Stunned, Holt remained in the kitchen. He and Angelina had argued before. They’d had misunderstandings. But this had a deeper feel to it. He tried to think what he should or could do to make it right. Options from flowers to a handwritten note to use of an intermediary such as Skip crossed his mind.
But nothing felt right.
Pushing his chair away from the little table, he dropped the uneaten remains of his lunch into the trash can beside the refrigerator. Angelina would need time to cool off before he’d have any hope of reconciliation.
Holt cautiously opened the kitchen door and glanced down the hallway. There was no one in sight. All he had to do was run the gauntlet past Brittany. He eased down the hall. He could see that the receptionist was on the phone, so he picked up his pace and briskly walked past her workstation.
“That was a quick lunch,” Brittany called out after him in a cheerful voice. “See you Saturday.”
With his back to her, Holt raised his hand in the air in farewell as he continued out the front door. Numb, he drove back to work and retreated to his office. Hunkered down behind his desk, he tried to convince himself this was a temporary problem. Eventually Angelina would give him a chance to explain himself. When that happened, he’d tell her about Calico’s death and how his memories were triggered by the tragedy in Trish Carmichael’s family, which had nothing to do with any romantic feelings toward the female deputy. One key would be timing. Another would be place. A neutral setting would be best. It couldn’t look like a date.
And it couldn’t be the sandwich shop on Eastway Drive.
There wasn’t time for Holt to mope and feel sorry for himself. He had work to do. He listened to his voice-mail messages. The second one sent him back into the black hole he’d crawled out of. It was from Skip.
“Hey, buddy. Do you want to strategize a little bit about Saturday night? My cleaning lady is coming tomorrow to straighten up my place, so we could come back here for a drink or two after dinner. I sure hope she can find what’s causing the foul smell around here. I think it’s a pair of socks you left after we went for a run a few weeks ago. Did you stick them someplace as a joke? Anyway, call me before the end of the day. Oh, and maybe Angelina can find out what Brittany likes to do. I’d just as soon chill and talk as put together something organized. But if they want to do something else, let me know. You know how I hate card games, except Texas Hold’em poker.”
Holt deleted the voice mail. He wasn’t ready to call Skip and unpack the disaster with Angelina. He listened to the rest of his messages. Several required immediate action on cases, so he returned the calls. The process of talking with people about matters unrelated to his romantic woes nudged him back into his work groove. One message was from Butch Clovis about a bad-check case on the trial calendar in a couple of weeks. Holt called the detective.
“I’ve lined up someone from the bank who can testify that the account had been closed for six months,” Clovis said. “And there are eyewitnesses from both of the stores where the defendant passed off the checks. They knew him from previous transactions at the stores.”
“The defense lawyer claims the defendant’s brother wrote the checks without his client’s permission,” Holt replied.
“If he did, the defendant is the one who negotiated them to the tune of almost twenty-five hundred dollars.”
“Okay, e-mail the witnesses’ contact information to Belinda so she can prepare subpoenas. Copy me so I can talk to them myself before our trial date.”
“Sure.”
Holt paused for a second. “Do you know a guy named Cecil Burkdale?”
“Yeah, he used to work for Rex Meredith. Is he in trouble?”
“Not yet. Would you believe him?”
“It depends. He runs a little bookkeeping business out of his house. I wouldn’t put it past him to cross the line if he thought he could get away with it. Is there something you want me to check out?”
“No thanks.”
After the call ended, Holt wondered why he’d brought up Burkdale to Clovis. There was no good reason to do it. The detective certainly wasn’t going to be an ally in the hunt for truth related to Rex Meredith’s death. Holt shook his head. His blowup with Angelina had made his judgment fuzzy.
Holt worked until shortly before the time he needed to leave for his meeting with Trish Carmichael at the courthouse. He considered canceling the appointment with the deputy. In the bigger scheme of things, ending her involvement in the Meredith matter would be smart, both personally and professionally. He picked up the phone, called the sheriff’s office, and asked to speak with her.
“She’s off duty,” the dispatcher said. “Would you like to leave a message with me or on her voice mail?”
“No thanks.”
The expanding Meredith folder in his hand, Holt left the office. It was a short walk across the parking lot to the courthouse. Whatever he had to tell Trish, it would happen face-to-face.
Trish sat on a bench at the rear of the main courtroom, which was as empty and quiet as a church sanctuary on Monday morning. She looked up. There were flecks of paint beginning to loosen their grip at the creases where the elaborate crown molding met the ceiling.
All day she’d been praying for Holt Douglas. In her braver moments, she saw herself telling him she knew the details of his high school friend’s death and was ready to offer sympathy and help. A passage she’d pondered many times from 2 Corinthians kept rolling through her mind: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. Time didn’t heal all wounds. Unlike physical scabs, emotional hurts were outside the body’s capacity to restore. They needed the supernatural balm of Gilead. And the verses in 2 Corinthians revealed that God wanted his people to join him in the healing business. If he’d let her, Trish could comfort Holt with the measure of comfort she’d received.
