He planned to empty the baptismal first. He would pull the plug, do some other work while the water drained, then come back to rinse it out. He climbed the steps behind the stage, felt the knifelike pain in his right knee, and wondered if he should break down and get a total knee replacement after all. He caught his breath and limped toward the baptismal. A few feet away, he stopped dead in his tracks, mouth open in a silent scream. Before he could look away, he felt his breakfast rising, and he turned to the side and hurled. He knelt on his left knee, dizzy at what he had just witnessed.
There was a dead body in the baptistry!
He tried to catch his breath and look back-he needed to confirm the picture now seared into his mind. A second glance brought a second round of vomit, this time in a nearby trash can.
After he had wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he tried to make sense of it all.
The head of the young woman who had been baptized yesterday was floating in the bloody water-severed from her body.
Somehow, Jonesy composed himself and found the urge to pray. “Lord, have mercy,” he said over and over. “In the name of Jesus, bring her killer to justice.”
43
By Monday afternoon, news of the honor killing at Grace Coastal Church had exploded across national television. There was no hard evidence linking Khalid to the murders, but that didn’t stop commentators from noting the similarities in the methods used by the executioner and the fact that Khalid Mobassar was out on bond. Before long, legal “experts” began a renewed assault on the decision by Judge McElroy to free Khalid. “This might never have happened if Judge McElroy had one ounce of common sense,” one of them suggested.
Alex resorted to the hunker-down strategy, retreated to his office, and gave Sylvia strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed. He knew he needed to get ready for the preliminary hearing on Friday. Instead, he spent his time second-guessing whether he should even stay on the case. Nara Mobassar was right. At this rate, her father would be convicted before the opening statements began.
It didn’t help that Shannon had filed Ghaniyah’s personal-injury case earlier that same morning. Legally, they could have waited. But the firm desperately needed the cash flow, and both Alex and Shannon thought it might help in the sympathy department for the Mobassars. That was before the California honor killing. Now, Alex and Shannon were being portrayed as greedy ambulance chasers who took Khalid’s criminal case only because they didn’t want to lose Ghaniyah’s civil case.
Alex knew things were bad when his grandmother called to second-guess his strategy. “Whose idea was it to file that personal-injury case today?”
“Shannon’s,” Alex said. “And mine,” he added.
There was silence. “Well, if Shannon is on board, then I guess I can’t be too critical.”
Alex looked up and noticed a reporter and a cameraperson standing at his office door. How did they get past Sylvia?
“I’ve got to go, Grandma,” Alex said. “It looks like I’ve got company.”
Alex spent the next several minutes escorting the news team out of his office suite. Because he refused to grant them an interview, that night’s telecast would run clips of Alex prodding them into the hallway and closing the door behind them. What they didn’t record was the young lawyer’s exchange with his receptionist afterward.
“Why’d you let them back to my office?” Alex asked, his voice sharp and accusatory.
“I tried to tell them,” Sylvia protested, “but they kept insisting. I figured a few questions wouldn’t hurt.”
“‘A few questions wouldn’t hurt’?” Alex repeated. He couldn’t believe anyone could be so incompetent. But before he could launch into a serious lecture, Sylvia started to cry.
“Look, why don’t you just take the rest of the day off?” Alex said.
After she left, Alex locked the outside doors and retreated to his office again.
Shannon had been the smart one. After filing the personal-injury lawsuit, she had spent the rest of the day working from home.
44
Good lawyers didn’t come cheap, especially on a case with as much negative publicity as Khalid’s. Though Ghaniyah’s case would almost certainly be profitable, Alex knew he and Shannon would most likely burn through all that money and a whole lot more by the time they finished defending Khalid. For this reason, they called a meeting on Tuesday morning to request a $50,000 retainer from Khalid and to give him one important stipulation-no Hezbollah funds could be used to pay his lawyers. For Alex, it was a last-ditch effort to extricate his firm from the case. If Khalid refused to pay the retainer, even Shannon wouldn’t argue that they should take the case for free.
Alex had decided not to turn on the television this morning. Given the developments in California, he felt like his firm and Khalid were under siege. Forensics experts had already determined that the same sword used to sever Ja’dah’s head had been used in California. Young lawyers dream about high-profile cases, but Alex had always pictured himself wearing the white hat, not the black one. In this case, Alex felt as if he were wandering aimlessly in the fog of war, bullets flying all around him, and he couldn’t even tell where they were coming from.
He had a one-word strategy for these next few weeks of negative publicity: survive.
He checked his phone messages on the way to work and was surprised to discover that his critics had somehow discovered his cell number. He had already deleted dozens of hate-filled e-mails, including more than a few death threats. But there was something different about actually listening to the voices of his harshest critics; hearing the raw anger unnerved him. He thought about Shannon-the one lawyer in the firm who’d actually had the guts to speak out at Khalid’s bond hearing. She hadn’t said one word about death threats, but Alex was sure she must have received twice as many as he did.
He began to wonder if $50,000 was enough.
When he arrived at the office, Sylvia was behind her desk but looked like she might not last the day. She gave him a tortured look-her migraine face-and groaned out a “Good morning.”
For heaven’s sake, suck it up! Alex wanted to say. Instead, he also mumbled, “Good morning” and headed straight to his office.
Five minutes later, Sylvia was in his doorway, talking softly and moaning about her headache and the threats she had received as the firm’s receptionist. She had called the police, but all they did was take another report. As she talked, Sylvia would occasionally stop and squeeze her temples just to make sure that Alex realized how much pain she was in.
“Do you need to go home?” Alex finally asked.
“I don’t want to leave you stranded. But I can hardly keep my eyes open without the pain becoming just unbearable.”
Alex sighed. “Hold on a second.”
He walked down the hall to Shannon’s office, closed the door, and admitted defeat. It was time for Sylvia to go. It was lousy timing, with everything happening on the Mobassar cases, but Alex couldn’t handle it any longer. Shannon was happy he had finally discovered the obvious; she even volunteered to do the honors but also expressed caution. “Whoever fires her shouldn’t mention the headaches,” Shannon counseled. “They might be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
Alex rose from his chair. “I need to do it,” he said. “I’ll let you figure out how to replace her.”
Alex returned to his office and tried to let Sylvia down gently, but she did not cooperate. She had a spasm of crying, which only made the headache worse. Alex tried to comfort her but also kept glancing at his watch. It took thirty minutes of coaxing and sixty days of severance pay to send Sylvia packing with any kind of positive attitude.