Michael Gresham: Secrets Girls Keep Part 18

AN HOUR LATER, I've spoken with Father Bjorn on the telephone. The church absolutely doesn't allow any priest to have a roommate or guest living with him in the priests' quarters. It just isn't done. So that's out.

"Is it that bad?" Father Bjorn asks me.

I tell him about the mouse and the missing guitar string.

"Michael, I would never have involved you in this if I'd known. Please, I apologize to you and Danny. And Dania. I'm truly sorry. Maybe the best thing is to let him go back to jail. I don't want to see you and Danny living apart because of my son. That just isn't right."

"I'm leaning more that way," I say and I am surprised to hear myself say that. It's the first time I've actually considered letting him return to jail. "I'm going to reach out to his mom first. I'm going to see if I can arrange something with her and then ask the judge if that works."

"Naomi will be very difficult to work with. I've spoken with her twice since the arrest. She simply cannot handle our son. He refuses to listen to her and tells her to go to h.e.l.l."

"I wish I'd known that going in," I say. "That puts him in a whole different light."

"Yes, I think it's time for him to return to jail. Naomi isn't a solution."

"All right. I'll have a talk with him. Wish me luck."

"No, but I'll say a prayer for you. A good prayer."

"I need it. We all need it, Father."

"Yes, we do."

25.

I don't waste any time with it. That night when I get home, Jana is already inside his room with the door closed. I can hear Metallica blasting loud and angry. It p.i.s.ses me off, truth be told, to have him there at all now that Danny and Dania aren't coming home. Something needs to be done without delay.

I knock on his door. It opens after I knock a second time.

"Turn that down, Jana," I shout into the wall of sound that greets me.

He complies and the song abruptly ends.

"Thank you."

It smells strongly of pot smoke. And his eyes are gla.s.sy and there's a sloppy smile on his face.

"You're smoking in here," I say and wave my hand as if to cut the smoke. "You know the rule."

"No, really, dude. I'm not."

"Really, dude, you are," I tell him.

"All right. Busted. But it was only a couple of hits to relax me before I start cracking the books."

"Jana, this living arrangement isn't working for anyone."

He flops down on his bed and places his back against the wall. He fiddles with the knee of his jeans.

"I guess," he says absently.

"I've talked to your dad and now Danny's moved out with Dania. She's terribly uncomfortable with you here."

"Oh no, man, we can't have that. I'll leave."

"Where would you go? You know the judge placed you with me."

"Then what should I do?"

"I'm going to ask the court to modify conditions of release so you can go back to your Uncle Tim's. That's the only choice left."

"My dad won't even take me, will he?"

"The church won't allow it. Otherwise, he would take you. I think he'd love to get to live with his son."

"Well, we'll never know, will we now?"

THE NEXT MORNING, SA Anton Melendez and I again approach Judge Winifred Lancer-Burgess in her chambers during a break in the court's morning. She is not pleased that we're here again and speaks sharply to me.

"So, Mr. Gresham, you're still unhappy with the court's placement? Do I need to return the young man to jail?"

"I'm here to vouch for his uncle, Tim O'Donnell. He's a plumber by trade, single with two spare bedrooms in his house. He is a light drinker, doesn't use drugs, and has no criminal history."

"What's wrong with the current placement, Mr. Gresham?"

"It's my wife. We have a new baby and she doesn't like the idea of a man we don't know living with us. Plain and simple."

"She was in court when I made the original placement. She seemed happy enough with it then."

"She just didn't know what it would feel like. Now she does."

The judge blows a stream of air upward to her bangs. They move away from her forehead.

"Very well. I'm going to leave the placement as is, but I'm going to amend to give you the right to place the boy physically with Tim O'Donnell, the boy's uncle. What's the State's position?"

"No objection, Your Honor," says Mr. Melendez.

"The order will issue this afternoon. I'm also having the sheriff verify the uncle's lack of criminal record, Mr. Gresham. Let's hope the representation you've made to the court of a clean record proves true. If it doesn't, I'm sending your young man back to jail without further comment. Do we understand each other?"

