Impact (32 page)

Brenda swears. “You guys are practicing law with crystal balls. What it comes down to is how much the jury likes little Laura. Right?”

Hawthorne waits for the vituperation to fade. “You hate her, don't you?”

“Who I hate is none of your business,” Brenda growls. “I just don't like to see people get away with murder.”

“The
airline
is the one trying to get away with murder, Ms. Farnsworth.”

In the silence, she wars with what she has just heard. Hawthorne watches her, hesitates, then speaks casually. “I keep an apartment near here—for clients from out of town and for when I get too drunk to drive the bridge. I keep some nice wines up there. And I could scrounge up something for lunch. Want to join me?”

Her smile is more knowing than he is prepared for. “And I'm the dessert. Right, counselor?”

He remains impassive.

She waits long enough for him to color. “I don't think so, thanks all the same. I'm not hanging on to Keith by much, but I'm still hanging on. Maybe if I lose my grip, I'll take you up on it.” She blinks. “Lunch, I mean.”

He bows to her decision. “If you're insulted, I apologize.”

“When I'm insulted, you'll know about it.”

He nods briskly, and they both stand up. They are walking to the door when she stops. “What if this Chambers guy shows the Donahue marriage was a joke, that they were both adulterers and were about to get a divorce? Laura wouldn't get anything, would she?”

“With the lost earnings, it doesn't matter. That kind of evidence isn't admissible in court.”

“You're kidding.”

He shakes his head. “Judges don't want defendants concocting seamy testimony that suggests the surviving spouse couldn't count on being supported for much longer even had the husband not been hurt. The court won't assume a couple will eventually divorce—if they were married when the plane went down, they're considered married for life. Even if she divorces him and remarries before the trial, the result's the same—the jury never gets told.”

“That's asinine.”

“That's smart. Otherwise, every personal-injury case would turn into a divorce action. But with loss of consortium it might be a different matter. If the defense can show she was about to leave her husband or that she had a lover, that might be admissible to show her claim of lost comfort and companionship was bogus. But the law's not entirely clear, and a smear-the-victim defense could backfire if the jury sympathized with the wife anyway. On the other hand, if the defense
is
allowed to present that kind of evidence, it could color the way the jury looks at the other claims, and the wife could end up with zip.”

He tries and fails to assess the machinations that roil behind Brenda Farnsworth's eyes. “Okay,” she says abruptly, as though her suspicions are confirmed. “What if someone stands up in court and says Jack was nothing but a hustler, that his resort idea was a joke, that he was basically a shiftless bum?”

“Then it depends on who the jury believes.” Hawthorne opens the office door and waits for her to exit. “And let me tell you something that's true, Ms. Farnsworth. Who the jury believes depends on who has the best lawyer in the courtroom. And that, my dear,” he proclaims with unfettered conceit, “is almost always me.”

“But you're not Laura's lawyer; Keith is.”

“That's her problem.”

She shakes her head. “Not entirely.”

At the corners of her eyes, her flesh crinkles with resolve.

Keith Tollison fumbled for the phone with inebriated imprecision as he struggled to focus on the numbers branded into the face of his alarm clock. Three-fifteen. God. It
felt
like three-fifteen, which meant it felt like a riot in the basement of hell.

Why was he so … The
bar
meeting. The monthly cocktail of bluff and bluster, lawyers overindulging with their peers, a roomful of reeling drunks.

Propping himself against a pillow, Tollison picked up the receiver, dropped it, picked it up again, listened, and reversed it, while his skull shrank inexorably around his brain. “… Hello?”

“Keith?”

“Um-hummm. Who's this?”

“Brenda.”

“Brenda. Uh … just a minute, let me get a light on. Jesus. Is it really three o'clock?”

“I need help, Keith. I didn't know what else to do.”

As best he could, Tollison massaged a throbbing temple. “What's happened?”

Her voice was flat with fear. “It's Spitter. He's been arrested.”

“What for?”

“Disturbing the peace. Resisting arrest. Everything short of murder, it sounded like.”

