The Conviction (6 page)

“You get the boys up?”

Sloane sat on the edge of the bed and worked socks over his feet. “They’re not in their room.”

“Did they go out to the creek?”

Sloane shook his head as he slipped on a hiking boot, tying the laces. “I looked.”

“So maybe they went into town?” Molia did not sound confident.

“No way Jake got up this early on his own.” He tied the laces. “Something’s wrong.”

“What could have gone wrong?”

Sloane tied his second shoe. “I don’t know, but I’m going into town.”

Molia dropped the towel on the bed. “Hold on. I’m going with you.”

Truluck looked like a town waking, most of the shops not yet open, the boardwalks clear except for a man sweeping outside the general store. Sloane saw no sign of either boy. When he looked back to the general store he noted a piece of cardboard over one of the panes in the door and realized the man was sweeping up bits of glass. Sloane crossed the street with a feeling of trepidation.

“Excuse me.”

The man stopped sweeping, looking down at them.

“Sorry to bother you. Have you seen two teenage boys?” Sloane asked. “One’s about—”

“Yeah, I seen ’em,” the man said, voice unfriendly. “Came in last night trying to buy beer and cigarettes.”

“Beer and cigarettes?” Molia asked.

“One of them had a fake ID from Washington State. I confiscated it and put it in the cash register. Last night I get a call in the middle of the night telling me the alarm here at the store went off,
that someone broke in. I had a hunch who it was. When I looked in the cash register and saw that the license was gone I knew.”

“Those are our boys,” Sloane said.

“They might have been your boys last night,” the man said. “This morning I’m betting their butts belong to Judge Earl.”

H
ARRY
N. M
ORSE
J
AIL
T
RULUCK
, C
ALIFORNIA

A sharp pain woke him. When he opened his eyes, the pain spread across the top of his skull, which felt as though someone was using a saw to cut through the bone, about to crack it straight down the middle. Jake was looking at a brick wall with a tiny window, both foreign at first, but as the cobwebs cleared his recollection of the night returned. Sitting up, the jail cell spun and twisted, and he collapsed back onto the mattress, nauseated.

“You going to throw up, you get yourself to that toilet because I ain’t cleaning it up.” The police officer spoke through the bars, remaining seated at a desk in a small cluttered room. “Wake your friend. The two of you have an appointment this morning.”

T.J. lay sprawled across another cot in the same cell, his right arm hanging limp over the side, head back, mouth open, snoring. Jake pushed off his cot to his feet, the ground unsteady. He walked over and kicked the bottom of T.J.’s tennis shoe. T.J. startled, momentarily resisted, then bolted upright. The sudden movement caused the blood to rush from his face, leaving him pale as a sheet. He fell back, hit the edge of the cot, and rolled hard onto the floor. Had Jake not felt so awful himself he would have found it funny.

“Got to wake up,” he said.

T.J. lifted his head from the floor and considered their accommodations—a single metal sink and toilet, the two cots. Jake watched as the stark reality of where they were pushed past the fog of alcohol and T.J. started to cry.

“Don’t cry,” Jake said, the pain in his head now pulsing. “You’ll get out of here. I might not, but you will. I’ll take the blame. I’m going to jail anyway.”

“My dad’s going to kill me,” T.J. sobbed.

“He’s not going to kill you. I’ll tell him it was my fault, that you tried to stop me, that I forced you.”

T.J. sat up and took a deep breath, a heaving sigh before he managed to make it to the edge of the cot and sit. “I think I’m going to puke.”

The officer rapped on the bars with a baton. It felt as though he’d rapped on Jake’s head. “You boys have a nice evening last night?”

“I want to call my dad,” T.J. said, and the mention of a phone made Jake check his pockets for his cell phone. It was gone.

“You had that chance last night. You declined.”

“Can I call him now?”

“Nope. You’re going to see Judge Earl now. He decides what you get to do. You got two minutes to make yourself presentable, and I’d suggest you do. Judge Earl does not like to be kept waiting, and we have a twenty-minute ride ahead of us.”

