Presumed Guilty Read Online Free PDF Page A

dark.
    She realized in the blackness that her nightmare was over, chased away by her desperate waking. A shimmer of what she deemed hope flashed across her mind, like a sliver of distant lightning in a storm-swollen sky.
    She reached for Ron again, felt only the cold, empty spot on the bed.
No, he would not be there. He had not shared their bed for a week. He slept in the study, wouldn’t tell her why. Just holed up,mumbling excuses.
Even more troubling, Ron had asked Bob Benson to preach for him yesterday, Palm Sunday. Ron always preached both Palm Sunday and Easter. Something was terribly wrong, but Ron wouldn’t say what.
She looked at the clock by the bed. Four thirty-seven. Too early to be awake.
Sleep was out of the question.
Her head was full and heavy, a bag of nails. The throbbing behind her eyes that started last night began again.
Then she saw red lights flashing. Outside the window.
It wasn’t just in her dreams.
Police car, she thought. Why? Next door, the teenager, Craig. He was in with some pretty questionable people, and who knew why the cops were here? Drugs? Stolen property?
A loud knock on the door. A pounding that was not friendly.
The red lights . . .
Another knock. Full, loud, relentless.
One of the kids. Something happened to one of the kids. Accident? Death?
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    She got up, heart accelerating. In the dark she reached for her robe. She rushed out the bedroom door, bits of awareness popping up like the lights of a city as night falls. Halfway down the stairs she saw the front door open and a police officer standing there.
“What’s going on?” she fairly screamed.
    She reached the bottom of the stairs and saw, on the porch, her husband. In handcuffs, with another police officer holding his arm.
    “What is this?” Dallas heard her own voice, felt herself plunge forward.
The first cop put his hand up. “Ma’am, stay where you are, please.”
“Ron!”
Ron turned to her. “Call Jeff Waite,” he said.
Dallas looked at the cop inside the house. “Please tell me what is going on.”
“Call a lawyer, ma’am,” he said.
2.
    Jefferson Waite returned her call a little before nine in the morning. She’d left two messages on his cell phone, knowing he would be asleep like the rest of the normal world. Knowing, too, he would call just as soon as he could.
    “What is it, Dallas?”
“It’s Ron. They arrested him.”
“Arrested? What for?”
“They didn’t say. They didn’t tell me. Aren’t they supposed to
    tell me?”
“When was this?”
“A few hours ago.”
“Do you know where they took him?”
“No.”
Dallas clutched the phone. Jeff said, “All right, don’t worry, I
    can find him. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“Nothing. I can’t believe this, Jeff.”
“I’ll find out what’s going on.” His voice was warm and calming.
    “If he calls you, tell him not to talk to anyone.”
“Will he?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him he’s not to say anything, and I mean anything, to anybody. I’ll see him as soon as I can.”
“But — ”
     
He clicked off. Dallas sat back in a chair in the gray of the morning, paralyzed.
3.
“You crazy, man,” Guillermo was saying. “You gonna get lightning on your head, you keep talkin’ that trash.”
    The three of them — Jared, Guillermo, and Carlos — were working a church, a little white Catholic number northeast of Bakersfield. A new coat of white on the inside, around the stained-glass windows, patching cracks.
    Guillermo and Carlos had the radio blaring that salsa crud, and at every break Jared had to listen to somebody spouting Spanish.
At least it muted the voices in his own head.
So yes, he was crazy. Jared agreed with Guillermo on that much. But not crazy for talking trash.
“That’s what I said.” Jared pointed with his brush at the crucifix. Jesus hanging on a cross and set on the little altar. “He’s no help to anybody. He’s hanging there. It’s just a stupid statue.”
“You’re