Hannah remembered a time when she’d been drawn to such tragedies, too. Back when they only happened to other people.
Matt inhaled deeply. “That’s when you talk about first-degree murder.”
“Should I say that’s what you’re seeking in this case?”
Matt nodded. “People will want to know what’s happening to the defendant, what penalty he’s facing. Tell them he’s going to be tried for first-degree murder. Then tell them a little bit about first-degree murder and how it relates to drunk driving.”
Matt slid a sheet of paper across the desk to Hannah. “I wrote out some notes for you. Just a description of the charge—murder with the intent to kill—and the reasons some drunk drivers fit the bill.”
Hannah glanced over the sheet, noting key phrases: several priors, previous accidents, alcohol training, driving without a license. “These are the same things you said at the preliminary hearing last month.”
“Right. It’s important that we keep the message short and consistent.”
“Because of the audience?”
“Partly. See, the media covers these victim impact panels. Same theory. People are drawn by tragedy, so the papers and news stations send reporters and take your story to the public.”
“So we’re really reaching more than just the people in the audience?” Hannah thought she was beginning to understand. “We’re reaching the people at home, too. Right?”
“We’re reaching jurors, Hannah. It’s that simple.” Matt leaned back and crossed his legs. “You sell the audience on murder-one, you sell the jurors. At least that’s the plan.”
Hannah sighed and stared out the window again. “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m here.” She turned to Matt again. “You know, making plans for victim impact panels and discussing murder-one with a prosecutor.”
Matt smiled sadly. “Hey, come on, now. We prosecutors aren’t all that bad.”
Their eyes connected. “I’ll never think of you as bad, Matt. You’re the good guy … my only hope right now.”
Matt shifted in his chair uneasily. “Hannah, don’t take this wrong, but aren’t you a Christian?”
Oh no, not again. She was growing so weary of this conversation. She folded her arms tightly in front of her. “I was once. A long time ago.”
“I thought so.” He turned his attention to a small photograph tucked into the frame of his desk calendar. She couldn’t quite make out the faces, but she felt her heart constrict when he ran a finger over the image. It must be someone he loved. A girlfriend?
“I’m a believer. Did you know that?”
She shrugged. “I think Carol mentioned something about it.” She was no longer enjoying their conversation, and she glanced at her watch. It was time to go.
Matt watched the emotions washing over Hannah’s face. This wasn’t easy for her. “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”
“No.” Hannah fidgeted with her wedding ring. “Ever since the accident … I’ve had a hard time believing God really exists.” She paused. “We went to church, we tithed, gave to the poor, obeyed his word.”
“And look where it got you.” Matt understood perfectly. Far better than he’d ever wanted to.
“Right.” Hannah looked away. “I wouldn’t want to serve that kind of God, even if he were real.”
Matt nodded. “I remember feeling that way.”
Hannah looked up, surprised.
“It was a long time ago.”
It was time. Time to tell Hannah why this all meant so much to him. He glanced down at the photo, at the laughing couple smiling up at him …
He removed the photo from the frame on his desk calendar and held it out to her. “This was my best friend Shawn. And his girlfriend Victoria.”
Hannah leaned closer and studied the photo. Matt swallowed hard. It hurt to remember his friends when they were young and full of life. Hannah lifted her gaze curiously and waited for him to explain.
Help me, Lord. Help me tell this so she’ll understand. He wasn’t quite sure why it mattered so much.
He only knew it did.
“Shawn was my best friend growing up. We played ball together and went off to college together. Victoria came into the picture a couple years after that.”
Matt gazed at the picture, and then, as though a flood-gate had been removed, Victoria was there before him. And Shawn. He could see the three of them making their way across the campus at Loyola Marymount University, carefree and brimming with enthusiasm, planning study sessions and beach trips, Saturday pizza parties and whatever basketball game was coming up.