W
INCHESTER
C
OUNTY
C
OURTHOUSE
W
INCHESTER
, C
ALIFORNIA

Thirty minutes later Jake stepped from the backseat of the police car, feeling worse after the winding ride. The windows did not lower and the air inside the car had been stifling hot. Throughout the ride Jake suffered alternating hot flashes followed by cold sweats and a burning sensation scratched the back of his throat. Several times he had to resist the urge to vomit, pushing the bile taste back down. T.J. looked as bad as Jake felt, his face the color of ashes in a fire pit, with dark circles under his eyes.

Handcuffed at the waist, Jake squinted up at the bright sun as the officer led them across the parking lot toward a three-story stone-and-brick building surrounded by a manicured yard that looked more like a mansion than a courthouse. The hedges were perfect rectangles, and despite the heat the grass was lush and green. Brilliant-colored flowers filled flower beds and overflowed baskets hanging from old-fashioned lampposts. At the top of the incline the courthouse rose atop a foundation of unfinished blocks of granite,
orange brick with white, terra-cotta trim. Fixed atop the third story, like the top tier of a massive wedding cake, shone an impressive bell tower, the sun glinting off its metal dome. Pediments and pillars adorned a massive entrance at the top of a steep and wide staircase, but the officer led them toward a glass door entry at ground level. Jake noted a bronze plaque embedded in a corner foundation stone chiseled with the year 1898 but didn’t get the chance to read anything more than one word,
BOYKIN.

Inside, the officer unlocked an elevator and pressed the button for the third floor. Exiting, they walked down a sterile corridor past framed portraits of bearded men in black robes to another locked door. The officer ushered them inside a windowless room, instructed them to sit on benches, and removed their handcuffs and belly chains. Jake rubbed at his wrists. T.J. lowered his head in his hands, moaning and looking even worse.

Jake leaned over. “Everything is going to be fine. Just—”

The officer tapped Jake’s shoulder with a billy club as he passed to a door on the opposite side of the room. “Shut it.”

When the officer opened the door a man’s voice filtered in. The officer pulled back his head and carefully closed the door. “When we go in you go straight to the table in front of the judge’s bench. You stay on the left side and you remain standing. Keep your mouths shut. You got it?”

Jake and T.J. nodded.

“Let’s go.”

The officer opened the door, waited a beat, and nodded for Jake and T.J. to enter. As they did, another boy walked past in the opposite direction. Maybe fourteen, the boy considered them with red, swollen eyes before he looked down, shaking his head.

Walking to their designated spot at the long oak table, Jake took a moment to survey the courtroom hoping to see David and Tom Molia sitting behind them. It looked like something out of a western, nothing like Judge Glazier’s modern courtroom in Martinez. Wooden folding seats, like the kind in an old movie theater, faced a railing with decorative metal screens that separated the seats from the single, sturdy table. A man in a three-piece suit stood at
the opposite end directing his comments to an enormous man in a black robe with a bald pate and full, soot-colored beard. At first Jake thought the judge was standing, but realized he was seated behind the elevated bench. The hand-carved name plate read
HON. EARL J. BOYKIN.

Boykin ended the conversation and glanced at Jake and T.J. over the top of half-lens reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose before lowering his head, licking his finger and flipping pages, reading.

T.J. wobbled, put a hand on the table to momentarily steady himself, then collapsed into one of the burgundy leather chairs. The officer started forward, but Jake grabbed T.J.’s elbow, speaking into his ear. “Get up,” he said.

T.J. reluctantly rose.

“Hold on to the edge of the table,” Jake whispered, keeping a hand on T.J.’s elbow. When he looked up, the judge was staring at him but resumed reading. For the next few minutes, the only sound in the courtroom was the ticking of a grandfather clock mounted on the wall. When he had finished the judge let the pages drop, removed his reading glasses, and sat back, rocking with his elbow propped on the chair arm, his index and middle finger extended to his temple. He considered Jake and T.J. for what seemed like forever, the squeaking chair blending with the sound of the ticking clock. A red velvet curtain hanging from a ceiling curtain rod framed the judge between two arched windows that admitted enough morning light to make the artificial gas lamps hanging from the ornate ceiling unnecessary.

