by Nancy Allen
The door to Judge Carter’s chambers opened and he entered the courtroom. Everyone rose to their feet with the exception of Kris Taney, who remained in his seat even as his attorney tugged at the sleeve of his orange county jail scrubs.
Judge Carter murmured, “Be seated,” from the bench. Rustling could be heard as people in the gallery settled onto the curved oak benches.
“Ms. Arnold, is the state ready to proceed?”
Elsie stood again and steeled herself to face the music. “Your honor, we’ve had an unexpected delay. I’m presenting a motion for continuance on behalf of Madeleine Thompson.”
“Where is Ms. Thompson and why isn’t she presenting her own motion?”
“She had a conflict this morning. An unavoidable conflict.”
Irritation etched the judge’s face as he briefly scanned the motion Elsie handed to him. “Since Ms. Thompson sent you to appear on her behalf, Ms. Arnold, I propose that you proceed.”
“Your honor, this is Madeleine’s case.”
“Then she ought to be up here today, handling it. What is the conflict? Is she appearing in another court? We could reschedule the preliminary hearing after lunch.”
Oh, shit. “She’s not in another court. Your honor.”
The judge frowned. “Then what’s the nature of the delay?”
Elsie scratched the hair at the back of her neck. “Medical.”
Judge Carter fiddled with his gavel for a moment. “Ms. Arnold, I want you to proceed with your evidence. Call your first witness.”
“I can’t, your honor,” she said, flushing pink with mortification. “A witness failed to appear, even though he was served with a subpoena.”
The judge barked, “Call another witness, then. Surely you had more than one witness to appear for a preliminary hearing in a three-count felony complaint.”
Lord, you’d think so, Elsie mused, her heart rate increasing. Aloud she said, “I have to have this continuance, Judge Carter. I don’t need much additional time: just a few days. I have to obtain the testimony of a crucial witness.”
The judge sat back in his chair. “Is defendant out on bond?”
She winced inwardly; the question was a bad sign for the prosecution, because the judge clearly knew the answer. Taney was attired in the orange garb of a county inmate.
“No, your honor,” she said as Nixon chimed in, “No judge, he is not.”
Judge Carter opened the file and studied the charge. “I’m not in favor of a continuance request by the state,” he said in a forbidding tone. “I’m inclined to believe that if the state isn’t ready, they shouldn’t file the charge.”
Her stomach twisting, Elsie was poised to argue the point, when Nixon jumped to his feet as if on cue and launched into a litany of objections and protests: that the prosecution was violating defendant’s rights; that if the state didn’t have their case ready they should not have filed the charge; that the state was oppressing defendant by imposing a high bond amount that kept him behind bars. He pounded his fist on the table as he proclaimed that Elsie Arnold was personally violating the defendant’s Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendment rights.
When he paused for breath, she said, “Your honor, if it please the court,” but the judge lifted a hand to silence her.
“I’ve made my decision,” he said. He picked up a fountain pen and prepared to write. “As a courtesy to Ms. Thompson, I’ll grant the motion for continuance.”
Elsie exhaled and her shoulders relaxed.
“But I’m releasing Mr. Taney on his own recognizance. I don’t believe in holding the accused when the state is responsible for delays.”
She gasped, and shot a quick look at the defense table. Taney stared at her, then broke into an expression that couldn’t truly be called a smile; it was a hostile grimace of gritted teeth, like the rictus of a graveyard skull. A chill went through her. She said, “Judge Carter, I object; defendant is a flight risk, he should not be let out ROR. The defense hasn’t even made that request.”
“Your honor,” Josh Nixon countered, “I’d like to request that the defendant be released on his own recognizance.”
“Granted.”
“Wait!” Elsie cried. The judge looked at her, shocked. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d made eye contact. She scooted around her counsel table and marched up to the bench.