Shawn Bottmeiller had been Matt’s best friend since high school. They’d both been forwards on the Westlake basketball team. Off the court, Shawn was a slow-moving, handsome dreamer with little drive or ambition, who imagined himself with a career in the NBA. He was lanky with a pretty shot and as much natural basketball talent as anyone who’d ever graced the court at Westlake High.
Matt had been everything Shawn was not. He was a blur of motion, filling out college applications and scholarship forms two years before high school graduation. Matt did not have Shawn’s striking looks, but he was fiercely athletic, and hours in the weight room had given him a chiseled body. What he lacked in talent and natural skills, he made up for with hard work and dedication. Matt was a realist, and from the time he could spell his name he’d known he would be a lawyer one day.
“A crummy old lawyer?” Shawn would ask sometimes when they were breathless and sweaty after a game. “Why would ya wanna go and do some fool thing like that. This is the life, man. Hoops, hoops, and more hoops. And girls, of course.”
“Someone has to take care of the bad guys,” Matt would tell him.
“Oh, I see. You’ll be one of those poor, struggling lawyers who wastes his life getting criminals locked up just to watch ’em get out on some early release program. That oughta be real satisfying, man.”
“Okay, how ’bout you, Shawn? Gonna live at home all your life?”
“I—” Shawn paused for effect—“will be playing hoop in the NBA, stopping by your dreary little law office when I’m feeling charitable and giving you free tickets to watch me play.”
“Oh, okay. Is there a plan B?”
Shawn looked insulted. “Plan B? Matt, you’ve lost faith in me, man. I’m still growing, you know. Gonna be six-foot-eight, and then they’ll be banging down my door asking me to play for them.”
“Do the words ‘hard work’ mean anything to you? ’Cause that’s what it’s going to take to get that kind of attention. I for one plan to work my tail off to make state.”
“Hoop and work.” Shawn looked as if he’d gotten a sudden taste of lemon. “The words don’t go together in my book. Hoops are too much fun, man.”
Before their junior year, Matt drew up a workout schedule he believed would give them the edge when basketball season came. “Three hundred jump shots a day, two hundred free throws—” Matt was excited as he explained the routine to Shawn—“lifting for an hour, then sprints. And dribbling. We take the ball with us wherever we go. By the time school starts, we’ll be better than any forwards in the league. State championship, man. All the way!”
Shawn looked at him, arched one eyebrow, and dropped himself into a beanbag chair. “During summer vacation? You must be missing a screw, my man. Summer is for catching rays and watching babes.”
Matt shrugged. “Suit yourself. But don’t whine when I make all-state. Then the recruiters will be knocking down my door, and you’ll find yourself scrambling for a junior college team who’ll let you walk on.”
“Moi, me, the great one.” Shawn laughed. “They’ll beg me to play for them, man.”
“We’ll see.”
Matt made time for the beach that summer, but only after he had completed his daily basketball regime. When state playoffs came, Matt led the way averaging thirty-two points per game and eight rebounds. Shawn skated by averaging nine points and three boards, but Matt’s predict
ion had been accurate. He was selected first team all-state, while Shawn received only an honorable mention.
The next year Matt, who had sprouted to six-foot-four, accepted a scholarship to play basketball at Loyola Marymount University. Shawn was forced to attend a junior college. Two years later he transferred to Loyola Marymount, where the closest he got to a basketball court was his seat in the student section. Still, he rarely missed one of Matt’s games.
Midway through their junior year, Matt and Shawn took an advanced English comp class and there, sitting in the first row of the large auditorium, was Victoria Stevens.
Being friends for so much of their lives, Matt and Shawn had reached an agreement regarding girls: No girl came between them. Period. They might both find a girl attractive, but if one of them had the opportunity to date her, the other celebrated the victory. There was no room for jealousy in their friendship.
Victoria Stevens was the first girl who threatened that. Everyone on campus knew about her. She was more beautiful than any girl they’d ever seen and utterly unattainable. For the first month, they filed into class early to get a better look at her, but neither of them could figure out a way to meet her.
