It hadn’t always been this way. They had met in his third year of law school, at a party at his old frat house after a football game. She was a senior cheerleader and the reigning Miss SMU. Scott Fenney was a football legend and a campus celebrity, so approaching the most beautiful coed at SMU was easy. They had sex in an upstairs bathroom that night. And at every other imaginable venue in the months that followed: in her car; in his car; at her sorority house; at his apartment; in a stairwell at the law school; in the park in broad daylight; on the eighteenth green at the country club late at night after jumping the fence-to this day he could not putt out on that green without thinking of that night. They were so hot, they couldn’t get enough of each other.
But somewhere along the way-when, he wasn’t sure-the heat had faded. And now they slept back to back, separated by two feet of king-sized mattress like a demilitarized zone. They weren’t mad at each other-they seldom had words-but they seldom had sex. She had just drifted away.
He sat slumped and limp as all the irritating thoughts-the McCall case, his wife’s lack of interest in his day, being denied sex again, scandal souffle, and his daughter home alone all day-came rushing back. He yelled to his wife in the bathroom: “Why don’t you spend more time with Boo? Maybe she’ll listen to you then.”
Rebecca appeared in the bathroom door, still naked, her hands on her hips.
“She’s never listened to me. I’ve got these hideous stretch marks because of her, but she’s your child. By the time I was her age, I had won two beauty pageants. She wears overalls. And, besides, I’m busy this summer. Why don’t you spend more time with her?”
“I’m working.”
“Oh, I see. What I do isn’t important.”
“Sounds like all you do is gossip.”
“Only during dessert. During lunch we plan the ball.”
“A big society party.”
“Which raises money for charity.”
“Which you don’t give a damn about. It’s just another step up the Highland Park social ladder for you. You’re social climbing and Boo’s being raised by Consuela!”
She glared at him, whirled, and disappeared into the bathroom. Scott was about to yell after her, You need to spend as much time with your daughter as you do gossiping with those old society broads, but then she’d say, Well, you need to spend as many billable hours with me as you do with your clients, and then he’d say, Those clients pay for this house and those cars and your dresses and…
“McCall…”
The reporter’s voice pulled Scott out of his thoughts and focused his attention on the television.
“His son’s murder,” the reporter was saying, “has given the senator a sympathy boost in the polls, thus solidifying his position as the clear front-runner for the White House.”
SIX
The November 22, 1963, edition of the Dallas Morning News included a full-page black-bordered advertisement titled “Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas.” It was not a welcome. It was an indictment of President Kennedy that had been paid for by several right-wing Dallas oilmen, “America-thinking citizens” they called themselves. They accused Kennedy of being soft on Communism, despite the president’s successful standoff with the Russians over the Cuban missile crisis. On Air Force One’s flight to Dallas, an aide showed the ad to the president. Kennedy read it and remarked, “We’re heading into nut country today.” The ad identified the mayor of Dallas as a Kennedy sympathizer.
Earle Cabell was the mayor. He met President Kennedy at Love Field that morning and rode in the presidential motorcade, three cars behind the president’s blue limousine. As his car turned onto Elm Street, Cabell heard three gunshots ring out from the Texas School Book Depository. He arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital just as the president was being removed from his limousine. Cabell remained at the hospital until the president’s body was taken away. He had hoped to show the president that Dallas was no longer the “Southwest hate capital of Dixie.” He had failed. But they still named the federal building in downtown Dallas after him-Cabell, not the president.
Of course, when A. Scott Fenney, Esq., arrived at the Earle Cabell Federal Building on Commerce Street shortly after nine the next morning, he didn’t know who Earle Cabell was or why they had named this dull-as-dirt twenty-one-story structure after him. All he knew was that he didn’t want to be in Earle’s building that day and all he cared about was getting his client to cop a plea and then getting himself the hell out of there. He exited the elevator on the fifth floor, the federal detention center. After passing through the metal detector and having his briefcase searched, he was met by a black guard.
“Scott Fenney to see Shawanda Jones.”
“You her lawyer?”
Scott wanted desperately to scream, Hell, no, I’m not her lawyer! Instead, he nodded. The guard led him down a narrow hallway to a small room, bare except for a metal table and two metal chairs. Scott entered and stared at the bare walls until the door opened and a black woman entered, bringing with her a foul body odor that filled the room like thick smoke. She looked him up and down, covered her mouth with both hands, and sneezed violently several times. Then she said, “You the lawyer?”
“Yes, I am.”
Shawanda Jones was twenty-four but she appeared much older. She was a small woman, rising only to Scott’s shoulders. Her hair was neither kinky nor slicked straight; it was brown, hung just over her ears, and appeared soft, although obviously it had gone untouched by a brush for days. Her eyes were creamy ovals with big brown centers, but they seemed hollowed out and vacant. The area below her eyes was a darker brown than the rest of her face, which was tan and smooth and glistening with a light coating of sweat. Her nose was narrow and her lips thin. Her body seemed slim but shapely under the baggy white jail uniform. Her face was angular with prominent cheekbones. She was attractive, but at one time in her life, she must have been beautiful. She reminded Scott of Halle Berry on a bad day. A very bad day.
Scott was not wearing his glasses that morning; he didn’t care whether this client thought he looked smart or not. And he did not extend a hand to her even though he always shook hands with a new client: Dan Ford had explained to Scott early in his legal career that a lawyer had only one opportunity to make a good first impression on a new client, so he should always look the client directly in the eye and give him a firm handshake, which, Dan said, would project a sense of forthrightness and honesty, thus making the client less likely to question his legal bills. Instead, fearing that her hand-one of the hands into which she had just sneezed like she had pneumonia-might transmit a communicable disease, Scott gestured for his new client to sit down. But she did not sit. She paced.
She walked from one side of the room to the other and back again. Back and forth she went, again and again, rubbing her arms as if the room were cold instead of warm and kneading her fingers like Consuela saying the rosary. Her eyes darted about the room. Her legs seemed out of sync, and they twitched uncontrollably. Halfway back, she suddenly doubled over and groaned.
“You okay?”
She grunted. “Cramps.”
Like most men when a woman speaks of her period, Scott didn’t know how to respond. So he said, “My wife has bad cramps each month.”
Between groans, she said, “Not from this she don’t.”
After a moment the cramps apparently subsided, and she resumed her pacing. Scott sat, removed his business card from his pocket, and pushed it to her side of the table. On her next pass by the table, she abruptly pulled out the chair, sat, and flopped her arms on the table. Scott noticed dark spots on the insides of both of her forearms, like someone was going to play connect the dots but had never connected them. Then he remembered: she’s a heroin addict. She picked up his business card with her thumb and forefinger and held it before her face.
“What the A stand for?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Your first name be a letter?”
