"Not anymore." Marta had never been so unhappy she was kicking ass. "Who's voting to convict? Kenny Manning and one of the other black men, right?"
"Not all the black people are voting to convict. Kenny Manning is, I think, but not Gussella Williams." Christopher heard himself lecturing, but he figured he was entitled. The jury deliberations had made him think a lot about race. Skin color didn't make a difference to Gussella, but it made a difference to Kenny. Just like it made a difference to Ralph Merry. Christopher didn't understand people sometimes. Horses didn't group together by color, and people were supposed to be smarter than horses.
"Okay, fine. Whatever," Marta said. She had picked an almost all-white jury, figuring they'd favor a white businessman against a black homeless man, and she'd been right. Race wasn't everything, but Marta had to be realistic. Now she was working against herself. Against time. "What about Mrs. Wahlbaum, the schoolteacher? She wants to acquit, right? Will she stay with it?"
Christopher nodded. He didn't think anything could move Mrs. Wahlbaum when she'd made up her mind, not even Mr. Wahlbaum.
"And the young girl, the computer programmer? Megan Gerrity? Will she hang tough?"
"I don't know. Probably."
"She'll acquit." Marta shook her head. Fucking liberals. Any other time she would have kissed their asses, now they could cost her her life. "You have to hold out. Tell them you're voting to convict and stand your ground."
"I can't do that." Christopher crossed his arms in his flannel shirt. "Today I voted to acquit. I almost convinced them. They want to go home. They're tired of living in a hotel."
"Tell them you changed your mind," Marta said. "You thought about it. You've been wondering why Steere didn't testify and tell his side of the story."
"Judge Rudolph said that wasn't supposed to matter."
"Say it matters to you, you can't help it. Juries always wonder why the defendant didn't take the stand. If Steere was defending himself when he shot that man, why didn't he just come forward and explain what happened? Elliot Steere is not a shy man, he's a killer. Announce your vote and stick to your guns."
"Wouldn't that make it a hung jury?"
"You have to convince them all. I don't want it hung. I don't want a mistrial. Either one of those, Steere is free and I'm dead. It has to be a conviction, nothing less will do. And take your time. I need all the time you can give me."
Christopher tried to think of what he'd say tomorrow. He pictured the other jurors sitting around the table, looking at him like a crazy man when he told them he'd changed his mind. He'd been so adamant today. Christopher liked to think he was a man of his word, but Marta was in real trouble. Two men had already been killed.
Marta rubbed her forehead with anxiety, and it throbbed in response. "Who's the foreman? Ralph Merry?"
"No. I am."
"Wonderful!" Marta took heart. What a break. Maybe her plan would work. Maybe Christopher could make this happen. "Then you can persuade them. Jurors look up to the foreman. They look for a leader. That's why they picked you in the first place."
"No."
"You're being modest."
"No, really," he said, but Christopher would die before he'd explain what happened. It was hard enough to talk with Marta here in his room, right across from him. In his bedroom. Christopher felt as if she knew how often he thought about her. So many nights he had pictured her here, and now she was. He had to know. "Why did you come to me, Marta?"
"I needed to get to the jury."
"But why me? Why did you pick me? You didn't know I was the foreman. You were surprised."
"I came to you because you were most likely to help."
"Why did you think that?"
Marta paused, then let it rip. "Because I think you're attracted to me."
The hotel room seemed suddenly very still to Christopher. The silence sounded loud. He didn't know what to say. He could keep his feelings inside, but he'd let so many feelings go in his life, seizing none of them. This feeling, it seemed, should not pass. This feeling had the strength of a runaway horse. It was time to take it in hand. Grab hold and hang on. Cowboy it. "Do you have feelings for me, Marta?" Christopher asked, and his heart felt like it was stuck on his Adam's apple. "Tell me, yes or no. Because I do have feelings for you."
This was not a conversation Marta wanted to have right now. Every instinct told her to lead him on, lie to him, even take him to bed if it got her what she wanted. Marta couldn't imagine telling the truth with the stakes this high. Then she looked at Christopher's rugged, open face and couldn't imagine not. He was a decent, kind man, and she was asking him to do something that could get him thrown in prison. He deserved a straight answer. "No. None at all," she answered. "I don't even know you."
"I see," Christopher said quickly.
Marta swallowed hard, sensing his hurt. Funny how she hurt a little, too. For him. But she had to go forward. "Will you help me anyway?"
25
The white Grand Cherokee stopped in the middle of the street and parked with the engine running. Its white enamel paint camouflaged it in the blowing snow, blurring its boxy outline in the storm. Exhaust snaked in a ghostly cloud from its tailpipe and trailed off in a gust of wind. Its windshield wipers flapped slowly in the snow.
At the end of the block, Judy was kneeling down, pushing the flat end of the cross-country ski to make it go back and forth. The snow came up to the very edge of the little boy's coat. "Now it's your turn," she said to him. "Slide it back to me."
Without a word, the boy bent over and sent the ski back to Judy. Then she slid it back to him, and he repeated the game with a growing smile. "Did you know my friend Heb?" Judy asked, sailing the ski to him.
The boy nodded and kept his eyes glued to the maroon ski. Mary felt her heartbeat quicken, but she stayed behind Judy and kept her mouth shut. The ski reached the boy, and he caught it in his hand-me-down black glove.
"Heb got hurt, didn't he?" Judy asked.
"He got shot." The boy's eyes moved with the ski. Back and forth. "He dead."
"Did you see him get shot?"
"No. I didn't see, I heard. Bang, bang, bang, BANG!" the boy shouted, summoning all the strength in his small body. He shoved the ski hard.
Judy stopped the ski like a shortstop and glanced up at the boy, then at his rowhouse. It faced the bridge, catty-corner to the spot where Darning was killed. She eyeballed the distance from the house to the bridge. About fifty yards. The child could have seen something. "You sure you didn't see him get shot, now?"
"I was sleepin'. The BANG woke me UP. I heard it out the window."
Judy gathered from the shout that he felt strongly about it. "Was Heb your friend, too?"
"Yes." The boy nodded. "He give me street money."
"He gave you money?"
"He was rich."
Mary blinked. "What?"
Judy asked, "He was?" She sent the ski across the snow.
"Dennell!" shouted one of the older kids, who was standing in the middle of the street. They had stopped playing and were going inside, abandoning the cardboard sled and snow angels. "Dennell!"
Suddenly, the boy turned around and ran off, kicking up a tiny wake of snow in his path.
"Wait!" Judy called after him, but he didn't turn back. The lawyers watched the boy run to the older kid and climb the stoop into his house. Their front door slammed closed, echoing in the street, which fell abruptly silent. The wind had picked up and was tossing the flurries this way and that. Down the street sat the Grand Cherokee, parked with its engine rumbling. Lost in the snowy backdrop, its windshield wipers moved back and forth.
Judy straightened up and brushed caked snow from her knees. "Did you hear that? How can a homeless man be rich? Panhandling?"
"Not in this neighborhood, and this was the only place he lived. He slept under the bridge."
"Welfare would barely support him, much less leave him money to pass out to a kid. Maybe Darning saved the money from his job with the bank."