California Girl

“THE DEFENDANT will rise.”

Nick watched the sentencing from a seat near the rear exit. Watched the reporters get ready to run for the phones. Fu

Nick watched the Honorable Edgar Sewell behold Cory Bo

“Mr. Bo

Nick heard the intake of breaths. Edgar Sewell continued to stare down at Bo

“Mr. Bo

Nick took the stairs down to the first story. Heard the reporters storming out behind him. Saw Sharon marching toward the DA’s office with an armful of files held to her chest.

He stepped out into the hot September afternoon. White thunderheads towered in the southeast. Up over Yuma, thought Nick. The rain will chase all the doves south. Thought of standing by a Yuma cotton field with his mom and dad and David and Clay and Andy, shotguns ready. And the way Max could spot those birds so far away. Just dots in the sky coming toward them. The boys shaking with excitement and trying to find their safeties and Max chuckling while he swung and dropped a pair that landed right on the railroad tracks. Monika a good shot, too, but her heart wasn’t really in it. David didn’t like the killing. Clay the best shot of the four boys and didn’t mind the killing at all. Andy involved but somehow outside himself, too, watching like he always did, like he’d be tested on it someday.

In Nick’s mind the railroad tracks in Yuma became the railroad tracks ru

He’d closed his first case.

Cost eight men their lives but he’d done it.

Caused immeasurable waves of sorrow and loss but he’d done it.

Cost him his own life but he’d done it.

For Janelle and for himself.

37

HERE AND NOW

“LISTEN TO ME, NICK. Everything we thought about Janelle Vo

“Explain yourself,” I said.

Andy cocked his head to the side a little. Leaned closer to me. Vietnam had wrecked his hearing. A bomb in a tu

“I don’t think Bo

So there it was. Thirty-six years. Fast as an eye blink back to Janelle.

“You’ll have a hard time proving that to me,” I said. “That was a good case, Andy. We nailed it. The jury deliberated, what, two hours? We might have worked around the arrest a little, but that’s it.”

“I’m not talking about the arrest.”

I heard the pigeons cooing and saw the sunshine coming through the slats of the packinghouse. Felt the hot Santa Ana wind blowing in the orange trees outside. Saw Andy standing there with his camera and the terrible thing that lay between us. Clear as the day it happened.

Andy shook his head and looked at me with some irritation. “Maybe we should take a drive, Nick. Kind of hard for me to hear with those waves crashing out there.”

The young couple at the next table were looking over at us. Probably never heard of Janelle Vo

We took Andy’s convertible. He put the top down, so I knew the bit about the waves was BS. He didn’t want anyone hearing this. Andy can’t sit still anyhow. Always eager about the next thing. Sixty-two years old and still strong and ski

“I was in Washington last week doing some interviews with Homeland Security,” he said. “Stoltz was having a party so he invited me. I’m no fan of Stoltz and I don’t like Georgetown parties, but Lynette does like parties, so I figure what the hell? Plus, Stoltz is one of the reps on the Homeland oversight committee, so I figure maybe I’ll learn something interesting. It’s a boring Georgetown party. Not even Lynette can find anyone fun to talk to. Then I get to talking with this lady. A little younger than me. Sixty-ish. Turns out she’s Stoltz’s secretary from way back in sixty-eight. I remember her-Martha. She’s worked for him for thirty-six years. She started out as his Washington office receptionist.”

I had a hazy memory of having talked to someone named Martha in Stoltz’s Washington office back in October of sixty-eight.

Andy steered through the cute San Clemente streets. Picked up I-5 heading south and gu

“So Martha and I are talking and she says-this comes right out of nowhere, Nick-she says that she wrote the telegram to me on the Janelle murder story. Now, I always thought it was an odd telegram. Kind of formal and stiff, and you know how Roger is, he’s a pol. He can always say the right thing. She said she thought about that telegram a lot because she was so young at the time, and she’d known when she wrote it that it didn’t sound right. Didn’t sound like a man who had just had a friend murdered. She said that over the years she wrote more than a few telegrams for Roger. Common for busy congressional reps. The routine stuff, like condolences, congratulations, birthdays, whatever. The pols all know that an official Washington, D.C., telegram makes people outside the beltway feel important. Makes them think their elected officials are paying attention. But this was the first one she’d ever been asked to write. She was twenty-four. Said she worked on it for over an hour but knew it came out stilted and wrong. So, after thirty-six years Martha apologized to me for a poorly written telegram.”