“Okay, okay,” Paz said under his breath as he left Ruperta and hurried down the back hall to Edwina’s study. Trying to understand Señora Templeton made him jumpy enough. Who knew what Gordo would add to the mix? Nothing good, Paz decided as he raised his hand to tap on the door. Nothing good at all.
“Come in,” he heard Señora say, her voice brusque. For one who delivered babies, she was terribly impatient. He opened the door. She sat behind the massive carved desk that always reminded him of a coffin, while Gordo rested his fat carcass on one corner. Both eyed him as if he were important in some way he was unaware of. He felt a chill of apprehension crawl up his spine.
“Sí, Señora?”
“Come in, Paz. And close the door behind you.”
He did as she ordered, sweat already trickling down his armpits. Oh, Jesus, he thought. Perhaps she knew about the Scorpion. Perhaps Gordo had seen him and told her. He stood there for what seemed like forever, then Señora spoke.
“Paz, Mr. Duncan is going to pick up a child in the eastern part of the state. I want you to go with him.”
He’d been thinking so frantically in Spanish that he had difficulty understanding her English words. “Por favor?” he stammered.
“I want you to go to east Tennessee with Mr. Duncan,” Señora repeated, her little pig eyes growing smaller as she increased the volume of her voice. “You’ll be gone overnight.”
Overnight. Pasar la noche. The words exploded in Paz’s brain. The night before the third day. The night before the Scorpions would return for their money. The last night Ruperta would have her beautiful eyes. No, he thought. I cannot go anywhere. I cannot leave my wife.
He took a deep breath before he spoke, knowing his refusal could cost them the small safe haven they currently had. “I’m sorry, Señora,” he said slowly. “But I cannot.”
“You most certainly can,” she snapped. “Ruperta and I can take care of things while you’re gone.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I cannot.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Gordo scowled at him. “This woman’s your boss, boy. You do what she says.”
Paz lowered his eyes, gathering the courage to refuse again. Then he had an idea. Gordo must need him very badly, otherwise Señora would never let him leave the cows untended. Perhaps he would agree to go with Gordo—but only if Ruperta could come, too. Then, at some point, they could slip away from both Gordo and the Scorpions, and lose themselves in America once again.
“I would be of no use with a baby, Señora. Ruperta, though, is the eldest of six. She knows much about such things.”
“Okay,” said Gordo. “Then I’ll take Ruperta.”
Paz straightened his shoulders. Did this fool not see he was a man? That this was his esposa he intended to travel with? “No, Señor,” he countered firmly. “I could not allow that.”
“Seems to me that you’re laying down a mighty lot of rules there, boy.” Gordo folded his arms.
“Hang on, Duncan,” said Edwina. She scowled at Paz. “You’re saying that you’ll go if Ruperta can come, too?”
“Sí.” Paz held his breath as Ruperta’s eyes, his life, the rest of whatever future they had, seemed to hang in a fragile bubble over Señora’s ugly desk. The right word would allow it to continue floating; the wrong word would burst it to nothing.
Finally, Señora looked at Gordo and shrugged. “I don’t mind. I don’t have any girls here right now, and while you’re gone I can make some calls about this baby.”
“I really only wanted to take one other person,” objected Gordo.
“So you get two. You’ll only be gone overnight—what does it matter?”
Gordo gave a disgusted sigh, then turned his cold gaze on Paz. “You and Ruperta will have to do exactly as I say,” he told Paz. “This ain’t gonna be any vacation.”
Paz nodded, wanting to laugh. Gordo had no idea how not like a vacation this would be.
“Okay,” Gordo said grudgingly. “Can you be ready to go in an hour?”
“Sí,” Paz answered, backing toward the door before they changed their minds. Holy Mother, he thought. They had been given a way out. Now he just had to figure out how to get Ruperta to pack everything without letting her know they were leaving this place forever. She would miss the television in their own room and the shower that always had hot water, but she would have her eyesight, and she would never have to polish Señora’s silver again.
