“I will turn in the last evidence I gathered to the feds next week,” Charley whispered. “I could still be adding to it, but I got a bad feeling.”
“What kind of bad feeling?” she asked.
But Charley stepped away from her and the horse he’d tacked up, and waved to someone. Richard, Billie saw, getting Sylvie mounted and spiffed up for a trip around the ring on her horse. The girl was a beauty, Billie thought, tight-bodied and slender. Like her mother.
“I’ve known her since she was an infant,” Charley said. “I taught her how to show horses and how to sore them. She was a natural, the most talented kid I ever worked with. Good at everything, and a great little chemist. Loved to burn a horse’s legs then see what that did to its gait. She listened to everything I told her about how to win. She made it all her own. Then she improved on it.”
He stared over Billie’s head, tears on his cheeks.
CHAPTER 24
BILLIE WOKE EARLY and lay on her back, looking at the motel room. She’d been here long enough that it felt familiar, almost homey. The Formica bureau was covered with her open suitcase and mounds of laundry. The bathroom door had a towel hanging from the knob. She’d kicked off her sandals after sitting on the bed last night. One had landed on the floor, the other lay upside down on the bedspread.
She got up, brushed her teeth, ran her hands through her cropped hair, and washed her face. She pulled on no-wrinkle brown slacks and a tan blouse, draped her linen jacket over her shoulders—her reporter-on-the-job work clothes—and headed to the courthouse for Dale’s trial.
The courthouse stood at the outskirts of town, rising from the middle of a black asphalt parking lot. She parked, got out, locked the car, and strolled across a strip of lawn and up the steps of the granite building.
She hadn’t expected the lobby to be crowded. A mass of young people gathered in front of a trio of girl a cappella vocalists singing the University of Tennessee fight song “Rocky Top” in precise harmony.
“Part 4. Downstairs on your right,” she was told when she went to the information desk. She descended the stairs, stepping in time to the music, aware of the superb acoustics in the building, aware that this had nothing to do with her job but loving it.
Downstairs, away from the filtered sunlight in the lobby, fluorescent light soured the narrow bench-lined hallways. Billie glimpsed Dale at the far end of the hall, talking to a small cluster of men she guessed were his lawyers. He wore a yellow plaid short-sleeved shirt, carried a tan jacket over his shoulder, and looked sweaty in spite of frigid air-conditioning. She edged over toward them. Snatches of bluegrass drifted down, and she noticed people hushing up to listen, but not Dale’s group. They spoke somberly, so softly she couldn’t make out their words, mumbling to each other. One of the lawyers reached up and squeezed Dale’s shoulder, which brought his gaze to her.
“What’s she doing here?” he asked clearly so a half dozen people in addition to his attorneys turned to stare.
“Looks like media,” the lead lawyer said. “Ma’am?”
Billie extended her press pass.
The heavy wooden door to Part 4 opened, and Billie followed Dale and his team inside. The air was icy, the room empty except for the court stenographer in a cardigan fussing with her table in front of the witness chair.
Billie sat in the back row, watching. There was no question that Dale was tense, possibly scared. He mopped his face several times, and she saw that his hands trembled. When Eudora arrived and came to sit beside him, he leaned over to give her an awkward kiss but missed her cheek. Billie heard his lips smack air. Eudora touched his cheek with her fingertips. The judge entered along with a smattering of people Billie didn’t recognize, who scattered themselves in seats near the front. Richard leaned against the wall in the rear, beside the door, looking ready to bolt. Someone slipped into the chair beside her and tapped her arm.
“Addie!”
“I couldn’t miss it,” she said. “Thought I might be useful to you too. I know who most of these folk are. I’m a human scorecard, you could say.”
“Thanks! I was feeling pretty lost.”
Addie dropped her purse on the floor between them, fished inside, and brought out a package of Black Jack chewing gum. She offered it to Billie, who declined with a shake of her head, then unwrapped two pieces and folded them into her mouth.
Addie reached back into her handbag and brought out her knitting. She settled it into her lap, twisted the yarn around her finger, and set to work, needles making soft clicks. Envious, Billie wished she’d brought her own so she could sit alert but relaxed beside Addie as the hearing unfolded.
“Ma’am! Ma’am!” Billie wondered what she’d done wrong before she realized the judge was pointing at Addie. “There is no gum chewing my courtroom. Please dispose of it. Now.”
Addie pulled the wad from her mouth, reached into her handbag, and emerged with the empty wrappers. Slowly, she selected one, folded the other, and replaced it in her bag. She removed the gum from her mouth with her fingers and rolled it into the wrapper, using theatrical gestures.
“Okay?” she asked.
The judge resumed his seat, nodded to her, and called the attorneys to the bench.
“Pompous ass,” Addie said, just loudly enough to prompt the judge to glance over at her. “I had him in third grade, and he was already a stuffy little brat. Now he’s a stuffy middle-aged man. But you know, I’m actually proud of him. He turned out okay.”
“Does he know who you are?” Billie asked.
“’Course he
