No More Husband, No More Son novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Hatbox
Brice did not answer his son.
He stood by the open panel in a circle of phone lights with his mouth working and nothing coming out.
"You heard it," a man said from the middle of the crowd. "We all heard you."
The power came back, and every light in the showroom flashed on at once.
Four hundred faces were turned toward the man who had asked them to honor second chances.
A donor in the second row, a big man in a gold watch, stood up and unclipped the Pennington campaign pin from his lapel.
He dropped it on his chair.
He walked up the aisle without a word, and his wife followed him.
Then another couple stood, and another.
The lawyer in the gray suit shut his folder, tucked it under his arm and went out the side door as fast as he could without running.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Brice called. "Please. This is a misunderstanding."
Nobody turned around.
The prosecutor climbed onto the stage and took the dead microphone out of its stand.
He did not need it.
"My name is known to most of you," he said, and his voice carried to the back wall. "Three years ago my office convicted Leona Pennington on the word of a six-year-old boy and a woman who was lying down on the steps."
He looked at me, and I saw that his hands were not steady.
"Mrs. Pennington. I'm sorry. This office will move to vacate your conviction on Monday. Tonight I'm asking Mr. Pennington and Ms. Cordell to remain in this building, and I am asking the deputy at the door to see that they do."
The deputy by the glass doors took off his hat.
It was the officer who had cuffed me on the Pennington porch, three years ago and again last month.
He looked at me with his face drained of color and gave one short nod.
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