Seven
“AREN’T YOU GOING to call Jasmine? It’s almost two-thirty.” Danika whispered as Mary watched the red-suited Virginia Kwan try to rattle the computer expert who’d traced a complicated cyber-porn trail back to Dwayne Pugh’s personal computer. Judge Cate looked as alert as ever, making notes on the man’s testimony, but the jurors were something else. Sleepy from the carbohydrate-laden lunch served up by the jail trustees, and weary after a week’s worth of complicated testimony, the panel watched Virginia with drooping eyes, numbers six and eleven even jerking themselves awake from time to time. Don’t ever call anybody important on Friday afternoon, Irene Hannah had once warned her. Save your fireworks for Monday morning. Mary had taken that advice like gospel. She hoped she wasn’t going to have to change her ways today.
Keeping half an ear on Virginia, she turned and looked at the crowded courtroom. Relatives of the abused project kids took up most of the seats—Jasmine’s mother and grandmother, Isaiah Reed’s parents, Diamond LaForge’s husky father and even huskier uncles hulking in their chairs like the defensive line of the Atlanta Falcons. Their eyes were not glazing over from the highly technical testimony, but rather were pinning a fierce look of righteous expectation on Mary. Their children had been molested. All their hopes of redress rested upon her. So far, she felt no better than okay about this prosecution. She’d had to call a lot of snore-inducing technical experts, and she still feared Virginia Kwan’s ability to come up with some totally off-the-wall defense that would sink her case like a paper boat in a rainstorm.
A tiny movement caught her eye. She looked toward the far corner of the courtroom. Hobson Mott sat in the back row looking straight at her, his brows lifted in a silent question.
She turned around, enraged. That sorry son of a bitch had come to check up on her. Put Jasmine Harris on the stand. Mott was worried about his reputation among the African-Americans; he needed this. His threat was unspoken but clear: Get me a conviction, Ms. Crow. Or spend the rest of your career prosecuting B & Es. She didn’t want to put that tormented little girl on the stand, didn’t want to go against Irene’s adage about Friday afternoons, but her boss was in the courtroom, waiting for her to do it. She took a long breath, trying to quell her fury, to clear her head. Okay, Hobson, she promised him silently. You want Jasmine, then you’ve got her. But we’re doing this my way.
“Ms. Crow?” Judge Cate asked expectantly as Virginia Kwan finished and the computer expert stepped down.
Mary rose from her chair. “I have one more witness, Your Honor.” She looked down at her papers, intentionally stretching the moment to give the jurors a chance to wake up. When everyone was sitting a little straighter in their seats, she spoke in a clear, strong voice. “Your Honor, the State calls Jasmine Harris.”
A low anticipatory murmur rose from the courtroom as the bailiff opened the door to the witness room. Mary glanced over at the defense table. Virginia had begun scribbling notes on a legal pad, but the sallow color already seemed to be draining from Dwayne Pugh’s skin. Good, Mary smiled to herself as Jasmine came into the courtroom, clutching the caseworker’s hand. I just surprised both of you.
Jasmine had come to court in her Sunday best—gleaming Mary Jane shoes with lacy white anklets, a lavender dress with a frilly white pinafore, crinoline petticoats that rustled with every step. A tiny black patent leather purse had slid to the crook of her elbow as she kept the thumb of her free hand firmly planted i
n her mouth. When they reached the edge of the jury box, the bailiff scooped the child up and carried her to the witness stand, her petticoats a white froth in his arms. Only Mary noticed that the whole time, the child had kept her eyes on the great seal of the State of Georgia behind Judge Cate, her face turned away from Dwayne Pugh.
The courtroom listened in silence as Judge Cate first complimented Jasmine on her pretty outfit, then asked her if she knew the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie.
Jasmine nodded solemnly. “Jesus don’t want you to fib.”
“That’s right, Jasmine. So when we ask you some questions, you aren’t going to fib, are you?”
“No, ma’am.” Jasmine stuck her thumb back in her mouth.
Judge Cate looked at Mary. “Okay, Ms. Crow. Your witness.”
