Pajamae for the longest time. The guard said he’d wait outside. Shawanda finally released Pajamae, then cupped her daughter’s face and just stared at her, as if examining every inch of her smooth face. Then she held Pajamae at arm’s length and looked her up and down.
“You dress yourself real nice,” Shawanda said. “Louis bringing you groceries, watching out for you?”
Pajamae nodded. “Yes, Mama.”
“You staying inside?”
Another nod. “Yes, Mama.”
Shawanda appeared in much better health than the last time Scott had seen her, more alert, making Scott less worried she might puke on his suit.
“You sleeping now?” Scott asked.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Fenney. I’m over the worst part, except the headaches.”
“I brought your medicine, Mama,” Pajamae said.
“Good girl.”
“I always take Tylenol for headaches,” Scott said.
“I need something stronger.”
“Ibuprofen?”
“Yeah, Ibu…that.”
“When are you getting out, Mama?”
“I ain’t, not till after the trial. If Mr. Fenney here prove me innocent.”
Scott said, “No, Shawanda, I don’t have to prove you’re innocent. The government’s got to prove you’re guilty.”
Shawanda looked at him like an adult at a naive child.
“Mr. Fenney, you got a lot to learn.”
“When’s the trial?” Pajamae asked.
“End of August,” Scott said.
Pajamae made a face. “But that’s two months from now! What am I supposed to do for that long? Mama, I’m scared to be alone in the projects!”
And the fear Scott Fenney had experienced less than an hour earlier returned with a vengeance. Sweat broke out on his forehead again. His heart beat faster again. His mind played out his odds of survival again, a fat little rabbit chased by a pack of wolves. He did not want to go back into South Dallas, not today, not ever. He did not want to take this little black girl back to her apartment in the projects and get out of the Ferrari and walk her to the door through a gauntlet of strong young black males looking upon him as prey. What if Louis weren’t there to chaperone? But he couldn’t very well put a little girl on a public bus or in a taxi alone. What the hell could he do with her? While mother and daughter embraced and shared tears, Scott’s agile mind worked through all the available options until it arrived at an answer: Consuela de la Rosa.
He figured, Consuela’s raising one little girl this summer, why not two? It was a perfect solution: Boo would have a playmate, this little girl wouldn’t be scared and alone in the projects, and he wouldn’t have to drive back into South Dallas. So in the emotion of the moment, Scott Fenney said words his wife would soon regret: “Pajamae, why don’t you stay at my house until after the trial?”
“What the hell am I supposed to do with her?”
Rebecca’s face was as red as her hair, her fists were embedded in her narrow hips, and she was glaring at him like he was a Neiman Marcus salesclerk who had brought her the wrong size dress to try on.
Scott had driven home directly from the courthouse. But as luck would have it, he had picked the one day his wife was not out social climbing to bring this little black girl home to Highland Park. Boo had said, “I love your hair,” and then had taken Pajamae upstairs. Consuela had retreated to the kitchen, and Scott found himself facing Rebecca’s wrath alone. Of course, Scott wasn’t about to tell his wife the whole truth, that he had brought this little black girl home mostly because he was scared to death to take her back to her own home. So he responded like a lawyer. He told her only part of the truth, the part that supported his position.
“She’s living alone down in the projects, she’s nine years old, she doesn’t have anyone else-she doesn’t even have air-conditioning! Hell, Rebecca, you go to Junior League and sit around with other Highland Park ladies dreaming up ways to help the less fortunate. This should win you the goddamn grand prize!”
“We help those people, Scott, but we don’t invite them home. You said yourself her mother’s going to be convicted. What are you going to do with her then, adopt her? Raise her as your daughter? Send her to Highland Park schools? Scott, there’s not another black kid at Boo’s school!”
Sometimes, as now, the intensity of his wife’s anger unnerved Scott, much as when his college coach would grab his face mask and pull him close and chew him out over a blown play. Back then Scott Fenney would stand mute before his coach, and now he stood mute before this beautiful angry woman. Only difference was, little bits of chewing tobacco were not spewing out of her mouth with each angry word and sticking to Scott’s face. Still, he would gladly swap this angry woman for wet tobacco in a heartbeat.
“And there’s sure as hell not another girl named Pajamae!”
ELEVEN
Scotty, with this evidence, we just might save her life.”
Scott had escaped his wife’s wrath and found sanctuary in the friendly confines of Dibrell Tower; he and Bobby were having a late lunch upstairs at the Downtown Club. He had filled Bobby in on his visit to the projects and the Fenney family’s new houseguest and Rebecca’s reaction. Now Bobby was bringing Scott up to date on Shawanda’s legal case.
“My man Carl, the PI, he finds this Kiki, she backs up Shawanda’s story. No surprise there. But then he talks to some Highland Park cops he’s buddies with.” Bobby leaned across the table, close enough for Scott to smell his last cigarette on his breath; his voice dropped to a whisper. “Get this: turns out Clark McCall was accused of rape and assault a year ago. SMU sorority girl. She filed a complaint, but it disappeared when daddy-as in Senator Mack McCall-paid her off. Carl talked to the desk sergeant on duty that night, cop that took the complaint. He said the girl was slapped around pretty good.”
“How are we going to find her without the complaint?”
“Desk sergeant, he ain’t stupid. Figures the senator knows he knows, so he also figures it might come in handy one day: he kept a copy of the complaint.”
“Did he give it to Carl?”
“No way. He said it’s locked away in a safe-deposit box. Said if he gave it to Carl, they’d know it came from him, he’d get fired, and he’s only two years away from a pension. Said he’ll deny having it if we call him to testify. But he gave Carl the woman’s name, Hannah Steele. She lives in Galveston now.”
“Will she testify?”
“Carl’s flying down there today to find out.”
Scott turned his palms up. “So…?”
“So our defense is twofold. First, she didn’t pull the trigger, which is gonna be tough with her fingerprints on her gun and one of her bullets in his brain. And if she didn’t, who did? Clark? He suddenly realizes his evil ways and decides to make the world a better place and off himself? I don’t think so. Our backup is self-defense. He called her racial slurs, he attacked her, so she shot him in self-defense. But she’s black, a hooker, and a drug addict-who’s gonna believe her, right? That’s where Hannah Steele comes in, corroborating testimony. Nice white girl testifies Clark beat and raped her a year ago, jury figures maybe Shawanda’s telling the truth. And the jury’s got to include some blacks. We show them that Clark McCall was a racist and a rapist, we might just save her life.”
“An acquittal?”
Bobby gave him a look. “No, not an acquittal, Scotty. Life in prison, maybe parole in thirty with good time. You don’t get acquitted when your gun is the murder weapon and your fingerprints are on the gun and the gun was fired point-blank into the victim’s brain while he was lying on the floor. With that kind of evidence, life in prison is a win for her.”
“Goddamnit, Dan, you tell him to drop it and drop it now!”
