Trial Junkies

'And what's that?' Hutch asked.

'Never ever ever jump to conclusions.'

'Amen,' he said.

A-fucking-men.

Hutch put Ronnie and Christopher on a plane to Italy that night.

After spending the last two weeks at Hutch's apartment, fending off calls from the media, Ronnie had decided she needed to get away for a while, just her and Christopher. Fortunately, they both had passports they'd gotten for a trip to Canada a few years back.

Hutch had agreed to send them to a small villa he'd rented, with a promise to join them whenever Ronnie was ready.

She had faced the revelations about Lola with courage, but it couldn't have been easy to discover how much her own mother had despised her. This was, after all, the woman she had continued to love despite being blamed for everything wrong in their lives.

Hutch admired her more than ever for that courage. Loved her more than ever-he wasn't afraid to admit that now. He had fallen and fallen hard. And he only hoped that she still felt the same about him.

He supposed only time would tell.

For several days after the discovery of the photos, Abernathy and Meyer had made noise about charging Ronnie with Failure to Appear. She had tried to run, after all, and they felt it would be a miscarriage of justice not to arrest her for it.

They had a sudden change of heart when public and press sentiment against Ronnie did an abrupt one- eighty, painting her as the innocent victim of a crazy woman and an overzealous prosecutor. A martyr who had suffered more than enough these last several months.

So the charge was never made and Ronnie left the country unencumbered.

Hutch never heard from Nathaniel Keating again, although he did sometimes feel a slight ache in his side where the Filipina towel girl had punched him. This was nothing compared to the six stitches in back of his skull, however. The wound seemed to be taking forever to heal and often brought on pounding headaches.

As promised, he never heard from Gus again, either. He had given the police a full description of the old guy, but he doubted it would do them any good. Gus-or whoever he was-didn't strike Hutch as the type to be careless. He would lay low for a while, then find a new state, a new city, a new protege to help him ply his trade.

As for Frederick Langer, when the police arrived at the abandoned apartment building, he was nowhere to be found. It was assumed that he had survived Hutch's punishment and fled, until two days later, when his gutted body was discovered in a warehouse dumpster not six blocks away.

Gus's handiwork, no doubt. Tying up the loose ends. The police were now coordinating with law enforcement in several other states, using Langer's DNA to see if it was a match for any of the murders Matt had discovered through his research.

Whenever Hutch thought of Lola Baldacci hanging herself, he couldn't help wondering about the sheer convenience of the act. He'd seen those proud, judgmental eyes of hers too many times to believe that she was the type to take her own life. And he suspected that this was Gus's handiwork as well. An execution, perfectly timed for maximum impact.

Maybe the old guy had done everyone a favor.

The world certainly wouldn't mourn Lola Baldacci.

After Ronnie and Christopher were gone, Hutch spent his time wandering around his apartment, walking the city streets when he felt restless, riding the train, toying with the novel he knew he'd never finish. He even tried to rid himself of his smoking habit, an ongoing struggle he wrestled with every day.

He sometimes thought about heading back to L.A. to start looking for work, but in the end, he simply stayed put. And to his surprise, when he took those walks, he often found himself standing in front of the criminal courthouse, debating whether or not he should go inside.

It might be fun to watch another trial.

One that wasn't so personal this time.

And maybe if he listened carefully to the evidence and didn't jump to any conclusions, as Nadine had warned…

He might actually get this one right.