Trial and Terror (2 page)

Raines huffed through the court’s padded doors, prompting the judge to place his iPad on his desk and enter the court. Sprague didn’t wait for the judge’s order to bring the jury in. Davenport, a dance student at the University, and her supporters—parents and a group of blue jean and chino-clad classmates—filed in from the hall.

Summer’s nerves jangled. She always tensed before the reading of a verdict. The jurors settled into their chairs, avoiding Marsalis’s probing eyes. When everyone was in place, the judge asked the jury foreman, “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

The foreman was someone Summer would have excluded if she hadn’t run out of peremptory challenges: Walter Davies, a gun shop owner. Things didn’t look bright for Marsalis.

Davies cleared his throat. “Yes, Your Honor.”

Marsalis stopped probing the jury with his eyes and turned his attention back to Summer. He leaned in close to her, hand cupped to his mouth in classic client-attorney style. “Do you love me?”

Summer’s spine stiffened. Usually the reading of verdict was enough to suck the ardor out of anyone. “Mr. Marsalis, the charges against you are serious.”

“Do you, do you love me?
Answer me!
” Marsalis raged the last two words. The whole courtroom turned toward the disturbance.

Summer tried to ignore the eyes focused on her. “Stop it,” she mouthed.

“Tell me!”

She hissed, “
No.
”

The foreman handed a square of paper to Sprague, who carried it to the judge. Hightower unfolded the origami and read it to himself—Summer searched his expression for a hint, but Hightower didn’t provide any.

Marsalis bit his bottom lip until it bleached white; then, his face displaying rank ecstasy, unfurled a skein of numbers in her ear.

Summer tried to concentrate on the proceedings.

Marsalis rambled on. “Four-two-two-five-oh-one-one-four...”

It took Summer a moment to realize he was reciting her Visa card number.

“Ms. Neuwirth, is anything the matter?” the judge asked.

“Oh-eight-three-six...” Marsalis also had her social security number.

Nothing Summer could do now. “No, no, Your Honor.”

The judge didn’t press. Abnormal behavior was the norm in the criminal justice system. “Well, then, will the defendant rise?”

Summer and Marsalis stood. She noticed her hands were shaking; her heart was beating against her ribs; sweat chilled her back.

Marsalis squeezed her pinky. Summer stayed shocked-still. “Twelve-seven-fifty-three,” he whispered. “Really, Summer, using your mother’s birth date as your pin number? It took me no time to crack.”

Summer wanted to run. She didn’t need more nightmares; since her own rape, she had already suffered more than her fair share.

“Oh, ooh, ooh,” Marsalis whispered in an orgasmic coo. “And $26,142 in law school debt? Tsk tsk tsk, Summer. Perhaps it would have been more prudent to accept that job with Brockton, Myers & Bellamy. They offered a much more attractive financial package than the Haze County Public Defenders Office.”

The judge was speaking: “...case number 62-8702, the state versus Eugene Robert Marsalis, on the charge of rape and assault in the first degree—”

Marsalis released Summer’s pinky. He stood ramrod-straight.

“We find the defendant—”

Summer gripped the table and shut her eyes.

“—
not
guilty.”

Summer sank into her chair. The rest of Judge Hightower’s words were covered by a carpet of courtroom hisses and calls for justice. Summer glanced at Davenport, who was sobbing.

It was the verdict Summer had sought, but all she could feel now was crushing regret.

Raines splatted his briefcase on the table, refusing to look at the jury. On his way out he brushed past Summer. “You’ll be sorry you got this pond scum off.”

Summer was already sorry.

Davenport, her eyes red and haunted, approached. Marsalis had already skulked out of the courtroom and was, Summer hoped, out of her life.

“I never called him. That was a bunch of lies.” Davenport sought answers in Summer’s eyes but broke down before she could get any.

Summer left her and rushed into the hallway. Eyes fixed on floor squares the whole way, she slipped into the women’s bathroom.

