The Wages of Sin (23 page)

 

Chapter Forty-­Three

A brisk wind
blew through the open windows of Judge Callaway's courtroom. Elsie was grateful for the breeze; it cooled the packed courtroom more effectively than the worn central air system in the courthouse would have. In the crisp days of October, the judge's fresh air prejudice made sense.

Because the courtroom faced west, the heavy traffic and chants of the death penalty protesters couldn't be heard. Elsie focused on Madeleine as she addressed the jury with her closing argument. Madeleine's posture was rigid, her voice quaking as she summarized the State's case for execution.

“The State of Missouri has given you great power, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The power to see justice done.”

Madeleine coughed into her closed fist, then went on. “A terrible crime occurred in this county. An act so vicious, so horrific, that it qualifies for the death penalty. Our criminal code in Missouri provides that if a murder is committed with depravity of mind, then the defendant can be put to death.”

She paused, studying her typewritten outline. With an apologetic air, she said, “I know you heard some bad things about the victim, Jessie Dent. Things about the life she led. About using substances during pregnancy. About contracting AIDS. The things you learned about in court may have hardened your hearts to her.”

“But ladies and gentlemen, no one deserves to die the way she did. No one in McCown County. No one on earth.”

Play your card
,
Elsie thought; and as if Madeleine could read her mind, she did. “And what about the baby? What about the death he suffered? What about the way the defendant took his life before he ever drew breath?”

Then the screaming began. Screeching and piercing shrieks came through the open courtroom windows. The shrill cries were so deafening that it seemed they came from inside the room.

Madeleine dropped her notes. Sinking to her knees, she picked up the outline and pivoted as she stood upright, turning to the judge with a desperate expression.

The screaming went on; it seemed interminable. Then a babble of voices chimed in from outside the window, combining with high-­pitched shrieks that could only come from a baby.

Judge Callaway turned to his bailiff. “Shut the windows,” he said.

Emil sped to close the windows, tugging at the wooden frames to secure them. It muffled the noise but didn't silence it.

“Better shut the storms first,” Judge Callaway said.

With an effort, Emil pushed the window sash back up, fumbled with the latches on the storm windows as the shrieks echoed in the courtroom. When he pulled down the window sash a second time, he turned to the judge for affirmation.

It was quieter. The judge nodded, and Emil sat back down.

Visibly shaken, Madeleine quickly wrapped up her argument, asking for justice for the baby, the blameless infant, without further mention of the child's mother. When she sat down, Elsie could see her knees tremble.

Claire O'Hara stood and advanced on the jury. She had a single note card in her hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the prosecutor talks about justice. She's playing a game with you: a word game. What she seeks is vengeance.”

She raised her hands, exhibiting her palms to the jurors, her fingers spread. The late afternoon sun caught on her ring and made it sparkle in the light.

“We've been straight with you, haven't we? A crime was committed. A woman died, a woman who was carrying a child. Who bears responsibility for that? My client. In part, my client does.”

“But when we're talking execution, lethal injection, death penalty—­let's look at the bigger picture. Who else played a part in Jessie Dent's untimely end, in her violent demise? I maintain that the Barton Police Department should claim part of the credit. Because they could have prevented it, don't you see? Not once; not twice; eight times, ladies and gentlemen, the local police turned their heads.”

The wail of a distant siren could be heard from outside. Claire continued.

“And irony of ironies,” Claire said, and paused to shake her head with a hollow laugh. “Who else failed the deceased, Jessie Dent? Who could have come to her defense, stepped in and saved her from her fate? Why, none other than the McCown County Prosecutor's right-­hand man, Mr. Chuck Harris. And what did he do? What did Chief Assistant Prosecutor Chuck Harris do when he was directly confronted with my client's abuse of pregnant Jessie Dent? He ran. Ran like he had a yellow stripe down his back.”

“Objection!” Parsons said, rising from his chair.

The sirens were louder; it was difficult to hear Judge Callaway speak as he said, “Overruled. This is argument.”

To overcome the wailing noise coming into the courtroom from the street below, Claire O'Hara turned up the volume of her voice.

“It was your duty to return a verdict in this case, and you did; you have spoken; you found the defendant guilty. But you don't have to execute him. Because you know, ladies and gentlemen—­you know that Larry Paul is not the only one at fault here.”

