4th of July - James Patterson [9]
I waved good-bye to everyone and was bumping up the stairs fantasizing about a hot soak in my shower and a long sleep in my own bed, when the doorbell rang.
“Okay, okay,” I grumbled. My guess? I was getting flowers.
I clumped down the stairs again and flung open the door. A young stranger wearing khakis and a Santa Clara sweatshirt stood at the threshold with an envelope in hand. I didn’t believe his cheese-eating smile for a second.
“Lindsay Boxer?”
“Nope. Wrong address,” I said perkily. “I think she lives over on Kansas.”
The young man grinned steadily—and I heard the clatter of that other shoe dropping.
Chapter 13
“KILL,” I SAID TO Martha. She looked up at me and wagged her tail. Trained border collies respond to many commands, but “Kill” isn’t one of them. I took the envelope from the kid, who backed away with his hands in the air. I slammed the door shut with my cane.
Upstairs in my apartment, I took what was clearly a legal notice out to the glass-and-tubular-steel table on my terrace, which had a staggering view of San Francisco Bay. I carefully eased my sorry butt into a chair.
Martha settled her head onto my good thigh, and I stroked her as I stared out across the hypnotic swells of glinting water.
The minutes ticked by, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I opened the envelope and unfolded the document.
Legalese jumped all around the “writ, summons, and complaint” as I tried to find the point of it. It wasn’t that hard. Dr. Andrew Cabot was suing me for “wrongful death, excessive use of force, and police misconduct.” He was asking for a preliminary hearing in a week’s time in order to attach my apartment, my bank account, and any worldly goods I might attempt to hide before the trial.
Cabot was suing me!
I felt hot and cold at the same time as a sense of profound injustice roared through me. I replayed the whole scene again. Yes, I’d made a mistake by trusting those kids, but excessive force? Police misconduct? Wrongful death?
Those murdering kids had had guns.
They’d shot me and Jacobi while our weapons were holstered. I’d ordered them to drop their guns before I returned fire! Jacobi was my witness. This was a clear-cut case of self-defense. Crystal clear!
But I was still scared. No, actually I was petrified.
I could see the headlines now. The public would set up a howl: sweet-faced little kids gunned down by a cop. The press would lap it up. I would be pilloried on Court TV.
In a minute or so, I would have to call Tracchio, get legal representation, marshal my forces. But I couldn’t do anything yet. I was frozen in my chair, paralyzed by a growing notion that I’d forgotten something important.
Something that could really hurt me.
Chapter 14
I WOKE UP IN a sweat, having thrashed my Egyptian cotton sheets to a fine froth. I took a couple of Tylenol for the pain and a sky blue Valium the shrink had given me, then I stared at the pattern the streetlights cast on the ceiling.
I rolled carefully onto my uninjured side and looked at the clock: 12:15. I’d only been asleep for an hour and I had the feeling I was in for a really long night.
“Martha. Here, girl.”
My pal jumped onto the bed and settled into the fetal hollow I made with my body. In a minute, her legs twitched as she herded sheep in her sleep while my brain continued to churn with Tracchio’s new neatly hedged version of “Don’t worry about nothin’.”
To wit:
“You’re gonna need two attorneys, Boxer. Mickey Sherman will represent you on behalf of the SFPD, but you’ll need your own lawyer to defend you in case . . . well, in case you’ve done something outside the scope of your job.”
“Then what? I’m on my own?”
I was hoping the drugs would tumble my mind off the hard edge of consciousness into the comfort of slumber, but it didn’t happen. Mentally, I ticked off the remains of the day, the meetings I’d set up with Sherman and my lawyer, a young woman called Ms. Castellano. Molinari had recommended her highly—and it means something