She turned on him. “You are
Joe reached out and stroked her cheek. “Keep your chin up,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”
She nodded and thanked him with her eyes. “Which way?” she said. “I’ve never been in this building before.”
Judge Hewitt was small, dark, and twitchy. He’d been a judge for seventeen years and Joe appreciated Hewitt’s lack of pomposity and almost manic insistence on a fast, no-nonsense pace in his courtroom. He was known for cutting off long-winded questions and statements and ordering lawyers to get to the point. He often asked especially verbose attorneys, in front of the jury and their clients, “Are you being paid by the word?”
Joe and Marybeth entered the courtroom. It was narrow and ancient with a high stamped-tin ceiling and the acoustics were hollow and awful. The pine-paneled walls were covered by old paintings depicting 1940s versions of local Western history: politically incorrect renderings of Indian massacres filled with dripping scalps and war paint, cavalry charges, grizzly bear hunts, powwows, covered wagons loaded with cherubic children. Joe was intimately familiar with each and every one of them since he’d spent so much time over the years in the room waiting to testify in game and fish violation cases. Joe disliked being inside courtrooms nearly as much as hospitals, and always felt uncomfortable, constrained, and false when he was inside either.
“There she is,” Marybeth whispered, almost to herself.
Joe looked up. Missy sat in the first row on the left side with her back to them, next to the broad buckskin- covered shoulders of Marcus Hand. Missy had her hair up in a matronly bun and was wearing a light print dress. The effect, Joe thought, was that she looked older than her age. He was shocked.
He wondered if Hand had coached her. After all, she’d been at home on the ranch for a week since she made bail, sharing the rambling mansion with Hand and his team of attorneys, paralegals, and investigators. She’d had plenty of time to regroup since the arrest and to work on her appearance, to work her magic. But for those without that knowledge, it looked as though she’d thrown on a dress minutes before court in her jail cell and had been denied makeup or a mirror.
On the other side of the aisle, Dulcie Schalk studied notes on a legal pad. She wore a dark business suit with a skirt and black flats. Sheriff McLanahan lounged next to Schalk, arm flung back over the bench, chin up, and looking smarmy and bored, Joe thought.
Four people stood in front of the bench as Judge Hewitt glared down at them. The two men in the middle were in orange jumpsuits and boat shoes. They had long black hair and dark skin. Joe recognized them as Eddie and Brent Many Horses, Eastern Shoshones from the reservation. They’d been long-distance runners in high school and he’d checked their fishing licenses more than once. Bookending the Many Horses was public defender Duane Patterson on their left, and Dulcie Schalk’s deputy county attorney Jack Pym on their right.
“What’s going on?” Marybeth whispered to Joe, as they found a seat several rows back from her mother.
“Arraignment day,” Joe whispered back. “Judge Hewitt likes to do them one after the other each Monday. The Many Horses brothers are accused of stealing cars and dealing meth. Your mother is next in line.”
“My God,” Marybeth whispered, shaking her head. “This is too unbelievable.”
Joe sat back and took in the scene. Everyone, with the exception of the Many Horses brothers and their counsel, was waiting for the next event. Jim Parmenter and Sissy Skanlon sat amidst a cluster of a half-dozen reporters from various newspapers, radio and television stations. Several of McLanahan’s deputies, including Sollis, took over the seats directly behind Dulcie Schalk and the sheriff behind the prosecution table. A dozen or so local busybodies Joe usually saw clustered around coffee cups at the Burg-O-Pardner and the diner were scattered through the court, simply out of curiosity, he assumed. This was certainly a different feel from the initial appearance, and the gravity of the situation struck him. No doubt, he thought, Missy noticed it, too.
“She’s looking back,” Marybeth whispered.
Missy had turned in her seat to assess the courtroom crowd and her eyes searched slowly through the room until they found Joe and Marybeth. “She sees us,” Marybeth said.
There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin looked like parchment. She looked so sad, so small, so . . .
Marybeth clenched her fist in a “stay strong” gesture, and Missy smiled sadly and nodded. When she turned back around, Marybeth said to Joe, “I’ve never seen her look worse. How can anyone think she was capable of what she’s accused of?”
Joe thought,
Judge Hewitt whacked his gavel and set a trial date for the Many Horses brothers. The brothers and their attorney shuffled out in their boat shoes, throwing suspicious glances at the growing crowd in the courtroom who weren’t there for them.
“Next,” Hewitt said, glancing down at his schedule. “Twelve Sleep County versus Missy Alden on the charge of conspiracy and first-degree murder.”
Marybeth grasped his arm with both of her hands at the words.
“Showtime,” Joe muttered to Marybeth.
Dulcie Schalk looked young, sharp, athletic, and competent, Joe thought, as she ran through the charges for Hewitt. She outlined the county’s case with devastating brevity.
“Your Honor,” she said, standing and holding her legal pad in front of her but barely glancing at it, “the county charges the defendant, Mrs. Alden, of deliberately murdering her fifth husband, Earl Alden. Mr. Alden was about to file divorce proceedings against her, which would have left her without the majority of the financial empire she’d worked so long and hard to obtain. We will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Alden, upon learning of the pending divorce proceedings, actively engaged in the pursuit of hiring a killer to carry out her plan. And we know this, Your Honor, because a man who was asked to pull the trigger will tell us so. He’ll also testify that when he was unwilling to commit the murder on the defendant’s behalf, the defendant did it herself. Our witness is working closely with the county and he’s been fully cooperative. He’s agreed to become a state’s witness and testify against her. We have phone records to prove communications between Mrs. Alden and the murderer-for-hire. We have the murder weapon and forensic evidence to prove it. And we will establish both motive and opportunity.”
Schalk paused to turn and point her finger at Missy at the next table. Joe followed her gesture and found Missy’s reaction discordant with the buildup. Missy looked demurely at the county attorney, moisture in her eyes.