Her voice carried over the sirens as she said, “But if you believe that he should die for what he has done—­if you want him to suffer—­you want vengeance, folks? Then, hear this: let him die of AIDS. If you truly believe that vengeance is what he deserves, let him die the horrible death that currently awaits him. The two shots in the arm that the State of Missouri will administer will be a cakewalk, compared to the death he's facing. If you really want vengeance on Larry Paul, then killing is too good for him. Give him life without parole—­and let God take care of the death penalty.”

Claire picked up her note card. She hadn't looked at it, Elsie marveled, not once during argument. And she walked to the counsel table with a resolute step.

The sirens still wailed. Madeleine took to the podium. As she launched into her final five minutes of rebuttal argument, Elsie could see the jurors nearest the window craning their necks to view the activity was causing all the commotion. More police cars must have clustered on the street below; the sirens wailed in chorus.

Madeleine struggled to raise her voice above the babble, but it was impossible. At the prosecution counsel table, Elsie could only make out snatches of Madeleine's rebuttal. Looking at the jury, Elsie supposed it didn't really matter that the argument was drowned out.

No one was listening, anyway.

 

Chapter Forty-­Four

Ashlock was marking
time in the courthouse rotunda when the uproar began. Footfalls rang on the marble floor as a man ran in from the street and tried to bypass security. “Help!” he cried, as a deputy seized him. “A woman has been attacked! You have to get an ambulance. She's on the sidewalk. The baby is bleeding.”

Though Ashlock was two floors up, he could clearly see the scene at the security entrance through the open rotunda. He bounded down the stairs. Without stopping to consult the man who still struggled with security, Ashlock bolted outside, where the death penalty protesters had dropped their placards and knelt beside a woman who lay on the pavement, shrieking.

It was Holly Hickman, clutching her wailing infant. As Ashlock ran toward them on the sidewalk, he scoured the crowd for Ivy, but couldn't find her in the crowd of ­people clustered around the mother and baby.

He shouldered through the ­people who were ogling the scene. Squatting on his haunches, he said, “Mrs. Hickman, you know me; I'm Detective Ashlock. What happened?”

She turned frantic eyes to him, but didn't answer. Her screaming continued, in chorus with the cries of her son.

Ashlock looked up at the middle-­aged hippies who loomed over him. “Who saw what happened?”

A man with a ball cap that depicted a “No” symbol over a hypodermic needle shook his head. “We were over in front of the courthouse, by the courthouse steps. We were marching. Well, kind of marching. And we heard the screams. So we came to help.”

“But you didn't see the assault?”

“Not me.”

His eyes scanned the crowd, but the faces exhibited concern, rather than insight. However, one woman loitering on the outskirts seemed skittish. She wasn't a protester; she was a local, a woman employed at the bail bondsman's office nearby.

He focused on her. “Starla? Starla McDonald. What did you see?”

She shook her head and pointed at her ear. “Sorry. Can't hear you, Detective.” The cries coming from Holly and the baby were deafening.

He rose and stepped over to her, pulling her aside. “Starla, you work for the bail bonds office, right?”

She nodded.

“Right across the street there?” He pointed. The window in the storefront bore
AAA Bail Bonds
in bold black letters. “Did you see something through the window?”

“No. I was taking a break. Over by the Dumpster.” Her eyes shifted. “The boss wouldn't like it if he knew. I'm not supposed to step away from the phone.”

“What did you see?”

“Old white car, kind of idling on the street. And a guy knocked that lady down. Don't know who. It happened real fast.”

She pinched her lips together, then looked Ashlock in the eye. “Seemed like there was a kid. I saw a yellow dress. He pulled her in the car. I think. But I don't know the kid; maybe she belongs with the white car.”

Ashlock pulled his phone from his pocket. Turning away from the noise, he punched in the numbers.

When he got an answer, he said. “Issue an Amber Alert. We've got a kidnapped child. Ivy Dent, six years old.” He paused, nodding in response to the voice on the other line. “Yeah. Her foster mother and brother are here on the west side of the courthouse. We need an ambulance. And we need to find the Dent girl. Get every patrolman in the city force and anyone Sheriff Choate can spare from the county.”

Another moment's silence, before he answered in a hushed tone. “Because I think whoever has her means to kill her.”

He ended the call and turned back to Starla. “Describe the vehicle.”

“Officer, I hate to get in the middle of this. My boss is going to be furious at me for leaving the office empty.”

His jaw twitched. “There's a child missing, and if we want to find her alive, we're going to need you to give any facts you can recall. Tell me about the car.”

“Old white Buick, you know. Pretty much a rust bucket.” She hesitated.

“Did you see the license plate?”

