"I wanted to get married. I wanted to marry you". But you've got to understand that"
"You belonged to them first. Particularly Gibb."
He closed the distance between them and took her shoulders didn't like the present situation, it was up to her to change it. Whatever was necessary, she would do.
Because she didn't want just a good marriage. She wanted a great one.
Billy Joe Crook was tall and lanky, with no discernible difference in measurement of his shoulders, waist, and hips. Sharp bones poked through his clothes. His pale, stringy hair could only be kept out of his eyes by a flicking motion of his head that was executed at such brief intervals it resembled a muscle tic.
"The police report says that at the time you were apprehended you had the CDs inside your shirt."
He snorted his sinuses clean and swallowed. "I was going to pay for them."
"Outside the store?"
"I was on the way to my car to get the money, when this asshole grabs me from behind and starts patting me down like I was a criminal or something."
"Uh-huh," Kendall said, unimpressed by his avowal of innocence. "Have you ever been caught shoplifting before?"
Colorless eyes fixed a disconcerting stare on her. Chilling as that stare was, Kendall didn't back down from it. Finally he broke eye contact, looked up at the ceiling, glanced over his shoulder at the guard at the door, and picked out several spots in the room to focus on before his cold eyes returned to her. "No."
"Don't lie to me, Billy Joe," she cautioned. "If you do, I'll find out. No matter how ugly the truth is, I'd rather hear it from you than from Mr. Gorn's office. Do you have a prior arrest record?"
"I wasn't arrested."
"But there was an incident?"
He smirked, dismissing it. "A couple years back? In the Piggly Wiggly?"
Kendall folded her arms and assumed a listening posture.
"This, oh, this checkout gal said I tried to steal a comic book." He raised his bony shoulders in an indifferent shrug.
"The bitch was lying."
"You didn't take the comic book?"
"I took it off the rack, sure. I was only taking it into the bathroom with me to read while I was on the crapper. This bitch raised hell and called the manager. He ordered me out of the store and told me not to come back. As if I gave a fuck.
That's the last they'll get of my business, and I told 'em so."
"I'm sure that broke their hearts."
"Hey, bitch, whose side are you on?" he shouted, springing forward in his chair. "And how come I got a skirt for a lawyer anyway?"
Kendall shot to her feet so quickly that her chair fell over backward and clattered to the floor. The guard standing post at the door rushed over, but she staved him off with a raised hand and a shake of her head. He heeded her wishes and kept his distance, although he looked ready to pounce on Billy Joe Crook if the need arose.
Kendall glared down at her insolent client and lowered her voice to a threatening pitch. "If you ever call me that again, I'll knock your rotten teeth down your throat. Do you under stand me?
And if I were you, I'd prefer a female attorney.
You're so repulsive, why would a woman choose to sit beside you in a court of law and plead your case, unless she was convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that you had been wrongly accused?"
She gave him time to think it over. He fidgeted in his seat and gnawed on the nail of his index finger, which was already a nub. For all his impudence, she now detected a trace of uneasiness.
"Okay, okay," he said at last. "No need to get your panties in a wad. I didn't mean nothing by it."
"Of course you did." Calmly, she righted her chair and sat down. "I don't care what you think of me personally, Mr. Crook. I'm paid to represent you. How well or how poorly I do that is up to me. No matter the outcome of your hearing, i'
I'll still get my paycheck next Friday. Understood?"
He understood. Tossing back his hair, he said in a subdued voice, "I don't want to go to jail."
"All right then. Let's discuss our options."
"Plead guilty? You mean, have him say he did it? You're out of your friggin' mind, lady!"
Rudeness seemed to be a Crook family trait. As did hair the color of dirty straw and eyes with practically no pigmentation.
Billy Joe's older twin brothers were tall and rawboned, although their lankiness wasn't quite as pronounced as his.
Maturity had eroded the sharp edges.
