Cimarron Rose

by James Lee Burke

I walked toward the jury box so Bunny would either have to face them when he answered my questions, or avert his eyes or drop his head. It wasn’t a kind thing to do.

  “Did you sleep with Roseanne Hazlitt, Bunny?” I asked.

  “We went out in high school.”

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you say you loved her?”

  “Yeah, I reckon. I mean, the way kids do.”

  “You were a senior and she was only fifteen when y’all met, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was she a virgin?”

  “She told me she wasn’t.”

  “You found out different, though, didn’t you?”

  He knitted his fingers together, glanced out at the courtroom, at the Vanzandts, the boys he had played football with, the Mexican girl he dated now, at the few empty seats in back where maybe his father would come in late and sit down.

  “Bunny?”

  “Yes, sir, I found out I was the first,” he said.

  “You hurt her, didn’t you? You thought you should take her to a hospital?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But not in the county where people might know you?”

  He turned his head away from the jury and cleared his throat. “That’s right,” he said.

  “The witness will speak up,” the judge said.

  “I was afraid. She was underage,” Bunny said. He pushed himself up in the chair and rubbed his hand on the back of his neck.

  “Then you went to A&M and dumped her?” I said.

  “She didn’t lack for boyfriends. She found some a whole lot better than me.”

  “Did you punch out Virgil Morales at Shorty’s?”

  “Yeah, we got a bad history.”

  “He called you a pimp?”

  Bunny’s right hand squeezed on his thigh. He ran his tongue over his lips. “Yeah, that’s what he did,” he said.

  “How did Roseanne Hazlitt come to know Mr. and Mrs. Jack Vanzandt, Bunny?”

  “I took her out to their house once. I intro—”

  “Introduced her to whom?”

  “Just what I said. I took her to their house.”

  His words were binding in his throat now, the scar along his jaw turning as dark as blood against his tan.

  “Did you have sexual intercourse with Mrs. Vanzandt?” I asked.

  “Relevance, your honor,” Marvin said.

  “I’ll allow it,” the judge said. “The witness will answer the question.”

  “I did it once. It was ’cause she was mad over something, I mean with her husband. She was like that,” Bunny said.

  “Did Roseanne ever slap you before that night at Shorty’s?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Roseanne said her baptism might wash off on you. Why was she so angry at you, Bunny? Why did she feel so betrayed?”

  “’Cause she didn’t have no friends left. Except Lucas. He’s the only one done right by her.”

  “But she wanted you to take her to her baptism? Because you owed her in a big way, didn’t you?”

  “I guess that’s what she thought.”

  “Why did you owe her, Bunny? Why did she say her baptism might wash off on you?”

  He kneaded his hands between his thighs, the balls of his feet tapping neurotically on the stand, his head pulled down on his chest. His long hair fell down around his throat like a girl’s.

  “Answer the question, please,” I said, but I had lowered my voice now, the way you do when you hope your own capacity for cruelty will be forgiven.

  “I drove her to Dallas to meet Mr. Vanzandt. He rented three rooms at the Four Seasons, like there wasn’t nothing unusual about him being with a couple of young people. But we all knew why we was there. I took her down to his room the first night, for drinks out on the balcony and all, but I left by myself,” he said.

  He rested his forehead on his fingers, staring numbly at the floor. Then he added, as though his own behavior had been explained to him by someone else, “That’s what I done, all right.”

  Emma Vanzandt rose from her chair and walked down the aisle and out of the courtroom, her face like parchment about to wrinkle in a flame.

  “How many times did you do this?” I asked.

  “Whenever he wanted her. At least up until she thought she was pregnant and he told her to get it cut out of her, ’cause he wasn’t gonna have no woods colt with his name on it . . .”

  The only sound in the courtroom was the hum of the fans and the rain clicking on the windowsills. No one looked at Jack Vanzandt, except his son, who studied his father as though a strange and new creature whom he didn’t recognize had just swum into his ken.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER a power failure darkened the building for three hours, and Temple and Lucas and I drove to a barbecue restaurant on a hill that overlooked the river outside of town. It had stopped raining, and the sky in the west was blue and you could see the shadows of clouds on the hillsides.

  Lucas couldn’t eat. I reached over and picked a piece of blood-dried tissue paper off his cheek where he had cut himself shaving.

  “There’s nothing to it. Just be who you are,” I said.

  “Be who I am?” he said.

  Temple was watching my face.

  “You heard me. Tell the truth, no matter what it is. When you go on that stand, you just be Lucas. Don’t try to hide anything, don’t try to manipulate the jury, don’t back away from a question,” I said.

  “What are you gonna ask me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked seasick.

  “Do what Billy Bob tells you,” Temple said.

  He pressed his napkin to his mouth, then got up from the table and walked quickly to the men’s room.

  “You’re gonna take him apart, huh?” Temple said.

  WE WAITED IN my office until the power went back on in the courthouse, then a bailiff phoned me and we went downstairs and across the street and met Marvin Pomroy coming down the courthouse walk.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said to me.

