Faultlines (11 page)

“Tomorrow or Thursday. We’ll see. You want to meet me there, at the jail?”

Sandy looked through the windshield. She was torn. “Travis’s funeral is today,” she began and stopped. Jenna didn’t want her there, Huck had said.

Folks around town aren’t going to welcome you . . . 
His further warning stood up in her mind, and it hurt; it left her feeling bitter. But she didn’t have emotional space to spare for those
folks
and what they thought.

“Yes,” she told Roger. “It’ll take me a couple of hours to get there, though. I’m still in Austin.” She keyed the ignition. Her mom and dad had brought her truck to her at the hospital after Emmett took off, leaving her stranded. At least they were still speaking to her. They would be with her, too, if Jenna’s need wasn’t greater. Jenna—who had lost her son, her only child. It fell over Sandy anew—the reality that Travis was gone. “Will I be able to see Jordy?” she asked Roger.

“Depends. Let’s just get into it. I’ll call you.”

Sandy got off the phone and sat clutching her elbows. The enormity of it—the incontrovertible fact of Travis’s death, what his loss would do—was doing to her sister, whom, in spite of everything, Sandy loved with her whole heart and self, frightened and sickened her. It stalled her heartbeat and stopped her breath. Her head swam, and for several moments, she couldn’t see. She should be with Jenna. Be there for her. Sandy needed to be with her sister, and her need was physical. She ached with it.

But Jenna blamed her and Jordy.

I will never forgive you or him.

Those hard, angry words were the last Jenna had spoken to Sandy before she’d left the hospital on Saturday on her way to the funeral home, Macintyre’s, in Wyatt. Sandy hadn’t needed her mom and dad to tell her that Travis would be buried outside town at Haven’s Rest, next to his dad.

Sandy wiped her face and blew her nose now. She had heard of near-death experiences, where people who had faced death came back telling stories of having seen a beloved family member who had gone before. She prayed it was true, that John had been there when Travis passed from here to wherever. Sandy closed her eyes, and for a moment she imagined it, John holding his son. He’d been a big man, quiet and thoughtful. He’d been the love of Jenna’s life, the center of Travis’s world. Jenna had borne his loss with grace, the same way she’d borne the loss of her breast to cancer. But this? The loss of her only child? It was too much for her sister to bear, too much for any mother.

But she could not sit here grieving over what she couldn’t change. Her son was still alive, and he needed her help.

Greeley, Texas, the Madrone county seat, was north of Wyatt. Sandy had been through it on her way to other places. She was familiar with the town square and found the courthouse there with no problem. An old man dozing on a bench out front told her the jail was around back.

“In an annex,” he said, and harrumphed. “Cost the taxpayers a bundle puttin’ up that building. Just so a bunch of criminals could sit around in air-conditioning.”

Sandy thanked him, got back into her truck, and drove behind the courthouse. The annex was a squat one-story building faced in native limestone, nondescript in style. Walking through the entrance door, she was hit with a blast of the taxpayer-financed air-conditioning cold enough to preserve meat. A woman in street clothes sat at the desk. “Help you?” she asked, giving Sandy a short glance.

She held the woman’s irritated gaze, the one that seemed to judge her for being stupid and somehow deficient, given that she was here, in a county jail.

“My son, Jordan Cline, was brought here. His attorney, Roger Yellott—”

“Oh yeah. He just got through booking. Lawyer’s with him now.”

“Could I join them?”

“Don’t know as it’s allowed.”

“Could you find out? Please?” Sandy added, although the woman didn’t look as if she was the sort who was moved by politeness.

She summoned a police officer, though, who escorted Sandy down a short corridor to a closed, windowless door. On the wall beside it, a sign read:
I
NTERVIEW
R
OOM
. She steeled herself, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight of her son dressed in an orange jumpsuit and wearing handcuffs. The pads of his fingertips were smudged black from being fingerprinted as part of the booking process. Jordy would tell her this later, washing the ink off at the kitchen sink at home. When he half rose from his chair, so did her gaze rise to his face.