Henry and Luther Crook ambushed her as she tried to leave the courthouse. They, too, vociferously expressed their displeasure over having a woman represent their little brother. Ignoring their objections, she told them the avenue of defense she had advised her client to take.
"I'm not out of my mind," she said evenly. "I think Billy Joe should enter a plea of guilty."
"Plead guilty," Henry said scornfully. "Some lawyer you are. Well, you can forget it. We'll get somebody else. Some body who knows what the hell he's doing."
"Fine. I'll be happy to turn the case over to whomever you retain, or the court appoints. But my job is to handle this kind of case quickly. It might be weeks before another lawyer could get to it. How soon do you want it resolved?"
Luther and Henry mentally chewed on that for a moment.
Henry looked forlornly at Luther and said, "It's killing Mama that her baby's in jail."
"Hear me out, and then decide," Kendall suggested. "Billy Joe is only sixteen. He's a juvenile. This is his first offense.
We can forget the incident in the Piggly Wiggly. He wasn't arrested and formally charged, and even if he had been, it would be inadmissible."
"Huh?"
Henry's elbow found Luther's ribs. "Shut up and let her talk."
Since Henry was obviously the more intelligent of the pair, which wasn't saying much, she addressed her remaining comments to him.
"I believe that if Billy Joe appears before the family court judge and admits to making a mistake in judgment leaving the store with the compact disks in his possession before actually paying for them, even though he had every intention of doing so he'll probably get reprimanded and be put on probation."
"What's that mean?"
"That he won't spend any time in jail, and he won't be sent to Columbia for ROE." Reception and Evaluation was a period of forty-five days in which juvenile offenders were placed in detention and thoroughly screened by the Department of Juvenile Justice. The presiding judge then handed down his sentence on the basis of that evaluation and the department's recommendation.
"What's that probation mean?"
"It means that Billy Joe can't make another mistake in a specified period of time, say one year. He'll be closely monitored.
During his probation, he'd better stay out of trouble."
"What if he doesn't?"
"If he doesn't, he's screwed the pooch."
As Henry mulled it over, he absently scratched his armpit.
"What's the other choice?"
"The other choice is for him to plead innocent. He stands trial, which could result in a stiffer probation or an ROE.
Personally, in this instance, I think a judge will respond favor ably to contrition on the part of the defendant."
She was met with blank stares, so she tried again. "The judge is more likely to rule in Billy Joe's favor if he says he's sorry for what he did and promises not to do it again. I must say, the idea of probation appealed to your brother. He swore to me that if he beat this rap, he'd stay out of trouble. That's it. What's your decision?"
The twins withdrew and consulted each other in whispers.
"Okay," Henry said, speaking for both of them when they rejoined her. "We'll go along with that. With what you said."
"Fine. But I want to make clear that by pleading guilty, Billy Joe is admitting to a crime. He'll have a record. And there's no guarantee that a guilty plea will soften the judge's heart. It's a gamble that could backfire on us. However, in my judgment, I think it's a safe gamble."
They agreed by eagerly bobbing their heads and saying how glad Mama was going to be to hear that little BillyJoe wouldn't be sent to jail.
" 'Course, soon as he gets out, she's gonna take a strap to his ass for causing her this worry."
Mama, Kendall thought, must be a real prize, too. "I suggest you buy Billy Joe a new suit before his court appearance, "
she advised. "And some toiletries." Putting it in Berms they could beeper understand, she added, "I wane him to look like he's on his way to church to get married."
Luther said, "Speaking of weddin's, you're Matt Burnwood's aren't you:
"That's right."
"Ol' Matt hitched hisself to a city girl."
"Not exactly," Kendall replied, as they moved through the exit doors. "I grew up in eastern Tennessee, in a town even smaller than Prosper, called Sheridan."
"You act citified, though," Luther said. "Dress like it, too,"
he observed, taking in her suit. "Funny 'bout Matt marryin' you. Always figured he'd"
Again, he got his brother's elbow jammed into his gut.