“Who called you?”

“A man named Yancey. I think he's a policeman.”

“He's the night-shift sergeant at the county jail. Is he the one Spitter assaulted?”

“I don't know. Why?”

“Abe Yancey weighs three hundred pounds. If Spitter took a swing at Abe, he'll be lucky if he's compos in a month.”

“They wouldn't—”

“They would if he gave them half a reason to. Is Spitter in jail or in the hospital?”

“Jail. I … can you get him out of there, Keith? Please?”

He sought therapy in a breath of air. “I'll check it out, Bren. Don't worry.”

“Thanks.” The word lingered long enough for him to know she meant it. “Call me when I can pick him up, okay?”

“There may not be much I can do till morning. A judge will have to set bail, and both of them were at a bar meeting tonight, so they're probably making sure no one can reach them till noon. I'll do my best to spring him, Bren; that's all I can say. How much bond could you post?”

“How much is it likely to be?”

“Ten percent of the bail, which could go as high as fifty thousand. Judges tend to come down hard on people taking a swing at a cop, under the theory that if they don't protect the cops, the cops won't protect them. Courtrooms are scary places these days.”

“I think I could come up with five thousand.”

“Okay. I'd put up some myself if I had it, but I'm tapped out at the moment. Where's Spitter living? With you?”

“He's got a room on Jackson. Above the carpet store.”

“He have a job?”

“No.”

“How's he eat?”

“He … I gave him some of Carol's things left over from the sale—some appliances, her car. He fixed them up and sold them.” She paused. “And sometimes he steals from me.”

The phrase shimmered with helplessness. Tollison felt a surge of sympathy reminiscent of the days before his sympathies had strayed to Laura Donahue. “You can't let him get away with that, Brenda. If he steals from you, he'll start stealing elsewhere.”

“I know, but he's so …” The label remained imprisoned in her throat. “Just get him out. Please? We'll figure out what to do about him later.”

“I will if I can,” he promised. “How's your case going?” he asked idly as he reached for the slacks draped over the chair beside his bed.

Brenda paused. “Fine, I guess. There's a hearing next month, I think. A settlement conference?”

“Right.”

“I'm hoping that will lead to something that will make things easier. I've heard about a school in Davis that has had success with kids who … with kids like Spitter. But it's expensive, so—” The sentence vanished in an unexpressed contingency.

“How'd your deposition go?”

“Alec said I did fine, but I don't think I did. A man named Chambers kept laughing at things that weren't funny. I could have slapped him. In fact I
tried
to slap him.”

Despite the racket inside his head, Tollison grinned at the vision of Brenda Farnsworth lunging for her adversary's throat across a ring of lawyers. “Good for you.”

“How about Laura? How's Jack doing?”

He listened for bile but heard only a weary inquiry. “He's getting better, I guess. But Laura's having to sell off assets to pay for nursing help and rehabilitation therapy. And she's doing too much herself. If she keeps it up, she's going to fall apart.” He hesitated. “She could use someone to talk to, Bren. She's not a bad person, you know.”

“I suppose not,” she said softly. “I suppose you wouldn't love her if she were.”

“You don't have to explain anything; I know what's been going on, and I know there's not much I can do to stop it. But I also know I'll always be here if you want me, Keith. I'm not proud of it, especially, but I know myself well enough to know it's true.”

“You shouldn't count on me, Brenda. Not that way.”

Her laugh was heavy with resignation. “That's life, right? If it was a piece of cake we'd all have a weight problem. I should never have …”

“Never should have what?”

“Who knows? If I hadn't made the mistakes I made, I'd have made some other ones. And maybe the new batch would have been worse.” After a moment she again waxed firm. “Help my son, Keith. Call me after you talk to him.”

It took him ten minutes to reach the jail. Inside the squat block building the fluorescent atmosphere was the color of cheap chablis, as diluted and depressing as the men who lounged beyond the scrim of a white wire cage. Tollison walked to the desk and rang the bell.

