She went on climbing, limping, pain in her ankle jabbing at her relentlessly. Higher on these slopes, the piñon forest gave way to ponderosa pines, and under the shelter of those trees, one could hide like a little animal, crouched against some trunk, invisible from the air.
She heard a sound and ignored it. It was far away; it was meaningless. Still, it was persistent, like the buzz of an insect trapped behind glass. Unfamiliar. Strange.
She stopped, stood up tall, looked around herself. It was still there, a kind of humming. She got onto her hands and knees and crawled to the nearest juniper, squirming in beneath it to crouch there, her head on her raised knees, making herself a stone, a blot, a shadowed nothing. The humming went on and on, seeming to grow no nearer, and after a time she looked up, puzzled. It wasn’t the thwack, thwack, thwack of a helicopter. It was a different sound altogether.
She peered out at the night, up the hill, down the hill, across the valley. There was a light across the valley, and it was moving. Helicopters, at least the ones she had seen on TV, had glaring lights, like searchlights. This was an amber glow, a bubble of firelight on the hills, low, next to the ground, where no bubble of light should be.
The amber bubble moved slowly, making no threat. Up a hill and down again, disappearing into the valley. Appearing again at the crest and dipping once more, finally achieving the slope on which she sat huddled beneath the tree.
Whatever it was, it hummed its way purposefully toward her, gradually becoming visible. A school bus. An old, beat-up yellow school bus, rumbling along as though it were on a road. Which it wasn’t!
The bus came up the long slope toward her, swerving around chamiza and piñons, passing her to swing around in a gentle arc and pull up beside the juniper where she hid. The door opened. An old voice, quite kindly, said, “You need a ride, lady?”
She was having a dream. Either that, or she’d lost her mind. In either case it was silly to hide. He obviously knew where she was. She crawled from beneath the tree, rose to her feet, flinching as weight came on the twisted ankle.
“Here,” he said. “I help you.” He came down the step, a very old man, wrinkled and brown, wearing a soft shirt and baggy trousers and boots that were worn into shapelessness.
She felt herself slipping into hysteria. “Who?” she giggled. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“My name is Padre Josephus,” he said, patting her shoulder, taking her arm. “I hear from a friend of yours maybe you need some help.”
At the prison, in the visiting room, Lolly began the visit by shouting at Carolyn. “She knock me down, an’ I get all cut up.”
“She who?” asked Carolyn, completely lost.
“That woman in the kitchen. I ask her does she wan’ me to do, you know, an’ it’s like she goes nuts an’ breaks this whole tray full of bottles, an’ she knock me down, an’ I get all cut up on the glass.”
“I’m sorry. Is it healing?”
The girl extended her bandaged hand. “Yeah. They put in four stitches, though. She went nuts. She says somebody stole her nature from her. Some bruja. Some witch. Was it some witch stole it?”
“I don’t believe so, Lolly. It’s just something that’s happening.” Something that was happening so universally that the secrecy about it was ripping at the seams. “Don’t worry about it right now. The trial’s next week. This weekend I’ll be bringing two women to see you. One of them’s a doctor. She’ll want to talk to you, examine you. I’ve arranged for her to use the infirmary here. They’re going to be witnesses for you.”
“Is my mama gone be a witness?”
“Why do you ask?” Carolyn said softly, stopping herself from casting a surreptitious look at the light fixture above her. She was ninety percent sure there was a microphone there. Maybe even a camera.
“My aunty came. Mama tell my aunty, she gone be a witness. They put her in the hospital, so she can’t get drunk before then.”
Bingo, thought Carolyn. They’d picked up on the fetal alcohol defense. Good. “Well, if she wants to be a witness, we’ll certainly use her, Lolly. It’s good that she’s drying out. Maybe she can quit drinking. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Wouldn’t that be nice! She sounded like a kindergarten teacher. She sounded like an idiot. Well, the more idiotic, the better. She left Lolly, patting her on the shoulder.