“Judge, it would be destructive—devastating—to the case if you release the defendant today. I implore you.” She grabbed the wooden edge of his raised bench as she said, in a passionate whisper, “Judge Carter, he’s got nowhere to go; nowhere but home. Think of the effect it will have on the state’s case if he shows up there.”
Nixon, who joined her at the bench, said, “The judge has already ruled.”
Elsie didn’t look his way. “Judge Carter, these witnesses are children. Children. Look at the charge.”
The judge opened the file and toyed with the paper. “A charge is just that, without proof. Court is adjourned.”
Chapter Eight
ELSIE WATCHED IN horror as the judge tossed the file to his clerk and walked to his chambers, opened the door, and shut it behind him without a backward look.
Nixon shot her a smug glance and said, “You know, at the Public Defender’s Office, they call you ‘Miss Missouri from Hell.’ Guess you’re just having an off day.”
Actually, she did not know that. As she struggled to compose a fitting retort, Nixon turned his back to her and spoke quietly to his client.
Taney asked, “This is it, right?” His voice was a rumbling bass, thick with the accent of the Ozark hills. “They got to let me go now.”
“No!” Elsie cried. She ran to Judge Carter’s chamber door. Without stopping to debate the propriety of her action, she banged on the door with her fist.
“Judge Carter,” she called, “we gotta talk.”
No sound came from the other side of the door. She knocked again, louder this time. “Judge Carter, open the door. Please. You have to reconsider your ruling.”
Nixon, joining her at the door, hissed, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m appealing his decision,” she said. Her heart beat so fast that her face was scarlet. When the judge still refused to acknowledge her knock, she tried the knob; it was unlocked. She twisted it and pushed the door open.
Judge Carter stood by a coat rack, fighting with the zipper on his black robe. He gaped at the attorneys with disbelief. “You can’t just barge in here.”
Elsie stood her ground. “Judge Carter, you’ve got to rethink this. Taney is too dangerous to cut loose.”
“Too dangerous how?” The judge continued to jerk at his zipper; it was caught in the black fabric. “Has he killed anybody?”
“No.”
“Does he have a felony record? For assault?”
She cleared her throat. “Well, no. No felonies that showed up on the rap sheet. But there’s a bunch of arrests for assault on his wife, domestic disturbance calls.”
“All dropped,” Nixon chimed in.
“And?” The zipper finally gave, and the judge pulled the robe off and hung it on a hook. Running his fingers through his hair, he took a seat behind his desk. “That’s not uncommon. Particularly with this class of people.” He appeared to mull it over for a moment, then shook his head. “No. I’ve ruled.”
Elsie planted both hands flat on his desk, so he couldn’t avoid looking at her.
“Judge Carter, please. Change it.”
“What?”
“Your ruling. Change it.” When Nixon tried to interject, she cut him off. “You’re the judge. You can make a ruling and think better of it.”
The judge glared at her in silence.
She continued, “Judge, you know what he’s going to do. He’s going to go terrorize his family and shut them up.�
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“Your honor,” Nixon protested, “the state is mounting baseless accusations; this is entirely speculative.”
The judge regarded Elsie with a sour face. “Ms. Arnold, you’re out of order—” he began, but she interrupted.
“If I’m right, if he goes out there and hurts them, somebody will have to shoulder the blame.”
The judge looked away. She leaned in, eager to reinforce her point. “Did you see all the press out there? They will know it was you, Judge Carter, who cut him loose, when the state begged you to keep him in jail. Who will the press hang up to dry?”
Nixon interjected, “The judge has already ruled, Ms. Arnold.”
Elsie kept her eyes glued on the judge’s face. “You never make anyone mad when you lock up a child molester.”
“Alleged! Alleged!” Nixon cried.
“Oh, yeah. Right,” she said dryly. “I was speaking generally.”
“Ms. Arnold,” Judge Carter said, “back off, before I call Eldon in here to throw you out.” She took a step back, knowing she’d gone too far. The judge leaned away from her in his chair, adding, “You have no right to come tearing into my office, harassing me. You should show the same respect in chambers that’s required in court. This borders on contempt.”
