BBH01 - Cimarron Rose

by James Lee Burke

  When we recessed, Marvin Pomroy passed the defense table and said, 'You stepped in the bubble gum on that last one, counselor.'

  I rubbed my temple and looked at his back.

  'What'd he mean?' Lucas asked.

  'Don't tell a Republican the system that protects his money is corrupt.'

  Marvin's first witness was Roseanne Hazlitt's aunt. She walked with a cane to the stand, her back bent at the spine. She seemed even more frail than when I had interviewed her at her house. Her hand quivered on the curve of her cane; deep lines fanned out from her mouth like those in a mummy; her eyes jittered with the rheumy death light of the mortally ill.

  But her animosity toward Lucas flared in her words, stripped the obstruction from her throat, reached out like knots in a whip.

  'Did your niece tell you she thought she might be pregnant?' Marvin asked.

  'Objection. Irrelevant,' I said.

  'Goes to motive,' Marvin said.

  'Overruled,' the judge said.

  'Yes, she did,' the aunt said.

  'Pregnant by whom?' Marvin asked.

  'Your honor, the victim was not pregnant. The prosecution is trying to introduce a nonexistent situation into the trial,' I said.

  'Then bring that out in cross-examination. In the meantime, sit down and shut up, Mr Holland,' the judge said.

  'She thought that 'un yonder made her pregnant,' the aunt said.

  'You're indicating Lucas Smothers?' Marvin said.

  'I'm pointing at the one right there beat her to death and y'all didn't have guts enough to prosecute in the first degree,' the aunt said.

  'Objection,' I said.

  'Sustained. Jury will disregard the witness's last remark,' the judge said.

  But the pointed finger of accusation, the anger that seemed to indicate an unspoken knowledge about Lucas's guilt would not leave the jury's memory because of a judge's admonition. After Marvin sat back down, I rose and approached within five feet of the stand.

  'Ms Hazlitt, I interviewed you right after your niece's death, correct?' I said.

  'You come out to the house, if that's what you mean.'

  'I asked you about someone she had slapped at Shorty's the night she was attacked, correct?'

  'I told you she never hurt nobody in her life, too.'

  'You surely did. Then you told me something like, "It was them hurt her." Isn't that correct?'

  'I don't recall that.'

  'Then I asked you who "them" was, who were those other people who had harmed her in the past. Isn't that correct?'

  'Objection, counsel's testifying, Your Honor. The witness already stated she didn't remember,' Marvin said.

  'Where are you going with this, Mr Holland?' the judge said.

  'The witness obviously has hostile feelings toward the defendant. However, in a previous conversation she indicated her niece had been injured in some fashion by people other than Lucas Smothers.'

  'There's no evidence of this conversation. Mr Holland is putting words in the witness's mouth and then questioning her about them. It's bizarre,' Marvin said.

  'I'll give you a short piece of rope, Mr Holland,' the judge said.

  'Ms Hazlitt, did you tell me people other than Lucas Smothers had harmed your niece?'

  'Objection, your honor. He's doing it again,' Marvin said.

  'Sustained. Last warning, counselor,' the judge said.

  'I apologize, your honor. I'll rephrase the question. Ms Hazlitt, did you indicate someone other than Lucas had harmed Roseanne in the past?' I said.

  'I don't recall that,' the aunt replied.

  'You didn't refer to her male friends as people who had "gotten the scent of it", or as "dogs sniffing around a brooder house"?'

  Marvin was on his feet again, but the judge spoke before he could.

  'That's it. Both of you approach the bench,' she said. She leaned forward and covered the microphone with her palm. 'You two guys are starting to piss me off, particularly you, Mr Holland. This isn't the trial of the century. You got problems with each other, settle them outside. And you, Mr Holland, either you join the Screen Actors Guild or put an end to these diddle-doo theatrics. Are we clear on this?'

