He also had no idea where Pete might be. When we hung up, I yanked open my desk drawer for some Tylenol. Chasing leads that went nowhere was giving me a headache.
For dinner, I brought an extra-large pizza home. Noah ate half of it in about ten minutes and took another piece back to his room to power him through some online gaming. I looked out at the setting sun, thinking it might be time I went back to the Broke Spoke. I could swing past and check the lot for Dunk’s obnoxious red Hummer and Cheryl’s little light-blue Kia, or Hyundai, or whatever it was.
I checked my wallet. I had ten bucks left, enough for some sparkling water and a ridiculous tip. If Cheryl was there and Dunk wasn’t, maybe I could find out a little more about Pete Dupree.
Saturday night, it turned out, was not a good time to go investigating at a strip club. The angry little White-supremacist bartender glared at me for occupying the last available barstool, and Cheryl was run off her feet. I nursed my expensive water, left her a tip that I hoped would buy a future conversation, and headed back to my car. I’d parked half a block down, across the street. I never wanted to have to tell Roy I’d damaged his car by leaving it in a strip club lot for some drunk idiot to dent.
The night air was pleasantly cool, and the streetlight by my car was shining through oak leaves and Spanish moss. I took a deep breath; even here, I could smell the salt tang of the ocean. For all the problems this place had, I thought, heading diagonally across the street, it truly was home.
A revving engine snapped me out of my reverie. I broke into a jog to get across the street, but a headlight beam lit my hands and then the asphalt in front of me. Some Saturday-night driver, probably drunk, was veering toward me. I burst into a sprint, praying he wouldn’t swerve onto the sidewalk, and went airborne over the curb. As brakes squealed, I hit the ground hard. The engine revved again, and I looked back to see a black truck peeling away. It shot down the street, took the first corner, and disappeared.
As I scrambled to my feet, I saw blood on my hands and down the front of my suit. I had to get out of there—the hairs on the back of my neck told me that—so I ran to my car without even trying to clean up, turned the key, and took off.
At a stoplight six or eight blocks later, holding napkins to my bloody nose and feeling glad that the Malibu’s upholstery was black, I realized what had me on edge. A drunk driver could easily veer toward a pedestrian; that happened all too often. But there’d been nothing erratic about that truck. A drunk driver wouldn’t have shot down the rest of the block as straight as a bullet and taken the corner so tightly.
And if it wasn’t some drunk, that meant he’d been aiming for me.
27
Friday, October 11, Morning
I was back in Judge Chambliss’s courtroom for the short proceeding known as a second appearance, when folks charged with crimes had their lawyers show up to let the judge know if they were pleading guilty or going to trial. Chambliss held these things every other Friday, so what looked like half the defense attorneys in the county were sitting in the courtroom’s wooden pews waiting their turns. I joined them and spent an hour watching Ruiz do his thing at the prosecution table. I couldn’t help but notice that of the five cases handled in that hour, four of them got plea bargains. That was normal. I still hadn’t figured out why Jackson’s case wasn’t normal to Ruiz. Or, rather, to his boss.
When my case was called, I stepped over to the defense table, nodding to Ruiz as I passed. Judge Chambliss finished conferring with his clerk and said, “Well, counsel? You got this taken care of?”
Chambliss and I both looked at Ruiz. He moved some papers around on his desk, looking down at them like there might be an answer printed there, and said, “Your Honor, uh, it appears this case is going to trial. According to whatever schedule you impose, of course.”
Judge Chambliss looked at me. I could tell he was puzzled.
I said, “Morning, Your Honor. Mr. Ruiz and I have conferred, but his office has not offered my client any type of plea. And my client maintains his innocence, so yes, we’re proceeding to trial.”
Chambliss turned to him. “Mr. Ruiz, I trust your office is aware of what I told you at the preliminary hearing? About, uh, the manslaughter jury instruction that I said, if the weight of the evidence still looked pretty much like it did then, I’d offer if asked?”
“Yes, Your Honor. Of course, Your Honor. I’m well aware, and I informed my superior.”
“Okay. And, for the record, are you confirming you folks haven’t offered a plea?”
“Yes, Your Honor. The solicitor general believes this case should go to trial.”
“Well, okay then.” He beckoned to his clerk, said something to her, and handed her a page from his desk. She sat back down and flipped a couple of pages over in her calendar.
“Mr. Munroe,” Chambliss said, “as I recall, Mr. Ruiz had asked to fast-track this. And you were not opposed?”
“No, Your Honor. My client’s been in jail since June, and he’s eager to get this over with.”
He nodded. “Okay, then.” His clerk walked back to the bench and handed him the piece of paper. He looked at it and said, “Mr. Ruiz, you free in the last half of December?”
“Uh, let me… One moment, Your Honor.” He fumbled
