He sat around and shuffled papers and kept an eye on the clock. It was early. Still time to hit the hearing. He wanted to support Bolchoy, but he didn’t want to get snagged by more reporters; they always pissed him off. Still . . .
He headed out at eight-fifteen, fighting the snarl of traffic that took him east on the Sunset. He almost didn’t make it in time and then had to pay for parking three blocks away. It was hot and his shirt was sticking to him. He hurried up the steps, but sure enough, that piranha of a reporter, Pauline Kirby, was standing in his way.
“Mr. Denton,” she called loudly. “How do you think the hearing will go for your friend, er, ex-partner, Ray Bolchoy?”
“I’m hoping the judge sees there’s no reason to go to trial.”
“So, you don’t think the charges against Bolchoy are credible?”
“What I think doesn’t matter.” He tried to move past her, but she kept with him, step for step.
“But you believe in Bolchoy’s innocence.”
Innocent wasn’t a word he would choose for Ray Bolchoy. We all just want this in the rearview,” he said, then ducked inside.
He took a seat toward the rear and waited while everyone got set up. He saw the Carrera boys seated across the aisle from him. They both wore those supercilious smiles he detested, but he tamped down his frustration as he watched the defense and prosecution put up their evidence. It was difficult at first to tell which way the judge was going to rule until the prosecution couldn’t come up with the false confessions Bolchoy had allegedly turned in. Luke gazed in surprise at his old partner, who sat stoically beside his lawyer. He suspected Bolchoy had done exactly what he was accused of. He was a man out for justice, whether it was legal or not. But if there was no evidence then maybe . . . ?
It took the judge less than ten minutes to rule there wasn’t enough evidence for trial. Luke felt like shouting and would have, except for the pounding in his head. Instead he settled for a victory smile he made sure the Carrera brothers saw. They both sported stone visages with cold glares.
Luke left the courthouse and sneaked around the crowd to avoid the Kirby woman, though she spotted him and tried to chase him down. He ran through a McDonald’s drive-through on his way back to the office and picked up a coffee with cream. His headache was a dull throb, barely discernible. The joy over Bolchoy’s victory made everything else seem less of a problem.
Of course his old partner was still out of a job. Maybe the union would get him back in, but the captain had never liked him and the feeling was mutual. Bolchoy was nearing retirement, but he didn’t seem any too anxious to give up the work he loved. If he wanted his job back, Luke hoped he would get it, though he thought it was unlikely.
Luke wheeled into the parking lot at 11:19. His 11:30 appointment was with Helena Garcia, a skittish woman who felt her husband, Carlos, a Colombian native who had become a naturalized citizen, was planning to kidnap their young daughter and take her back to his home country. The fact that said husband was a pretty happy guy who’d started his own landscaping company after working years for another firm and, from what Luke had discovered, was gaining clients all the time, didn’t speak to her fears very well. Luke had tried to tell her as much, but she’d just gotten mad at him, and then, for a moment, when she’d snatched up his stapler and drawn her arm back as if it to hurl it at him, he’d wondered if maybe she was the unstable one and was projecting her own plans to possibly kidnap their child on Carlos.
She’d managed to put the stapler down, but it had taken her a while. Too long, in Luke’s biased opinion. He’d carefully tried to counsel her. “Your husband doesn’t seem to have any reason to leave the country. I talked to a couple of his clients. Called them up and asked what they thought of his work, and all I got back were glowing reports.”
“It’s all a fake!” Helena was a redhead with a temperament to match.
“I picked the clients at random. I could go down the list and call every name you gave me. Maybe there’s somebody who doesn’t like him, but . . .” He’d trailed off, leaving her to hopefully see the waste of time ahead of him.
But she hadn’t. “I have to take Emily away. It’s the only way to keep her safe.”
“Now, Helena, that’s a bad idea.”