Moments later, a uniform emerged from behind a curtain. Though it was the size of a hot-air balloon, it was still too tiny to fit the man who wore it. “Howdy, Keith,” the giant said jovially. “Thought you might show up tonight.”

“Hi, Abe. I need to see the Farnsworth boy.”

“Sure. Got him down in intake. Be just a minute.”

“Many customers tonight?”

The jailer smiled. “A couple of the regulars. Plus one of your esteemed colleagues.”

“Who?”

“Joseph Dungan, Esquire. Seems he was driving drunk this evening. Allegedly, of course.”

“Every lawyer in town was driving drunk this evening,” Tollison murmured.

“Well, Joe was the only one to do it in front of a squad car. Got him for driving backwards down Battery Street. Claimed he was looking for a hubcap, which seemed strange since his vehicle had four already.”

“I'll post his bail if it's the usual, Abe.”

“Maybe you best let him stay. Last time someone took Joe home before he sobered up, his wife beat him half to death with a skillet while he was still sleeping it off.”

Tollison shrugged and nodded. “Anyone been able to raise a judge tonight?”

Abe shook his head. “A couple have tried, too.”

“What's the boy charged with?”

Yancey consulted a clipboard and repeated the list Brenda uttered on the phone. “Trying to move him out of the graveyard was all it amounted to. Guess he didn't want to go.”

Tollison nodded. “I'll try to raise Judge Bloomfield. After that, I want to see the boy.”

The jailer disappeared behind a curtain. Tollison went to the phone on the wall and called the judge's number. After it rang a dozen times, he tried Altoona's only other judge but got the same result. As he hung up, Abe Yancey emerged from behind the door at the far end of the reception area.

“I put the kid in Interrogation Two. Now, that cut on his head, he already had that when he come in here, Keith, so don't be thinking I took a whack at him.”

“Who made the collar?”

“Olson.”

“How'd Olson look?”

“Okay.”

“You know what I mean, Abe.”

“Like I said; Olson looked okay.”

Yancey opened the door and let Tollison precede him down the narrow hall. Disembodied voices made gruff intrusions into the lengthy box of space, but they were ballads of longing rather than protests of confinement. When they reached room 2, Yancey unlocked the door.

Spitter sat in the center of the overlighted space, head lowered onto arms that were crossed atop a metal desk. A tail of hair dangled against his neck, revealing a silver earring. His field jacket bore the smears of long neglect.

Tollison sat in the only other chair and scooted it closer to the desk. “Spitter? It's me, Keith Tollison. Your mom asked me to come see you.”

Spitter made no move.

“So how're you doing? Are you hurt?”

The grunt was more epithet than answer.

“What happened, Spitter? Why were you busted?”

Spitter raised his head. Squinting at the light, his eyes were wholly black, as though the milky sclerotic had drained dry. A cheek was dark and swelling, a lip had puffed to twice its size, his forehead was laced with webs of blood. The T-shirt beneath his jacket formed a dingy backdrop to the words
HEAD CASE
.

“How are you?” Tollison said again, this time to the boy-man's slack regard.

“Fuck you.”

“Your mother's worried about you, Spitter.”

“Fuck
her.”

“If you're hurt, I want to make them take you to the hospital. Did you lose consciousness? Are you dizzy? Headache? Anything like that?”

“Get
out
of here, why don't you?”

“I'd like to get
you
out of here, Spitter, but I can't do that till I get hold of a judge and I can't do that till morning, so you'll have to spend the night. I'll ask them to put you in an empty, but I don't know if they have any.”

“I don't need no favors.”

As he examined the boy, Tollison felt a burgeoning need to help him, to compensate for the pain he had so casually inflicted on his mother.

“If you spend the night in the tank, I want you to be careful,” Tollison said easily. “Don't make trouble; don't say anything that will make anyone mad. If someone tries to hurt you or get you to do something you don't want to do, call for the guard. His name is Abe. He's okay, even if he is a cop. Call him, and he'll come.”

Spitter sang the anthem of adolescence: “Why can't you just leave me alone?”