“Mom?” he said, and his voice was that of a bewildered child.

Sandy didn’t know how she managed to withhold the frightened gasp that scraped her ribs. His eyes locked with hers, filled with pleading, that unfathomable confusion. Her need to touch him, to reassure him, was a reflex so strong she was barely aware of moving toward him until the cop barked, “No contact!”

She looked over her shoulder at him, taking in his gray buzz cut, his lined and dour face.

“Sandy,” Roger said, “why don’t you take this chair.”

She did what he suggested, sitting beside him, opposite Jordy.

The cop backed out of the room.

“There’s a camera,” Jordy said, looking up at the corner of the room where the instrument was mounted. Its glass eye peered down, probing, empty.

“They’re watching us?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Roger said. “Look, I was just telling Jordy we’ve caught a huge break. Ordinarily he’d spend at least one night in jail, maybe two before arraignment. But Judge Becker expedited the whole process. You can get Jordy out today, right now. You just have to put up his bail.”

“It’s seventy-five thousand,” Jordy said.

“Seventy-five thousand?” Sandy felt almost weightless with astonishment. She had no idea where she could get that kind of money. Not from their savings. There was maybe eighty-five hundred in there, last she looked. Sell their mutual funds? But why had the judge granted them favor? Sandy looked at Roger. “I was afraid Jordy wouldn’t get bail at all.”

“Evidently your dad knows Judge Becker. This is his court. There was some conversation between him and your dad.”

“Really?” Her dad did know a lot of people in the area; he’d employed many of them. He was known as the sort of man who’d give the shirt off his back to help someone. She didn’t know what he might have done for Judge Becker.

Roger said, “Look, I know most folks don’t have seventy-five K in cash lying around, so you can see a bail bondsman and secure Jordy’s release for ten percent, if that works. There’s a guy down the street. He’s reputable. I’ve worked with him before. I’ll go with you, if you want.”

“Yes, I’d be grateful.”

“The only downside is if Jordy were to miss his court date—”

“If I take off,” Jordy said, looking at Sandy, “if I go on the run, you don’t get the ten percent back.”

She thought of her Internet search, the short list of marginal countries Jordy might escape to and be free. She was aware of his knee, bouncing erratically. She was aware of the camera, its blank eye pointing directly at them. Were there lawmen—Len Huckabee, for instance—listening in? Was that legal?

“I’ve spoken to the DA’s office,” Roger said, and when Sandy turned to him, he searched her gaze, and while his eyes were steady and kind, she thought he was also trying to gauge the level of her composure. How close to the edge was she? How much more could she take? She wondered herself. But she had to take it. What would Jordy do if she went down? Who else was here for him, for them?

Roger said, “I was just explaining to Jordy before you got here, word is they’re going to pursue this to the max. In addition to intoxication manslaughter and the DUI, they intend to try him for intoxication assault and aggravated assault.”

“Because of Michelle,” Sandy said.

“Her parents have spoken to the DA, too. Her condition hasn’t improved. It hasn’t worsened, either, but—” Roger’s expression, the lift of his hand, was commiserating. Michelle’s parents wanted justice. Who could blame them?

“Yeah, it’s assault now,” Jordy said, “but if she dies, too, then it’ll be like Trav—God—” His head fell forward. When he raised his gaze, his eyes were red and scoured with panic and grief, and something hectic and sharp that might have been rage. “I did drink. I was probably drunk, but I wasn’t driving.” He looked from Sandy to Roger and back at Sandy. “I wasn’t, I swear, Mom. You have to believe me. Do you?”

