catch it. He doesn’t put the mitt up there and ohhhh, that’s gotta hurt, folks!
He remembered the stunning blow and the blood pouring out of his nose and the look of shock on his mother’s face and the look of disappointment on his father’s face because he had a mitt and couldn’t catch a stupid baseball.
Yes, sir, and there he is trying to get Lisa Larson to like him, but she just laughs when he finally works up the courage to ask her out, and her boyfriend pushes him into the lockers, and that’s when he decides he’s going in the Marines someday so he can come back and deal with the boyfriend. You see that, ladies and gentlemen? You see that? Kind of sad, don’t you think?
He skipped over Iraq completely, knowing those memories would come back soon enough. Over them he had no control. He thought of Tiana and Jamaal.
And there he is, folks, trying to save a woman, trying to be somebody in a kid’s eyes, trying to make it seem like he’s got a purpose around here. Give him a hand!
At lights-out the noise started up — the inmates came alive at night, because out on the street they were night crawlers, and in here night was their time to scream obscenities.
But he wasn’t going to let the noise break him. He was going to sleep. And he did start to drift off, did start to fade away from voices and memories, when he felt something hard and sharp pressed against his jugular.
7.
They told me my son was in here!
Dear God in heaven, help him. I’m a K – 10 and can’t get to him, can’t look him in the eye and tell him how stupid I was, how wrong, how blind, how unloving, how sorry I am now.
Jared, I let you down. I let you fall, because I was all mixed-up with . . . no, because I let myself get all mixed-up and I missed what was important for you.
God, let me see him again before they take me away. Give him another chance. Illuminate his heart toward you!
Protect him. I didn’t. Protect him, Lord.
8.
“Don’t move,” Pal whispered.
He was standing over Jared, his back to the cell door.
“You move, you lose,” Pal said. He pushed his weapon — probably a sharpened piece of metal — harder against Jared’s throat.
Jared didn’t move. He sensed the other three moving around, forming a human screen to cloak what was happening in the cell.
Pal put his face in front of Jared’s. Pal’s eyes sparked with a glint of virulent menace. Crazy eyes.
“You ready to pledge now?” Pal said.
Jared was silent.
Pal jabbed Jared’s throat. It felt like it broke skin.
“Do you believe in Hitler?”
Jared said nothing.
“Answer me, Fish. And be careful what you say. Do you believe in the power and glory of Adolf? Do you, Fish?”
He glared at Pal.
“You better say something right now.” Pal’s weapon drew a trickle of blood.
“Do it,” Jared said.
“What?”
“Do it. Now. Coward.”
“You crazy . . .” Pal hesitated, but his eyes widened, the color of hate filling them. “I’m gonna like this.”
Jared closed his eyes. Waiting.
Then he heard the old guy’s voice. “Put down the shank.”
Time stopped. Jared opened his eyes and saw Pal’s face flash with momentary confusion. But only a flash. “Shut up, old man,”
Pal said, still looking at Jared. “Unless you want some of this.”
“In the name of Jesus Christ, and by his blood, I command you to turn around.”
The old man spoke firmly but quietly, as if he trusted the words more than the tone.
Pal bared his teeth at Jared. Then he turned toward the old man.
9.
Cara jolted awake in the blackness.
It was night and she was alone in her bedroom.
But she knew she’d been summoned, without doubt.
Jared was in trouble.
She got out of bed and looked out the window. She could see the faint glow of the streetlights below. Her brother needed help.
Cara threw on a robe and opened her door. She was surprised by soft light coming from the living room. She followed it.
Her mother was on her knees at the sofa.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
Dallas looked up. “I’m praying for your brother. He needs it.”
“I know. I got the same message.”
She took Cara’s hands. “We need to cover him then.”
Cara knelt by her mother’s side. “Yes. Let’s storm the throne together.”
10.
“Told you to shut up!”
Pal approached the old guy. Jared saw the three others in the cell stepping away toward the back wall. What was happening? Did the old guy have a weapon of his own?
No. Nothing in his hands as he got to his feet. “In the name of Jesus Christ, and by his blood, I bind you.”
Jared saw Pal’s body go rigid.
“If you unbind me,” Pal said, his voice lower now, “I will tear your eyes out.”
“In the name of Christ,” the old guy said, “what is your name?”
“Bel,” Pal said.
Sweat burst out across Jared’s palms. Bel? What kind of name is that?
“Will that statement stand for truth before the true and living God?” the old guy said.
“Yessss!” The voice from Pal answered, a voice unlike his own. It sounded like the answer was yanked out of him.
The other three inmates pressed themselves against the back wall as if pinned there. Freaked out, from the look of them. Just like Jared.
The old man leaned into Pal’s face, and Pal just stood there, his arms at his sides. The man said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, and by his blood, you have no authority here. Jesus Christ is your Lord and conqueror. Confess it.”
Jared could see Pal’s back muscles flex, the skin rippling. The shank dropped out of his hand and hit the floor. That was the most amazing thing so far.
“Jesus Christ is my Lord and conqueror,” the voice that was not Pal’s said through Pal’s mouth.
And then Pal screamed as loudly as any man Jared had ever heard. Jared practically jumped through the upper bunk.
