by Lyn Cote
Greta shook her head and grumbled something under her breath.
“Now, Dottie,” Bunny said in a placating tone, “the boy is only in first grade. What could he have done that would be so awful?”
“You’re just sweet on his grandfather, the Captain,” Dottie said with a sly look at Bunny.
“It wasn’t serious.” Ignoring the innuendo, Patience let herself relax into the comfortable chair. Bunny’s large gold tabby cat, Jonesy, hopped up onto her lap. “A squirrel came in the window and Darby tried to catch him. Mrs. Canney was just concerned that Darby didn’t realize that the squirrel might have bitten him.”
She stroked Jonesy’s velvet ears. “Then he might have had to go through those awful rabies shots.”
“What did you think of Gil Montgomery?” Dottie asked, the afternoon sun glinting on her wire-rim glasses.
What had she thought of Gil Montgomery? The image of him, compact and powerful-looking with the same chocolate-brown hair as Darby, tickled Patience like a warm breath on her nape. She hid a shiver. “We didn’t really have a chance to talk—”
“What did you think of him?” Dottie demanded with a snap in her Southern belle voice. “I wasn’t talking about talking.”
Greta snorted and shook her head, her severe Dutch bangs swishing over her grooved forehead.
Patience sipped her sweet tea and stroked Jonesy. She’d heard about small-town gossip and here she sat in the midst of it. Gil Montgomery had made an impression on her with his blue eyes, well-cut suit and shined wingtips. But he was the father of a student. Dottie’s avid tone warned Patience to be cagey. “He seemed very nice.”
“Nice!” Dottie exclaimed. “If I were thirty years younger—”
“Gil Montgomery would be dodging you.” Bunny chortled with an impish light in her eyes. “Just like the Captain does.”
Dottie ignored Bunny. “I know you’re from Chicago, but you would have to go some distance to find a man as eligible as Gil Montgomery.”
“But he’s divorced and has that little boy,” Greta added in her raspy voice. “For a first marriage, a girl’s better off not getting a man with entanglements and a history.”
“It’s not his fault he’s divorced,” Bunny said. “We all know his wife divorced him against his will and for no good reason.”
“They never should have got married in the first place,” Greta huffed. “Different as night and day.”
Patience sipped her iced tea, trying not to let any of this talk sink in. Gossip would be unreliable at best. She’d like to ask someone about Darby, but not at the price of making Dottie think she had an interest in his handsome father. Still lounging in her lap, Jonesy began purring like a small engine.
“I bet Gil wasn’t happy having to cut his day short.” Greta crossed her legs, her late husband’s jeans bagging at her knees. “That Putnam trial is coming up fast.”
“Mmm. Now that was a bad business.” Bunny pushed the plate of chocolate chip cookies toward Patience. “I was up at the Rose Care Center this morning to visit Bertha. She still can’t walk or speak a word.”
“It just breaks my heart to see her that way.” Dottie patted her sixties’ bubble hairstyle. “And to think it might have been her son that did it to her.”
Glad that the Gil inquiry had been shelved, Patience put down her tea on the glass-topped wicker table and drew her mail from under Jonesy’s white-furred tummy. The cat blinked up at her. Patience sorted through the letters, mostly credit card applications and car insurance offers. I don’t want to be in debt and I don’t own a car.
“I don’t believe Bertha Perkins was attacked by family,” Bunny snapped. “Dan had his problems but I don’t think he would ever hurt anyone.”
At the bottom of her pile of mail, an official-looking envelope caught Patience’s eye. She ran her finger under the flap of the thick, expensive paper and opened it.
“He tried to hurt himself.” Greta picked up the fly swatter resting on her lap and followed the progress of a large housefly circling over the cookies.
“That’s over thirty years ago.” Bunny’s voice starched up. “We didn’t know as much then as we do now about people with mental illness. Oprah just had a show about that.”
“Oh.” The official letter forced the muted exclamation from Patience. She wanted to add “No,” but swallowed it. She looked up and all three women stared at her.
