it became clear she was pointedly avoiding him, not showing up
at the arraignment, never once coming to see him in lockup, and
not returning the calls it took great pains to make from jail. He
hated to send Bumpy on a romantic errand. But pride aside, he
knew the issue of Cynthia’s absence was bigger than his personal
feelings for her. In order to beat the charges, he needed Cynthia
as a witness.
Then, a few days after the arraignment, Bumpy came to see him in lockup. Jay remembers he held the plastic phone receiver, looked at Jay through the dirty bulletproof glass in the visiting room, and, unsolicited, offered up the information he had, what he’d heard from one too many sources. Cynthia Maddox was gone. Off campus, out of the city, maybe out of the state. Gone.
Elise Linsey is still a no-show.
Nor does Jay see Charlie Luckman in the courtroom. At the bench, the judge is sipping tea-colored water out of
a plastic cup, what could be Jack Daniel’s for all Jay can tell at this distance. Emily Vroland is young for a county judge. Ashy blond and prettily made up, she looks like the kind of woman who actually has plans for after work. Maybe jazz at the Warwick Hotel or country and western at a stomphouse down in Victoria. Whatever her social agenda, her afternoon calendar seems to be interfering, running longer than maybe she anticipated. Under the courtroom’s fluorescent lights, Judge Vroland listens to her clerk read criminal charges into the record. Solicitation or DWI or felony assault. Misdemeanor theft or city code violation or vehicular manslaughter. She listens as the defendants mumble pleas, defense lawyers waive their pretrial hearings, and pros ecuting attorneys argue for a stiff bail penalty. She attends to all of this leaned way back in her chair, saying as little as possible about the sleepy proceedings, seemingly lulled by the constant ticky-tapping of the court reporter’s stenograph machine.
Jay checks his watch and glances around the courtroom again, looking for some sign of Mr. Luckman or his client. This time, his eyes land on a familiar face. Across the aisle, second row from the back, the man from the black Ford is staring right at him. The man tips an imaginary hat in Jay’s direction, a faint smile on his lips, as if this is all going according to some plan, as if he’s tickled by Jay’s lawyerly predictability. Of course Jay would show up at the arraignment, and of course the man from the black Ford would be here too, to monitor his $25,000 investment.
Jay will not get up and leave. The decision is made right then. He won’t t u rn tail and r u n. W hat he needs is a m inute to t h ink , to decide on an approach. He wonders how much the guy knows— Jay’s call to the mayor, the trip to the courthouse and to Rolly’s bar—and how long he’s been watching. Caught, Jay considers whether his best defense is an offense, if he ought to confront the guy right here and now, in a room full of people, to make clear he hasn’t technically broken their agreement. He’s almost onto his feet when the door behind the clerk’s desk opens wide and the last defendant is led in.
Even at this distance, he recognizes her at once.
She’s heavily made up for court, wearing a powder-blue pants suit with a pinkish, seashell-colored blouse, primly buttoned all the way up to her chin. There’s no county-issued jumpsuit, no handcuffs for her. Mr. Luckman is already earning his fee, and then some. Jay thinks he’s maybe underestimated Charlie Luckman’s power, his true pull in the courts. Being an ex-D.A. appar ently has its perks. Jay would almost bet that Elise Linsey never spent more than a couple of hours in lockup. And here she is now, about to be charged with murder, and the only metal on her wrists is a pair of gold, diamond-encrusted bracelets. Her hair, lighter than Jay remembers, is tucked softly behind her ears.
A bailiff guards Ms. Linsey on one side. On the other, Charlie, in an oyster gray three-piece and matching quill ostrich boots, leads his client by the elbow, gently showing her the way. She’s doing a grand job of pretending that this is all new to her, that she hasn’t been here a dozen times before, at a defendant’s table, in front of a judge. The clothes and the makeup are a cover, the shell that hides the girl from Galena Park, a thief and a prosti tute. Jay can’t believe the trouble this woman has caused him. He has an impulsive, perilous thought of leaping from his seat and wrapping his fingers around her bony neck.
When the clerk commences the formal reading of the charges, there’s a pronounced hush in the room as the words are said out loud:
Jay makes a mental note of the name.
“Mr. Luckman,” the judge begins the proceedings. Gone is the limp and listless late-afternoon handling of the court’s busi ness. Her voice has taken on a deep note of sobriety. “How does the defendant plead?”
They all watch and wait.
Charlie Luckman clears his throat, steadies his cowboy boots on the flat brown carpet. He, to Jay’s mind, seems nervous. “Not guilty, Your Honor.”
Elise Linsey never says a word.
“My client would like to waive the reading of her legal rights under the U.S. Constitution, as counsel has explained all in great detail.”
Judge Vroland nods. “Does the state have a problem with that?”
“No, Your Honor,” the prosecutor says. The assistant district attorney assigned to the case is a short, squat woman in her for ties, with a Peggy Fleming bowl cut and a rather strong resem blance to a bull terrier. “The state would like to request at this time that bail be set in the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Your Honor,” Charlie says, his voice a honeyed drawl. “I don’t imagine the court needs reminding that my client turned herself in to authorities. That’s about as clear a show of good faith as you’re likely to get,” he says, putting his best folksy foot forward. Jay imagines Charlie as the type of lawyer who believes that condescension masked as plainspokenness has a winning way with women.
Judge Vroland is not impressed.
“Do you have an actual counterargument to make, Coun selor?”
