I study Bill Clinton’s face. Judging by his expression, he knew what price he was paying to run for public office. Were this not a murder case, I’d risk a snide comment What theory? So far as I know, there wasn’t one.
“I’m not saying that. Your Honor.” I blurt, “Mr.
Bracken was dying of cancer. He was in a great deal of pain and was on medication to control it. He wasn’t able to prepare properly for this trial.”
Grider nods as if I have conceded the matter.
“If Mr.
Bracken was too ill to try this case, I assume he would have informed the court. Unless you’re prepared to tell me as an officer of the court that you weren’t hired to assist Mr. Bracken on this case, I’m denying your motion for a continuance and we’re beginning this trial to morrow morning, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, feeling a knot begin to form in my stomach.
“I take it the court won’t be in recess for Mr.
Bracken’s funeral tomorrow afternoon?” I ask, my voice high with disbelief.
“Lawyers die every day, Mr. Page,” Grider snaps.
“There are far too many delays in the system already.”
Jill, in a berry-and-white-striped blouse and blue skirt, is more casually dressed than she would have been if we had gone to trial. She says, “Your Honor, my office, as you know, had many cases with Mr. Bracken.
I would appreciate it if the court would recess for the funeral. Some of the witnesses are from Christian Life and may want to attend as well.”
As soon as the words are out of Jill’s mouth, I realize that Shane will conduct Chet’s funeral. How am I going to accuse him of murder on the same day he prays over the body of the man whom he hired to defend his daughter? The last thing I want is Shane Norman pontificating that day, but it is too late. Changing his mind (he knows he would be criticized), Grider says gruffly, “It’s the taxpayers’ money, but if that’s what you want, I’ll recess the trial tomorrow afternoon. I am announcing to the press, however, that the Prosecutor’s Office asked for this recess so it could make sure that the man who had beaten it so often was really dead.”
Grider’s delivery of this zinger is so deadpan that Jill doesn’t know whether he is serious or not When I smile (there is a lot of truth in his statement) and Jill does not, Grider says to her, “Jesus Christ, I’m kidding, okay?”
In the hall next to Grider’s office, Jill, speaking in a slightly lower tone, says, “By the way, I’m not renewing the offer of a plea bargain.”
I wait until a couple of lawyers pass. Somehow the media has not gotten wind of this meeting or they would be standing on top of us. My hopes of some major flaw in her case disappear completely. She was purely and simply scared of Chet. Obviously, she isn’t afraid of me.
“You could have kept it open till Christmas,” I say, with more confidence than I feel.
“She didn’t shoot him.”
Jill looks unusually attractive. Her mane of thick dark hair in the last few months has developed a streak of white that is particularly striking. She says, with a tolerant smile, “Who did?”
Despite a natural antipathy for prosecutors, I can’t dislike this woman. She doesn’t have a killer instinct like some of her predecessors.
“I don’t know,” I reply innocently.
“I thought that’s why we had police.”
She shrugs, tossing her hair, and revealing more of the streak of white.
“I didn’t expect you,” she says dryly, “to tell me your case.”
I draw an imaginary line across my lips as if I had something to conceal. What case? I think, as I head down the hall.
During the afternoon, as I am struggling feverishly to get ready for the trial, Dan wanders into my office. He is wearing the first bow tie I’ve ever seen him in, which he undoes, as he stares out my window.
“Have you heard the gossip?” he asks, his voice far off and distracted.
I look up from my desk from the draft of the opening statement I’ve been working on. People who have necks the size of Dan’s shouldn’t wear bow ties. It looks like a stave about to pop off a beer barrel.
“That I’ve subpoenaed Elvis to testify?”
Dan whips off the tie and wipes his face with it.
“There’s crap going around,” he says wearily, “that you killed Chet.”
I stare at him in disbelief.
“The cops didn’t even take me down this morning.”
“Of course not,” he says.
“It’s not coming from Jill’s office. She and the cops have already issued a statement that their investigation has concluded Chet killed himself.”
My surprise is quickly turning to anger.
“So who’s putting that shit out?” I demanded.
“I don’t know,” my friend says, absently rubbing his tie on my window ledge.
“A bailiff told me it was going around. You think it could be your friend Shane?”
I look hard at Dan to see if he is serious. He shrugs, as if to say. Who else could it be? This makes no sense.
Even if Shane is implicated, surely he wants his daughter free. I will run this by Leigh when I go by to see her at Rainey’s in a few minutes to talk about her case.
“Maybe it’s my old firm of Mays amp; Burton,” I say, thinking of the client I stole from them after I was fired.
“They never sued me for taking Andy Chapman from them, but they always wanted to get even.”
Dan nods, “Hell, you know lawyers. It could be somebody who’s jealous of you getting tapped by Chet to work with him. It could be our old boss Greta. She wasn’t a big fan of yours either after the Hart Anderson murder.”
Enemies, I think, wearily, supporting my face with both hands on my desk. Every decent lawyer has a million.
And I haven’t even begun to count disgruntled clients.
“It could be my old rat-muffin divorce client.
She’ll go to her grave convinced I should have given her money back.”
Dan pats his stomach, thinking of my client who served her husband a rat in a pan of blueberry muffins.
“You should have brought in those muffins she fixed you and Sarah,” Dan says, still unable to forgive me for throwing out an entire pan she brought over to my house one morning.
Who else could it be? For all I know, Jason von Jason is putting up flyers all over Blackwell County warning people to keep their dogs penned up while I am still loose on the streets. I shove my papers into my briefcase and stand up to leave.
“How’s this for the beginning of an opening statement?” I say and in a parody of Richard Nixon, intone, “I am not a murderer. And neither is my client.”
Dan laughs, a pained expression on his face.
“A real confidence builder, all right.”
Shooing Dan out in front of me, I hurry from my office, wondering what Chet Bracken would make of this latest twist. From almost the beginning of his illustrious career, he was dogged by rumors that he meted out retribution to those who wronged him. Unfortunately, they were true. I rack my brain, trying to think if I offended him in any way. As paranoid as I’m becoming, I wonder if this rumor, too, is some kind of a payback by Shane Norman.
13
As I knock on Rainey’s door, I hear the panel of a van being slammed shut. I turn and see a cameraman and Kim Keogh, a reporter for Channel 11, hurrying up the walk. I have carelessly allowed myself to be followed.
This morning, when I had come out of my house after talking to the cops, I had faced cameras from two of the three local stations and a half dozen reporters, and had refused all comment, letting the police handle the questions Had I known someone was trying to smear me, I would have talked.
“Gideon!” Kim shouts, practically breaking into a run.
“Wait!”
I shudder at my thoughtlessness. I briefly became involved with Kim during my last big ease. She is a lovely blonde, whose main asset as a reporter has been her sheer doggedness. Each of us knows things about the other that won’t make the ten o’clock news. At this moment, Leigh opens the door and I mumble, “TV camera,” and rush by her and shut the door.