No Legal Grounds (9 page)
Authors: James Scott Bell
Tags: #Christian Books & Bibles, #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery & Suspense, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Legal, #Suspense, #Religion & Spirituality, #Fiction, #Mystery, #Religious & Inspirational Fiction, #Contemporary, #Christianity, #Christian Fiction
“Mr. Trask?” The voice was official. He knew at once two things: It was the police, and it had to do with Heather.
“Yes.”
“Your daughter has been picked up for driving under the influence. She’s here at the West Valley station.”
Sam closed his eyes against the mental vise squeezing his brain. He took a deep suck of air.
“What is it, Sam?” Linda was reading his face, her eyes wide. He put his hand up.
“Thank you,” he said, then hung up.
“Tell me,” Linda said.
“We’ve joined the happy couples who have kids driving drunk.”
Now it was Linda who shut her eyes, absorbing the news. Sam let her take it in, resisting the urge to let loose with a flurry of blameplacing darts. Heather had gone out with Roz, and they drank and drove. Now could Linda see that it mattered who Heather was with?
“Can we go get her?” Linda said.
Sam thought a moment. “No.”
“Sam!”
“She needs to feel this.” He leaned back against the wall. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“I don’t want her sitting in that place.”
“Why not? You’d prefer she sit somewhere else, getting ripped?”
“What are we going to do?”
“Maybe we should kick her out.” The moment he said it his inner world cracked wide, and he fell in. It was anger, all anger that did it. Rage was the jackhammer, and it split him.
When had he lost her? His Heather? His firstborn, a daughter, and when she’d popped her head out he fell in love with this tiny, vulnerable thing. He held her at night when she was little and scared, and took her to the pediatrician for her round of shots, holding her hand as she cried. He became her protector then, and she clung to him, and he loved her all the more.
He was there for many of the hurts that attend a girl growing up, and she’d come running to him at night when he got home.
Then she turned thirteen and started on the resistance-andrebellion program. At the same time, Sam got busier at the firm, which meant Linda had to handle the brunt of Heather’s burgeoning bad side. Marital tension was added to the plate of upheaval, and for four years their home had been painfully tense.
But this was a kind of torture, the thought of putting his daughter out of the house. Tough love, they called it. He never thought it would come to that.
“Forget it,” Sam said, reaching for his keys. “Maybe I’m a lousy father, but I want to get her home.”
“You’re not a lousy father, Sam.”
“I wish I believed that.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sam was pacing. Linda sat next to Heather, trying to comfort her. Max had been ordered to stay in his room.
“Just what I said. Roz was really out of it, so I drove her car to her house.”
“You were drinking. You don’t know that’s wrong?”
“Yes, but — ”
“And then you get in a car and drive?”
“It was stupid, I know . . .” Sobs erupted, cutting off words. Heather put her face in her hands.
“More than stupid.”
“Sam.” Linda shook her head at him.
No, he wasn’t going to stop. This had to come out now, hard. This had to be cut out of her. It had to hurt.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Sam said. “Your driving privileges are being revoked.”
Heather’s streaked face shot up at him. “No!”
“And you’re going to drop this whole band thing — ”
“No! You can’t — ”
“And go to college in the fall. Maybe JC to start — ”
“You can’t make me! You can’t do this!”
“In the morning, I’ll call Rich Demaris to take your DUI — ”
“Mom, make him stop — ”
Linda pulled Heather to her chest. “It’s been an emotional night. Let’s wait until tomorrow.”
Sam, feeling like a blood vessel might pop in his brain, threw up his hands.
Heather lay on the bed, looked at the ceiling, stayed there until the family was through with dinner downstairs. She could hear the sounds of routine footsteps on hardwood floor, doors closing softly, as if they thought by keeping down the noise the tension would all go away.
She lay there in silence for a long time, until it was quiet. She got up and went to Max’s door, knocked softly, and heard him say, “Come in.” He was at his computer, playing chess. Buzz, lounging on the floor, looked up and wagged his tail.
“You winning?” She closed the door behind her.
“It’s on beginner setting, so I’m killing it.”
She looked around his room. His bed was made and there were no clothes on the floor. The opposite of her room. Max could have been the neat guy on that old show about the odd couple who lived together.
Heather sat on the edge of Max’s bed, a few feet from him. “I really admire you.”
“Huh?” Max turned in his chair.
“Your brain. You can do that stuff, like chess.”
“I just like it.”
