At Close Range

“Is this that log?” Keith held a black, leather-bound book open to a page halfway through.

“Yes.”

“And what is the last name on the entry?”

Again Donahue leaned forward. “Kenny Hill.”

“Were you present when Mr. Hill signed this register?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because I offer it personally to every member to sign.”

“Doesn’t that take a long time?”

“Not really. I stand at the door and the brethren sign in before entering the sanctuary. I greet each and every member upon arrival. I make it a point to be accessible to everyone.”

Or did he make it a point to keep everyone firmly under his domination?

Donahue lifted one shoulder slightly. And Hannah shivered. “In Kenny’s case, I remember distinctly because he came late. He signed in alone. On a break.”

Another piece of evidence was admitted. A small envelope. The kind many churches distributed to their members for offerings. This one was signed and dated by Kenny Hill. And then a cancelled check, dated the same day with the same signature was produced.

It had a Monday, March 10th bank stamp on it. All the evidence was circumstantial. When Julie crossed, she’d be able to point out the possibilities of forgery, money dropped off before or after the church service. But if she left the shadow of a doubt in the mind of even one juror, Hill would go free. That was the risk she took when she slapped a capital charge on the case. It was the only charge that required the jury to be convinced beyond the shadow of doubt.

Any other charge would have carried only reasonable doubt stipulations.

The prosecutor knew that. She’d been confident. Hannah wasn’t as confident. And maybe Julie wasn’t either, now, judging by the look on her face. Hill was going to walk. He’d brutally murdered a young man who’d done nothing more than make love with a girl who loved him back. Cortes had spent the last six hours of his life being tortured in ways a human being shouldn’t even know about.

And Hill was going to walk free, out into the streets to act again.

“Mr. Donahue, did you see the defendant speaking with anyone that night?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

Donahue mentioned a couple of other names from the witness list Keith had submitted at the pretrial conference.

“I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

Julie Gilbert did her job well—the car accident notwithstanding. But then maybe she’d remember to confim the accident without a written reminder. She could bring the information up later if it helped her case. Or maybe she’d already heard this part of the testimony during her own interview with the witness. Maybe she’d already confirmed it.

And maybe Hannah needed to quit worrying and stick to doing her job. She was no longer a prosecutor.

No longer charged with bringing the bad guys down, but rather, with protecting the rights of everyone who entered her courtroom—victims and defendants alike.

Bobby Donahue didn’t leave the stand for another hour and a half. And not until after it was established that the church registry could have been forged. The check dropped off anytime that day. But Bobby Donahue was absolutely positive he wasn’t mistaken about Hill’s presence in church at the time of the murder. He assured the court that he could produce more than 200 other witnesses to the same.

Before the afternoon was over, Hannah could pretty much read her jury.

The defense had managed to establish a shadow of doubt. The state was going to lose.

Society was going to lose. And there wasn’t a damn thing Hannah could do about it.

Kenny Hill gave her a barely discernible smile. Hannah felt it clear to the bone. And shuddered.

Was her name already on a retribution list?

2

Brian missed the Sun News interview. In fact, he forgot all about it until he saw Hannah’s number flash on the screen of his cell phone at six o’clock that evening. As always when he was at work, the phone was on silent. Glancing at the blinking light on the corner of his desk, wishing he could answer the call and escape into friendships and gentler topics, he focused, instead, on the middle-aged couple across from him.

“As far as I can tell from this preliminary test, it’s in the early stages,” he told Felicia Summers’s parents, sliding a box of tissues toward the petite, slightly graying woman sitting there clasping her husband’s hand.

Lou Summers, a technician at a local helicopter manufacturer, didn’t make the kind of money that would support the care his toddler was going to need, but he had insurance benefits that would cover it just fine—unlike many of the guardians of Brian’s young patients.

“Is she going to die?” Lou asked.

It was the question he’d been dreading. A question no one was ever prepared for.

“Possibly,” he said, his gaze direct as he met first Lou’s and then Mary’s worried scrutiny. “But maybe not,” he added, speaking with a calm that hid the churning in his stomach. “We caught it early. If we can get her into remission, she has a good chance. So, next week I’m sending you to the best pediatric oncologist in the state, Jim Freeman. He’ll take excellent care of Felicia. She’s going to love him. And so will you….”

Contrary to his usual practice, Brian didn’t return any calls on the drive home. The world could wait until morning. So could the thoughts trying to worm their way into his consciousness. Losing himself in the noise blaring from his car stereo, the old Eagles hit “Take It Easy,” Brian sped along the freeway. The music reminded him of earlier days, easier times. He made it through the first song on the greatest hits CD without allowing his thoughts to take over. Soared through the next one, swerving his sleek, high-performance car in and out of traffic as though he was eighteen instead of thirty-eight. And then the speakers screamed, He was a hardheaded man…

Brian slowed down. He’d been there. Done that.

She was terminally pretty.

Terminal. There was that word again.

Back in college, he’d figured life in the fast lane meant having the money to travel to exotic places, to eat out several times a week, frequenting all the finest restaurants. Having season tickets to Broadway Across America at Gammage Auditorium and the Phoenix Symphony and being recognized in all of Phoenix’s and some of Vegas’s and L.A.’s most elite clubs.

He’d figured the fast lane was about money. And, like his father before him, he’d intended to have a lot of it.

Tonight, the fast lane meant a way to get home more quickly. It meant knowing that a little girl might have to cram a whole life into five or six years.

It meant living every moment because it might be your last.

It meant drinking to escape the sounds of shrieking metal, of Cara’s voice crying out. Of sirens. And his own wail of pain.

When “Lyin’ Eyes” came on he thought of all the women he’d known in the ten years since Cara’s death—experienced women like the one in the song escaping her rich old husband with hands as cold as ice to visit the cheatin’ side of town and the lover with fiery eyes. He hadn’t sought out married women, though he hadn’t paid that much attention to marital status, either. He’d gone strictly for mutual pleasure, mutual escape. No strings attached.

He used to imagine it was Cara’s body he was sinking into. Never once, since his beautiful wife had died in his arms at the side of the road, due to the recklessness of a teenage illegal immigrant, had he made love to a woman with only that woman on his mind. The woman, as soon as he undressed her, became nameless. A fact that didn’t endear him to anyone—particularly himself.

And as his surround-sound system crooned about coming to his senses, Brian grabbed his cell phone and dialed. There might not be a lifetime to get on with it.