Deadliest of Sins by Sallie Bissell

file. His eyes were defiant, the curve of his mouth arrogant. Nothing about his features indicated any capacity for sympathy at all. She closed the file and gave it back to Penny Morse.
    â€œI’ve got to tell you, Penny, defense counsel must have eaten his Wheaties during this case. That ‘gay panic’ thing was a stroke.”
    â€œHe sure had an answer for everything I brought up.”
    â€œDon’t beat yourself up about it. You just ran into a jury with concealed prejudice. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right, but sometimes it happens.”
    Penny frowned. “There was one weird thing about Buck Honey-
cutt.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou know how most defendants, when they’re acquitted, show some emotion?”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œHoneycutt just stood there, fists clenched, looking mad as hell. When the judge dismissed the case, he just turned and stalked out the door. Didn’t even bother to shake counsel’s hand.”
    Mary chuckled. “Maybe he thought shaking a lawyer’s hand would send him to hell too.”

    Mary left Penny Morse reassured that she’d done a fine job, that Mary herself could have done no better. The two women exchanged cards, Penny telling Mary she could call anytime if she had further questions about the Bratcher case. As Mary drove back to Campbell County, she wondered if Penny could have gotten a conviction even if homosexuality had been in the hate crime statute. Somehow, she doubted it. The injunction against homosexuality was Scriptural; not even Ann Chandler could rewrite the Bible just to bring more jobs to North Carolina.
    She drove back to her motel. If she was going to this baseball game as Victor Galloway’s girlfriend, she needed to change clothes. Showing up in the One Way stands dressed in a skirt and heels would cause more notice than she wanted. She changed into jeans and a T-shirt, then checked her messages. One frantic one from Ann Chandler’s aide Jake McKenna, wondering what she’d found out. Nothing from the little boy who was so concerned about his sister. Nothing from Jonathan Walkingstick, of course. Nothing from Walkingstick in nearly two years.
    â€œNo surprises there,” she whispered, running a comb through her hair, wondering if she would check her messages for the rest of her life, always hoping for a call from him. Putting that thought out of her mind, she laced up her running shoes and headed for the door. She had a ball game to attend and a rookie right fielder to cheer for.

    By the time she found the ball park, the game was in the fifth inning. The One Way Saints were at bat, going up against the Asbury United Methodist Circuit Riders. Mary knew immediately that the Saints were far more into baseball than the Methodists. The Saints wore tight black uniforms, their letters and last names emblazoned across the back. The Methodists just played in jeans and seemingly whatever T-shirts they’d grabbed from their closets. The score reflected the differing attitudes—the Saints led the Circuit Riders 12–0. Mary took a seat in the One Way bleachers and looked for Galloway. She found him, sitting at the end of the bench, intently watching one player who was walking up to bat. She followed his gaze, then caught her breath. The young man who was digging into his stance over the plate wore the number eleven and the name honeycutt on the back of his jersey.
    She craned her neck, tried to see if it was the same man in Penny Morse’s case file, but the batting helmet hid all but the lower half of the man’s face. Still, Mary could see he took his sport seriously. As the Methodist pitcher laughed at some joke from his catcher, Honeycutt just hunkered over the plate, not cracking a smile.
    Finally, the pitcher got serious. As he began his windup, two girls several rows down from Mary stood up and yelled, “Come on, Buck! Kick some butt!” The One Way crowd laughed as