Jimmy squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit Timothy in the chest. Timothy screamed. The bullet bounced off his chest. Jimmy’s eyes went wide. He pulled the trigger again, and the bullet bounced off Timothy’s chest again.
This time, Jimmy screamed. Then he threw the gun in the air, yelled, “Jesus save me, Jesus save me,” and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him.
Jimmy passed a church during his flight from Timothy’s house. When he saw a statue of Jesus on the lawn, he stopped dead. Moments later, he was in confession. Less than an hour later, the priest had walked Jimmy to the nearest police station, where he told a detective what he had done.
It is true that Jimmy started going to chapel because it was an essential part of his plan to get out of prison, but somewhere during those years of churchgoing and talks with the chaplain, Jimmy had taken the Lord into his heart. When he told the parole board that he had found God, he wasn’t really lying, and it was his sincerity that convinced the board members to grant his parole. Still, there was a part of Jimmy that wondered if God really existed.That all changed the second he shot Timothy Rankin in the chest twice at point-blank range and saw the bullets bounce into the air.
The priest who accompanied Jimmy to the police station believed that Jimmy O’Leary had truly accepted Christ. He also believed that Jimmy needed a good lawyer, and he remembered Barry McGill, one of his parishioners, telling him about a very good lawyer named Robin Lockwood who worked out at his gym.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Barry McGill waited to talk to Robin until she came out of the locker room. “You got a minute?”
Robin stopped and put down her gym bag.
“You know I go to church.”
“I do.”
“So, this Sunday, after the service, Father Gregory, my priest, asked me if I knew a good criminal lawyer.”
“The priest isn’t in trouble, is he?”
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s this guy who ran into his church and confessed to shooting this other guy. Only the guy that got shot didn’t die, and something really strange happened.”
“‘Strange’ like how?”
Robin dropped her workout gear in her office. Then she went to see Jeff, who was eating a doughnut and sipping coffee while reading the sports page. Robin knocked on the doorjamb.
Jeff looked up and smiled. “You look very sexy this morning,” he said.
“And you look like you’re engaged in frivolous activities on company time.”
“Hey, I have to keep up on the sports news in case a Trail Blazer wants to hire us.”
“I apologize,” Robin said as she dropped onto a chair across from her boyfriend. “But it’s time for you to earn your keep. We have a case right out ofThe Twilight Zone.”
“Oh?”
“Our newest client shot a guy twice at point-blank range, and the bullets bounced off his chest.”
“‘On any other day, that might seem strange,’” the investigator said, quoting his favorite line fromCon Air, one of his all-time favorite movies. Then he held up the Arts and Entertainment section of the newspaper and pointed to a full-page ad.
“You’re kidding?!”
The ad contained a color photograph of Robert Chesterfield in a flowing black robe surrounded by three beautiful women—a blonde, a redhead, and a brunette—who were dressed in bright red robes adorned with yellow hieroglyphics. It proclaimed that Lord Robert Chesterfield—“one of the world’s great magicians”—was going to rise from the dead during the premiere of the Chamber of Death at the Imperial Theater.
“Has Chesterfield or any of his people called?” Robin asked.
“Not that I know,” Jeff said.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think we have to think about Robert Chesterfield unless he does call us. Now, tell me about this bullet thing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Homicide Detective Carrie Anders spotted Roger Dillon’s car when she pulled into the rain-soaked supermarket parking lot at 11:15 in the evening. There was only a sliver of moon, but light from the poles the store had spread around the lot cast a soft glow over the puddled asphalt.