  At lunchtime Lucas, Temple, and I walked across the square to the Mexican grocery store and ordered takeout from the small café in back, then carried it back to my office. Vernon Smothers caught up with us on the sidewalk. He had put on a tie and coat and white shirt, and his face was sweating in the sun.

  'What's going on? When you gonna put on them damn deputies destroyed evidence?' he said.

  'I'll talk with you about it later, Vernon,' I said.

  'That's my son. I'm supposed to figure out his trial by watching the evening news?'

  I glanced at Temple. She touched Lucas on the arm and walked with him into the foyer and up the stairs of my building.

  'I can't call the deputy I need. Why? I don't even know where she is. Why? She shot two guys out at the skeet club. You want me to go on?' I said.

  I expected his face to tighten with anger, as it always did when Vernon heard something he didn't like. But he surprised me. He closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers hard in the middle of his brow.

  'I screwed up again, didn't I? I should have listened to you and left things alone. I just ain't good at hearing what people tell me sometime,' he said.

  'You were doing what you thought was right. It's not your fault, Vernon.'

  He looked back at me uncertainly, as though I had spoken to him in a foreign tongue.

  Upstairs, I stood at the window and looked at the courthouse square, the dust on the trees and the heat waves bouncing off the sidewalks. Lucas was eating at the side of my desk in his shirtsleeves, his cuffs rolled back over his forearms.

  'Ms Hazlitt's testimony presents a little problem for us,' I said to him.

  'You mean when she said Roseanne thought it was me made her pregnant?'

  'Yeah, that's part of it.'

  'But the autopsy showed she wasn't pregnant,' he said.

  'The jury just heard a story about a homicide victim who was sexually involved with only one individual—you. Five members of that jury are over sixty years old. Older people tend to listen to other older people. Are you with me?'

  He set down the taco he was eating. The glare through the slats in the blinds made his eyes water. 'I ain't sure. I mean, if she wasn't pregnant—'

  'It is also easier for the jury to identify with the victim when they believe the victim to be an innocent person, totally undeserving of such a brutal end,' I said. 'Then the jury gets mad and wants to bash the betrayer, the sexual exploiter, the predator in our midst. Marvin Pomroy is going to talk about Roseanne's innocence and your guilt, her vulnerability… her trusting attitude… and your depravity.'

  Lucas nodded his head as though he understood. But his eyes were as clear as glass, and he had no comprehension of what a good prosecutor like Marvin Pomroy could do to him.

  'We need to show the jury the videotape of Roseanne smoking a joint and taking off her clothes. They'll also see the kind of kids she hung around with,' I said.

  He pushed his plate away with the heel of his hand, his eyes blinking.

  'The tape simply shows the world she lived in, Lucas,' Temple said. 'Dope and booze and getting it on with lots of guys. We're not knocking her. That's just the way it was.'

  'She might have done all them things you say, but that don't mean she wasn't a good girl,' he said.

  'That's true. But somebody else killed her, Lucas. Maybe his face is on that tape,' I said.

  His right hand was clenched on the back of his left wrist. His throat was splotched with color.

  'I ain't going along with this,' he said.

  'Excuse me?' I said.

  'I was sleeping with Roseanne and told you I didn't hardly know her. That makes me a liar and a coward. I ain't gonna get myself off by seeing her tore down in front of all them people.'

  'You really want to go to prison? Is that what y
ou're telling me?' I said.

  'Maybe I deserve to be there.'

  'What?' I said.

  'You say Darl doped me. Maybe I was just drunk. I'll never know the truth about what I done that night.'

  He was bent over in the chair, his head hung forward. The glare through the blinds made strips of light on his back.

  'Lucas, we need to clear something up here. There's only one person in this room running your defense,' Temple said.

  But I motioned at her with two fingers. She looked at me with a puzzled expression, then chewed on the corner of her lip and stared silently out the window.