“It sounds like you boys had yourself quite a night last night,” he said.

H
IGHWAY
89
W
INCHESTER
C
OUNTY
, C
ALIFORNIA

Sloane sat in the passenger seat with one hand gripping the handle above the window as Tom Molia punched the accelerator and the tires squealed, fighting to grip the asphalt. Sloane shoved his feet
into the floor mat each time Molia passed a car with seemingly too little space before the next blind hill or turn.

The store owner didn’t have the full story, or didn’t want to give it, but the facts he did provide were more than enough for Sloane to fill in the blanks. Jake’s sudden change in attitude after dinner had been a ploy to use a fake driver’s license to buy beer and cigarettes. The man refused and confiscated the license. This apparently led to a confrontation, with the man forcibly removing Jake from the store. Sometime later that night, Jake broke into the store to retrieve his license and in the process he decided to take a six-pack of beer and a fifth of vodka. What Jake didn’t know was that apparently every store in Truluck had been wired with a silent alarm. What was less clear was T.J.’s role in the affair. According to the store owner T.J. had been intent to buy candy and had tried to convince Jake to leave, which meant T.J. had likely been an unwitting participant. Why the boy had gone back to the store with Jake, however, remained an unanswered question.

Molia approached the bumper of a minivan, veered left into the oncoming lane, but had to brake and return when a car crested a hill in the opposite direction. Though his stomach was in his throat, Sloane wasn’t about to tell Molia to slow down. He had a bad feeling, and for reasons that went beyond the obvious. Something about the tone of the store owner’s voice when he referred to “Judge Earl” had set off bells and whistles.

A short blast of a police siren drew both their attention. Sloane turned to see flashing lights atop a blue and gray Mustang.

“Damn! Where the hell was he hiding?”

“Didn’t see him,” Sloane said.

Molia drove onto a rare patch of dirt and gravel. “I’ll handle this.” He pulled out the card that identified him as a West Virginia police detective from his wallet and pushed open the door. The amplified voice greeted him instantly.

“Return to your vehicle. Now.”

Molia held up his identification. He had not brought his badge or his gun. He got one step farther.

“Sir, I repeat. Return to your vehicle now.”

Molia slid back in, swearing under his breath. “It’s always the young ones who want to act like the bull screw moose.”

When the officer did not immediately approach, Sloane looked back again. “What’s he waiting for?”

“He’s probably calling in the license plate to find out if there are any outstanding warrants. Some of these guys can’t think outside the box to save their ass.”

The digital clock on the dash changed to 8:10. Sloane looked back again and this time the driver’s door of the patrol car pushed open and the officer stepped out, pausing to fasten a Smokey the Bear hat on the crown of his head. He looked young, but then again it was difficult to tell with the hat and dark reflector sunglasses. He hitched up his utility belt as he made his way alongside the car, stopping a foot back from the lowered window.

“License and registration, please.”

Molia handed him his police identification. “I’m a West Virginia police detective.”

The officer considered it. “You’re a long way from home, Detective Molia.”

“Yes and no. I was born in Oakland. We’re up here to do a little backpacking but our sons got in some trouble last night. We’re headed over to Winchester to find out what’s going on.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Not sure, exactly,” Molia said.

“They the two boys who broke into the general store in Truluck?”

“Listen, I know I was driving fast—”

“Reckless is more like it,” the officer said. “You could have killed somebody, passing that close to a blind turn back there.”

“I apologize. I’m worried about my son is all. I’ll be more careful.” Molia reached for his identification, but the officer did not hand it back. “Can we go?” he asked.

“Go? Go where?”

“To get our sons.”

“I suppose so. Right after you hand me your license and registration.”

When the officer said nothing further Molia asked, “Are you kidding?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Molia started to push open the car door. The officer shoved it closed. “I told you to stay in your vehicle.”

Molia looked at Sloane before looking back to the window. “What type of treatment is this for a fellow law enforcement officer?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you on duty, Detective Molia?”

Molia didn’t answer.

“I don’t know how they do things in West Virginia, but here in Winchester County we have laws that
all
citizens are obligated to keep, and that includes driving on the right side of the road.”