“I don’t think you better say any more about that case,” Patience said, an odd constriction making her work to force out the words.
“Why, dear?” Dottie asked, her nose drawing even closer to Patience.
“Because I’ve just been called for jury duty.”
Chapter Two
Hearing her name called, loud and brusque, by the bailiff at the door of the courtroom, Patience rose from a bench in the crowded hallway. Other prospective jurors grouped around gave her assessing looks. She averted her eyes.
Over the weekend, she’d read up on jury selection, or in jurisprudence jargon, voir dire. And what she’d read hadn’t boosted her lagging enthusiasm about being chosen to serve on a jury. But would she have a choice?
With her spine straight, she walked inside the nearly empty courtroom, her heart doing a violent jig. Only subdued murmurs from the lawyers and the furious buzzing of a fly trying to get out a closed window broke the silence.
I don’t want to be in court again—for any reason. Though the nervous habit of biting her nails was trying to ensnare her, she forced herself to keep her hands at her sides. Images from her past reared up—a courtroom in Chicago, lawyers arguing over her as though she weren’t even there listening to every word. An echo of the helpless fury she’d felt then flashed through her like a string of firecrackers.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Gil Montgomery alone at one of the two counsel tables. His confident stance and air of assurance contrasted sharply with her own jelly-kneed hesitancy. Then he looked up, meeting her eyes and something like an electric charge zipped through her.
Across the aisle from him, a stranger talked to a thin man with a salt-and-pepper mustache and dressed in an orange uniform. That must be the defendant and his lawyer. I didn’t know I’d have to face Dan Putnam today.
She followed the bailiff’s instructions and proceeded to take her place behind the rail at the witness stand. A once-over glance told her that the courtroom looked like most courtrooms—walls of polished oak paneling mirrored in a hardwood floor, high nineteenth-century plastered ceilings and the U.S. and Illinois flags flanking the front where she stood.
“Raise your left hand,” the bailiff said in a bored monotone. “Do you have any objection to swearing on the Bible?”
“No.” I have an objection to being here.
“Then place your right hand on the Bible and repeat after me—‘I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”’
Patience found it hard to take breath. But she repeated the words that echoed in the vast, intimidating room. Please, God, get me out of this. It’s too hard. It brings back too many memories. Please. She let herself down onto the seat, hearing the chair under her creak, a loud sound in the silent room. Then she didn’t know where to look. Her eyes wanted to linger on Gil Montgomery, the one familiar face in the room.
But she wouldn’t focus on him. Not after their less-than-pleasant meeting at school last week. Not in this situation which she knew demanded impartiality. And not when she kept noticing the endearing cleft in his chin that belied his serious expression and gave him a touch of vulnerability. Don’t go there. He’s off-limits.
“Miss Andrews, you are a teacher at Oakdale School?” Gil asked her in an official-sounding voice.
She cleared her dry throat. “Yes.”
“Do you know of any reason that you are not fit to be a member of the jury in this case?” Gil looked at her as if she were a stranger.
Why? Had she made no impression on him at all? “I’m not clear on what that
means exactly,” Patience hedged.
“Primarily, it means—” Gil’s voice was sharp “—have you already formed an opinion about the accused’s guilt or innocence?”
Patience waited a moment before responding, letting him know she wouldn’t be rushed or bullied. She faced him squarely then, resisting the urge to look into his blue eyes behind his black, wire-rim glasses. “No. I’m new around here. I don’t know Mrs. Perkins or her son.” I know your son. Does that make a difference?
“But you do know that Dan Putnam is the victim’s son?” the defendant’s lawyer, Sprague, spoke for the first time. He was much older than Gil, with white hair and a noticeable paunch.
“Yes—” Patience fanned her fingers over her lap, pressing her fingertips down to keep her nails away from her mouth “—I have read the local paper and have heard some talk.”
“But you haven’t formed an opinion about this case?” Gil took a step around the desk as though ready to advance toward her.