  That evening I took off my shirt and hung it on a fence rail and raked out the chicken run and horse lot and dumped a load of manure and decayed straw in the compost pile, then filled a bucket with water from the windmill pipe and began digging a line of postholes so I could reset the rail fence and enlarge the lot for Beau. It was a lovely evening. The sun had dipped below the hills, its last rays breaking into pink wagon spokes against the sky. The wind was blowing in the trees and I could smell wildflowers in the fields and bream spawning under the lily pads out in the tank. I almost didn't hear Brian Wilcox's car crunching up my drive.

  He got out of the car and walked through both sets of barn doors into the lot. Behind him, I could see the Mexican drug agent, Felix Ringo, sitting in the passenger seat of the car, the window down to catch the breeze, his tropical hat on the back of his head.

  Wilcox's mouth was painted with an ironic smile.

  'You hang a revolver on a fence post while you work?' he said.

  'Some guys blindsided me out here one night. I hate repeat situations,' I said.

  'You know what quid pro quo is, right, one thing for another?… I'm doing you a big one, Holland, but I want something in return.'

  'Go fuck yourself.'

  'That's kind of what I expected from you, but here it is, anyway. Mary Beth is coming back to give you the testimony you need, but you'd better not drag your shit into our investigation again.'

  'Meaning?'

  'Our sun-darkened friend out there in the car is a valuable man. He doesn't get compromised.'

  I pulled the handles of the posthole digger out of the hole and knocked the dirt free from the blades, then tipped more water from the bucket into the hole.

  'Nothing to say?' Wilcox asked.

  'Yeah, that guy was at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning. Their graduates have a funny way of showing up in death squads and torture chambers.'

  'So maybe I don't like putting my fingers in bean dip. But the object is to make the case, right? All you've got to worry about is leaving us out of your trial.'

  Behind him, I saw Felix Ringo get out of the car and walk toward us.

  'When's Mary Beth coming?' I asked.

  'I thought I'd get your attention this time… Tonight, probably.'

  'I don't think you arranged this at all. I think she's coming on her own.'

  He pinched a breath mint out of roll and slipped it in his mouth.

  'You're quite a guy,' he said.

  Temple Carrol's car came up the drive and pulled around Wilcox's, disappeared beyond the side of the barn, then stopped by the windmill.

  Felix Ringo walked up to Wilcox, ignoring me. He smoked a cigarette in a gold holder without removing it from his lips. 'You finished talking here? I got to shower and meet a lady for dinner,' he said.

  I heard Beau's hooves thudding behind me. I turned and saw him spooking back against the fence rails, walleyed, his head tossing.

  I stared at Felix Ringo. 'He knows you,' I said.

  Ringo curved his fingertips into his sternum.

  'Your horse knows me?' he said, his mustache winking.

  'Beau never forgets children or a bad person. You've been here before, haven't you?' I said.

  'I been here before? The horse knows I'm a bad guy or something, 'cause he's got this kind of computer memory?' Ringo's fingers gestured impotently in the air.

  'You were one of the guys who attacked me. I thought the guy had a gold tooth. But it was your gold cigarette holder I saw.'

  Ringo removed his tropical hat, with the green plastic window in the brim, and wiped out the inside with a handkerchief.

  'I'll be in the car,' he said to Wilcox. 'This guy here, he's got a disease in his thinking, like clap or something. I don't want to be hearing it no more.'

  He walked back through the open barn doors, the wind billowing his loosely buttoned shirt. The butt of a black automatic was pushed down in the back of his trousers.

  'You got the wrong man. Felix works for us,' Wilcox said.

  'That's the problem,' I said.

  I thudded the blades of the posthole digger into the hole and expanded the handles and turned them in a circle, the grain of the wood twisting against my calluses. I could feel the sweat in my eyebrows, my heart beating in my chest.

  Brian Wilcox continued to stare at me, his mouth still painted with that ironic smile.

  'So maybe this is the last time I see you,' Wilcox said.

  He's going to do it, I thought.

  I lifted the posthole digger free and rinsed the blades in the bucket of water. The wind popped in my ears, as though it were filled with distant pistol reports. I opened and closed my mouth and pressed with one thumb under my right ear.