Mary slipped off the jacket of her black suit, revealing a pink silk blouse. She’d donned the most child-friendly item in her closet this morning, and she walked to the witness stand not in her usual crisp way, but strolled over to one side of it, standing close to Jasmine.
“Hi, Jasmine.” She smiled as she lowered the microphone. “We’re going to have to talk into this thing, so everybody can hear us.”
Jasmine looked at her with panicked eyes. It’s okay, honey, Mary longed to tell her. If this goes like I’ve planned, its going to feel like a shot. It’ll hurt a little, but not for long.
“Can you tell us your name?”
“Jasmine Harris.”
“Can you tell us how old you are?”
Jasmine held up one hand, fingers outspread.
“Five?”
She nodded.
“Can you tell us where you live, Jasmine?”
“Sixteen twenty-two Loveless Avenue.” Jasmine fidgeted with her purse as she answered the question in a whisper.
“And do you have a lot of friends there?”
“Yes.”
“Do you and your friends play outside?”
“Yes.”
“Last April did an ice-cream truck come to where you and your friends were playing?”
Jasmine ducked her head lower and stared at the little purse in her lap. “Yes.”
“Did a man drive that ice-cream truck?”
A pause. Then: “Yes.”
“Did the man who drove the truck ever give you any Popsicles for free?”
Jasmine sat silent. Then two big tears began to roll down her cheeks as she whispered, “Yes.”
Mary leaned closer. Here it comes. The one question that Jasmine had never been able to answer. “Jasmine, I want you to look around this room and tell us if you see the man who gave you those free Popsicles.”
Jasmine did not move. Mary watched as a tear lingered on her chin, then dripped onto her starched white pinafore.
‘’Jasmine?” Mary said softly. “Can you show us the Popsicle Man?”
All at once Jasmine raised her head, pointed one chubby finger directly at Dwayne Pugh at the defense table, and began to scream. Beyond hurt, beyond anger, it was a primeval keening that recalled every horror that had ever been visited upon a child. The jurors went rigid in their seats as Jasmine’s grandmother answered with a loud wail of her own, and the entire phalanx of LaForge men leapt up with enraged shouts of “He be the one, Your Honor! Just give him to us!”
Judge Cate rapped her gavel. Mary squeezed Jasmine’s shoulder as a foul odor filled her nose. She looked down. Brown shit spotted Jasmine’s pretty white petticoats, one soupy turd dripping down the little girl’s leg onto her lacy white anklets.
“Order!” Judge Cate banged her gavel again and glared at the fierce LaForges. “You people sit down, or I’ll clear this courtroom!”
She nodded at the bailiff, who started to move toward the LaForges, but the men sat down. Jasmine screamed, her mouth wide open and square, feces now running down both legs. The jurors sat ashen-faced. Dwayne Pugh looked as if he’d just swallowed vomit. Virginia Kwan stared at Jasmine with icy eyes.
“Let the record indicate that the witness identified the defendant,” Judge Cate loudly instructed the court reporter over Jasmine’s piercing screams. She banged her gavel again. “We’ll recess for fifteen minutes, to let the witness regain control.”
Mary smiled at the howling little girl. It’s over, Jasmine, she wanted to say. I promise you, you’ll never have to do this again. “I have no further questions of this witness, Your Honor.”
Judge Cate glanced at her, surprised, then turned to the defense.
Just as Mary had hoped, Virginia Kwan shot to her feet. Mary knew she wanted this screaming child out of the courtroom, and out of the minds of the jurors who would no doubt relive this moment all weekend. “No questions, Your Honor. Although I reserve the right to recall.”
“Mrs. Williams,” Judge Cate turned to the caseworker, who was sitting opposite the jury box. “Jasmine is free to go.”
Mrs. Williams hurried over to the witness stand. She’d come prepared with a white blanket to wrap around Jasmine’s lower half. Just as Mary had instructed, she scooped the weeping child up and exited the courtroom, walking directly in front of the jury box, allowing each juror to see, hear, and smell the effect Dwayne Pugh had on little Jasmine Harris.