From the hallway she spotted Josh through the window in the vault-room door. He was showing something off to a visitor. Carolyn waited until he was alone, then slipped in through the double doors. “Josh, I need a favor.”
“Anything I can do.”
“This girl I’m defending. It’s important I get her looking halfway decent for the trial. I don’t want her to look like a hooker, and something hookerish is what she’s going to want to wear.”
“They don’t never learn, do they?”
“No, they don’t. If I bring some clothes, can you be sure they’re the ones she has on for the trial?”
“I can try. Couple of those women guards back there, I’d say they’re bein’ paid off.”
“If it takes money, I’ll pay.”
“That legal?”
“It’s not suborning a witness, Josh. Greasing the skids a little, maybe.”
“Won’t promise, Ms. Crespin, but I’ll see what I can do. Hey, didja hear what happened at the courthouse?”
“What’s that, Josh?”
“Lately, the whole calendar’s been messed up, people droppin’ cases, cancelin’ appearances, cases bein’ settled out of court, whatever. Anyhow, Judge Loretta Frieze, she’s the chief judge, she’s been reschedulin’ stuff, movin’ it up, reassignin’ the cases. So she had this big fight with Rombauer.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Judge Frieze told him he better watch it because he’s gettin’ too many cases reversed on appeal.”
“You’re kidding,” said Carolyn again, slack-jawed.
“He said he’d be more careful. The way my friend tells it, he looked like he’d been kicked by a horse when he left there.”
Carolyn went outside, trying to figure out how she felt about all this. She’d been depending on Judge Rombauer being just what Rombauer always was. If he actually tried to appear impartial, she might have a hard time on appeal. Damn. Double damn. Another of life’s little uncertainties working itself out.
On the other hand, if Rombauer started being careful, she might have a chance of winning the case on her own, first time around.
It should have been a comforting thought, but it wasn’t.
ON FRIDAY MORNING THE WAITING room outside Judge Rombauer’s courtroom was overfull of people, fifty of them at least, the panel from which the jury would be chosen in the case of the people of the State of New Mexico versus one murdering fiend or one helpless rape victim, depending upon whose side one was on. To hear the media tell it, the world was on Jagger’s side.
United against the world, the DFC had agreed to support Lolly’s defense. Ophy and Jessamine were to be expert witnesses; Faye had been chief preparer of exhibits; Bettiann had supplied funds; and Agnes had been asked to serve as chief liaison with heaven, praying for a miracle.
“If you think you’ve got any credit up there, Aggie,” Carolyn had said. “I don’t think I do.”
Aggie had swallowed the retort that came to mind and accepted the role. She’d seen children like Lolly in the parish. Though she didn’t generally sympathize with the type, she agreed with Carolyn that they were incapable of “deciding” to do anything.
Josh had kept his word about the clothing. Lolly was neatly dressed in jeans and a loose shirt. Carolyn made a mental note to send Josh a gift of some kind. He was a true friend.
The clerk, referring to his notification list, began calling names at nine in the morning. The first twenty people rose and shambled into the courtroom, their manner so uniformly decorous and blank-faced that they might have been cloned, none of them showing the slightest expression of interest: men, women, black, brown,
and pale, including one turbaned Sikh, associated with the Sikh community in neighboring Rio Arriba County.
Carolyn spoke to the panel about scientific evidence. Could they weigh scientific evidence if it was clearly explained? One man, a scientist who had worked for years at Los Alamos, said yes—somewhat forcefully. Others believed they could also, if it was clearly explained. One man said he could understand it perfectly well, but a lot of science was just wrong, like evolution, for example.
Ordinarily, Jagger would have gathered that particular juror to his heart, but if fetal alcohol syndrome was to be offered as a defense, he wanted people on the jury who would understand the scientific evidence he intended to bring to the contrary. He marked down to be excused, therefore, not only the creationist, but also a woman who saw no reason to understand science because she believed people just made it up. “Like pi,” she babbled. “They say it’s three point one four, when anyone can see it would be so much easier if it was just three.”
