“I do. Yes.” He saw, or wanted to believe he saw, patience and sympathy in her eyes.
“Do you want to tell me anything?” she asked.
He whispered, “I didn’t hurt Mr. Richardson. He was my friend. Good to me. I never take any money. I don’t need his money.”
Theresa Bui gazed into his face. Such a handsome man, she thought. “I understand,” she said. “We’re going to plead not guilty.”
“Yes, not guilty.”
“And then I will come to visit you soon. To talk more. To help.”
He was close to her. He was ashamed of his odor: he hadn’t been allowed to shower in all the time since his arrest and he knew he smelled of sweat, of fear. “Where is my wife?”
“Mr. Suarez,” she whispered, “I didn’t know you had a wife.”
“And my kids?”
Kids? she thought. My God. “You have children?”
“Two-a boy and girl. Where are they?”
“I’ll try to find out,” she said, knowing that she had no way to do that.
A harsh buzzer sounded above the door. It was shrill. It startled her. Reacting instantly, a guard unlocked the door of the holding pen. Juan walked between the guards into the beige courtroom. He was dazed by what he saw. The ceiling was very high. There were rows of wooden benches arranged like church pews. And there was an immense bench behind which sat Judge Helen Conley, a severe-looking woman whose gray hair was pulled into a bun. Three lawyers stood at a table in front of the judge’s bench. A television camera, with a small red light glowing, was trained on Juan. He glanced fleetingly at the people on the benches. Mariana and her children weren’t in the courtroom. Had the world, he wondered, swallowed them up?
Her voice amplified by a microphone, Judge Conley said, “I understand there is some uncertainty as to who this man is.”
“There is, Judge,” Margaret Harding answered. She was standing at the other table. She was tall. She had black hair. She was dressed in black except for an elegant green scarf draped over her shoulders. “We believe the defendant is an illegal immigrant. A counterfeit Social Security card was found when the search warrant was executed.”
The judge looked at Theresa Bui. “Give us a hand here, counselor. Does the public defenders’ office know who this man is?”
“I’m not sure,” Bui answered. Her voice quavered. Juan saw a slight tremor in her hands.
“You’re not sure? How can you not know your client’s name?”
Bui said, “I didn’t think his name was an issue.”
Judge Conley glanced over her half-glasses at the prosecutor. “Ms. Harding, why do you think his name is not the name on the indictment?”
“A confidential informant told us that he may in fact have a different name.”
“Ms. Bui, ask your client what his real name is.”
Theresa Bui turned toward him, whispering, “Do you have another name?”
Juan understood what was happening, but a sense of defiance suddenly replaced his fear and wonder. He recalled that the furious cops who arrested him had screamed that he had the right to remain silent. The right to remain silent. Juan, staring at the judge, didn’t answer Bui’s question.
Judge Conley, her eyes shifting from Juan’s steady, almost unnerving stare, said, “Well, Ms. Bui?”
“He won’t answer me, Judge.”
Conley said, “I’ve had enough. We have the defendant’s body. The corpus, as in habeas corpus. So he’s been indicted under the name we have.”
“If we learn his real name,” Margaret Harding said, “we’ll ask the Grand Jury to supersede the indictment.”
“Very well then,” the judge said, sounding curt and impatient. “Let’s proceed with the indictment we do have. Ms. Bui, do you want me to read the indictment? As I assume you’ve told your client-whoever he is-the indictment in effect alleges the murder of Bradford Richardson, the theft of more than $200,000 in cash, and obstruction of justice in light of the defendant’s flight and his assault on two police officers when he was arrested. Now, do you want me to read all the exact words of the indictment or will the defendant waive the reading?”
Without speaking to Juan, Theresa said, “Waive.”
“Then how does the defendant plead?”
“Not guilty,” Theresa said, signaling to Juan that he should repeat the same two words.
Instead, he said, “No culpable.”
“I take it that means ‘not guilty,’” Judge Conley said. “Is that correct? Does he understand that?”
“He does,” Theresa answered.
Peering at Margaret Harding, Helen Conley said, “I assume there is no issue about bail because the defendant is plainly a flight risk as well as a danger to the community, to put it mildly.”
“Clearly,” the black-haired woman said.
Juan sensed even more tension in Theresa Bui. She seemed to inhale for strength. “Your Honor,” she said, “do you really think you should say things like that?”
The judge glared at her. “Such as?”
Theresa Bui stood down from the challenge. “Nothing, Your Honor.”
Speaking with a tone of calm assurance, Margaret Harding said, “Not only is the defendant a flight risk and a plain threat to the community, but the case against him is overwhelming. Our detectives located hair samples from the room where the killing took place. DNA from a hair clipping was taken from the defendant at the time of his arrest and appears to match a hair found in the Richardsons’ bedroom, where we believe the theft took place.”
“I appreciate the comments, Ms. Harding, but I just denied bail. I assume these statements are for the benefit of the cameras. I won’t tolerate that, now or at any other point. This is a court of law, not a television studio.” She took five seconds to look at Margaret Harding, challenging her to react. When it became clear Margaret would not take up the challenge, she continued: “I think the only other business that remains today is to fix a date for our next appearance.”
Pressing her BlackBerry, Harding said, “Does November twenty-one work?”
Glancing at her iPhone, Theresa Bui said, “It does.”
Juan immediately calculated that the date was a month away and that he would somehow have to find a way to pass hundreds of hours with absolutely nothing to do. He had used his hands every day for years: he had laid brick with them, cut grass, lifted stones, washed dishes, cooked, and touched women in their most sensitive places. He would not be able to do any of that.
As she flipped through papers, Judge Conley asked, almost casually, “Ms. Bui, does your client waive the speedy trial act?”
Again, without speaking to Juan, who knew the meaning of the word “speedy,” Theresa said, “He does.”
“Very well. See you all on November twenty-one.”
As if acting on a signal from the judge, two guards grabbed Juan’s arms. Held by the guards, Juan was hustled to the door from which he had entered the courtroom. He looked at the gallery again, searching for the faces of Mariana and her children. Nothing. All he saw was the rush of reporters out of the courtroom.
In the parking lot just outside the rear door of the drab courthouse, as Juan was pushed into the back seat of a police cruiser, he saw people with cameras jostling to get close to him. He recalled the time in July when a picture was taken of him and Joan Richardson, both in bathing suits and just out of the water of the Olympic-size pool. Joan herself had taken the picture with her cell phone, extending her glistening arm and saying, “Smile for the camera.”
Using one of the printers in the Richardsons’ home, Joan had printed out that picture-two beautiful people gleaming with water, laughing, their lithe bodies in full view. She gave it to Juan. He took it to his ranch house and slipped it for safe-keeping in a plastic bag under a moldy rug in the basement, the only secure place he could find. At night, when Mariana and the kids and the other people who lived in the house were sleeping, he had often gone down to the basement and taken the picture out to stare at it. The glorious picture made him happy.