Born Innocent (12 page)

At one-thirty, she was led from the cell again. This time she was taken beyond the sheriff’s office out into the courthouse to a small holding room near the main courtroom, where her lawyer waited.

Ryder explained once more that she was not to worry. This wouldn’t last too long, and they would learn a lot about how the prosecution saw the case should it go any farther. He went out before her, leaving her alone with Deputy Clark.

At last, she was led out into the courtroom and seated at the long table where Zack Ryder was already sitting. To her right was another long table where the county prosecutor, Buckly Fortin, was stationed. Up in the judge’s seat sat Judge Willoughby, who just happened to be another of her mother’s dear friends.

Claire glanced once over her shoulder at the observers’ pews. She saw several people she knew, including Joe and her mother—sitting
together.
It was a testament to how numb and despondent she felt that such a sight did not even make her blink. Joe nodded and Ella telegraphed one of her most encouraging smiles.

Claire turned to face front again as Judge Willoughby began explaining how a preliminary hearing was only to make sure there was enough evidence that a crime had been committed to require a grand jury hearing. He asked Ryder if the defendant wished to waive the hearing.

“
No, Your Honor. We wish to proceed with this hearing.”

The judge then produced an affidavit sworn by Sheriff Brawley charging Claire with assault with a deadly weapon and battery.

Claire sat, silent and unmoving, as both Sheriff Brawley and Undersheriff Leven took the stand. They testified that Alan Henson was still in the hospital in Grass Valley. He was stable, but comatose. They reported what Claire had said to them in her interviews at the motel, and Buckly Fortin was careful to emphasize the times Claire had been seen in public with the injured man. They also produced sworn statements from Verna Higgins and the couple at the motel who had found Claire after Henson attacked her—statements attesting that Claire’s clothing had been tom and she’d appeared in a state of shock. And of course, they had the ballistics report that proved Henson had been injured with Claire’s gun.

When the prosecutor was done, Judge Willoughby asked if the defense had witnesses.

“
None, Your Honor.”

Claire listened, so numb she hardly registered her own disbelief, as Judge Willoughby declared, “The court finds there is sufficient evidence that the defendant could have committed the crimes of which she is charged. She must appear before the Excelsior County grand jury, which is scheduled to convene on Monday, July 13. At that time a more formal determination of whether she shall be tried for these crimes will be made. Is there anything else?”

Ryder stood up and requested that bond be set, listing the defendant’s lack of any previous arrests and her strong ties to the community as proof that she could be trusted to walk free.

“
Your Honor, I object,” Buckly Fortin announced. “These are serious charges, and if the victim dies, there will be further—and even
more
serious—charges.”

But Judge Willoughby overruled the prosecutor. He rapped his gavel, set the bail amount and stipulated that the accused was not to leave the county. Then he asked for the next case.

* * *

Both Joe and her mother were waiting for her when the sheriff’s people gave her back her belongings and let her go home. Claire walked out into the late-afternoon sunlight and down the courthouse steps with Joe on one side and Ella on the other.

She tried to be grateful that she was free for a week at least, that the sun was shining and she could go about her life once again, for a time anyway, unconfined by bars and gray walls. But it didn’t work. She was numb; she didn’t want to feel. And beneath her numbness, anger burned.

She was
innocent.
She had done nothing, except fight off a man’s unwanted advances. Yet in one week’s time she would stand before a grand jury and find out if she would be going on trial for shooting that man.

It was so
wrong....

Also, she couldn’t stop thinking about a tiny incident that had occurred in the courtroom. It was right after Judge Willoughby had set her bail. Ryder had been talking to her, telling her that Joe, whose business was working for bondsmen, would easily arrange her bond. She’d
felt
someone’s eyes on her. Slowly, she’d turned.

Behind the prosecutor’s table, in the front observer’s row, sat an attractive blond woman in a trim maroon business suit. She was staring at Claire, her blue eyes icy cold. Claire felt the chill of the woman’s hatred halfway across the courtroom.

She’d guessed immediately who the woman must be. But she turned to Ryder and asked in a whisper, anyway. “Do you know who that woman is, the one in the maroon suit?”

He’d nodded. “Mariah Henson. Alan Henson’s wife.”

Now, in the sunlight, Claire shivered a little. She had no doubt that Mariah Henson hated her.

“
Honey, we’ve got the car right here,” her mother said softly to her.

Claire looked down to the foot of the broad steps. Sure enough, her mother’s big Chrysler was parked in the first space
beyond the
handicapped spot. Being a Snow and on the best of terms with all the officials in the county had its advantages.

“
Thanks, Mother. But a car is ridiculous. It’s just around the corner. I’ll walk.”

“
But, dear. Surely you don’t want to deal with all the responsibilities of the motel right now. Why don't you come home with me for awhile? Joe has volunteered to look after Snow’s Inn for a few days.” Ella actually managed a thankful smile for the man on the other side of her daughter. “Come on, honey. Let me spoil you for a while.”

Claire shook her head. “Thanks, but no. I just want to go home.”

They were at the foot of the steps now, beside Ella’s car, beneath a big Japanese plane tree. A few people sat on the benches of the courthouse veranda, and one or two wandered up and down the steps.

Ella continued to keep her voice scrupulously low; this was family business and certainly no concern of hoi polloi. “Surely you aren’t still angry about that foolish ultimatum I gave you Saturday. I take it back. I truly do. Both you and Joe know I don’t feel he’s...a suitable man for you. But these are special circumstances. If you feel safer having him watch over you, well, he’s welcome to spend the nights at my house, too. Perhaps we can get Verna or Amelia to stay ’round the clock at Snow’s Inn for a while. I’m sure either one of them would—”

“
Thanks, Mother. But no. I want to go home. My own home. And that’s that.”

