The Victim (68 page)

Jack wouldn’t have it. He had given the matter plenty of thought.

“
Kiddo, I’m almost seventy-four. I’d like to hang it up in a year or two. The jet timesharing thing runs me two hundred grand a year. I’d be delighted to scrap the plane and pay you the two hundred K. You could do investigating, paralegal stuff. Help me brainstorm. Hell, even prison consulting. Good for the clients who are about to do some time. That’s big business.”

Anton scrunched his lips, shook his head. “My reputation is shot. I’m done in Miami. My daughter…my ex-wife.”
God, that felt weird to say.
“They’re up in Orlando. I’ll get an apartment up there and find a job. I’ll wash dishes. Sweep floors. Whatever.”

Jack pulled down the visor as I-10 rolled in the direction of the rising sun. Along the sides of the Interstate, steel girders formed half-finished structures that would soon become office buildings and shopping centers and prefab home communities. The sprawl of Phoenix constantly expanding.

“
In that case, our lawsuit settled two weeks ago.”

Anton turned to Jack. “Huh?”

“
Osvaldo Garcia. We sued the Department of Justice. Look, the guy’s a recovering meth addict with some pretty serious long-term mental disabilities. With his charges dropped, we got his Social Security and VA benefits reinstated. He’s back in Albuquerque now, helps out with his family’s landscaping business. Anyway, we agreed that three million was a fair shake. He did ten years in prison but he wasn’t a brain surgeon. Thirty-thou per year of incarceration was appropriate. So my third is just a hair under a mil. I’m pretty well set for retirement, Anton. None of this would’ve happened without you. Before you go to Orlando, I’d like to write you a check. The money’s in my trust account.”

A sense of undeserving choked his words, muddied the quiet. “Thank you,” he said. Prison had a humbling effect, also rewired your response mechanism. Any display of emotion fell by the wayside.

Jack hesitated but said, “There’s something you should know.
They’re
there. Waiting at the airport. They came with me.”

A mix of joy and dread filled him at once. He looked over his shoulder, hoping to see a glint of the oddly comforting surroundings of the prison he had called home for the past three years. Surely, he wasn’t institutionalized but he wasn’t sure he was ready for this. He felt very unprepared. He felt ashamed of his weight gain.

Gina had been good enough to send photos that he had Scotch-taped to the concrete wall next to his bed. He wouldn’t have them visit him. Gina’s letters had been cordial but brief, focusing mainly on Charley and her latest milestones. The saddest piece of news he had received was about a year and a half ago when she advised him that Samson, twelve at the time, had an inoperable tumor and had to be put down.

“
Um…she’s with someone, you know?”

Anton slammed his head back into the headrest. Not that he thought they had a chance at reconciliation, but still.

“
Is
he
there, too?”

“
Oh God no. Just Gina and Charley. She’s almost four. She was less than a year when you left. I know that Gina’s always showing her pictures and making sure she knows that you’re
Daddy
but…just don’t be surprised if she doesn’t warm up to you right away. She may not recognize you.”

***

The car parked on the tarmac. The Cessna Citation was waiting. Anton cupped his hand over his eyes, trying to make out her figure amid the backsplash of sun. She was standing by the plane’s airstair door. A little girl, waist-high, stood beside her.

Anton’s heart fluttered in his chest. He had spent three years, two months, eleven days, and nine hours waiting for this moment and now he wanted to be somewhere else. He ran his hand over his stubbly scalp, scratched the grit on his face. He looked old, sunburnt, fat, and mean.

He got out of the car, walking slowly toward Gina and Charley.

“
Hi.”

Her wide eyes and open mouth said everything that she was thinking. Yeah, he’d gained a ton of weight. He looked nothing like the boy she had met at that law school party thirteen years earlier.

She stood facing him but didn’t offer a hug. “Hi.”

He knelt down to see Charley eye-to-eye. He had known her for the last three years in photos but nothing could have prepared him for the little girl she had become.

“
Hi, sweetie,” he said, trying his best to warm up what had become a hard, gravely voice. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken kind words to anyone. “I’m your…I’m your daddy. You remember me?”

She was tall and thin with dark blonde hair falling to her shoulders, adorned with a red bow. She wore a white sundress and still had Anton’s green eyes. Anton smiled, doing his best to hold in his tears. Shyly, she recoiled behind her mother’s leg.

Anton stood. “When she’s ready,” he accepted.

“
She’s been talking about you non-stop,” Gina assured him, stroking Charley’s hair as she peeked out from behind Gina’s leg. “Just needs some warm-up time. This has all been very confusing for her.”

Anton looked awful, but Gina had transformed. Not that she wasn’t always beautiful, she was. It was just subtle, effortless. She wore a sleeveless top that clung to a flat midsection. Her arms were toned and tan. She wore tight jeans that accented her shapely hips. This was a body with purpose, no doubt prompted by the questionable desirability of a divorced single mother with an ex in prison.

The sun reflected a white speck. Anton looked down, nodded at the diamond ring.

“
You didn’t waste a minute, did you?”

Gina rolled her eyes. “Anton. Steve’s a good guy. He’s divorced, too. Has two kids, seven and five. He absolutely adores Charley.”

“
Fantastic.”

Jack climbed the airstairs. Gina picked up Charley and they followed. Anton fell into one of the leather seats. The most comfortable thing he had experienced in years. Gina sat across the aisle; Charley curled up on her lap. She gazed pensively at Anton, which he recognized quickly as another genetic trait he had handed down. The little girl eyed him, trying to figure out, in her almost four-year-old mind, how she knew him.