The tears in Holt’s eyes at the sandwich shop were signs of a grief that had no hope attached to its sorrow. His friend died, but God spared Holt for a reason, and Trish wanted to tell him that being thankful for the gift of life wouldn’t dishonor his friend’s memory. Rather, Holt’s existence was a flower growing out of dark soil. It should blossom with appreciation. And a godly gratitude would bring Holt a step closer to the Lord Jesus, whose love and forgiveness were the only remedy for the past and a sure foundation for the future.
Trish sighed. All her thoughts hadn’t been filled with triumphant faith.
In one imaginary scenario, Holt looked at her with disdain and told her to mind her own business. In another, he immediately started cross-examining her to discover why she wanted to dig up his past. In a third, he told her he’d called out to God for help and, hearing nothing, concluded there was no one there to answer. The back door to the courtroom opened, and Trish turned sideways. It was Holt.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said.
“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s been good for me to sit here for a few moments and be quiet. One of my favorite Bible verses is ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ ”
Holt gave her a puzzled look.
“Do you ever get quiet and pray?” Trish continued, trying to sound confident.
“No, but I’m sure I should,” Holt replied. “Let’s go to the jury room and talk.”
With each step, the place where Trish had been when she prayed for Holt seemed further and further away. The jury room contained a long rectangular wooden table surrounded by simple chairs. In the corner was an old-fashioned coatrack. On one wall was a chalkboard that gave the room a schoolhouse feel. Written on the chalkboard was the figure “$2,500” and, beside it, “nothing for pain and suffering.”
“I bet a plaintiff’s lawyer was upset when that verdict was announced in court,” Holt grunted.
Holt sat at the end of the table, and Trish slid into a chair to his left. She wasn’t yet willing to completely let go of her desire that they talk about something other than Rex Meredith’s death.
“How’s your day been?” she asked.
Holt turned to her with a look of shock that hit her like a cup of cold water to the face. “What?” he asked.
“Um, I just asked about your day. I didn’t mean to pry into anything that’s going on at the DA’s office or your personal life.”
Holt pressed his lips together tightly before he spoke. “Well, a little over three hours ago my girlfriend kicked me out of her life and her salon because she heard from one of her customers that I was cheating on her.”
Trish grew pale. Holt leaned toward her.
“And guess who Angelina believes I was seeing on the side?”
“I don’t know,” Trish responded in a shaky voice.
Holt raised his hand and pointed his finger at her nose.
“Me?” Trish asked, trying hard to swallow.
“Yes. This is all based on our meeting the other day at the sandwich shop on Eastway when you told me about your family, and I brought up the death of my friend. Angelina’s customer didn’t hear anything we said but interpreted from the emotion on our faces that we were sharing intimate secrets with each other.” Holt paused. “Which I guess was true but not in the way she believed. Then when Angelina met you the other night at the steak restaurant, she had some crazy woman’s intuition thing that you had a crush on me, and I was hiding my true feelings about you from her. Other than that, it’s been a great day.”
Stunned, Trish could barely breathe. Holt sat back in his chair and studied her for a moment.
“I had no intention of telling you about this,” he said, “but when you asked about my day, it spilled out. Maybe you need to know in case you hear something about it from someone else. I’d hate for you to be blindsided like I was.”
“Thanks,” Trish said weakly.
“Is the guy you were with at the steak house your boyfriend?”
“Kind of,” Trish said. “He goes to my church.”
“You should say something to him. Any hint of gossip gets blown around this town like a piece of paper in a tornado.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” Trish said numbly.
Holt touched the folder on the table. “And after what’s happened, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to have any contact with each other except in your court cases. I appreciate your willingness to help me investigate Rex Meredith’s death, but if I’m going to have any chance of getting back together with Angelina, I can’t risk another layer of misunderstanding.”
Trish’s heart was beating so hard she knew Holt had to hear it. If he asked her whether there was any truth to Angelina’s intuition about her feelings toward him, Trish would crawl under the table to escape.
“Of course,” she said quickly. “And I’m very sorry this misunderstanding happened.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Trish knew they weren’t true. They should have been true, but in her heart she knew they weren’t. And that made her feel even worse.
“I wondered if it would do any good for you to call Angelina,” Holt said, “or maybe go by and talk to her.”
Trish wanted to scream out, “No!” Talking on the phone with Angelina would be dangerous. Meeting her face-to-face would be a disaster. Even without the benefit of female intuition, Angelina would see through Trish in an instant.
“I guess not.” Holt shook his head. “That’s not how this is going to get fixed. It’s my problem, not yours.”
Trish nodded, which was the second lie she’d communicated in less than a minute. Holt reached for the folder on the table.
“So, there’s no point in going over the information Tony McDermott sent or telling you about an odd conversation I had with a man named Cecil Burkdale.”
Trish didn’t say anything.
Holt tapped the top of the table with his finger. “Don’t we have a case or two on Judge Lomax’s calendar toward the end of next week?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. We’re done here. I’ll see you then,” Holt said.
As they left the jury room, Trish lagged behind. When they reached the courtroom, she waited until Holt left and then sat down on the bench where she’d waited for him and hid her face in her hands.