“Yes, hi.” I stepped aside to let him in and shut the door behind him. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ve been assigned to your case and need to ask you some questions.”
“I have a case?” I asked, my heart thudding loudly in my chest. “The other night, the officers made it sound as if there wasn’t much they could do.”
“Circumstances have changed in the past twenty-four hours,” he said. He wore an unreadable expression. A detective’s poker face. “There’s been an arrest.”
A sigh gusted out of me. “Oh, thank God. Frankie Dowd—”
“Is in the hospital in critical condition. Ronan Wentz was brought in for questioning and has been arrested.”
The floor dropped out beneath me, and I sagged against the door. “For what?”
“Attempted murder.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“I think you’re going to prison for a very long time.”
Detective Harris backed off, and Detective Kowalski got up from behind the desk in that claustrophobic holding room that grew smaller and smaller with every passing second. He pulled a set of handcuffs from his belt.
“Ronan Wentz, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”
They read me my rights and took me to processing where I was booked, fingerprinted, and had my mug shot taken along with photos of my bruised and swollen knuckles. A bus was waiting to transport me to the county jail, where I was strip-searched, given an orange jumpsuit, and tossed in a cell with a scared-looking skinny guy. He flinched when I looked his way.
I lay on the bottom bunk, staring at the mesh wiring and torn mattress of the bunk above me, one thought running through my mind.
I’m not like him. I have to trust Shiloh. I’m not like him.
But I was fucking behind bars. After going through the humiliating process to get here, those words were flimsy and weak.
I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry…
That afternoon, a guard came to tell me my public defender was here. I was handcuffed and taken to the visitors’ room where a tall guy—maybe forty—with a receding hairline and glasses was sitting at a table with a file in front of him.
“Mr. Wentz? I’m Forrest Perry, your court-appointed defender.”
I sat across from him, my handcuffed hands in my lap. Just like my dad had, once.
Perry shuffled through the papers. “To be perfectly frank with you, this doesn’t look good.”
“I didn’t touch Dowd,” I said. “I found him at this place he hangs out, and I warned him to leave Shiloh alone. That’s it.”
“Because you think it was him who trashed her place.”
“I know it was him.”
“How?”
“He all but told me a few weeks back, before graduation. And the security footage—”
“Shows a guy covered head to toe in black. No prints. No DNA.”
“It was him. And when I confronted him, he confessed and said he was sorry.”
Perry’s brows rose above his glasses. “So you admit to confronting Dowd that night? He’s currently at UC Medical in intensive care and said it was you who put him there.”
“He’s fucking lying. That night, I told him to lay off and I walked away.”
“If that’s true, who beat the hell out of him?”
“Don’t know.”
Perry met my gaze for a minute, then waved a hand. “Never mind. It’s not our job to prove who did, only that you didn’t. But I’m going to be honest, Mr. Wentz, this is an uphill battle. Looking at your files…your history with Dowd…”
Your father’s bloody crime…
“I didn’t do it,” I said. “That should fucking count for something.”
The words sounded stupid and weak in my own ears.
Perry rapped his fingers on the file. “You want to fight this? Enter a not-guilty plea at your arraignment? Because I can talk to the D.A. and see about cutting a deal. Otherwise, you could be looking at twenty-five years behind bars. Maybe more if the charges stick and the judge decides you intended to kill Frankie.”
The possibility of a life spent in prison made my chest so tight I could hardly breathe. But I had Shiloh. I had tenants who needed me. For the first time I had something to fight for. The system had ruined my mother. Maybe this time would be different.
“No deal.”
Perry studied my face for a moment, then nodded.
“Okay. Tell me what happened.”
My arraignment was the following afternoon. I was bussed to the courthouse and marched into a hallway with a dozen other inmates there for the same reason. Shiloh had tried to contact me at County, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of her seeing me there. Or at the hearing, which I knew she and Bibi would show up for. The orange jump suit was a uniform of humiliation and degradation. They had called me a criminal at Central and now, that’s what I was, guilty or not. Less than human. A kind of animal that had to be restrained, caged, and guarded. The cuffs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.
Finally, the side door to a courtroom opened, and we were shuffled in, the chains connected to foot and handcuffs rattling. I kept my head down, but there was no avoiding it. Shiloh was there, in the front row, between Bibi and Maryann Greer.
Fuck…
Shiloh was so fucking beautiful—lightyears from the sick, sobbing girl I’d seen a few days ago.
Because she’s so damn strong.
And if she could be that strong, maybe I could be too. I lifted my head and nodded at her, my gaze full of apologies.
Tears filled her eyes and she nodded back, her support unwavering. Fuck, I felt like crying too.
On the other side of the courtroom sat Mitch Dowd. Beside him was Mikey Grimaldi, both come to watch me go down, I guessed.
Forrest Perry sidled up to me as the inmates in front of me were read the charges against them. Each entered a plea, and the judge moved on to the next.
“Second thoughts?” Perry murmured.
I leveled him a cold stare. “You giving up already?”
“No, no.” He held up his hand. “I just need to know the score before we enter a plea and this all becomes really real.”
Newsfuckingflash, I wanted to tell him, it was already really real. Being locked up, watching your back in the yard or in the showers or at mealtime was really fucking real.
Perry leaned in to me and nodded at the older man with a head full of white hair at the front of the courtroom. “Judge Jack Norman. He’s a tough old guy. No nonsense but fair. Could’ve been worse.”
“Docket #29575,” the clerk said. “Ronan August Wentz.”
I was unshackled from the line of waiting inmates, and Perry and I moved to stand at the defendant’s table, our backs to the crowd. At the other table was the District Attorney—a severe, sharp-looking woman in an expensive suit, her blond hair tied up in a tight twist.
“Lydia Wells,” Perry muttered. “This isn’t going to be fun.”
Judge Norman read over the file and then peered down at Perry. “Before a plea is entered, I believe there is an issue of probable cause?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Perry said, getting to his feet. “My client was brought in for questioning without the presence of an attorney, and the grounds for his subsequent arrest are purely circumstantial. In fact, the allegations rest solely on the word of Franklin Dowd, who has a well-documented history of animosity toward my client, and whose father—formerly of the Santa Cruz Police Department—still has friends on the force. Honestly, Your Honor, this entire situation feels like a classic set-up and we move to dismiss the charges entirely.”