They belted in and taxied to the runway. Upon takeoff Anton looked out the window. He found Camelback Mountain in the foreground and figured out the rest of the terrain from that one landmark. They soared out of the Phoenix area on a northwest heading.

Jack’s check would be waiting when they returned. He decided not to say anything about it now, but once it was his, he would pay back Gina for three years of single parenting, plus stash enough aside to pay for Charley’s college in full.

As the plane dipped into a left turn, a spark of recognition widened Charley’s eyes. She hopped down off her mother’s lap and scurried across the aisle, jumping into Anton’s.

As they climbed to 35,000 feet, the ridged terrain looked almost Martian. The mountains had a rusty hue. He followed the familiar contours, the dense canopies of pine forests, the venous paths of hiking trails, carved into the ground like ancient lines in the sand. Parched farmland cut symmetrical brown boxes into the terrain.

He traced his finger on the windowpane, following what he recognized as the Beeline Highway, snaking its way out of the Valley, veering off into another road at the north rim of the Tonto National Forest.

Funny how one road could define his life.

His old life, he reminded himself.

Charley fell asleep in his arms. Her hair, long and thick, still smelled like honey. He kissed his daughter on the head, brushed her hair out of her eyes.

He took one last look before he lowered the sunshade.

The jet climbed into the clouds until the highway was just a scratch on the surface of the earth.

Dedication

For my boys, John and Cole.

Acknowledgements

In no particular order:

Fellow Miami defense attorney and great friend Antonio Jimenez was the first to actually see this project. One night during a dinner party, I brought him over to the computer and showed him the first chapter. He said he was hooked. That was enough motivation to keep going and finish the book. Thanks, Tony. I owe you a New York strip at Ireland’s.

Eric Zeller. Great friend of nearly fifteen years, fraternity brother, groomsman, college roommate, and Chicago defense attorney extraordinaire. The first to read the manuscript in its entirety. Thank you for your kind words and honest critique of the book. To my readers—if you’re ever in the Chicago area and you get arrested, call Eric.

Jeff Cheema. Lifelong best friend and partner in crime (literally, at times), thank you for lending me your ear as I explained this concept for a book I wanted to write. You’re a tough critic. (The guy had
The Sixth Sense
figured out in the first five minutes. I didn’t know until the end that Bruce Willis was actually dead.) Thanks for your honest feedback. I’m happy to go line-for-line with
Point Break
any day of the week.

Carrie Hemler, amazing editor and cheerleader of this work. Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication. To the staff at Zharmae, thank you for turning a figment of my imagination into a tangible object. Special thanks to Sara Bangs, Erin Sinclair, Sarah Landauer, and Olivia Swenson.

To the noble and sorely underpaid men and women of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. You guys do great work! It was a pleasure to have worked alongside you as a prosecutor. It continues to be a pleasure to work with you on the defense side. Keep on advocating on behalf of your victims and keeping the streets of Miami safe. Just take it easy on my clients, will you?

To the scores of defense attorneys who have sat with me on any given morning at ABP, drinking
cafe con leches
, shooting the breeze. Your courtroom war stories have been such a source of inspiration, some of which have wound up on these pages. Thanks.

As a young prosecutor you’re thrown into the mix pretty quickly. Thanks to Miami-Dade County Judges Mary Jo Francis and Joe Fernandez for letting me cut my teeth in your courtrooms. To Circuit Court Judges John Schlesinger and Migna Sanchez-Llorens, thank you as well.

To my parents, Robert Matheny and Sheryl Rachmel. Thank you for telling a 130-pound freshman with zero athletic talent that he could join the football team. A testament to the enduring support you both have always shown me.

To my grandparents, Jack and Gilda Brehm (may you rest in peace). Thank you for giving me those Grisham novels when I was 21. It changed my life.

John Holden Matheny. Funniest four-year-old I have ever met. My firstborn. Lover of planets,
Cars 2
, and monster trucks. You still do the best Macho Man Randy Savage impression I’ve ever seen. Keep being a great big brother to Cole and don’t read this book until you’re 18. Let’s stick with
The Berenstain Bears
for now.

Cole Robert Matheny. You’re my favorite two-year-old in the whole entire world! Stop climbing on everything; you’re going to give your mother and me a heart attack. You keep being the best you can be and I promise to keep on singing “Wheels On The Bus.” (In the words of your big brother, “Daddy sings poorly.”)

To Kristin. Wife, mother to my two boys, baker of the world’s greatest (no lie) chocolate chip cookies. Expert grammarian, literary genius, savvy politico, and all around wonderful human being. Thank you for supporting me in my creative endeavors for over ten years now (Jesus Christ, ten years???)

Above all, thank you for saying yes.

About the Author

Eric Matheny was born in Los Angeles, California, where he lived until he went away to college at Arizona State University. At ASU he was president of Theta Chi Fraternity. He graduated with a degree in political science and moved to Miami, Florida, to attend law school at St. Thomas University. During his third year of law school, he interned for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, where he worked as a prosecutor upon graduation. In 2009, he went into private practice as a criminal defense attorney. He is a solo practitioner representing clients in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and Broward County, Florida. He has handled everything from DUI to murder. Matheny lives outside of Fort Lauderdale with his wife and two young sons.