A row of chairs inside the bar of the court was reserved for lawyers from the public defender's office, private attorneys who were waiting for court appointments and retained counsel. Amanda took a seat in this section and waited for Justine's case to be called. Arraignment, a defendant's first court appearance, was the time when the judge informed the accused about the nature of the charges filed against him and his right to counsel. If the defendant was indigent, counsel was appointed at the arraignment. Release decisions were sometimes made. Amanda had been to arraignments many times, and they were all the same. She paid attention to the first few cases because it gave her something to do, but she soon lost interest and glanced back at the spectator section out of boredom.
Amanda was about to return her attention to the front of the room when she sensed someone watching her. She scanned the crowd and was ready to chalk up the incident to her imagination when she noticed a large, muscular man with close-cropped blond hair. The man sat with hunched shoulders and his hands folded tightly in his lap, giving the impression that he was uncomfortable being in court. He wore a flannel shirt buttoned to the neck, khakis and a stained trench coat. Something about him was vaguely familiar, but Amanda had no idea where, or if, she had seen him before.
The door to the hall opened, and Mike Greene fought his way past the reporters. Once inside, he used his height to scan the room and spotted Amanda. Greene was still dressed in the brown tweed sports coat, rumpled white shirt and gray slacks that he had been wearing at three in the morning.
I see you went home, Mike said when he was seated beside Amanda.
I've got on new duds, but I never got to sleep.
That makes two of us. The sleep part, that is.
Mike handed Amanda a thick manila envelope.
The complaint, some of the police reports and a set of the crime scene photographs. Don't say I never gave you anything.
Thanks for not being a hard-ass.
Mike smiled. It's the least I can do after making you drink that foul sludge the homicide dicks call coffee.
Have you given any more thought to release?
Can't do it. Too many bodies, too much evidence.
State v. Justine Elizabeth Castle, the bailiff called out.
Mike Greene walked to a long table at which another assistant district attorney sat. Its top was almost obscured by three gray metal tubs filled with case files. While Greene took out Justine's file, Amanda went to the other side of the room. A guard led Justine out of the holding area. Her client had on no makeup, but she looked good in her dark suit and silk shirt.
The arraignment moved swiftly. Amanda entered her name as attorney of record and waived a reading of the complaint. While the judge conferred with his clerk about a date for a bail hearing, Amanda explained what was going on. Justine listened carefully and nodded in the appropriate places, but Amanda had the impression that her client was barely holding herself together.
Are you okay? Amanda asked.
No, but I won't break. You do your best to get me out as fast as you can.
The judge ended Justine's arraignment, and the guard started to lead her away.
I' m working on your case full time, Amanda told her client. I won't see you again today, but I'll be by tomorrow. Don't lose faith.
Justine held her head high as she walked through the door that led to the elevator that would transport her back to jail. Amanda wondered if she' d be able to carry herself with that much dignity if she was in Dr. Castle's shoes.
The reporters swarmed around Amanda in the corridor outside the courtroom. She refused to comment and fought through the crowd to the street. The rain had stopped but it was still cold and blustery. Amanda hunched her shoulders and crossed the street to Lownsdale Park, hurrying past the war memorial and the empty benches. While she waited for the light at Fourth and Salmon to change she cast a glance behind her and thought she saw movement near the small red-brick rest room on the edge of the park. The light changed and Amanda crossed the street, heading down Fourth toward her office. She had the sense that someone was behind her. Could one of the reporters be following her? Amanda stopped and turned around. A man in a trench coat ducked into the entrance of the office building across the way. Amanda stared at the entrance. She even walked back up the block a few steps for a better view. Two women walked out of the building. Amanda stared at the door they exited, but no one else came out. Suddenly a wave of fatigue hit her, and she leaned against a parking meter. She closed her eyes for a moment and still felt a little dizzy when she opened them. She chalked up her feeling of being followed to exhaustion, took a deep breath to clear her head and walked down Fourth to the Stockman Building.
Chapter 39
Mike Greene grew up in Los Angeles, married his high school sweetheart and graduated from the law school at UCLA. Everything was going wonderfully, his life was perfectly on course. Then one day in his fourth year as a prosecutor for the Los Angeles district attorney's office Mike ate a bad burrito for lunch. When court resumed he was too sick to go on, so the judge recessed for the day. Mike thought about calling his wife, Debbie, but he didn't want to worry her, so he rested for an hour and drove home.
Mike walked through the door of his split-level three hours earlier than usual and found Debbie astride his next-door neighbor. He stood in the bedroom doorway, too stunned to speak. While the guilty couple scrambled for their clothes, he turned without a word and left.
Greene moved in with a fellow DA until he found a gloomy furnished apartment. He' d loved his wife so much that he blamed himself for her betrayal. The divorce was over in a flash. Debbie got the house, most of their savings and everything else she wanted because Mike would not fight. After the divorce, Mike tried to concentrate on his job, but he was so depressed that his work suffered. His supervisor recommended a leave of absence. Mike had never been out of California except for his honeymoon in Hawaii and a vacation or two in Mexico. He sold his car and bought a ticket to London.
Six months in Europe, which included a brief fling with a lovely Israeli tourist, gave Mike some perspective. He decided that Debbie's extracurricular sexcapades were not his fault and that it was time to get on with his life. A friend in the Multnomah County district attorney's office set up a job interview. Now Mike lived in a condo near the Broadway Bridge, across the Willamette River from the Rose Garden, where the Trailblazers played.
As Greene walked from the Justice Center to the Multnomah County courthouse after Justine Castle's arraignment, he fantasized about showering, eating a light meal and going to sleep on the flannel sheets of his king-size bed. That dream went up in smoke when he found Sean McCarthy waiting for him in the reception area of the district attorney's office, his nose buried in a book.
A cop who reads Steinbeck, Greene said. Can't that get you fired?
McCarthy looked up, amused. He was just as gaunt as he had been four years before, but his red hair was thinner.
How you doing, Mike?
Dreadful. If I don't get some sleep soon, you're going to be investigating my demise.
McCarthy marked his place in The Grapes of Wrath and followed Greene through a waist-high gate and down a narrow hall to Mike's small office. A poster advertising last year's Mount Hood Jazz Festival adorned one wall. It showed a tenor sax superimposed on the snow-covered mountain. Mike had sat in for a set with a local trio during the festival. A chess set decorated a credenza that ran under Greene's window. The deputy district attorney was studying a variation of the king's Indian defense in his spare time, and the position reached by white after thirteen moves was displayed on the board.