Sins of the Fathers Read Online Free PDF Page B

ghosts to rest.”
    “They never rest.”
    Greene laced his fingers behind his head. “The thing about fear is that you don’t get rid of it by will. And you can’t sit around and wait for it to leave. It won’t. What you do is act. Right in the face of it. And then it slowly loses its power.”
    Lindy rubbed her hands over the worn leather briefcase on her lap. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost another one.”
    “But you’re not going to lose this one.”
    She looked at him, wondering what he could possibly mean.
    Greene leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk. A pewter representation of the Ten Commandments sat to one side. Lindy always wondered what the ACLU would have thought had they known. She carried an ACLU card herself.
    “Here’s what you do, Lindy. Go down there and plead him not guilty. Then make a statement to the reporters. Speak from your heart. Presumption of innocence for everyone. A bedrock of our system. The facts aren’t fully known. You know the drill.”
    Lindy waited.
    “Then you tell Colby you’re willing to plead guilty in return for disposition to a mental institution. They’ll offer you the twenty-five-to- life deal. You insist on minimum security and you’ll take it. Everyone comes out ahead. The state is spared the expense of a trial, you make a great deal for the boy, everyone knows your name.”
    For a long moment Lindy saw it unfold just as Greene had said. “What if a mental is really what he needs?”
    “If you can get Colby to go along with that, it would be a double victory.”
    “I still don’t know. Let me get him through arraignment and—”
    “Do it, Lindy. I know you can. And I’ll be right here if you need me.”
    For the first time in a long time, Lindy felt like crying. She wanted to let everything out, find some footing in life again. She wanted to do it in front of Roger Greene, the one man who could understand what she was going through.
    But she saw it was 8:44, and she had a boy waiting for his arraignment for mass murder.
    Just get through the next hour . One step at a time. Isn ’ t that what they told you, over and over, in the hospital? One step at a time. Five minute increments, and you ’ re done.
    But a cold tentacle of dread wrapped itself around her heart, squeezing the life out of any incipient hope for conclusion.

THREE

    1.

    As mother of one of the victims, Mona Romney was allowed a seat in arraignment court, along with the press, which was well represented. Several reporters asked her for a comment, but she refused. She was not ready to talk to reporters, or anyone else for that matter. She was here for Matthew, for his memory. And to see that justice was done.
    She was grateful that a man like Leon Colby was handling the case. He seemed like the kind of lawyer who would fight for justice, wouldn’t let any defense lawyer get the better of him. Yesterday she heard her husband speak to him by phone. Brad expressed his approval of the man, told her about his reputation. He’d taken on tough juvenile cases before, built his renown on them.
    Mona knew nothing about the defense lawyer, save that she was a petite woman with aggressively curly hair. When this woman, this Lindy Field, entered the courtroom, dressed in a gray pantsuit and carrying a briefcase and motorcycle helmet, Mona’s spine tingled with electric suspicion. She gave the lawyer a long look from the second row of the gallery.
    Was she one of those tricky lawyers, the kind who’d do anything to win? The type who would hide evidence, lie to the court, mislead a jury?
    She recalled the Menendez case, the one where the two brothers who’d blown away their parents had a feisty woman representing them. She tried a lot of things to get them off, but the jury came back with a solid guilty verdict.
    This woman reminded Mona a little of that feisty lawyer. She looked smart. But Leon Colby was smart too. And truth—didn’t that matter? Wouldn’t that rise to the top in