Carolyn, pretending not to notice Jagger’s uncharacteristic queries, laid down a false trail by asking about drugs. Did the jurors believe drugs could make people do strange things? Most of them believed so. One gentleman believed it was purely a matter of character. No one, he said, could make him do anything he didn’t want to. Carolyn marked him down to be excused. She asked about birth control and abortion: Did anyone have strong feelings about these issues? Each panel member denied having feelings, one man and one woman with such vehemence that Carolyn put question marks by their names.
No one expected that the jury would be selected in one day. Both sides anticipated finishing the selection on Monday and beginning the trial on Tuesday, the twenty-seventh. They were not in a hurry.
Some of Bettiann’s support was being used to pay an investigator who would be available until the trial was over. This past week he’d been looking into the lives and histories of members of the jury panel, and Carolyn, glancing down the list he had prepared, found a number of items she considered helpful. By four in the afternoon, to everyone’s surprise, there were fourteen jurors, evenly split as to sex. Jagger had excused the unscientific, of whom there were several, and the Sikh. Jake knew nothing about Sikhs but distrusted them on principle.
Carolyn, turning from her notes, intercepted a glance between the two jurors who had been so definite about contraception. It was a very self-satisfied, self-important little look, like one canary-fed cat to another. Seeing Carolyn’s glance, both of them put on poker faces, which raised the hair on the nape of her neck. She had a couple of peremptories left, and her mouth opened to use them, only to close it again. If they had lied, if she could prove they had lied, there might be grounds for a mistrial, if she needed grounds. If she needed a mistrial. She looked down at her notebook, where her fingers were busy underlining the two names. Hitchens. Bonney.
The judge was waiting. “Ms. Crespin?”
“I am satisfied with the jurors,” she said. Aside from that glance she’d intercepted, she was fairly well satisfied.
“I am satisfied,” said Jagger with a straight face. He was extremely satisfied. With this jury and Rombauer, he couldn’t go wrong. Rombauer was always good for some fine oratory, and he could weave a set of instructions that hog-tied a jury to only one possible verdict. Nonetheless, Jake preferred that the trial look good. The people on this jury were capable of weighing facts, and Jagger had lots of facts to give them. If that didn’t do it, he had Gloria Hitchens and Alf Bonney on the jury, two of Harmston’s prolife warriors who would accept no excuse for baby murder and would hold out for conviction until January if necessary. He wouldn’t need to sweat it. Gloria and Alf would take anything he gave them and make a noose out of it. So to speak.
The fourteen were impaneled and sworn, twelve jurors and two alternates, though the members wouldn’t know which were which until the testimony was in. By ten after four on Friday afternoon, the task was finished, far earlier than any of them had expected. But, then, Carolyn mused, who would have expected a district attorney to have listened to opposing counsel’s phone calls? Or a defense attorney who knew damned well she’d been bugged and had misdirected the prosecution.
“We had planned jury selection to continue on Monday,” the judge intoned, tapping his folded glasses against his long, pale hand. Rombauer was a gray man with turtle eyes, bony though not thin, an ominous presence inside his dark robes, like a hangman doubling in justice, cunning old Fury himself. His voice was insinuating and sometimes querulous, as when he said: “The prosecution was expected to begin on Tuesday. Will there be any difficulty in moving it up to Monday, Mr. Jagger?”
“I shouldn’t think so, Your Honor.”
“Very well. We will begin hearing this case on Monday morning, nine A.M.” He warned the selected jurors somewhat severely not to discuss the trial, then let them go.
Almost a year since Lolly was raped, thought Carolyn, keeping her face carefully blank as she tried to ignore the TV camera aimed at her. Jagger started to leave, then stopped to speak to an unkempt little man who turned his head and glanced at Carolyn, his face both arrogant and avid, one that slid across her flesh like an edge of paper, razor thin, making her touch her cheek, feeling for blood, as though he had thrown a knife rather than a look. Outside in the corridor the investigator was waiting for her. She drew him into a corner and gave him the two names she had underlined.
