Джеймс Паттерсон: The Red Book

“And here I figured you for playing a long game.” The superintendent stands, straightens the uniform he never earned. “You really want to make an enemy of me?”

I wink at him. “I thought you already were.”

Chapter 113

“WELL, WE don’t have many days like this.” Judge Horatio Nunez puts down the papers in front of him, looks over at the defense table. “I suppose we could call this a terrible moment in the system of justice, or we could call it a great moment. Kind of depends on your perspective. Mr. Stonewald,” he says, removing his eyeglasses, “I hope you’re able to see it as a great moment. I hope you’re able, somehow, to put this ordeal behind you and move on with your life.”

Antoine, seated at the defense table, nods emphatically but doesn’t speak.

“And I would commend the Conviction Integrity Unit of the state’s attorney’s office for acting on this as swiftly as it did. There seems to be no doubt whatsoever that you were wrongly convicted, Mr. Stonewald. We don’t usually use the word innocent . We normally just say ‘guilty,’ or we say ‘not guilty’ if the burden of proof is not met. This is one of those rare instances, sir, where I think we can all safely say that you are completely innocent.”

The buzz in the courtroom is palpable. Antoine’s family, his fiancée, his mother and sister, his cousins and aunts and uncles, all sit behind him struggling to restrain themselves.

“The defendant’s conviction for first-degree murder is vacated. He shall be released from custody immediately.”

The gavel bangs, the judge rises with a smile, and bedlam ensues. His family rushes around Antoine as if he were a rock star, hugging and kissing him, rubbing his bald head, laughing and crying and shouting and clapping and dancing.

I’m in the back row with Carla and her boy, Samuel. Only ten years old, and even as the son of a cop, Samuel is awed by the courtroom itself, not to mention the magnitude of what he’s witnessing here. Carla wanted him to see this. Samuel himself is part African American—as is his father—and apparently strongly favors his father in appearance. He is viewed, at least generally by his peers, as black. Carla wanted him to see a black man get justice.

Through the crowd that all but lifts him on their shoulders, Antoine manages to catch my eye. We’ve talked plenty over the last two weeks, when I broke the news of Disco’s confession, then kept him updated as I approached the state’s attorney’s office about reviewing the conviction and righting a wrong.

I give him a salute. He mouths a thank-you to me.

Thank Valerie more than anyone.

We leave the courtroom.

“That was intense,” Samuel says.

I chuckle. “Intense” seems a little mature for a kid that age, but then again, I don’t have kids that age.

If Janey had lived, she’d be seven.

“When do you go back?” I ask Carla.

She checks her watch. Her face is no longer bandaged, but she has a scar running along her cheek toward her mouth. “Just call me…Joker!,” she’s been fond of saying, but it’s not as bad as all that.

She’s been in rehab since she left the hospital ten days ago. She had to testify this morning at Antoine’s hearing, so she got a leave for that purpose only. Now it’s back to “camp,” as she calls it, for another couple of months.

“I have time for lunch, if you do,” she says. “My mother-in-law’s meeting us downtown.”

“Can’t do it,” I say. “Headed back to work. Somebody’s gotta catch bad guys while you’re sipping cucumber water and doing yoga.”

She elbows me in the arm.

“But you,” I say to Samuel. “Tomorrow night, right? Sox versus Royals? Detwiler’s pitching, so it should be entertaining.”

He gives me a high five. “For sure.”

Outside the courthouse, we say our good-byes.

“See you in, what, nine or ten weeks?” she says, squinting into the sun.

“As long as you need,” I say. “Your desk will be waiting.”

She smirks. “One day, you’ll have to tell me how you persuaded the supe to green-light my return to SOS.”

“Turns out I had him all wrong. He’s a prince of a guy. Big fan of yours, too.”

“Yeah, okay.” She lights up.

She looks completely different when she smiles.

Chapter 114

“SORRY IF I seem depressed,” I say into the mike. “I just came from the Sox game.”

The crowd at the Hole in the Wall moans. The game’s always on the TVs mounted on the wall. Kansas City 8, good guys 0.

“You know how you can tell when the Sox are gonna lose? When the ump says, ‘Play ball!’

“I shoulda known when I went early to watch the Sox take batting practice. The pitching machine threw a no-hitter.

“I mean, the Royals put up four in the first inning and never looked back. I’ve seen more suspense at a funeral.

“The beer man was handing out cyanide tablets.

“The promotional handout was a blindfold.

“Instead of ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’ the organist was playing taps.”

The lines work with this crowd. Most of these coppers are Sox fans, and we love to insult the things we care about. And a few of these mopes actually like the Cubs, so they don’t mind, either.

“Anyway, it didn’t help that I was tired. I had a rough night’s sleep. I had this nightmare that I was trapped in a room with a lion, a rattlesnake, and a defense attorney, and I had only two bullets in my gun. But it had a happy ending.”

“You shot the lawyer twice!” Patti calls out from the crowd.

“Hey, c’mon, now! Sorry, folks, that’s my twin sister, Patti. Y’know, it’s not easy being a twin. They know your thoughts. They finish your sentences…”

And sometimes, they think you killed your own wife.

“Don’t steal my punch lines,” I say to her after, by the bar, when I get my free bourbon for the stand-up routine. She’s got her low-carb drink, vodka soda or something.

“Find some new material,” she says.

She looks better now. We got past our troubles.

As incomprehensible as it is for me to even fathom the idea, if I’m being fair, I can’t really blame Patti for thinking, or at least suspecting, that I killed Valerie. I was a mess when I walked into that bedroom. With the gun safe open, me in my broken state making vague statements to Patti about how I did this, I did this while holding the gun in my hand, and with Pop prodding her on afterward, Patti had plenty of reasons to think it.

And plenty of reasons not to ask me the question directly, because she was afraid of what I might say. Better, in her view, to protect me, to cover it up just in case there was something to cover up. It wasn’t going to make a difference, either way, from her perspective. Valerie was still gone. I was still her brother, for whom she’d do anything.

She’s lived the last four years putting good money on the fact that I killed my own wife. And stood by me, thick and thin, all the same.

How can I turn my back on her? This girl loves me more than I love myself. This girl is my family.

“Y’know, word about Carla is all over,” she tells me. “The pills, the rehab.”

I shrug. “Let ’em talk. It was bound to happen. She came clean on it. Didn’t want to hide anything anymore.”

“I guess it’s better not to hide, huh? Kind of a life lesson.”

I tap my glass against hers. “I’ll make you this promise,” I say. “If I ever think you murdered someone, you’ll be the first to know.”

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