Patch it up, she told herself fearfully. “Judge Carter, I’m sorry, I really am; please accept my apology. I didn’t mean to offend, I swear. But,” she went on, moving in again, in spite of herself, “I am so scared for those Taney kids. The youngest girl is just six.”
A family photograph in a silver frame sat on the judge’s desk. Glancing at it, she said, “About your daughter’s age.”
Judge Carter sat for a long moment. “Let me see the rap sheet,” he said. She rummaged in the file, thankful it was still in her grasp. He studied it in silence, then said, “Twenty-four hours. I’m giving you twenty-four hours.”
“Yesss,” Elsie breathed.
“I object, Judge; this is unfair to my client—” Nixon began, but the judge waved his protest away.
“Oh, come on, Nixon,” he said. “Twenty-four more hours in lockup just means your man will get a couple more free meals. Courtesy of McCown County.” Into the phone, the judge said to his bailiff, “Eldon, I’ve changed my ruling. Take Taney back to the county jail.” He set the phone in its cradle and pointed at Elsie. “Twenty-four hours, Ms. Arnold. If the state isn’t ready to proceed at that time, I’ll dismiss the charge.”
“You bet, Judge. Thank you so much. We’ll be ready.”
With that, Elsie beat a hasty retreat back into the courtroom, with Nixon close behind.
The bailiff was struggling with Taney, who cursed and fought Eldon’s attempt to return him to the jail. “Judge cut me loose. Get me out of these goddamned cuffs, you old fucker.”
Elsie watched as Nixon tried to intercede, explaining that the judge had reset the preliminary hearing for the next day. “I’ll come see you over at the jail and explain; we’ll talk about tomorrow’s hearing,” he said. She heard the attorney add, in a low voice, “Listen, you have to take a shower before you come back to court. You stink. You’ll make a bad impression on the judge.”
Taney turned on him with a scowl. “You mean that judge that just fucked me over? That judge better worry about the impression he makes on me. I could kick his scrawny ass if I wanted, I guarantee you.”
The defense attorney stared at Taney, at a loss for words. Elsie could hear Taney as he leaned in close to Nixon and added, “And I ain’t going nowhere near them jailhouse showers. You know what they going to do to me in there?” Taney reached out with his cuffed hands and grabbed his attorney’s wrist. He squeezed it, hard, and the lawyer winced. “What done happened back there? Why ain’t you getting me out of here?”
As the defense attorney wrested his hand from Taney’s grasp, a neatly dressed man in rayon pants and a yellow sweater came up and placed his hand on Taney’s shoulder. He said, “Just want you to know I’m here for you.”
Taney’s mood changed instantly. “Thanks, man,” he said in an ingratiating tone. “Means a lot to have you on my side. People been lying about me.”
“I seen what you’re going through. You’re not alone.”
The bailiff interrupted the dialogue. With a deputy as reinforcement, Eldon took Taney by the arm and led him from the courtroom. Before he walked through the door, Taney said loudly to no one in particular, “I got my rights. That whore won’t bring me down. A man’s got rights.” He marched through the door, shaking his long red hair back from his face, his chin high.
The courtroom was silent for a second then gave way to a buzz of startled reaction. Elsie sighed with relief as she put her file back together. She glanced at Nixon, tempted to needle him. With a droll expression, she leaned over and tugged the defense attorney’s sleeve. “Did you draw the short straw?”
Nixon appeared to be in no mood for banter. “I could ask you the same question. Where’s your star witness? And what happened to the big cheese? My office said that Madeleine was handling this case personally. It’s high profile.”
Elsie wasn’t well acquainted with Josh Nixon, but clearly, he took his job seriously. He was a new addition to the Public Defender’s Office. The courthouse sages said that he graduated in the top ranks of his law school class, but took a job in the Public Defender’s Office because of his crippling student debt. A new law forgave student loans for lawyers who served ten years in the public interest.