Then one day they were leaving class after the bell when providence placed Victoria right in front of them. Drawing on his once considerable defensive basketball skills, Shawn slipped his finger under her elbow and dislodged her books. Matt watched the whole thing and saw Victoria’s befuddled expression as her books mysteriously tumbled to the ground. Shawn was there at her side as she stopped to pick them up.
“Oh, hey, let me get those for you.” He flashed her his famous grin and she met his gaze. Then just as quickly she looked beyond him to Matt, and her eyes lit up.
“Hey, aren’t you on the basketball team?”
“Yeah.” Matt smiled uncomfortably. Shawn had made the first move. He needed to back off.
Shawn cleared his throat. “Yes, and I taught him everything he knows.” He dribbled an imaginary ball, pulled up near Victoria, and shot an invisible three-pointer. He remained motionless for a moment, then raised both hands signifying that the basket was good. “Nothing but net.”
Victoria cast a questioning glance at him, but she couldn’t hold back her laugh. Shawn and Victoria began dating, and soon they were seeing each other exclusively. On occasion Matt would catch her looking at him longer than she needed, but there was never any reason for him to doubt her affection for Shawn.
One afternoon the three of them were studying when Shawn had to leave for an appointment with his counselor.
“You don’t say much, Matt,” Victoria said when they were alone.
He shrugged. “We’re supposed to be studying.”
She tilted her head pensively. “But you work so hard. School, basketball. Don’t you ever just want to have fun?”
Matt considered her thoughtfully. “I have fun being the best.”
“You and Shawn are so different. He’s so, oh, I don’t know … goofy, I guess. I wonder what he’ll do in life, you know?”
“I think he’s going to law school with me.” Matt grinned.
Victoria looked surprised. “Really. I didn’t know he wanted to be a lawyer.”
“I don’t know that, either, but he seems to follow me around.” Matt stifled a laugh. He didn’t want to get too friendly with Victoria while Shawn was gone.
“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if you’d knocked my books down and not him.” She was no longer smiling.
“So you knew about that, huh? He used to do that on the court all the time. Come up behind some poor guy, nudge the ball, and take off without ever looking back.” Matt looked down at the textbook and doodled with a single finger.
Victoria lowered her head and caught his eyes again. “Don’t you wonder, Matt?”
He drew a breath and released it slowly. “Look, Victoria, you’re a beautiful girl, and I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t attracted to you. But you’re dating Shawn, and that’s about as far as my wondering usually goes.”
Victoria nodded once. “Okay. Shawn’s a lot of fun and I enjoy dating him. But still …”
Matt looked up once more.
She met his look. “One day … who knows?”
Matt held her gaze a moment longer, then exhaled dramatically, leaned over, and tapped the textbook opened up in front of her.
“So, what is it you’re studying anyway?”
Shawn and Victoria continued dating, and her presence in his life seemed to change him. He became more responsible, more aware of the future and its looming reality. While Matt dated occasionally, for the most part he was too busy studying and playing basketball. He spent his free time with Shawn and Victoria, and the threesome became as integral a part of his college life as the school’s hardwood gymnasium floor and stuffy locker room.
Before graduation Shawn followed Matt’s lead and applied for admission to Pepperdine Law School. His father worked in the movie industry, and money would not be a problem. Funds weren’t as easily abundant for Matt’s family, but his grades, student involvement, and application essays were such that he received a full scholarship.
Shawn burst into Matt’s dormitory when he received the news. “I’m in, man! You and me. Law school. Conquering the bad guys.”
Matt stood up and slapped his friend on the back and the two embraced. “Don’t worry. It’ll be even better than the NBA.”
Shawn grinned. “Now, I doubt that, man. Seriously. But hey, this calls for some kind of celebration.”
“Yeah, let’s plan something. The three of us.”