"Luther's always running off at the mouth," Henry apologized.
"We gotta get on home now and give Mama the good news."
He shoved his brother toward a battered car parked at a meter.
Kendall was relieved to see them drive away. They made her feel in need of a bath.
"Tuna's on sale, three cans for a dollar."
The panhandler sitting on the courthouse steps was a familiar sight. He was reading aloud from the latest edition of Matt's newspaper. Although his cheeks and chin were covered with a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard, he wasn't an old man.
Probably not much older than Matt.
"Good evening, Bama," she said, smiling down at him.
"Evening, Counselor."
"How are you?"
"Can't complain."
Roscoe had told her the man's story. "He just showed up one day, few months before you came to town. Goes by t he name of Bama, after Alabama, you know. He's out there every day on the courthouse steps, rain or shine, hot or cold, reading the newspaper front to back. Friendly enough fellow. Doesn't bother anybody. Not much, anyway.
"They've tried to run him off a few times, but he always comes back the next day. A real shame, isn't it, to waste a life like that?" The janitor sadly shook his head over the unknown misfortunes that had reduced Bama to living off handouts and suffering the scorn of society.
Now Kendall took a dollar bill from her handbag and slid it into the breast pocket of his dirty tweed jacket. "Buy some of that tuna for yourself, Bama."
"Thank you kindly, Counselor."
"Good night."
"Night."
It had been a long day. Each minute of it had left its mark on her like the lash of a whip. She tried to wait up for Matt, as she had promised, but she grew so sleepy that at midnight she finally admitted defeat and went to bed alone.
"Why should I?" he asked, jerking his arm free. "I did what you said, and I'm going to jail for it. Same as jail, anyway. No shrink is gonna evaluate me!"
His hair which had been slicked back with gel for his court appearance didn't phase your Honor!"
"Silence!" Judge H. W. Fargo rapped his gavel on the block. "If counsel can't control the outbursts of her client and the spectators here on his behalf, I'll hold her in contempt."
"Your Honor, if I may speak," Kendall shouted from the defense table, where she was simultaneously trying to restrain Billy Joe Crook. When he heard the judge's ruling, he started screaming obscenities.
"Your client entered a guilty plea, and I've ordered him sent to Columbia for; an R&E. What further business do we have?"
"Forgive my client's outburst, Your Honor. But under the circumstances, I believe his outrage is justified."
Fargo leaned forward and smiled, but it was a nasty expression. "Oh?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"His honor my ass," Billy Joe said, sneering. "You're full of shit, Judge. And so is she. And so is everybody in this goddamn court."
Kendall clamped her fingers around his skinny arm so tightly that he yelped. "Sit down and keep your foul mouth shut. Let me do the talking."
He tossed his head to keep his hair out of his eyes. He glared at Kendall, who glared right back.
Billy Joe was the first to relent. "Shit." He dropped into his chair again. "I'll fucking escape is what I'll do. See if I don't."
Behind the rail, Henry and Luther were snarling like aggravated attack dogs on a short and fraying leash. Mrs. Crook was muttering invectives. Kendall felt trapped in a nightmare.
From the corner of her eye she noticed that Solicitor Daboey Gorn was grinning at her from the prosecution's table. He was relishing not only her defeat but her inability to control her client.
Since this was such an insignificant case, why hadn't Gorn delegated it to one of his assistants? He rarely appeared in court himself. He handed down mandates from his office, then spent the better part of each workday in the cafe across the street from the courthouse, drinking iced tea and shooting the breeze with anyone who wandered in.
Addressing the judge again, Kendall felt every eye in the courtroom on her, including Matt's. He had stopped by to cheer her on. She wished he hadn't. "Your Honor, ordering an RUE in this case is ridiculous. The value of the items taken is less than one hundred dollars. On what possible , grounds
"On the grounds that your client is a thief, madam. He admitted it. If you'd like, I can ask the court reporter to read back that portion of these proceedings."