“And I think you’re a really cool brother.”
He looked stunned at that. She slipped off the bed and onto her knees on the carpet. “Listen to me, will you?”
“Yeah,” Max said tentatively.
“I wish I could be more like you.”
“Why?”
“I just do. But look, we all have to be who we are. And I want you to remember something I tell you, okay?”
“Okay.”
“No matter what happens to me or anybody, you’re a great kid and you’re going to be a great man. So if anything ever happens, you just keep on going and be who you are and don’t ever be down on yourself, okay?”
“What’s wrong?” Max said.
“I don’t know.” She paused. “I just love you and Mom and Dad, that’s all. And I don’t want anything to happen to you guys.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen.”
Buzz came to her then, nosing her side. “And if anything ever happens to me, you’ll be all right, right?”
“What’s gonna happen to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dad said he’ll get a lawyer — ”
“I don’t care about that. I’m not talking about that.”
“So what then?”
“Just say you know you’ll be all right.”
“I guess so — ”
“Say you know it.”
“Why are you crying?”
She put her hands around his neck and pulled his head down so she could kiss the top of it.
“Say you know it,” she said. “Know it know it know it.”
The blur of his thoughts pressed against his skull. He knew he was not going to go back to sleep. He’d had this feeling once before.
It was during his first big trial. All the anxieties of trial work were new to him then. The cluster of worries grew exponentially the closer he got to that first day. And then they increased as every day in court presented new challenges.
After the two-week trial there followed three days of absolute torture waiting for the verdict. Sam walked the floor at all hours, watched mindless TV in the middle of the night. He got to know some good old movies that way.
The day after the jury announced that Sam had won, he literally collapsed into bed and slept for eleven hours.
This morning he felt that anxiety all over again, only worse. Because with a trial there was always something he could do. More strategizing, more study of the law, more tactics.
But things were out of his control now. How could he stop a man who was clearly out to make his life miserable? How could he get through to a daughter who was intent on keeping him out of the most important parts of her life? How could he connect with a longsuffering wife who tended to take all the burdens of family life on her own shoulders?
Throw in a drunk-driving arrest of his daughter and you had the perfect last nail for the coffin.
Ever since Heather’s birth, Sam had pursued the ideal of the perfect father and husband. He took parenting seminars. He read books as if he were studying for the parental bar exam and would only get a license to practice if he got all the answers right. He gave over his heart and mind fully to his children’s good. When he’d become a Christian, he read the Bible and prayed often.
So why was God allowing this to happen? That wasn’t part of the deal.
I go to church and raise my children according to your Word, Lord. You keep them from doing anything harmful. You mold them into successful citizens.
Right? Isn’t that it?
Then why was his daughter running into ruination? Why was evil intruding in his house?
Sam went to the kitchen, poured a glass of milk, then sat in the dark. For a brief moment, the thought of having a real drink crossed his mind. He’d never been an alcoholic, though he used to drink heavily. He’d managed to quit with Linda’s resolute encouragement, but that didn’t remove the occasional craving.
He thought about bourbon, gave himself a little slap on the cheek, and thought about prayer.
He wanted to pray. Of course. You’re a Christian, you pray. But his prayer life was a shambles. Other than meals and the group prayers at church, he didn’t do much of it. Now it was as if circumstances were forcing him into it.
He closed his eyes.
He tried to recall what Don Lyle, his pastor, taught on prayer. Don did a series sometime back. He’d said something then, a method. What was it? Something about praying and Scriptures.
That was it. Pray the Scriptures. You take up the Bible and read and turn the text into a prayer. It focuses the mind, Don said. Prayer grounded in the Word could not be denied.
Sam took his milk and went to the study, flicked on a table lamp, and sat at the desk. His Bible was there, the one Linda gave him. He remembered the joy of that day. The joy seemed a distant memory now.
He picked the Bible up, looked at it. He went to the concordance to look up the passage where Jesus taught about prayer. Ask, seek, knock. It was in the book of Matthew,
chapter 7:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
A tiny window in his soul opened up, through which he sent out a flare of hope. He had never really put these words to the test. He was skeptical of the type of Christian ity that taught you could ask up a Lexus if you had enough faith.
And yet there had to be something here, because Jesus said it. Sam put his hand on the page and whispered, “Lord, I want to pray this Scripture. I want to ask you in faith for help. I feel like I’m being crushed.”
He paused, waiting for a feeling that he was being heard.