Shawn pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. “I’m seeing Victoria tonight.”
Matt glanced from the box to his friend. “What’s this?”
Shawn opened it, and there inside lay a glimmering diamond solitaire engagement ring. “Tonight’s the night, man.”
Matt’s momentary disappointment turned quickly to elation for his best friend. “Hey, that’s great. She have any idea?”
“Oh, you know the female gender.” Shawn flashed his famous grin. “Probably been expecting it for months.”
“You sure you’re ready?”
Shawn grew suddenly serious. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love her, man. She’s my life.”
That night, Shawn and Victoria went to dinner at Gladstones on the beach. They ate steak and lobster and later walked on the sandy strip beneath the restaurant where Shawn got down on one knee and proposed. Matt got the whole story later, all the details—including how Victoria grew teary-eyed and accepted.
The two were walking hand-in-hand along Pacific Coast Highway looking for a less crowded stretch of beach when a Volkswagon careened out of control and struck them from behind. Shawn was knocked onto the shoulder of the roadway, scraped but not seriously hurt; Victoria took the full force of the hit. She flew twenty feet in the air before landing on the pavement, motionless. Shawn scrambled to her side and cradled her broken body, begging her to hang on. He was still holding her that way, sobbing, when paramedics arrived and told him what he already knew. She was dead.
The driver of the Volkswagon had been drunk.
Matt did his best to help Shawn get over her death. They started law school and tried to keep busy. But they were both devastated.
The drunk driver was given ten days in prison and a five hundred dollar fine. He’d been convicted once before, but he was young, and the judge thought he’d be better off taking alcohol education courses than wasting away in a prison. Shawn hated the man, could have gladly killed him given the chance. But none of it would bring back Victoria, and as the one-year anniversary of her death grew near, Shawn dropped two of his classes and spent hours sitting on the grassy Pepperdine hillside overlooking Malibu Beach.
Matt had tried talking to him, tried to help him work through it. But all to no avail. On the one-year anniversary of Victoria’s death, Shawn Bottmeiller took a gun from his parents’ closet and wrote two letters—one to hi
s parents expressing his love and sorrow for what he was about to do; the other to the man who killed Victoria. In it he expressed his anger and hatred, his inability to forgive the man for what he’d done.
“When you killed her, you killed my dreams. You killed me. Today I’ll finish what you tried to do a year ago.”
Then he drove to the beach, walked down to the sandy strip where he had proposed to Victoria a year earlier, and shot himself in the head.
Matt, always the realist, always the achiever, doubled his efforts at law school and determined that Victoria’s and Shawn’s deaths would not be in vain. He finished law school top of his class and took a job at the district attorney’s office in Los Angeles. In the process, he met Sgt. John Miller and saw something different about him. When he learned about the man’s faith, Matt began attending a Bible-believing Christian church, and a decade after the deaths of Shawn and Victoria, he gave his life to the Lord.
Then, when he had enough experience, he began specializing in one type of case, the only type that really mattered to him.
Cases against drunk drivers.
That had been eighteen years earlier, but now as he watched Hannah Ryan studying the photo of his two friends, it felt as if it had happened yesterday.
Hannah looked from the photo to Matt, and was surprised at the grief she saw on his face.
“Do your friends live here?”
Matt blinked, as though the question startled him, then shook his head slowly. “No.” His gaze drifted to the photo, then back to Hannah. “The day Shawn asked Victoria to marry him, she was killed by a drunk driver.”
Shock swept over Hannah, and she had to resist the strong urge to go to Matt, to put her arm around him and comfort him. No wonder she’d always felt such understanding from him.
But he wasn’t finished.
“One year later, on the anniversary of Victoria’s death—” Matt’s voice was ragged with sorrow—“Shawn killed himself.”
Hannah sat slowly back in her seat. Like her, Matt had lost so much. Because of men like Brian Wesley … the kind of men Matt had worked so long and so hard to prosecute.…