“Plea of not guilty entered to the charges,” said Sewell. He glanced at me, then at Zant.
Zant asked that bail be set at half a million dollars, citing my danger as a flight risk and my danger to the public of this fine county.
“That’s absurd, Your Honor,” said Loren. “The defendant has obligations here he intends to honor. He has a long and distinguished record — a record unblemished until now — of public service. He intends to clear that record by vigorously defending himself from these charges. He is, may I remind Mr. Zant, a public employee on a public employee’s salary. Half a million dollars’ bail is punitive and unnecessary.”
A low grumble rose from the crowd behind me. It stopped when Sewell peered back at them.
Zant cited my recent, unannounced, unapproved and against orders trip to “someplace in Texas” as an example of my state of mind and my proclivity for flight.
“Your Honor, the defendant took a leave on personal time to attend to personal business in Texas. No complaint had been filed at that time and we—”
“—Mr. Zant, the accused’s travel itinerary prior to this proceeding could not interest this court less. What are you asking me to do, Mr. Runnels?”
“Your Honor, we ask that the defendant be released on his own recognizance, to report as ordered for trial. He is neither a flight risk nor a danger in any way to any person.”
Victoria Espinoza’s voice cut through the air. “Your Honor, if I may — this defendant is a risk to every child he might come in contact with. He is precisely the kind of accused for which bail can act both as a guarantor of appearance and a protection for the People.”
An approving buzz issued from behind me. Sewell slammed his gavel down hard and the sharp report silenced the mob.
“Mr. Runnels?”
“Your Honor, we are simply asking the court to extend to Mr. Naughton the same respect and responsibilities the People were so willing to entrust to him before these allegations were created. He is, I’d like to remind Ms. Espinoza, innocent of all charges until proven otherwise. This piece of paper, Your Honor — the complaint — no more abrogates his twenty years of exemplary performance than it establishes him as a menace to society.”
Sewell glanced out at the crowd, the reporters, then down at me, and over at Zant and Victoria.
The room was nearly silent, but I could still hear a deeper hush descending upon it
“I’m going to set bail at one hundred thousand dollars, securable to this court by a signature bond only. Mr. Naughton, I don’t see you in flight or in commission of crimes while you behave yourself in my county. If you do, I’ll see that you pay for it in more ways than one.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I managed.
Yeah, we’ll shoot him dead! someone piped from behind.
We’ve got Megan’s law!
Castrate him!
Sewell’s bailiff moved toward the seats, and the cat-calls stopped.
“Any more cracks from back there and I’ll throw you all out of my court,” said Sewell. “Every last one of you.”
The silence was begrudged and tentative.
Loren asked for a preliminary hearing, which was granted, date to be set by whichever judge ended up with the case for trial.
Loren bickered about the witness list being too wide in scope, but Sewell overrode him.
The gavel hit wood. Loren tugged me gently toward the door that would lead us back to jail, where I would be processed and released. I followed him easily, lightly — as frail and unresisting as a ghost.
I looked back to see Donna Mason watching me, with a small smile on her face. But how small that lovely perfect face was in the mob of citizens staring at me with absolute hatred in their eyes. I could hear the drone of their malice just beneath the shuffling of feet and opening of doors. It scared me.
Once out of the courtroom I shook Loren’s hand. I was trembling. I would have done almost anything in the world for him then. I was still uncertain that I was not in a dream, but this part of the dream was, by comparison, a lot better than what had gone on before.
“Call me when you land,” he said. “We’ve got some work to do. I’ll send Wilkers to help get you out with minimal circus atmosphere.”
“Thank you. But explain one thing to me now. How come they listed seven photographs on the evidence list? There were only three.”
Loren shook his head. “They got four more the morning you left for Texas. Another batch they found at Sharpe’s house. Allegedly, it took them that long to sift through his collection. And they found the negatives, too, for all of them.”
I looked at him, literally tongue-tied.
“What do the new ones show?” I finally managed.
“Same kind of stuff, Terry. Same place. Different girl.”
Twenty
I made it from the courthouse to the inmate transport bus without the press getting to me — they are kept behind a fence several hundred feet away from the prisoner loading zone. You can make it from the building to the bus in just six quick steps. I settled into my caged compartment at the back of the bus, the same ignominious chamber that had held me — for my own protection — during the short ride from jail to courthouse. But the photographers and professional shooters of video know their way around the county landscape, and at least a dozen of them were standing at the corner of Civic Center Drive and Fifth, where my bus was forced to stop for a light, and the caged compartment housing the animal Terry Naughton was duly photographed. I slunk down out of sight and felt the handcuffs biting into my wrists. There have probably been lower moments in my self-regard, but I can’t remember one, and that is saying a lot.
Through the good graces of Loren, I managed to get from the jail to the parking lot disguised as a custodian. Loren’s kindly assistant — Rex Wilkers — met me at the Intake-Release Center with a short-sleeved blue shirt that said “Allen” over the pocket, a matching blue cap and a stick-on mustache that matched my hair color not at all. I wondered if it was some wry joke on Loren’s part — the name Allen — then decided it was just something they had handy. But it worked. We embedded ourselves behind a pair of young Latino men who spilled into freedom and the waiting arms and kisses of a small crowd of relatives and friends. We cut across a sidewalk and used a relaxed but forceful stride to disappear into the parking lot. Wilkers had parked up close, and we were enclosed in the semi-security of his dark-windowed Porsche before anyone was the wiser. He dropped me off at the airport, and a few minutes later I paid my way through the long-term parking gate and rolled toward the Interstate.
The afternoon was breezy and warm and the hillsides of south Orange County were still green from the winter rains. The wild artichokes sprinkled the hills between the on-ramps with their thorny purple blooms. A flock of ravens pestered a red-shouldered hawk that was perched on the power line over an auto mall, but the old bird looked too tired to fly; he just hunched within his insolent feathers and ignored the cackling multitude around him. Hang in there, buddy, I thought: from a chickenhawk to a red-shouldered one.
I was driving toward home — Melinda’s, now — without any real idea of why. I was quite a bit less than unwelcome there. Maybe I would arrive as the search warrant was being carried out. And the friendly little hamlet of Laguna Beach was the last place I wanted my face to be seen. But still I headed south on the 405 until I realized the senselessness of it. Then I got off at a big retail complex and went to the movies. I sat in the middle of the dark and nearly empty theater, watching a Hollywood star solve a crime by cloning the memory of a dead victim via frozen seminal fluid implanted in a rat The rat had electrodes attached to its tiny conical head, which then translated its thoughts into 35 mm, SurroundSound images that advanced the plot, complete with music. What effects. I concluded idly that I was, and always had been, in the wrong business.