“No, I haven’t.” Looking away from Gil, Patience glanced up at the judge, an attractive man in his middle years. “But I don’t feel I’m qualified to judge another person’s guilt or innocence.” She refused to glance at Gil and see the response to this in his expression.
The judge frowned down on her. “As a citizen, you are only asked to listen to the evidence and make a reasonable decision based on that evidence. We don’t expect prescience.”
Patience gathered her spunk. I have to let the judge know. “Should I mention that I’m the teacher of the district attorney’s son?”
The judge glanced toward Gil and then back to her. “I don’t think that is enough of a connection to show partiality. What does counsel for the defense think?”
Behind the cover of the railing, Patience crossed fingers on both hands. Please, Lord, let him say he doesn’t want me. I don’t think it’s good for me to be around Gil when I’m Darby’s teacher. And when I’m having so much trouble ignoring him as a man.
“I don’t think that’s much of a connection,” Sprague agreed, rocking back on his heels.
“Do you think,” Gil went on as if she and Sprague hadn’t spoken, “there is anything in your background which would preclude your serving as an impartial juror in this case?”
“Like what?” Patience tried to think. Should she tell him about Chicago? No.
“Have you or someone close to you been charged with a similar crime?” Gil stared at her with pursed lips.
“No.” No, I wasn’t guilty of assault and robbery.
“I have no objections to accepting Miss Andrews,” Sprague commented, looking at his notes, not at her.
Gil stared into her eyes, a long searching look.
It made her twice as aware of him as she had been. The hair on her arms prickled as though he were drawing near. “I believe I’d be more useful back in my classroom,” she ventured. Darby needs me. I don’t think he’ll get along with my substitute. He needs consistency and I don’t want him to get a reputation as class clown or—
“I have no objection to accepting Miss Andrews.” Gil looked away.
She felt dismissed and more puzzled. Which is most unsettling to me, this awkward situation or Gil Montgomery?
“Bailiff, show Miss Andrews to the room where the jurors are waiting.” The judge waved his hand.
Lost in confusion over this outcome, Patience rose as though unseen hands had lifted the strings that controlled her and she followed the bailiff through a doorway on one side of the courtroom.
I’ve had enough of courtrooms to last me a lifetime. Now I’m going to be forced to come into this courtroom again—for days, maybe weeks. A hollow feeling made her feel a bit nauseated. How did that happen so fast? Why didn’t either of them eliminate me? I don’t want to be on a jury. I don’t want to face Gil Montgomery every day.
At ten o’clock the next morning, Gil kept his focus forward on the judge, who was formally impaneling the jury that had been chosen for the Putnam case. This swearing in of the jury was routine; however, Gil’s keen awareness of Miss Patience Andrews was not routine.
Tall, blond and impossible to ignore, she stood on the far right in the first row of the jury box. Her presence added a whole new dimension to the usual tumultuous emotions that bubbled up inside him at the start of each new trial.
I should have recused her. I do have a connection, though tenuous, to her. And what did she mean, “I believe I’d be more useful back in my classroom?” Did she mean Darby needed her?
Thinking of Darby and school made his resentment at his ex-wife and her mishandling of their son rear up. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch—not yet. The frustration that had hovered just beneath his consciousness all last night now flooded through him again, hot and straining to be released. Doesn’t she care at all about our son’s future?
The jury en masse finished repeating their oath and sat down with much scraping of chairs and a brief rumble of polite comments.
It’s too late now. I’m stuck with Miss Patience Andrews on the jury.
Gil stepped around his table and addressed the court with his prepared opening. “This trial will decide whether Daniel Putnam did or did not assault and attack his mother on August 22 of this year in Cole County. The state believes that Daniel Putnam is guilty of striking his mother with blunt force, which made her lose consciousness and later to suffer a stroke. The state believes that Daniel Putnam did this with the intent to steal money and valuable antiques from his mother’s home.”
He felt Patience focusing on him. Was it him as a man or was she concentrating on him as district attorney? And why did he care?
