“Not me,” he protested. “I was ambushed.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I reached for his handkerchief and took care of a spot he’d missed, then smoothed his brown hair where someone had ruffled it.
We were directed to the head table and I made sure I wound up on Doug Woodall’s left. I figured that if Julia Lee kept Dwight occupied on my other side, I might could sneak in a few questions.
Someone had gone to the trouble of creating little individual menu cards with wedding bells, my name and Dwight’s, and tonight’s date printed across the top.
Across the room, I saw Reid seated with Jane and Brix Junior. He looked awful, and when our eyes met, he gave a shamefaced nod.
After the waiters had taken our orders, John Claude again called for our attention.
“This is not a regular business meeting,” he said, “but before we get into the festivities, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the tragic death of one of our own. As you all know, Tracy Johnson, one of our assistant district attorneys, was shot last night by an unknown assailant as she drove home with her daughter, Mei. Let us close our eyes and observe a moment of silence for those two lives that are lost to us forever.”
Again, brief images of Tracy tumbled through my mind from the years I had known her—her clear intelligent eyes, her frown when I ruled against her, her quick nod of satisfaction when I found for the State, the time I bought a pair of black high heels she’d wanted but regretfully opted not to buy because of her height, her delight when we surprised her with that baby shower, her tenderness when strapping Mei into the car seat, her dismay when she realized that her favorite white silk blouse had a pureed-spinach stain that wouldn’t come out.
“Judge Parker, would you lead us in prayer?” John Claude said softly.
Luther Parker rose to oblige. He had run against me and won in my first election to become our district’s first black judge. Reared up in an AME church down in Makely, he knew all the words and phrases, and from him they sounded genuine and sincere as he prayed for Tracy and Mei, then for Dwight and me, and finally for all of us gathered together in this place.
“Amen,” he said and whispered amens rustled around the room.
John Claude rose with his wineglass in hand. “There will be time for speeches after dinner,” he said, “but for now, let’s lift our glasses to Deborah and Dwight and to many long years together.”
Everyone smiled and lifted their glasses.
“Hear! Hear!”
“Cheers!”
“Much happiness, guys!”
The waiters returned with our food and soon we were cutting into perfectly grilled steaks and baked potatoes. The tables gradually became lively with talk and laughter, and when Julia Lee started telling Dwight about something that her poodle CoCo had done, I took a sip of my Merlot and turned to Doug Woodall.
“Refresh my memory,” I said. “Who prosecuted the Martha Hurst case?”
Doug frowned. “Martha Hurst?”
“Brix Junior defended her a few years back. She’s on death row, scheduled to die next month unless the legislature imposes a moratorium. At least that’s what Tracy told Reid when she asked to see Brix Junior’s case file on Hurst. Why would she be interested in a case that happened before she joined your staff?”
“I didn’t know she was.”
“She didn’t ask you about it?”
He shook his head, and for the first time I noticed tiny flecks of silver in his thick dark hair.
“That was back when Wendell Barham was still DA, right?” I said.
“Right.” Doug’s hand strayed to the collar of his jacket, where his thumb and index finger slowly rubbed the left collar point. “But Barham didn’t work the case. I did. It was my first death penalty win. First and only woman, too.”
My own hand started for his collar. “May I?”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “Sure.”
I lifted it and saw the row of tiny gold nooses pinned there near the seam line.
“How many now?” I asked. Doug had just won his third term of office and part of his appeal was his strong advocacy of the death penalty for particularly heinous crimes.
“Six.” His face turned grim. “And when Bryant arrests whoever did Tracy, I’ll put in my order for number seven.”
CHAPTER 6
Florence Hartley,
Dwight and I were so tired when we got home from Jerry’s that we just dumped the gifts we’d been given on the dining table and fell into bed, too exhausted to do more than snuggle next to each other to keep warm under the quilts before falling asleep.
Next morning, we were up by seven-thirty. I’ve never met Dwight’s ex-wife and he won’t badmouth the mother of his son, but from things his mother and sisters have let drop and from the way he’s so handy around the kitchen, it’s clear that she never waited on him. He automatically started the coffee while I cleared the table for
