The Mole in His Bed novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Left Side

Paula Crowe was sentenced on the third Tuesday in March, in the same courtroom where I had once been called a traitor.

The judge gave her life, with no chance of parole for forty years.

She stood to hear it in a gray jail suit, with her hair pulled flat and her limp gone for good.

The families filled every bench.

The Captain's widow sat in the front row with Winnie, and neither of them moved while the judge read out a hundred and twelve counts.

When it was done, a bailiff touched Paula's elbow.

She turned and found me in the gallery.

"You'd have made a very good friend, Cora," she said, loud enough for the room. "If you'd ever stopped being so honest."

"I was your friend for six years," I said. "It was you who stopped."

She looked away first.

They took her out through the side door, and it shut with a heavy clang.

Neil sat on my left in his new suit, without his badge, and he took my hand and said nothing.

He had stood before a review board in January and given the same statement he had given Judith, word for word.

They had suspended him for a year without pay, and then offered him his desk back.

He had taken the offer, and asked for the cold-case room in the basement, where nobody would have to be lied to.

I had gone back to Major Crimes on my own terms the week after the trial.

My badge number was on my desk again, and nobody had to be told who I was.

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