Free The Ancient Rain by Domenic Stansberry Page B

Owens’s wife, by contrast, they regarded with compassion—she with her copper-colored hair and her demure skirt, carefully chosen, and the two kids on either side of her looking battered and forlorn. In a little while, the bailiff brought out Owens himself, dressed in a suit and tie, his hair trimmed. He nodded to his wife and children, and by the way he leaned, you could see for an instant his desire to embrace them.
    Sorrentino felt a stab of sympathy, but almost immediately that emotion was superceded by a wave of disgust.
    Owens’s manner was too deliberate, too staged.
    Sorrentino had no interest in hearing about what a good father Owens was, what an upstanding member of the community. How he worked long hours in a dangerous profession, searching for the truth on behalf of those who otherwise might be abandoned. He knew Elise did not look forward to it either. She sat stoically, suppressing her anger, face flushed, the red blooming from beneath her collar.
    The judge took the bench and engaged in the usual paper shuffling. Called counsel to the bench. Shuffled some more. Then addressed the courtroom.
    â€œAfter meeting with the attorneys, the prosecution has waived their right to further testimony in regard to this issue. Bail is set in the amount of two million dollars.”
    The noise rose and the judge gaveled it down.
    The amount was high enough to cripple the defense. Sorrentino saw Owens hang his head, and the wife slacken in her seat, and the two kids glance around in confusion. On the other side, Blackwell smirked into his assistant’s ear. Elise, though, sat stone-faced. Then she buried her head into his lapel and started to weep. The judge gaveled again.
    A little later, out in the hall, she seemed under control. Her makeup was ruined, though, the mascara running.
    â€œI am going to take care of my face,” she said.
    She seemed calm enough, but you could never tell with Elise, and Sorrentino sensed a fury underneath. She was not satisfied. She had wanted her chance to speak all these years. She had not wanted Owens out on bail at all.
    Then he saw.
    Elise headed toward the reporters congregated on the steps. Sorrentino went after her but it was too late.
    â€œThis is a travesty,” Elise said. “My mother’s murderer has been let free again. The way things are in this country, today … I can understand why people might take justice into their own hands … I can understand…”
    Sorrentino put a hand on her shoulders. “Don’t, Elise, no…” Blackwell’s people were a step behind, attempting damage control, but the exchange got into the paper anyway, along with a picture of Sorrentino and Elise, earlier in the courtroom, in her moment of rage and grief, when she’d collapsed onto his lapel.
    On his face, in the picture, he noticed, oddly, a look of pleasure.

TEN
    The next afternoon, Dante and Marilyn headed down to his father’s old place on Fresno Street. The tenants had cleared out rather abruptly, and Dante had not made any effort to fill the vacancy. Partly he blamed the case—he had already begun his work, digging backward in time. Meanwhile, he and Marilyn had discussed posting the listing on one of those swap boards, where you traded places with someone in a foreign city, but he had not, in fact, stepped inside the house for some time.
    On the way there, Marilyn’s cell went off.
    â€œDamn.”
    â€œIgnore it.”
    â€œI should,” she said.
    Instead, she took the call. She turned her back on Dante, huddling against the noise from the street. As she did, he glanced down along the sidewalk: at a woman standing flat-footed on the corner; at a man in shades; at a pock-faced drunk sneering his way down the block. It was his habit to look, to study the street—but there was another reason. Yesterday there’d been a call to the office. A crank—displeased that Cicero had taken the