'Do you want me to call the bailiff?' Cannoe asked.
Ellersby looked up to the ceiling, said a quick prayer for Evan Scholler's soul, and brought her eyes back down to the table. 'No,' she said. 'I think we need to do one more ballot.'
PART FOUR. 2007
30
Dismas Hardy's windshield wipers couldn't keep up with the downpour. They thwacked as fast as they could go, but this latest in a series of March squalls reduced his visibility to near zero. He could barely make out the first gate until he was at it. He loved his little two-seater Honda convertible with the top down in the summer and fall, but it wasn't made for this kind of weather. The plastic back window had long since gone opaque and even with the defrost fan blasting, the inside surfaces of the door windows were fogged over too. He pushed the button to lower his driver's window so he could present his identification to the guard and the rain misted in over his face.
Behind him, someone honked, then honked again. His rearview mirror was useless; he couldn't see his side mirrors, either, through the condensation on the windows. The rain pounded down on the cloth roof. He was inside a drum. Blinded, cocooned, he had to lower his window another few inches so he and the guard could see each other. Opening the window allowed more water in, enough to soak through the fabric of his suit in seconds.
Another blast from the impatient prick behind him. Hell, Hardy was already wet; he had half a mind to jump out and confront the guy, pull him out of his ride, deck him, dump him into the churning brown stream that ran over the road's gutters.
Instead, he squinted out to see the guard, flashed his driver's license, and spoke so he could be heard over the rain. 'Dismas Hardy, to visit one of your inmates, Evan Scholler.'
The guard, all but invisible through the downpour, spoke loudly, too, from his semienclosed space, 'I'll have to see your ID better than that, please, sir. Sorry.'
Seething, Hardy handed it out. Waited. He had time to decide that if the car behind him honked once more, he would go take the driver out, but then his wallet was back at the window and he heard a crisp 'Thank you, sir. Ahead to your right after the next gate.'
And he rolled up his window and let the clutch out simultaneously.
When he'd left the city a couple of hours ago, the sky had been light gray, but it hadn't even been drizzling. So he didn't have an umbrella or a raincoat with him.
After he found his spot in the parking lot, he turned off the motor and parked to wait out the worst of the squall. Regain some of his composure. Whoever had been behind him-some delivery guy maybe-didn't follow him to this lot. He thought it was probably just as well.
Composure was an issue. Even before the rain, Hardy's physical reaction to the scheduled visit to the prison had caught him off-guard. It had been a while since he'd had a client in prison, and he was out of practice. He kept having to reach for a breath, his palms were sweaty, an unaccustomed emptiness had hollowed out his lower rib cage. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back and drew in a long breath through his mouth, which he then exhaled with a certain deliberation. He did it again. And again.
When at last the drumming of the rain stopped, he opened his eyes. Now, suddenly, it was just a light drizzle. Seizing the moment, he opened the car door and stepped out onto the asphalt.
HARDY HAD SEEN pictures of Evan Scholler in the newspapers, caught some glimpses of him on the TV news as the trial had gone on, so he thought he'd recognize him on sight. But when the guard first opened the door to the very small room to bring the inmate in, Hardy took a quick glance and decided that this couldn't be his man; the guard must have gotten it wrong and this shackled guy must be going to see another attorney in a different room.
For one thing, Evan was younger, just thirty-one now; this inmate looked at least forty. Further, in photos and on television, Evan was far better-looking, with a stronger chin, lighter hair, a better complexion, smaller in the gut and bigger across the shoulders. This guy here was big, casually buffed, physically intimidating, especially wearing a flat-affect expression that made his thin mouth look mean, even cruel. At first glance, this guy looked like a stone killer.
But the guard, checking the slip of paper in his hand, said, 'Dismas Hardy?' A nod. 'Here's your mope.'
Evan took the slur without reaction. He stood at attention, but relaxed in the pose, seemingly uninterested in what, if anything, happened next. He looked Hardy up and down as he might a side of beef hanging in a cooler.
'You can take the shackles off,' Hardy said.
For the obvious reason, guards in prison did not carry guns on their persons, so in any one-on-one encounter such as this delivery, shackles on prisoners tended to be the norm. Hardy knew several attorneys who visited their clients here and most of them were happy to let the shackles stay put. A shackled convict was a controllable convict, and with many of these inmates, you couldn't be too careful.
The guard hestitated for an instant, then shrugged. 'Your call.' With practiced precision, he unlocked the handcuffs from the chain that was threaded through the Levi's belt loops encircling Evan's waist. The cuffs still dangled from the waist chain at his sides.
Now, though, his hands free, Evan rubbed at his wrists.
The room was four feet wide by about seven feet long. A heavy, solid, industrial gray metal desk squatted against Hardy's right wall and stuck out two-thirds of the way across the space; in a pinch it could serve as a first- line barrier in the event of a surprise attack. Folding chairs sat on either side of it. Hardy had a door with a wire- glass window in it behind him and another door just like that facing him. The guard who'd let him in had cautioned him to stay on his side of the desk, 'just to be safe.' He'd also pointed out the small button low in the wall in Hardy's side that could be pressed in the event of any trouble.
Evan's guard said, 'I'm right outside the whole time,' and then that's where he was, closing the door behind him.
Hardy said, 'You want to sit down?'
Evan thanked him and sat. He put his free hands on the table, still looking through Hardy, until suddenly he focused. 'You got a cigarette?'
'Sorry, I don't smoke.'
'I didn't either,' Evan said. 'What a joke.'
'What is?'
'Not smoking. Watching what you eat. Staying in shape. All that stuff outside. Then you wind up in here.' Maybe he felt as though he'd given too much of himself away. As a cop or a soldier or at the prison or somewhere else, Evan had gotten good at the thousand-yard stare, and he reverted into it. After a minute inside himself, he came back to Hardy. 'So who are you?' he asked.
'Dismas Hardy, your new attorney.'
'Don't take this wrong,' Evan said, 'but it took you long enough.'
'Yeah, well, it was a little complicated.'
A beat. 'What's that first name again?'
'Dismas. The good thief. On Calvary? Next to Jesus?'
Evan shook his head. 'Don't know him. Dismas, I mean. I've heard of Jesus.'
Hardy looked him in the face. If this was humor, it was damn subtle and wouldn't be a bad thing. But he couldn't tell. He could see, however, that his initial impression of the man's age was off-close up he came as advertised, thirty-one. Hard years.
'What happened to Charlie Bowen?' Evan asked.
'He went missing last summer. He's the equivalent of dead as far as the Court's concerned. My firm inherited