The old man stood there, staring into Pal’s screaming mouth, unflinching.
A deputy was at the cell, holding a club. “Hey hey hey! What’s going on?” He pounded on the bars with his stick.
More screams rose from the cells along the module, screams of wild fury, like a chain reaction of otherworldly shrieks. What was happening? The evil that he’d felt earlier, the presence,he sensed now in the fullest force, in this place, focused.
“Get me out of here,” Jared said to the deputy, rolling off his bunk. He picked up the shank and held it out. “He tried to kill me.”
The deputy’s eyes widened at the sight of the weapon. He drew his own. “Nobody move,” he ordered, then called for backup.
Pal, or whatever was in Pal, looked straight at the old guy, who said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to go to Christ right now, to be dealt with as he sees fit.”
“No!” the Pal-thing screamed.
“Now!”
The deputy’s eyes were crazy wide as he shouted, “Shut up! Nobody move!”
The only one who moved then was Pal, as he fell to the floor of the cell.
FIFTEEN
1.
Monday morning, after another night of little sleep, Dallas appeared in court with Jeff Waite. This time there was no press crowd, because this morning it was Jared Hamilton’s appearance.
The judge was a woman, Maxine Novak. Grandmotherly, Dallas thought, if your grandmother packed heat.
“Mr. Hamilton, you missed your court appearance,” she said. “We don’t like that. We issue warrants when people do that, and we put them in jail. You don’t want to go to jail again, do you, Mr. Hamilton?”
“No, ma’am.”
“If it happens again, I’m going to have you put in jail and have you stay there, is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mr. Waite, does your client fully understand he can’t do this?”
Jeff said, “He is fully informed, Your Honor. But another appearance won’t be necessary.”
Judge Novak put on her glasses, which hung by a beaded string from around her neck. “You have filed a demurrer.”
“Yes.”
The judge looked over toward the young DDA, a woman who looked to Dallas like she had just graduated from high school.
“Ms. Heilburn,” Judge Novak said, “do you have a response?”
Young Heilburn cleared her throat. “We deny it.”
“Deny what?”
“The demurrer?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Telling you?”
Judge Novak took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. “Ms. Heil-burn, I understand that you’re new around here, but I can’t make the arguments for you. The defense says that the facts as stated in your accusatory pleading do not constitute a crime. Specifically, the police report taken at face value leaves out the element of driving. As this charge is driving under the influence, you have a little problem there, don’t you?”
The girl looked flummoxed.
“The engine was running, Your Honor,” the DDA said. “The defendant was the only occupant of the vehicle.”
“Not good enough,” Jeff Waite said. “Under Mercerand several other cases.”
Ms. Heilburn almost raised her hand. “I would like the arresting officer to testify.”
“And do what?” said the judge. “Contradict his own report? Ms. Heilburn, you know that your complaint must be able to stand on its own four corners. You’ve left out a corner.”
“Then I would like to move to amend the complaint.”
“You would like to?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Then make your motion.”
Ms. Heilburn looked around as if seeking a cue card. “The People move . . . to amend the complaint.”
“Motion denied,” Judge Novak said. “Anything else?”
“Your Honor,” she mumbled, “may I have a recess to confer with the head deputy?”
“No. Anything else?”
The young DDA was now rendered speechless.
The judge said, “There being none, I am going to sustain the demurrer and dismiss the complaint. Further, I find that the defect cannot be remedied, and so sustain without leave to amend.”
“Public intoxication!” Ms. Heilburn interjected.
“Too late.” The judge looked at Jared. “This action is dismissed, but I don’t want to see you in here again, young man. And I certainly don’t want to get even a whiff that you and booze are doing anything together in a motor vehicle, is that clear?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Jared said.
“Then you are hereby released,” Judge Novak said.
Out in the hallway, Jeff explained to Dallas the sudden turn of events. “We were just lucky to get this judge at this time. She loves to put baby DAs through the grinder.”
“Why?” Dallas asked.
“She used to be a prosecutor herself, in charge of training. She thinks the office has gone downhill in that regard since she left. Anyway, if a deputy isn’t doing the job, she trains them from the bench. She’s really pro-prosecution. She just sees herself as making them tougher. The next time Ms. Heilburn comes to court, you know she’s going to be ready.”
“Thanks again, Jeff.”
The lawyer put his hand on Jared’s shoulder. “No more beer in the car, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jared said. “Or any other time.”
Dallas wasn’t sure whether she was more surprised by the announcement or Jared’s apparent sincerity.
“Tomorrow morning,” Jeff said, “Ron changes his plea. Try to get some rest tonight.”
2.
In the car, Jared seemed about to erupt. He told Dallas to pull over.
“Now?” she asked. They were just about to pull onto the freeway.
“Now,” Jared said. “Please.”
She passed the on-ramp and drove down Grand to Cesar Chavez, where she pulled to the curb. “What is it?”
“Mom, I have to tell you something.”
“Yes?”
“Something that happened to me in jail. You’re not going to believe it.”
“At this point, I think I can believe just about anything.” She hoped it was good news this time.
“I was put in a cell with five other guys.”
“Five? In one cell?”
“Yeah, unbelievable huh? Five white guys, and four of them were supremacist types.”