  “What’s up?”

  He looked at Temple and Lucas.

  “I bet it’s earth-shaking stuff, like prosecuting parking offenders in the most corrupt shithole in Texas,” Temple said, and went up the walk with Lucas.

  Marvin looked at her back, his eyes involuntarily dropping to her hips.

  “You think she’d work for me?” he asked.

  “How about getting to it, Marvin?”

  “Getting to it? You stoked up Garland Moon and aimed him at this Mexican drug agent, didn’t you?”

  The air smelled of wet leaves and sewer mains swollen with rainwater and pavement drying in the sunlight. A sheriff’s deputy led five black inmates in jailhouse whites past us on a wrist chain.

  “Look at me!” Marvin said.

  “Take it easy, Marvin.”

  “Felix Ringo’s got a fuck pad at the Conquistador. He says a guy he swears is Garland Moon tried to get through the bathroom window. He says the guy was carrying one of these small chain saws, the kind you cut up cordwood with.”

  “That’s bad news, isn’t it?”

  “Are you out of your mind? You bust up a psychopath with an ax handle, then screw down his dials and turn him loose on a policeman. You’re supposed to be an officer of the court.”

  “How do you know I sent him after Ringo?”

  “Because you’re still a vigilante. Because you still think this is the O.K. Corral.”

  “Thanks for sharing, Marvin. I really appreciate it.”

  “Sharing? Moon trashed Ringo’s place down in San Antone. Get this. He defecated on the upholstery. What’s all this tell you?”

  “He’s terminal and knows it.�
�

  “Yeah, well, here’s the surprise. Felix Ringo’s getting a Mexican warrant on Moon for scoring some dope across the border. Moon might do time in a Mexican slam. The centipedes come free with the rice and beans.”

  “For some reason, you don’t look all broken up.”

  “You’re still not hearing me. When Moon gets word of this, and he will, who’s he going to come after?”

  “Well, you never know what’s down at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box, Marvin.”

  He shook his head and walked away, trying to smooth the wrinkles out of the seersucker coat he held in his right hand, a good man who would forever serve causes that were not his own.

  LUCAS TOOK THE oath just after one o’clock. He sat very still in the witness chair, his hands splayed on his thighs, his face damp in the humidity. His throat was already streaked with color, as though it had been rouged.

  “When you were first arrested, you said you hardly knew Roseanne Hazlitt. You said you didn’t even know her last name. That was a lie, wasn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why would you lie like that?”

  “’Cause she told me she was pregnant. ’Cause y’all would think it was me hurt her if y’all knew it was my baby . . .” He took a breath. “I lied ’cause I didn’t have no guts.”

  “How’d you feel about Roseanne?”

  “She was a good person. She couldn’t hep the things she done, I mean, with drinking and that kind of stuff.”

  “Did she tell you who might have made her pregnant?”

  “Objection, hearsay,” Marvin said.

  “I’ll allow it,” the judge said.

  “Some older guy she was seeing in town. I didn’t ask. It didn’t make me feel too good.”

  “You thought the baby could be yours, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Sir?”

  “Why did you think it could be yours?”

  “’Cause we was making love.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking you, Lucas. Did you use a condom?”

  He rubbed his palms on his trousers and looked at the judge.

  “Answer the question, please,” she said.

  “No, sir, we didn’t use none,” Lucas said.

  “That sounds dumb to me. Why not?”

  “Objection, your honor. He’s badgering and cross-examining his own client,” Marvin Pomroy said.

  “Approach,” the judge said. She took off her black-framed glasses and pushed aside the microphone. “What are you doing, Mr. Holland?” she said.

  “I’m going to prove my client is psychologically incapable of having committed the crime,” I replied.

  “Psychologically incapable? Wonderful. Your honor, he’s not only appointed himself the repository of Freudian thought, he’s psychoanalyzing someone who was drunk,” Marvin said.

  “Mr. Holland?” the judge said.

  “My client has taken the stand of his own volition, your honor. The rest of his life is at stake here. How can justice possibly be harmed by the questions I’ve asked?”

  “Mr. Pomroy?” she said.

  “I think he’s turning this trial into a snake-oil show.”

  “I caution you, sir,” she said.

  “Mr. Holland says he means no harm. Neither does a skunk wandering into a church house,” Marvin said.

  “Your objection is noted and overruled. Mr. Holland, I’m giving you some unusual latitude here, but don’t abuse it. Step back.”

  “Your honor—” Marvin said.

  “Take a seat, Mr. Pomroy, and stay in it for a while, please,” she said.

  I walked to the right of the witness stand, so the jury would look into Lucas’s face when he spoke.

  “Let’s forget that stuff about condoms, Lucas. What would you have done if Roseanne had been carrying your child?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t have done nothing.”

  “Would you have asked her to get an abortion?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause it would have been our baby.”