She filled a sink, pressed the soap dispenser, and tried to cleanse herself. The walls were dingy and yellowed. The stench of cleanser barely masked other odors. She stared at her reflection in the mirror; backlit by the uneven fluorescent glare, she looked ravaged and haggard.

Through the mirror Summer saw Marsalis step inside. Startled, she gripped the sink and spoke to his reflection. “Get out.”

Marsalis squeezed a flat-line smile and stepped forward.

Refusing to give in to her fear, Summer turned to face him. “What do you want from me? I got you acquitted.”

“You did not get me acquitted, I got me acquitted,” Marsalis said, his tone a model of controlled menace. “If I hadn’t been able to enter the telephone company’s database and alter her phone records, I would not be a free man. All of my hard work would have been for naught.”

Summer searched for a way out.

Marsalis poised himself between her and the door. “You have no idea who you are dealing with.”

He inched closer. Summer backed away until she was pressed against the wall.

Marsalis clamped a hand around her arm, found a pressure point, and squeezed. Summer’s knees buckled. When she flailed, he gripped her tighter, and with his other hand, pushed his thumb into her clavicle until she was on her knees.

“Let me tell you about mosquitoes,” he said. “When one attaches itself to my arm, I don’t crush it, I torment it. I flex my arm and it’s trapped by its stinger. But it keeps sucking blood, gorging on it. It can’t stop. Until
pop!
” His breath was hot on her face.

Summer gasped. “You’re hurting me.”

“This is true.” He smiled again.

“I’ll... I’ll go to the police.”

“And tell them the man you successfully defended for rape is out to get you? I think not. It’s too early in your career to ruin your reputation.”

The door swung open. When the woman spotted Marsalis, she uttered a choked sound and fled.

“Security will be here in a few seconds,” Summer said.

Marsalis released his grip, leaving her sprawled on the tile. “I will leave you with one more piece of information,” Marsalis said. “Harold Gundy, born on June 29th, 1948, at 6:43 a.m. at Haze County General Hospital, died a little before 10:21 last night.”

Marsalis bent over and kissed her cheek, tenderly. “I’ll be in touch, Summer.”

Chapter 2

While Haze County’s district attorneys
worked in sparkling digs, public defenders were crowded into a sighing edifice across the boulevard. Punishment for doing their jobs. Although the county was bankrupt, the legislature voted pay raises for the D.A.s, while the P.D.s staggered through a two-year salary and hiring freeze. Twice a week, the A/C shorted out, like today, office cynicism rising with the temperature.

District attorneys dared to dream of plum assignments on federally funded task forces on drugs, gangs, and sex crimes, where the hours were shorter and the caseloads lighter. After putting in their time, they could then vie for judgeships or political office. But public defenders’ careers ended where they started. Never in the county’s history had a public defender been elected a judge or to Congress. They were sentenced to forever work in the twisted realm of the psychotic.

And because of the company they kept, P.D.s were universally despised—by the judges, the D.A.s, the public; and, because they were usually the bearers of bad news, even their clients.

Summer slid her ID card into an electronic lock and opened a frosted glass door:
Haze County Public Defenders Office
. She breezed down cramped aisles, smiling and issuing silent hellos to the paralegals and receptionists.

It was an hour after the verdict had been read, and she was calm. She had filed away Marsalis in an isolated part of her mind, and this enabled her to function. All public defenders acquired this skill; if you didn’t, you wouldn’t last. Like her father, a homicide detective who had worked the other side of the criminal justice system, had taught her. Got the flu? Suck down some vitamin C and get back to work. Depressed? Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Got menstrual cramps during closing arguments? Walk it off. Because when others depend on you, there are no excuses.

Summer headed to the conference room, where her boss, Jon Levi, and her BFF, Rosie Aridjis, were chatting over lunch.

