Angels Burning by Tawni O’Dell

Author:Tawni O’Dell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

chapter sixteen

LUCKY WAS DOOMED without Neely and me; all we did was save the jury some deliberation time.

The evidence against him was damning enough to convict him. He had motive and access. His fingerprints were all over the bathroom, although no one could say how long they’d been there. He had a history of violence, including two restraining orders taken out by old girlfriends, and a drunk and disorderly collar that involved punching the arresting officer.

If I had been Lucky’s public defender, I would’ve put the victim on trial. It wouldn’t have been hard to convince twelve Laurel Countians that Cissy Carnahan had it coming to her in the scarlet letter sense of justice. My mom wasn’t a bad person as far as they knew. She didn’t lie, cheat, or steal. She was friendly. She worked for a living between boyfriends and prior to marrying Gil. She was helpful when she felt like it, generous when it was convenient, and could be knee-buckling charming, but like all attractive women who flaunt their looks, she had a lot of haters—women who were jealous of her, men who wanted her and couldn’t have her. Maybe she didn’t deserve to die because she was an adulteress with a slutty past and three illegitimate children, they could have reasoned, but her lifestyle had certain risks attached to it, and one of them may have been the possibility of being beaten to death with her son’s baseball bat by one of her jilted lovers while taking her nightly bubble bath. Lucky still would’ve been found guilty but maybe of a lesser charge with a lighter sentence.

Either way he would’ve ended up in jail whether he did it or not, with or without our testimonies.

I used to use this as an excuse to make me feel better; now the truth behind it is beginning to make me feel sick. Lucky was pushed in front of a bus. By me. It doesn’t matter if he was already stepping into its path.

I arrive at the station still thinking about Lucky. At least it helped me temporarily forget about last night.

Our parking lot is full of TV news vans. A clump of reporters and cameramen, most of whom I recognize, are positioned in front of the station house listening to someone who’s supposed to be me but I’m late.

I walk over, pausing to glance inside my department car I asked Singer to clean after my pastry-fueled extraction of information from Derk Truly yesterday. There’s not a single spot of mud, icing, or blueberries anywhere.

As I near the crowd of reporters, I hear the voice of Bennett Sawyer, our illustrious mayor, local State Farm insurance agent, and cousin to the Sawyers who own the dairy.

Ben has been in love with me since the first grade. The feeling has never been mutual, but I still have the Valentine he gave me that year because it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen: a red-and-pink baby bird with wings made of real feathers sitting in a nest of silver glitter chirping teeny hearts from its beak.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.