The Fury - Jason Pinter [27]
"Henry," he said.
"My father's innocent," I blurted. I had no idea how
he was supposed to respond to that. Maybe part of me
was hoping he'd simply nod, smack his head and say,
"Whoops, you're right!"
Needless to say, that did not happen.
"Henry, we can talk more in New York. For now, it's
my job to get your father back to New York safely. All
you can do is make sure that happens."
"How can I do that?" I asked.
"Stay away. Go home. There's nothing more you
can do right now."
Then Makhoulian and Officer Clark took my father
by his manacles and led him away.
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83
"There's a computer in the courthouse library,"
Amanda said. "Let's change our flight home and get the
next plane out of here. He's right. There's nothing more
we can do here."
After a brief goodbye to my mother, we managed to
book a red-eye from Portland to JFK. I would have
thought that after everything we'd been through, the
confrontation with my father, the arrest, the hearing,
that I would have slept like a baby. And while Amanda's
head rested comfortably on my shoulder while she
slept, I was awake the whole flight, my eyes open,
staring at nothing. Wondering how this had happened.
When the crew turned off the cabin lights to allow
other passengers to sleep, I stayed up in the dark.
Nausea had taken the place of normal functions, and a
cold sweat had been running down my back for hours.
I couldn't understand it, not a word. That I had a
brother to begin with, even one related only half by
blood, was shock enough. That my father--that his
father--was now accused of murdering him, that was
enough to make my world stop.
And as I sat there, one image refused to leave my
mind's eye: that of my father, clothed in dirty pants
and a rumpled shirt, being led away from the court
room in handcuffs. I'd grown up used to a sense of
rage in the man's eye, a frustration and impotence that
perhaps the world had left him in the dust. His voice
and mannerisms were that of an animal who bore its
claws at anyone who came close, and even when he
seemed calm, the wrong look could turn him into a dif
ferent man.
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Jason Pinter
Yet thinking about him, head bowed, hands behind
his back, he looked less like a beast than a small dog
being led somewhere he didn't understand for reasons
he couldn't comprehend. He looked defeated. Lost.
And I wondered if, somehow, my father didn't think
that in some way he deserved it.
I thought about Amanda's line of questioning, and
my father's answers. According to him, Helen Gaines
had called him for money to help Stephen battle his ad
diction. My father said the money was for rehab, to help
him kick the drugs. This was possible, I supposed, re
membering the state Stephen was in when I saw him on
the street. He looked like a man whose rope had been
pulled as taut as possible, one more tug causing it to
snap.
But my father had admitted to holding the gun,
aiming it in such a way that his fingerprints would be
found on the trigger and butt. For a jury to believe he
did all of that--and that Stephen Gaines had coinciden
tally been murdered by a different man using the same
gun on that same day--was pushing the limits of rea
sonable doubt. If I wasn't his son, if I hadn't lived with
the man for eighteen years, if I hadn't been able to look
into those eyes, I would doubt his innocence myself.
And deep down, a small part of me did doubt it.
When we landed, I had a message waiting for me
from Wallace Langston. I hadn't spoken to Wallace
since we left for Bend, and no doubt my father's arrest
would be reported in local papers. The Gazette would
have to cover it, as would the Dispatch, our biggest
rival. I only hoped that Paulina Cole wouldn't get a hold
of it.
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85
Paulina Cole had actually been my coworker at the
Gazette, but soon left for the more lucrative pastures of
the Dispatch. There she became the paper's chief print
antagonist, penning articles that were as loved as they
were reviled, and always stirred up controversy. She'd
slimed me in print numerous