“I don’t know what it is with these two. Just the way they looked at each other. It’s probably too late, but I think there’s something there I ought to know about.”
He promised to get on it right away, though he probably wouldn’t have anything until the first of the week.
Behind her in the courtroom, Jagger and Keepe continued their conversation.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Jagger, aggrieved.
“Mr. Webster sent me particularly to remind you,” said the other with stony insistence. “He told me to catch you this afternoon and remind you, you’re not to fix anything this time. Nobody is supposed to die or get injured, nobody is supposed to suddenly refuse to testify, nothing is to happen that is in any way … notable.”
Jagger snarled. “Damn it, if it’s worth playing, it’s worth winning.”
Keepe lowered his brows, almost scowled. “Jake, you’re not getting it. You’re not listening. Winning may not be the most important thing this time. At the moment we’re planning for you to win, but you shouldn’t have any plans at all except to do what we want you to do.”
He turned on his heel and left, not looking back, thereby missing the expression on Jagger’s face. Helen would have been able to interpret that expression. If Webster had been there, face-to-face, telling Jake what to do, Jake would have done it without question, but Jake’s sense of his own relationship to Webster effectively prevented his obeying messengers and flunkies. Keepe, so Jake told himself, was a flunky, and his use of the word “we” was an insult to Mr. Webster.
Besides, Jake was already committed. He’d already given Martin his instructions. The Crespin woman’s house would be bugged tonight. Swinter had probably already been disposed of. It was even possible that Helen had been found and eliminated. Damn her! He could have sworn she was too well trained to bolt like that, and he knew she was too stupid to get away with it! How had she escaped? Somebody had to have helped her! If Martin hadn’t found her yet, she might be trying to reach the children. Well, let her try. She’d never find the Alliance Redoubt in a million years. Jake himself knew only that it was somewhere up near the Canadian border.
From the nearby parking garage Carolyn maneuvered her way to the street. Ophy had arrived that morning, Faye was driving down from Denver, Jessamine from Salt Lake, and the others would be flying into Santa Fe during the afternoon. Stace had been invited to dinner, and she’d volunteered to come out early and help the cleaning woman get the rooms ready. Aggie, Faye, and Bettiann would get the single bedrooms; Ophy and Jessamine would share the big room that Hal had been using; and
Hal would move into the little room with Carolyn, bad leg or no bad leg.
Carolyn stopped at the take-out place she used now and then, whenever the weight of a day made cookery seem impossible. Hal had offered to fix their supper, but being on his feet for very long was still painful for him. Besides, she’d ordered stuff that would keep and could be rewarmed if anyone arrived late.
She spread the provisions across the backseat and got behind the wheel once more. Though she’d resolved not to think about the case, it kept at her, nagging at her. Perhaps it was the fact that Aggie and Bettiann would arrive today. Of all the DFC they were the ones who would be least convinced of Lolly’s innocence, the ones most likely to approve the blind action of the law. Not justice. No one expected justice anymore. What was justice for a Lolly? What did one do to her?
And why? Why punish an abysmally ignorant walking womb who could do nothing but get pregnant? Not read with understanding, not write intelligibly, not do a job well enough to be paid for it. Not sew, not cook, not clean a house, not plant a garden. Not do any practical thing, but only screw or be screwed, as event or lust dictated, and then bear when nature demanded. Would punishment change her? What did one do with a girl who had nothing to give a child because she’d been given nothing as a child, a victim herself, a wasted life, pitiable and sorrowful, but without a single redeeming trait? She was like a mangy cur, mangled in traffic, lying there suffering, guilty of being only what it was, but with a salvation too problematical and too damned expensive for even a passing Samaritan to contemplate. The merciful thing was to pick the pathetic thing up, take it to the vet, and ask him to put it down. Except one couldn’t do that with people.
Gibbon's Decline and Fall Page 33