"We do, Your Honor." It's the best we can do. If there's any kind of criminal record on Uncle Tim, I can't help Jana. I'm done; I want my wife and daughter back in their house with me where they belong.

"Very well, we're in recess. Please clear my office, gentlemen. I need a smoke."

We say our thanks and leave. Outside in the hallway, I clap Melendez on the shoulder and give him my sincere thanks for working with me on the issue. He smiles and nods and heads off to the elevator. I stop off in the men's room and use the urinal, then wash my hands at the sink and cup cold water into my face.

"Traitor," I say to my reflection.

But I don't really mean it. I'm glad to see him go.

Now to tell Father Bjorn and prepare Uncle Tim.

26.

Jana has been safely returned to Uncle Tim's and last night after work Danny and Dania returned home. All is well, calm is restored, and Danny stayed home this morning to clean out Jana's old room and open the windows with the door closed. It's cold outside and she knows the hot air of the house will carry out the smells and smoke with ease. She arrives in the office after one and comes into my office to check-in with me.

"His pot is gone, evidently. I searched every last nook and cranny. And I cleaned up everything, but it wasn't much. It was really surprising that it wasn't a mess. After all, he is a teenage boy I always thought they couldn't' be bothered cleaning up after themselves."

"Well, thanks for doing that. So much for having a defendant in a criminal case move in with us."

"Did you call Father Bjorn?"

"I did. He totally understands. In fact, he apologized to me-and asked me to apologize to you-for getting us into this mess in the first place."

"Accepted. By the way, did you get Jana's front door key when you left with him?"

I snap my fingers. "Forgot. I'll get right on that."

"Please do. I don't want any unannounced drop-ins. Or break-ins."

"Please, let it go, Danny. It's all over, you're home safe and sound, Dania is home with Priscilla, and Jana is long gone. Everything's okay again. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Now, let's get Marcel in here and let's look at Jana's legal case. It's time we resolve that, too. The State's Attorney was talking to me yesterday like he was open to plea negotiations, so let's figure out our bottom line."

"Excellent."

I buzz Marcel and he comes right in.

"Afternoon, you two," he says. "Mrs. Lingscheit tells me the problem child has been removed. So we're ready to move ahead with his case?"

"We are."

"Okay. You've read all my memos?"

"I have. Danny?"

"I have. d.a.m.n good workup, Marcel. You talked to everything and everyone that moved."

"Thank you. Michael's got a rule that everything gets touched in murder cases. So I start with the police reports and go from there. If they visited someplace or other, I do too. If they talked to someone, I do too, and I also confirm that what the police are quoting the person as saying in the police report is actually what they said or what they intended to say. Plus, I record their statements. All recorded statements and all recordings are in the file and online."

"Excellent," I say. None of his speech surprises me. He always does the best-ever workups on my cases. That's ninety percent of why I'm so successful, Marcel's follow-through. "So. Are there any weak spots in the State's case against Jana?"

"I've talked to all the kids who were anywhere near the restrooms that night. Not one of them places Jana there. I even showed them his picture since he's new at the school. They all recognized him as the new guy but they all swore up and down he wasn't near the restrooms when they were using them."

"Well done. So the police aren't able to place Jana near the restroom."

"No, and CSI found Amy's blood in the far stall of the restroom. Evidently the string or wire had severed her carotid there and blood spatters were all up and down the walls inside the stall. And on the floor."

"What about other DNA? On the toilet seat, the floor, the sinks?"

"Only Amy's and other samples from other people. They tested it against Jana and got nada."

"What about his clothes he was wearing that night? Did they find any blood on any of his clothes?"

"You know, the kid didn't have much, but they took everything and tested everything."

"And?"

"Nothing. No blood, no Amy DNA, nothing."

"So he's sounding more innocent by the minute."

"Well, there is the matter of the guitar string that you found missing from his set."

"Yes, there is that. But right now, that's just circ.u.mstantial evidence that really doesn't prove anything. Unless there's a nexus between the strings on his guitar and the wire or string that cut the girl's throat, Jana's missing string means zip."

"What about his mice?" says Danny. "Has anyone tested the DNA of the mouse removed from her mouth with any mice Jana has? Or any mice at Petco?"