Though he seemed to be a tough opponent, she thought she might try to wrestle a concession from him. With a shrug, she proposed, “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in waiving preliminary tomorrow.”
He laughed in disbelief and shook his head. “You’re pretty slick. Why would I waive when you just confessed to the judge that you don’t have a case?”
She ignored the question and gave him her most winning smile. “Do you want to stipulate to testimony? I could make an offer of proof to you by tomorrow morning.”
“My dear Ms. Arnold, you are going to have to produce a live body tomorrow, and drag it up on the witness stand, and make it talk.”
“Hey,” she said, deliberately casual, “I was just trying to save you some work.”
Josh shook his head and walked off, calling to the man in the yellow sweater, but before the lawyer walked out the courtroom door, he turned again to look at her. Josh was an attractive guy, with casually tousled hair and clothes he wore with a careless air. Actually, she kind of liked his style, or lack of it. She pondered for a second what he would be like in the sack, then she caught herself and resolutely turned away. Any alliance between a prosecutor and a public defender was fraught with a hundred complications. There was no point in toying with defense counsel. No point at all.
Picking up her files with a sigh of resignation, a thin sheet of paper fluttered out and slid onto the floor.
Stooping over to snatch it up, she looked at the page in confusion. It was not a part of the Taney file; she had gone through the file from front to back, several times.
The page she held was torn from a Bible, and two verses had been marked with a yellow highlighter. She read:
They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, haughty, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. Although they know God’s just requirement—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do these things but even applaud others who practice them.
Jerking her head around, she looked to see who’d left the paper for her to find, but the courtroom had emptied out. If the text was in fact intended for her, the messenger had fled.
Maybe it wasn’t for me, she thought. Could be a mistake.
Maybe it’s a joke.
She looked at the page again, and the garish yellow marks on the paper gave her a chill.
Chapter Nine
THE GRAY AFTERNOON sky spit snow as Elsie, Tina, and Bob Ashlock made their way up the sidewalk to the dilapidated white house on High Street. At a front window, a hand briefly pulled aside a patterned bedsheet that served as a curtain and then let it drop.
Still fired up from her close call in court, Elsie led the way, anxious to begin the interview. “I can’t believe the woman I talked to last Saturday was the defendant’s wife,” she lamented. “I was knocking on the wrong door. I feel so stupid. Why didn’t I ask her who she was?”
Tina clutched her coat against the frigid wind. “Yeah, why didn’t you?”
Ashlock jumped to Elsie’s defense. “You’re not a cop; it’s not your job to investigate.” As they reached the door, he held it open and asked, “Tina, what happened to Taney’s girlfriend and her baby?”
Tina shook her head. “You mean JoLee. She’s not cooperating with us. Refuses to talk about Kris Taney. I don’t know if she’s afraid of him or loyal to him.”
“Did they take protective custody?”
“Yeah, they took her kid away. Her baby’s in foster care, and JoLee’s back home with her family. We’re supervising her visitation, but things aren’t progressing very fast. She says she wants to get her kid back, though.”
Ashlock asked, “But Donita Taney still has custody of her girls?”
“Donita cooperated with Social Services; JoLee refused. That’s the litmus test in these cases. Some mothers want to protect the kids, others want to protect their man.”
They entered the old house and Ashlock pounded on the door to 1A, the apartment Elsie had assumed was Al Taney’s neighbor, but in fact belonged to Al’s brother Kris. A child opened the door and peeked out, a small girl with a round face and wavy strawberry hair. Tina knelt and spoke to her.
“You’re Tiffany, aren’t you?” The child nodded. “I’m Tina, and I’ve been to your house before. Do you remember me?” Another nod, but the girl ducked her head, shy before the strangers. “May we come in? We need to talk to your mother and your sisters.”