Joe said gently, “Claire, maybe you ought to listen to Ella.”

Claire looked from her mother to Joe. The world had truly turned upside down. Joe Tally now called her mother
by her first name and received no reprimand for it. Any other time in the past twenty years, Claire would have been ecstatic to witness such an event.

But right now it only seemed like more proof that nothing was as it should be, that nightmare was reality.

She said very levelly, “Thank you both for...everything. But right now I would like to be left alone to live my life, please. I am free for one week, and then all this... garbage starts all over again. For that week, I will live like an adult. I will take care of myself. That’s how I want it, and that’s how it will be.”

With that, she moved from between the two of them and strode off down the street. She’d turned the corner onto Quartz Lane before she was really positive that neither one of them was going to follow her.

At the motel, she found Amelia manning the desk. Amelia jumped about a foot when she saw her boss stride in. The fanzine she was reading was whipped behind her back and she swallowed convulsively—ridding herself, no doubt, of a forbidden hunk of bubble gum.

“
Claire! H-how are you?”

“
Fine, Amelia. Thank you for looking after things.”

“
Hey. It’s nothin’. Any time. Er, look...I really feel rotten about having to tell Wayne Leven that you said you’d kicked that Henson guy out the other night.”

“
Forget it,” Claire told her, meaning it. “You told the truth, and that’s all you can do.” Claire bustled behind the counter, hoping this subject was done with.

But Amelia hadn’t fully expunged her guilty feelings yet. “Well, I didn’t like doing it,” she insisted. “Because, no matter what they try to pin on you, everyone in town knows you’d never...” Amelia’s voice faded as she registered the strained expression on her boss’s face. “So, anyway, what’s happened? In court?”

“
They still think I shot Henson, and I have to go before the grand jury next week. But they let me out on bail until then.”

“
Gee, tough break,” Amelia sympathized. “But at least you’re out, right?”

“
Right. That’s what I keep trying to tell myself. Now what’s the status of the rooms?”

Amelia puffed up her chest proudly. “I got all but number three and number seven done before Joe Tally had to leave for the courthouse.”

“
Great. What about the back bungalow?”

“
It’s still got the tape barriers around it.”

Claire made a mental note. Tomorrow she would call the sheriff’s office and demand to know when they’d be through collecting evidence—or whatever they were doing—from the bungalow. She wanted to get in there and clean it up.

And, yes, damn it, maybe she wanted to look around a little, too, see if she could find anything that the sheriff’s investigators had missed—some tiny clue that might hint at who had stolen her gun and then shot a man with it.

“
Er, should I get on back to work?” Amelia asked. She was looking at Claire nervously.

Claire knew she was scowling, and schooled herself to a calmer expression. “Yes, go ahead. And, Amelia?”

“
Yeah?”

“
Thanks again, for staying late.”

Amelia’s pretty face bloomed in a grin. “You’re welcome. Really.” She shoved the inevitable wad of gum into her mouth and went on her way.

Claire moved behind the desk and straightened up her work area. When the phone rang, she answered it pleasantly and took a five-day reservation for the middle bungalow for Thanksgiving week. She didn’t even allow herself to think that by then she might be standing trial for the shooting of Henson—or worse, she might have been convicted,
and be an inmate down at Folsom, or wherever it was they sent women who shot men and put them in comas.

After forty minutes or so, Amelia appeared to say she was done for the day.

“
If you need me, you call me,” Amelia said. Tomorrow was Tuesday, and Verna would be back.

“
With all this... upheaval,” Claire said, “I really
might
need you.”

“
Just call.”

“
Thanks. I will.”

Claire sent her home and then locked the front door. If anyone came by, they could ring for service.

She went back to her rooms, and found them reasonably in order after the sheriff’s people had searched them. Here and there, though, she noticed that her things had been moved slightly.

Her bed had been torn apart and on many of the smooth furniture surfaces there was a thin coating of chalky dust. She pondered the dust for a while, before she figured out that it must be the stuff they used to check for fingerprints. She stuck her finger in it and brought it to her nose to see if it had a smell. It was odorless, but to Claire, it
did
smell. It smelled of the violation of her home and her life.

She got out her cleaning bucket and spent two hours wiping away all the dust and putting her things back where they belonged. By then, it was nearly eight o’clock. She found a packaged pizza in the freezer and stuck it in the oven. Then she sat down at her little kitchen table and doggedly ate.

Just as she was cleaning up the dishes, her mother called. Claire reassured her she was fine and hung up as quickly as she could.

After that, she went into the living room and watched a little television, getting up when the lobby phone rang or, once, to answer the bell out front. Finally, it was
nine-thirty—late enough that she could allow herself to go to bed without having to admit that she would be trying to escape this horrible day through sleep.

She showered and she put on her summer pajamas and she lay down on her bed. She did a little of her most recent nightly pastime, ceiling-staring. But then she sighed and curled herself into a ball on her side.

It was there, lying all tucked into herself, that she found the first comfort she’d found all day. She did it by allowing herself to imagine that the tight curl of her body cradled the tiny life within her, as much as it reassured her, its mother.

As soon as she discovered that imagining the baby brought solace, she let herself go farther, envisioning that tiny being—surely it was no bigger than her thumbnail now—swimming contentedly in its watery world.