  “A baby with no father? You’d just let her rear it on her own?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “I figured we’d get married,” he said.

  “You have a flop in the hay, then suddenly you want to be a father and a married man? Who you kidding, Lucas?”

  “I told you the truth,” Lucas said.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I wouldn’t let no kid of mine grow up without a last name. I don’t care what you believe.”

  “Why all this moral righteousness about fatherhood? It’s a little hard for me to swallow.”

  “Your honor—” Marvin said.

  But the judge made a placating gesture with her hand and didn’t take her eyes off my face.

  “’Cause I know what it’s like,” Lucas said.

  “To be like what? You’re not making sense.”

  “Not to have a father.” His breath was coming hard in his throat now, his cheeks blooming with color.

  “Vernon Smothers is not your father?”

  Lucas’s shoulders were bent, his head tilted sideways, his eyes pink with broken veins, glimmering with water, riveted on mine.

  “My real father never give me his damn name. You know what I’m talking about, too,” he said.

  “Your honor, I object,” Marvin said.

  “Mr. Holland—” the judge said.

  “Who is your father?”

  “I ain’t got one.”

  “Say his name.”

  “You are! Except you’d never admit it! ’Cause you slept with my mother and let somebody pick up after you. That’s what you done. You think I’d do that to my own kid?”

  Then he started to cry, his face in his hands, his back shaking.

  Judge Judy Bonham leaned her chin on her hand and let out her breath.

  “Take your client down from the stand, Mr. Holland, then report to my chambers,” she said.

  Marvin leaned back in his chair, flipped a pencil in the air, and watched it roll off the table onto the floor.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

  IT WENT TO the jury late that afternoon. I stood at my office window and looked out at the square, at the trusties from the jail scraping mud out of the gutters, the scrolled neon on the Rialto theater, the trees puffing with wind on the courthouse lawn, all in their proper place, the presummer golden light of the late sun on the clock’s face, as though the events of the last few days had no significance and had ended with a whisper.

  Then Darl Vanzandt came out of a side street on a chopped-down chromed Harley motorcycle, wearing shades and bat-wing chaps, his truncated body stretching back on his arms each time he gunned a dirty blast of air through his exhaust pipe.

  He drove around and around the square, mindlessly, with no apparent purpose, causing pedestrians to step back on the curb, his metal-sheathed heel scotching the pavement when he cornered his bike, his straight exhaust echoing off the buildings like an insult.

  Then he turned into the shade of a narrow street and opened up the throttle, his tan shoulders swelling with blood and power, blowing newspapers and a cluster of Mexican children out of his path.

  The phone rang on my desk.

  “We’ll probably fly in there this weekend. You going to be around?” the voice said.

  “Mary Beth?”

  “I’m in Houston with a task force. Brian is out of the picture. We’re about to pull the string on some individuals in your area.”

  “Let me know what I can do.”

  “I don’t think you quite understand, Billy Bob. The greaseball drug agen
t, Felix Ringo? He’s gone apeshit. We get the impression you put some glass in Garland Moon’s breakfast food.”

  “So what?”

  “So Ringo is part of a bigger story than the town of Deaf Smith.”

  “Bad guy to break bread with.”

  “Yeah? Well, as FDR once said of Somoza, ‘He might be a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch.’”

  “I never found a lot of humor in that story.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  I waited for her to say something else but she didn’t. “Why’d you call?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Billy Bob. I really don’t.”

  I heard her lower the receiver into the cradle. I took the phone away from my ear and then put it to my ear again, the dial tone buzzing against my skin, as though somehow that would restore the connection. I stared at the shadows on the courthouse tower; they had the deep purple hue of a stone bruise, the kind that goes through the muscle into the bone.

  I WENT HOME and cooked a steak in the backyard. I ate on the back porch, then sat at my desk in the library with Great-grandpa Sam’s journal opened under the desk lamp and tried to read. L.Q. Navarro sat in the burgundy chair in the corner, twirling his gold pocket watch on its chain.

  “Don’t think too harsh of her. Working for the G and falling in love with a guy like you probably ain’t a good combo,” he said.

  “Not tonight, L.Q.”

  “Stonewall Judy might have give you the riot act, but you could tell she admired what you done. I like when she said, ‘Get your star back, Billy Bob, or stay out of my court.’ That’s the kind of female I can relate to.”

  “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “You got to turn loose of what’s fretting you. You and I both know what that is, too.”

  “I mean it, L.Q. Stop it.”

  “You cain’t be sure that Mexican is the right fellow.”

  “I see his face in the gun flashes. You broke your knife blade off in his kidney.”

  “So you gonna bust a cap on him and always wonder if you killed the right man? Ain’t you had enough grief over that stuff down in Coahuila?”

  I picked up Sam’s journal and turned on the light in the kitchen and read at the breakfast table. I heard L.Q.’s spurs tinkling behind me, then it was quiet a moment and their sound disappeared down the front hall into a gust of wind that pushed open the screen door and let it fall back against the jamb.