  'You all right?' he asked, and cupped his hand on my bare shoulder. I could feel the heat and oil in his skin, as though he were rubbing a layer of fouled air into my pores.

  Don't let it happen, I told myself.

  'Sorry we tossed your house,' he said.

  'Forget it.'

  'About Mary Beth…'

  'Yes?'

  'She'll come for you a second time, but you have to stay on top. There's something about the missionary position with her. She just can't get over the crest when she's sitting on you.'

  I caught him right below the bottom lip, saw his teeth bare and his mouth go out of shape with the blow; then I drove my fist into his eye socket, hooked him with my left in the nose and hit him again in the mouth. His knees buckled and his head bounced off a fence rail. I felt him try to grab my waist as he went down, his eyes wide with fear, like those of a man who realizes he has slipped forever off a precipice, and I knew the old enemy had once more had its way and something terrible was happening in me that I couldn't stop.

  He was at my feet now, his face strung with blood, his tie twisted backward on his neck, his chest laboring for breath.

  Then among the thud of Beau's hooves, I saw Felix Ringo running at me through the tunnel of light inside the barn, simultaneously pulling back the slide on his nine-millimeter, his hat blowing off his head.

  'You wasn't born, gringo. You was picked out of your mother's shit. This is for them people you killed down in Coahuila,' he said.

  My hands felt swollen and useless at my sides, my chest running with sweat in the wind, the spilled water bucket ballooning in the dust by my feet. I could hear the blades on the windmill clattering like a playing card clipped inside whirling bicycle spokes. Felix Ringo extended the nine-millimeter in front of him with both hands, crouched in a shooter's position, as though he were on a practice range, and flipped off the butterfly safety with his thumb.

  Temple Carrol stooped under the top fence rail, ripped L.Q. Navarro's revolver from the holster I had hung on a fence post, and screwed the barrel right behind Ringo's ear. She cocked the hammer, locking the cylinder in place.

  'How your pud hanging, greaseball? You want to wear your brain pan on your shirt?' she asked.

  * * *

  chapter twenty-nine

  There was no false dawn the next morning. The sky was a black lid above the velvet green crest of the hills, the clouds veined with lightning. I opened all the windows and let the smell of ozone and wind and distant rain fill the house. Mary Beth called while I was fixing breakfast.

  'Where are you?' I asked.

  'At the hotel downtown.'

  'When did y
ou get in?'

  'Late. I went right to bed.'

  'I could have picked you up.'

  'You mean if I'd called?'

  'No, I meant—'

  'My schedule's not too predictable these days.'

  'I just didn't know when you were coming. That's what I meant.'

  'I heard about you tearing up Brian. What started it?'

  'The conversation got out of hand.'

  'He won't file charges. His career's unraveling on him. He's one step from Fargo, North Dakota, already.'

  I felt my palm squeeze involuntarily on the telephone receiver.

  'Can you take a cab out to the house? We can drive back into town together,' I said.

  'I have a bunch of incoming calls,' she said.

  'I see.'

  'Some people in my office weren't comfortable with me coming back here.'

  'Yeah… I understand. I appreciate your doing it.'

  I felt foolish and stupid, a mendicant holding a telephone to his ear as though it were a black tumor.

  'When do I testify?' she asked.

  'Probably this afternoon. Mary Beth, is it the career? Or am I just the wrong man for you?'

  'I don't know how to say it, Billy Bob.'

  The house seemed to fill with the sounds of wind and silence.

  'You always think of yourself as an extension of your past,' she said. 'So every new day of your life you're condemned to revisiting what you can't change.'

  'I'll be at the office directly if you have a chance to drop by,' I said.

  After I replaced the receiver I walked to the library window and looked at the darkness over the hills. The pages of my great-grandfather's journal fluttered whitely in the rush of wind through the screen. The silence in my head was so great I thought I heard the tinkling of L.Q. Navarro's roweled spurs.