Silence.
“Protect my family, Lord. I’m asking. I’m seeking. I’m knocking. I don’t know what else to do, but I’m praying with everything I have now.”
He stayed there until his eyes grew heavy. He lay down on the couch, and when he finally fell asleep, he dreamed. In the dream he was dressed in a suit and tie, but he wasn’t in court. He was on a desolate road. Miles away from any courthouse or city, that’s all he knew.
And then, from the shadowy distance, a car. Coming toward him.
A strange voice whispered in his head.
Sammy . . .
He kept the prayers circulating in his head at church. Sam was exhausted but relieved — Max had been in an ebullient mood as he went off to the junior high worship. The unpleasantness at the ball field was apparently ebbing for Max. Thank the Lord for little things.
And even though Heather was still in her room at home, her issues unresolved, Sam felt he’d made some sort of faith breakthrough. He felt his early morning prayers were more honest and open than ever before.
Surely, God heard those kind of prayers and did something about them. That was the deal, wasn’t it?
He was glad to be with Linda at church. It felt like home base, the settled encampment on the treacherous mountain. Here he would regroup and begin to rebuild his family.
It was Linda who had found Solid Rock, the church at the west end of the San Fernando Valley. She’d come with a friend shortly after her conversion to Christ. The night Sam found himself listening to Don Lyle one on one, he was moved. Sam had heard a lot of great courtroom lawyers in his day, but none would have been able to touch this guy. He didn’t speak with the forced emotional tones Sam heard in so many TV preachers, which rang false for him.
No, this older man’s words came out of an obvious and firm conviction. His speaking seemed forged on the hard anvil of life lived and victories won, in the power of God, over and over.
He read to Sam from the Bible, words Sam would never forget. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
That text grabbed Sam in his trial lawyer’s heart. Demolishing arguments was what he did for a living. Pastor Lyle went on to talk about the power of Christian thought for those who believe, but how it all seemed like foolishness to those who rejected Christ.
This was a reasonable man who could defend his beliefs, the type of Christian Sam could respect.
At the end of the two-hour meeting, Sam had decided — not really knowing when the moment of decision hit — to follow his wife into the Chris tian faith.
This morning Don’s sermon was from Ephesians,
chapter 1
. He emphasized that all spiritual blessings in Christ are with Christians now. We don’t have to wait until heaven.
That comforted Sam. Now if he could just keep believing it.
During the final worship song, an usher appeared at Sam’s row and held something up. Sam couldn’t tell what it was. The usher handed it to the person at the end of the row, and it got passed down to Sam.
It was an offering envelope with
Sam Trask
written in ink on the front. The envelope was unsealed. Sam looked inside and found a folded piece of white paper. He opened it. And his heart spiked.
On the paper was written,
I forgive you, Sam. Nicky.
“You sure you want to do this?” Roz said.
“Let’s just go.” Heather threw her duffel bag in the back of
Roz’s Mustang convertible and got in. “I just need to get away for
a while.”
“What about your dad?”
“He said I couldn’t drive. He didn’t say anything about you.” “You think just like him.”
“Huh?”
“A lawyer.”
“Great. I’m my old man. Just drive.”
Roz put pedal to the metal and pointed the car toward the freeway. “Where you want to go?”
“How about Mexico? Isn’t that the place you go to get away
from your parents?”
“We could hit Tijuana and see what happens.”
“Sure,” Heather said. “Get a bottle of tequila.”
“And then,” Roz said, “we can come back and get ready to
record.”
Heather looked at her. “What?”
“Yeah. Five songs.”
“Where?”
“Hollywood. You remember that guy who saw us at the Cobalt?
The guy who came backstage?”
“The guy in the hat.”
“Yeah. Lundquist. First name Charles. Nickname Scat. I Googled
him. He’s done some bands.”
“Really?”
“He wants to record us. Won’t cost us anything. What do you
say?”
Heather felt the wind in her hair. She shouldn’t be doing this,
just running out. She’d left a note telling her parents not to worry,
but she knew they would. But this wasn’t working out. She couldn’t
live there anymore.
Wasn’t there some sort of thing she could do to be out on her
own? Some legal thing? She’d heard about it. One of her friends at
school had done it. Emancipation or something.
So maybe that would be the best thing for all of them. The
band was going to take off, she knew it, and she could wait tables or
something to make ends meet.
“Let’s do it,” Heather said. “Let’s make it happen.”