Levi was gesturing with his hands. “...waiting for the light to change. If I’m late again Judge Landburgh’s going to serve my scrotum on a plate. So I sprint across even though the light was red. I figure I’m in the clear until a cop pulls me over. I just about spew my lunch: Patrolman Samuel Hoeg. I’d skewered him on cross like a week ago. I figure just to get back at me he’s going to throw me in the slammer. I mean, for jay-fuckin’-walkin’?”

Rosie was painting her fingernails maroon to match her toes. Her arms were scarred from the removal of gang tattoos. “They love doing shit like that to Latinos,” she said, not looking up from her brush. “Just to fuck with us.”

When they caught sight of Summer, they applauded.

“Congrats on your first ‘not guilty,’” Levi said.

Summer bowed her head a smidge. It had been a hollow victory, but it was a victory nevertheless.

“How’d Gundy take the agony of defeat?” Rosie asked.

Summer flipped her lunch bag on the table, next to some mail. She picked up the stack of post-its and envelopes and peeked under the rubber band. “Señor Gundy didn’t show, so Raines did the honors.” She turned to Rosie. “Did that new secretary give you my mail again?”

Rosie nodded with sarcastic eyes. “He can’t remember who’s who.”

“Actually,” Levi reflected, “except for the hair and Rosie’s nightmarish taste in clothes, you could be sisters.”

Rosie sputtered. “My taste in clothes? Look at you, dressed like some acid-popping hairy-legged commune-dwelling”—she turned sweet when Levi raised an eyebrow—“first class legal mind. It is an honor, an honor I say, to serve under you.”

“Duly noted,” Levi said. “Sure not like Gundy to miss a rape verdict.”

Summer shrugged. “What happened with Hoeg?”

“Oh, yeah. So I’m wearing this Jerry Garcia tie and the same suit I wore to this party a few days ago, and I—shut up, Rosie.”

Rosie’s neon-charged smile caused her to trap a hair in the crook of her mouth. Because her nails were wet, she couldn’t get to it. She tried spitting it out. Summer pulled it free. “Thanks. I didn’t say anything, Jon.”

“You didn’t have to. Anyway, I remember I have this joint in my pocket. I could see the
Haze County Register
headlines: ‘County’s Chief Public Defender Arrested for Drugs.’”

“So,” Rosie asked, “you do some kung-fu action upside his head? Or did you beg?”

“I begged. ‘Please officer, I’m late to court. No hard feelings because I questioned your manhood on the stand, blah blah blah.’ He let me go with a warning.”

“Close call.” Summer unwrapped her sandwich. “Good thing they don’t drug test public defenders. If they did, there wouldn’t be any.”

Rosie blew on her nails. “You know, the cops who get all righteous over traffic laws are usually the ones who shake down dealers and then re-sell their shit on the street.”

“Well,” Levi said, turning to Summer, “enlighten us, oh victorious one. How’d you manage to win an acquittal in a case where the cops had a fucking video of the crime in progress?”

Summer reached down to pick her napkin off the floor. “Davenport’s phone records show she phoned my client a bunch of times before and after the incident. She took the stand and denied it.”

“Awesome!”

“I hated it, Jon. My client was… ” Summer paused, unsure how much to reveal. “I’ve never had a case where I knew the guy was guilty and a threat to public safety and still got him off.”

“That’s because you never won before,” Rosie said.

“Nobody wins around here,” Levi said. “Hell, it took me six years before I won one, and that was in the days when the State Supreme Court was liberal and the legislature hadn’t gotten into the act. Back then, you had a fighting chance. Now it’s just one big funnel to convict. But what do I always tell you guys?”

Summer and Rosie said in unison, “Don’t get caught up personally with clients or the case. Just provide the best possible defense counsel possible.”

They laughed as Levi offered mock applause. “If you have a picture of the guy, I could pass it out to the bailiffs, make sure he doesn’t show up here or in court,” he said.

Summer considered it, but no. Marsalis was right. After getting him off, there was no way Summer could ask for protection. “I’ll be all right.”

“Want me to get some of my, uh, associates to kick his ass?” Rosie often defended old acquaintances from the ’hood.