Sandy thought back to the day last summer when he’d bruised Jenna’s car and sworn it was a total accident, not the result of his having consumed the contents of the empty pint bottle of peppermint schnapps Jenna had found. There had been other incidents: Beers had gone missing from the refrigerator. Even the occasional fifth of rum or tequila that they kept in a cabinet for friends had disappeared. Jordy always feigned innocence. But Sandy had known in the nether regions of her mind he was lying. The practice of deception came as easily to him as it once had to her. Like her, he would lie to get out of trouble or to endear himself. He would lie to fit in. To entertain. There were so many ways to lie, so many reasons when it made sense—when the truth would hurt someone, for instance. Travis was dead. Wasn’t it easier now to make him the scapegoat when he couldn’t defend himself? Even Emmett had expressed doubt.

Roger said, “It’s what the jury believes that matters.” He set his elbows on the table. The sleeves of his suit coat rode up, and Sandy caught the wink of his cuff links, tiny diamonds and emeralds set in a horseshoe pattern. They were understated, tasteful. Sandy wondered how much they cost, what sort of money you had to earn to afford such elegant jewelry. Her heart was beating so hard she could feel the repercussions in her head. When Roger said he didn’t want to scare her, she almost laughed.

“The DA is asking for the maximum in regard to punishment. If they win—not that it’ll happen, I’m just saying if they do—Jordy’s looking at a possible twenty to thirty years in prison. That’s if the jury was to find him guilty on every charge, and if the judge was to stack the sentences. If Michelle were to die, then the situation—”

“What do we do?” Sandy cut him off.

“We pay his bail and get him out of here. We start building a defense. I’ve already put in a request for a copy of the accident report. I’ll have a look at the accident scene, too, and interview any witnesses, other drivers who might have been on the road that night.”

A pause lingered, taking on significance.
Money.
Lawyers required it, a retainer up front, and after they used that up, there would be an hourly rate.
Billable hours.
The phrase came from some recess of Sandy’s memory, a holdover from her days of watching
LA Law
. She met Roger’s glance. “What will it cost?”

“Ten thousand to start. That retainer should cover pretty much all the pretrial expenses. My hourly rate is two-fifty, which will be deducted from the retainer amount unless or until that’s used up. If we go to trial, it’s another thirty-five thousand. Steep, I know, but Jordy’s case, the charges—it’s pretty complex. There’s a lot riding on the outcome.”

Sandy felt he added the last part in deference to the shock and dismay that must be visible on her face. Lucky for him he couldn’t also see the sick knot of her panic, the one that kept tightening its grip on her stomach.
Where?
Where would the money come from? She thought again of the mutual funds Emmett had invested in; she thought of Jordy’s college fund. What was the use of that, though, if he was in prison? She was rewriting her version of O. Henry’s short story “The Gift of the Magi.” But instead of selling her hair, she would give away Jordy’s college fund to buy his freedom, only to be unable to afford his education, assuming he was granted a reprieve. It would have been laughable if it weren’t so alarming and sad. “I have enough to pay the bail, but your retainer—I’ll have to move funds around.”

“It’s all right,” Roger said. “You can drop a check by my office later.”

She hazarded a glance at Jordy, the battered wreck of his face, the shamed, dejected slump of his shoulders. She didn’t imagine he understood the scope of the financial pressure this would put on their family except in the most ephemeral way. Yet she knew he was sickened, too. As sickened by it as she was. She touched his hand. “All that matters is getting you out of here, okay?”

The look he gave her said it was so much more than that. She searched his eyes, trying to see past the bruised damage into the core of him, where she imagined the truth lay. She wanted so badly to believe him, for him not to have done this. She had heard parents say they would love their child no matter what. She had said it herself. Was it true? Would she love Jordy if his recklessness had killed Travis and so cruelly injured Michelle? If she died, too? Sandy didn’t know if she would, and it shamed her. She found Jordy’s glance. “You have to tell him about Huck. I’ll leave—”

“No, Mom.” Jordy straightened, lifting his chin, indicating the camera.

He was right. It wouldn’t be smart talking about Len Huckabee here.

A cop took Jordy from the room, where he’d wait in a holding cell, while Sandy and Roger secured his bail. Sandy went to her truck first, and using her laptop, she transferred money from the savings to the checking account. She thought of calling Emmett, but Roger was waiting. The legal meter was running.