After Mrs. Williams and Jasmine left the courtroom, Judge Cate spoke. “This trial stands in recess until nine o’clock, Monday morning. Jurors, please remember not to discuss these proceedings with anyone. Spectators, if you come here Monday, be prepared to show proper respect for this court, whatever may transpire upon the witness stand.”
With that, the judge rose and whisked through the door to her office. The jurors filed out. Two bailiffs escorted Dwayne Pugh back to jail. Everyone else stood up—Virginia Kwan gesturing furiously at her young male assistant, Jasmine Harris’s mother and grandmother dabbing at wet eyes with crumpled tissues, the LaForge crew talking low with heads close together, as if plotting some act of sedition. Mary looked at the seat where Hobson Mott sat. It was empty.
“That was some piece of prosecuting, girlfriend.” Danika walked over to tower above her.
Mary glanced at Virginia Kwan, who was now making a call on her cell phone. “It went well. But Virginia’ll come up with something by Monday morning. Never rest your case on one good witness, Danika. You’ve got to play till the end of the game.” Good Lord, she thought with a shudder. She was beginning to sound as silly as Hobson.
“So what should we do?”
“Take tonight off,” replied Mary. “Go out with your boyfriend, have a nice meal. Come over to my house tomorrow about three. We’ll make our final preparations for our big slam dunk.’’
Danika frowned. “Our slam-dunk?”
“The boss’s instructions,” said Mary bitterly, walking over to the prosecutor’s table to collect her papers. “A slam-dunk conviction for this trial, Jasmine Harris be damned.”
“Think we’ll get it?”
Mary opened her briefcase, disgusted with herself for caving in to Mott. “We’re sure going to try.”
Eight
“YOU EVER GET sick from these roads?” Clarinda tightened her seat belt anxiously as her cousin negotiated another hairpin curve. They were driving along the back roads from Little Jump Off, North Carolina, to Tremont, Tennessee, twisting through confetti-bright autumn leaves that swirled down to the highway like rose petals at a wedding.
“When I first came here.” Ruth sniffed, her eyes red from crying over Jonathan. “I guess I’ve gotten used to them.”
Clarinda clung to the door handle, giving up on the magazine article she was reading about sixty-four romantic ways to turn men to mush. In Oklahoma, you could read or write or even turn a couple of men to mush while you were driving. Here, she couldn’t even look at the fashion ads without getting carsick. When Ruth had invited her to come over, she’d pictured these Appalachian
s like the Rockies—sharp and gleaming, a perfect place to meet rich young skiers or fly fishermen with money to burn. Instead, she’d found stoop-shouldered mountains thick with ugly trees, inhabited by slow-talking men whose idea of a hot date included fiddles and moonshine. This trip wasn’t turning out like she’d hoped at all. She should have known. Hers and Ruth’s ideas of fun had differed since the day they were born. She’d always liked music and parties and having fun. Ruth preferred books and political rallies, and now, brewing up medicinal teas that smelled like rotting fungus and tasted even worse.
“I don’t know how you stand this place. It gives me the creeps.”
“The creeps?” Ruth steered around another curve. “Why?”
“All these trees. It’s like they’re closing in on you. Listening to everything you say.”
“You’re just accustomed to Oklahoma. North Carolina’s beautiful when you’re with someone you love.”
Clarinda snorted. “You sure about that?”
“About what? North Carolina?”
“That you’re with somebody you love.”
“Why do you say that?” Ruth’s voice trembled as if she might start crying again. “Because Jonathan and I had a fight?”
“No. Because you two act just like my mom and dad.” Clarinda looked out the window and thought of her sour parents, locked in a thirty year-long, drunken boil of an argument that ultimately had driven her and both her sisters out of their house before they graduated from high school. She hated her parents. When she was little she used to pray that she would wake up one day and belong to Ruth’s folks, who were pleasant and agreeable, and for the most part, sober. Her cousin had all the luck. Always did.
“That’s not true, Clarinda,” Ruth cried. “We’ve just been under a lot of stress lately.”
“Oh, yeah? Jonathan didn’t look too stressed this morning when I came out of the bathroom.”
“What do you mean?”
Call the Devil by His Oldest Name Page 6