He proceeded to set up the case against Putnam. Then, after listening to Sprague’s opening comments, Gil called his first witness, the arresting officer.
A tall lanky man in his forties, Sheriff Longworthy took the oath and began to answer questions.
“Why did you go to the home of Mrs. Bertha Perkins located at 202 Walnut Street on the night of August 22 of this year?” Gil asked the routine question. But somehow his usual in-court confidence felt compromised. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that Patience Andrews also appeared strained, uncomfortable.
I should have sent her back to her classroom. She’s distracting me. Why did I insist she be here as part of the jury? Maybe he just liked looking at her too much.
“I got a call from one of her roomers.” The sheriff looked down at his notebook. “One Wade Bevin, forty-two, who has rented a room at Mrs. Perkins’s almost three years. He called me when he arrived home and found Mrs. Perkins on her kitchen floor unconscious. I immediately called the paramedics and we both arrived at the residence about the same time.” Another glance at his notebook. “I arrived at 12:23 a.m. right before the EMTs arrived.”
Gil went on prompting the sheriff to give the bare facts of the crime scene.
Out of the blue, his thoughts took him back to last night when he’d overheard Darby laughing with a friend about the squirrel incident—“My mommy says that she wished she was there to see me chasing that squirrel!”
Gil’s temper ignited all over again. Hot words had been running through his mind all night and morning. The blistering words had cycled again and again, refusing to be tabled, words about what he thought of his ex-wife’s behavior, her careless attitudes.
When Darby had left Friday evening, he had been repentant about the squirrel and wanting to do better at school in the coming week. Why had Coreena changed the misdemeanor into a funny escapade? Didn’t she know that would only make Darby more likely to get into trouble? All the good I try to do with Darby goes up in smoke every other weekend when he’s with his mother.
The sheriff’s testimony drew to a close and he stepped down. Gil gritted his teeth. He’d lay down the law once and for all. But with Coreena that was easier said than done.
A bailiff came from the back of the courtroom and passed Gil a slip of paper. He read it:
Gilbert, I thought you should know t
hat Darby’s mother came in this morning and took him out of school for the day.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Canney.
Anger scalded Gil’s stomach. She knew she could get away with this because I’d be tied up in court. That’s it. The final straw.
Later Tuesday afternoon after court had adjourned, Gil got out of his sedan, slammed the door and marched toward the trailer where his ex-wife lived. She wouldn’t get away with this. Not again.
The trailer was new, a double-wide with a satellite dish on top. That was another thing he wanted stopped—Darby watching cable channels he shouldn’t be watching. His child wouldn’t suffer because of his careless mother.
Gil hammered on the door. “Coreena! It’s Gil.”
Darby opened the door. “Hi, Dad!”
Gil frowned down at his son. “Is your mother here?”
“’Course, I’m here. You don’t think I’d leave the kid all alone, do you?” Coreena came into view wearing white short-shorts and a purple halter top.
“Darby, will you please go outside and sit in the car?” Gil asked as he pulled his son through the open door.
“You better go, hon,” Coreena said in a lazy voice. “Your dad wants to tell me off and doesn’t want you to have to listen to it.”
“But, Mommy—”
Burning at Coreena’s flippant put-down, Gil turned Darby to face the car. “Wait outside. Then your mom will come out and say goodbye.”
Gil stepped inside and let the door close behind him. “What do you mean taking Darby out of school without my permission?”
Coreena gave him a long-suffering sigh. “I got the day off unexpectedly and decided to go shopping in Marion. Just wanted some company. Darby and I had a great time. McDonald’s for lunch and hot pretzels and mustard at the mall.”
“Per our custody agreement, you don’t have the authority to take Darby out of school on a whim. If you do this again, I’ll designate that only I have the right to take Darby out of school.” Gil controlled himself, struggling to sound calm.
“Oh, Gil, what’s the big deal? I haven’t done it before and I probably won’t do it again any time soon. It was just such a beautiful fall day and I wanted to spend it with Darby.”
