'Were you and Trey here all week?'
'We flew in Sunday night, from California.'
'Why wasn't he playing last week?'
'He had just won the Challenge, he wanted to take a week off before the Open-the U.S. Open-to rest and practice. It's a major.'
Scott had heard enough. For now.
'Karen,' he said, 'get a detailed timeline for that day, for Rebecca and Trey. We'll meet out here at the end of each day for status reports and strategy sessions.'
Scott turned to Bobby, who had been standing by the stairs and observing the interview.
'Let's go meet the enemy.'
TEN
Galveston County Criminal District Attorney Rex Truitt focused through his black reading glasses and tied off a big blue squiggly lure. He seemed pleased.
'Relaxes me.'
'Tying lures?' Scott said.
'Fishing.'
'Good thing you live on an island.'
The D.A. looked like Ernest Hemingway with a law degree. He was sixty-three years old, burly, and BOI-born on the Island. His unruly hair and neat beard were white against ruddy skin that evidenced a long life lived on that sun-baked stretch of sand, except for seven years in Austin attending college and law school at the University of Texas. He had served as the D.A. for the last twenty-eight years and would retire in two. He wore a white short- sleeve shirt and a solid blue tie loosened at the neck; two thick cigars peeked out of his shirt pocket. The coat to his seersucker suit hung on a rack. He sat behind a wood desk in his wood-paneled office on the first floor of the Galveston County Courts Building; on the desk were a dozen colorful lures and two thick black binders. Photos of the D.A. golfing and fishing hung on the side walls and mounted high on the wall behind him was an eight-foot-long blue sailfish. He
presided over an office that employed thirty-nine assistant criminal district attorneys, four investigators, and twenty-five support staff, all working full-time prosecuting criminal defendants in Galveston County, Texas, population 285,000.
Scott and Bobby sat across the desk from him. Ensconced in a chair along the wall was a tanned young man wearing a slick suit, a silk tie, and shiny shoes. He had a full head of black hair and a sharp face, like a rat. Assistant Criminal District Attorney Theodore Newman had assumed the imperial pose of Michael Corleone in The Godfather after he had taken over the family business.
Scott had heard Rebecca's story. She swore she was innocent. But the D.A. thought she was guilty. Scott needed to know why.
'Mr. Truitt-'
The D.A. eyed Scott over his reading glasses. 'Rex. This ain't Dallas.'
'Rex, my client sat in jail for three days-why wasn't she taken before a magistrate?'
'No probable cause to arrest her.'
'Then why did you?'
'I didn't. Cops did. I got no jurisdiction until they refer the case over for prosecution, which didn't happen until yesterday afternoon, when they got the prints off the murder weapon back. They're hers, by the way.'
Scott tried not to react, but the D.A. saw through it.
'She didn't tell you.'
'She didn't know.'
'I'm sure. But we have PC now.'
'Are you going to arrest her again?'
The D.A. shook his head. 'We'll wait for the grand jury to indict. I don't figure she's going anywhere'-another glance over his reading glasses-'is she?'
'No.'
'I have your word?'
'You have my word.'
'She runs, we'll catch her and she'll sit in jail until that verdict is read.'
'She won't run. She's staying with us.'
' Us? '
'My family. I rented a beach house for the summer, out on the West End.'
'And your ex is bunking in? There a current Mrs. Fenney?'
'No.'
'Kids?'
'Two girls. Eleven.'
'You brought your kids down for a murder trial?'
Scott shrugged. 'Single father.'
The D.A. grunted. 'Well, I apologize for the cops jumping the gun. Good ol' boys, they pick up on how to choke-hold a suspect pretty quick at the police academy, but legalities like probable cause, that's a harder grasp for them. But I figured she'd hire a big-time Houston defense lawyer, he'd get her out same day she was arrested.'
'She doesn't have any money. It's all Trey's.'
'Not anymore.'
The D.A. pushed one of the black binders across the desk.
'That's the murder book, everything we've got so far.'
'How do I know it contains everything yours does?'
The Assistant D.A. exploded out of his chair. 'Mr. Fenney, are you accusing the district attorney of-'
The D.A. turned to his assistant and put his index finger to his mouth.
'Shh.'
He turned back to Scott but pointed a thumb at the Assistant D.A.
'Ted wants my job in two years. Still wet behind the ears, but he'll get it 'cause his granddaddy was the D.A. before me-BOI, old Galveston family. So I've made it my personal duty to spend the next two years teaching Ted here about justice.'
'Rex,' Scott said, 'I didn't mean it personally.'
'I didn't take it personally. Hell, you'd be a damn fool to trust a D.A. these days, prosecutorial misconduct running rampant-that Duke D.A. hiding evidence, that D.A. up north of Dallas having a secret affair with the judge during a capital murder trial-they still put the guy on death row-that Tulia D.A. convicting forty innocent black people on the lies of one undercover white cop… How many innocent black men convicted up in Dallas have been cleared by DNA tests?'
'Twenty-five so far. Thirty-eight total in Texas.'
The D.A. shook his head. 'You imagine that? Spending ten, twenty years in prison when you're innocent? You think I want that on my gravestone, that I sent innocent people to prison? That's what keeps me up at night, wondering if I prosecuted the right people. If I obtained justice for the victim or perpetrated an injustice on the defendant. It's a solemn responsibility… Ted. '
The D.A. reached over and pulled the binder back to his side of the desk. He then pushed the other binder to Scott.
'Take mine. Scott, I don't hide evidence to obtain convictions. I enforce the law so I follow the law. And the law says you're entitled to every piece of evidence I've got, so you'll get it. If new evidence is discovered, you'll get it the same day I do.'
'I have your word?'