“Not sure it had plates. Oh, Lord.” She was breathing hard. Sirens could be heard down the street, drowning out Holly Hickman. “I hate to get involved in this. 'Cause I can't swear to it; I'm not, like, one hundred percent positive.”

“What? Tell me.”

She exhaled deeply. “Officer, seems like it could've been Nell Stout's car. We've bonded her boy out before; I've seen them at the office. But I couldn't swear to it on a Bible or nothing.”

The first car that pulled up was Deputy Franks, in a black and white McCown County squad car. Before Franks pulled to the curb and brought the car to a complete stop, Ashlock pulled the passenger door open and jumped inside.

 

Chapter Forty-­Five

Ivy's foot was
trapped under Bruce Stout's butt, twisted at a painful angle. She kicked at him with her free leg. “Get off of me.”

Nell spared a glance over her shoulder as she barreled down the city street. “Pin that child down and shut her up.”

Bruce tried to grab the skinny leg that thrashed about his face and neck. “Damn. Settle down, or I'll punch your lights out.”

She reared her leg back, bending it at the knee, and kicked him hard in the belly. Bruce made a soft
oof
sound, leaning forward to grab his gut, and easing off her twisted foot. She jerked her foot away from his weight and cradled it, rubbing the sore ankle.

“Damn it to hell, Bruce—­quit fighting that little shit and look behind you. Is anyone tailing us?”

Bruce jerked around in the seat and looked through the dirty back windshield. “Don't think so. Can't rightly tell.”

“Well? Yes or no?”

“No. Don't think so.”

Ivy wedged herself tightly into the corner of the backseat, as far away from Bruce as she could get. She cut her eyes to the door, thinking she would slip her hand over and pop up the door lock; but it was missing, broken clean off.

Her heart rattled in her chest like a wild creature was trapped inside her rib cage. Bruce's neck was still craned to see out the back. She focused on Nell Stout, steering the car in the front seat; and saw that Nell's gray eyes were watching her in the rearview mirror.

Ivy knew that she shouldn't act afraid. If you let a mean dog know you were scared, it would lunge at you.

“I'm not supposed to be with you. You better let me out of here. My foster mother's gonna tell the police about you.”

Nell let out a dry laugh, like the yip of an old cur. “I bet you tell the police all kind of things. You do way too much talking to the police. That's your problem.”

Ivy's voice came out in a whine; she couldn't help it. “I didn't say nothing. I seen her in court and I kept my mouth shut. I said, I don't know nothing.”

“Maybe today.” Nell had turned onto side roads; the pavement was bumpy. It jolted Ivy in the backseat. “But you've been shooting off your mouth ever since your mama died. You ought to know better.”

“Shoulda known better,” Bruce echoed.

Nell settled back in her seat, stretching her arms against the steering wheel and locking her elbows. “Girl, you have become a liability.”

Bruce leaned his face close to Ivy's. “A liability.”

His breath was rank, smelling of stale beer and tobacco and rot. It had been a while since Ivy had a whiff of such a stink. Her foster parents were long on tooth-­brushing.

She lifted her head and peered out the window. They had passed the outskirts of town, and were turning onto a farm road. Nell was driving with one hand, fumbling with a pack of cigarettes. When she got one into her mouth, she lit it with a black Bic lighter.

Some dogs couldn't be bluffed, but Ivy gave it one last try.

“Let me out here at the side of the road. Just drop me. I won't say nothing to nobody.”

Nell didn't answer. She took a long drag on the cigarette and blew out the smoke.

Ivy dropped her head to her chest. She had no hope that her foster mother was in pursuit of Nell. She'd never had any confidence in Holly's ability to protect her; Ivy had learned from the cradle that no one could be counted on to keep trouble or danger away.

Bruce was grinning at her like a half-­wit. He nudged Ivy's bare shoulder with a hamlike fist. “Better say your prayers.”

If Ivy could have spared the energy to scoff at Bruce Stout's religious advice, she'd have done it. For all the sucking up she'd done to that preacher at Riverside Baptist, telling him what he wanted to hear and doing his bidding, he couldn't help her now. And she wasn't about to waste her time praying. God wouldn't help her, not against an adversary like Old Nell Stout. Not against Smokey. They were in cahoots with the devil himself.

Her eyes narrowed. Nothing had changed, not really, with her mother's death. Every day was a battle; destruction was always a possibility. The only person she could count on was herself.

When you couldn't fight off the enemy, you should play possum. It worked in the woods sometimes; she'd seen it with her own eyes. Ivy closed her eyes. Bonelessly, she slid down in the seat.