Badwater

by Clinton McKinzie

  The big man was gripping them with his fists, tattooed knuckles at almost the level of my head. There was snot in his mustache and a red stain in his beard. His cheeks and eyes were filled with blood.

  “Stop lisping like a little girl, Smit. The name’s Burns. Antonio Burns.”

  Getting sleepy and too tired to deal with the tent, I had just thrown my sleeping bag in the dirt when the phone on my hip chimed. My heart leapt, but then settled back down when I realized it could only be work related. Someone calling to chew me out in the middle of the night. Probably Ross, who had an uncanny ear when it came to hearing about me getting into trouble.

  So it was without enthusiasm that I put the phone to my ear.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you all right? You didn’t call.”

  It was Rebecca. My heart rode the roller coaster right back up.

  “I was just, uh, busy.”

  “Oh, yeah? You seeing someone finally? Never mind, forget I asked.” She sounded amused, not angry. “So how was your day, Ant?”

  “Good,” I lied. “Just busy.”

  “I bet.”

  “What are you doing up this late?”

  “Feeding your daughter. She’s biting my boob as we speak. The little monster has got teeth like Mungo’s.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  The phone moved so that I could hear small sucking sounds.

  “This is your dad, sweet thing. You doing okay? I miss you. I love you.” The sucking sounds stopped. “You may not see me all that much, but I think of you all the time.” A whimper could be heard. It quickly began to escalate to a wail. I added quickly, “Sleep well, honey. Have sweet dreams.”

  Rebecca came back on the phone after murmuring to make the crying stop. “It’s late, and she’s tired,” she tried to explain.

  “Sure. I understand.”

  But I didn’t. She always cried when I held her or talked to her. It was as if she could see right through me with her penetrating blue eyes, see all the stuff I tried to keep inside. Instead of just a father’s love, she saw something that scared her.

  “Hey, Ant. It’s okay. Dads can’t really do a lot for kids this age. Some friends of mine say their kids act like this, too. Unless you’re going to grow some boobs, you’ll just have to wait until she gets older. And you need to hang around some more. Speaking of which, are you coming to Denver tomorrow like you said?”

  “No. I can’t. There’s a hearing in the morning I have to be at. A thing here in Colter County. Then I have to do some stuff after that. But I should get there on Saturday.”

  I wondered where I’d sleep. In a motel, in Rebecca’s bed, or on her couch. It was different on each occasion, depending on her moods and other romantic interests. Rebecca, even six months after giving birth and still breast-feeding, had little trouble getting dates.

  “Anything interesting?”

  There was more than just normal curiosity in her voice. She had left her full-time job as a newspaper reporter to cohost a morning news show on TV. I knew she missed doing her own investigations—now she pretty much just read off a TelePrompTer and conducted inane five-minute interviews with local authors and chefs. But she made a lot more money this way and worked far fewer hours.

  I assured her the court hearing wasn’t about anything interesting at all.

  That made her chuckle.

  “Then you’re slipping, Ant. Good thing, too.”

  “Have you seen Roberto?” I asked.

  Pretty high now, and no longer queasy, I could actually speak his name without wanting to vomit.

  “He was here this morning to take Moriah for a walk.”

  Roberto’s legs were almost entirely paralyzed, but he liked to put our daughter in a backpack and hobble on his steel crutches around the homeless and the executives on Denver’s 16th Street Mall. It wasn’t something I was particularly enthusiastic about—my brother, handicapped and with his addictions and his criminal record, wasn’t exactly the best role model for my daughter. But how much better was her dad? And for some reason Rebecca had grown fond of my brother. A year ago, before the accident, she couldn’t stand the sight of him. Just the mention of his name had made her back go stiff.

  “Mary’s back?” I asked.

  Roberto couldn’t drive and didn’t own a car. His girlfriend, a former FBI agent, was supposed to be out of town doing private protection for some Fortune 500 big shot.

  “No, she’ll be gone for another week at least. A monk brought him.”

  “A monk?”

  “Tibetan, I think. He had a shaved head, saffron robes, and everything. A little VW, too. He was very sweet and very shy, so I let him drive my Porsche with the top down while Roberto took Moriah out. He seemed to really like it.”

  My daughter was certainly getting exposed to a lot of diverse lifestyles. Just not mine.

  After a few more minutes of talking inanely, I asked to speak to my daughter one more time. The phone moved and the gentle slurping could be heard again.

  “Good night, Moriah,” I said quickly while staring up at the dark blot in the sky I’d named after her. “Sleep tight. Have sweet, sweet dreams.”

  I hit the END key just as I heard the first whimper.

  eleven

  At 9:00 A.M., four orange-clad inmates shuffled into the courtroom through a back door next to the judge’s bench. The deputy leading this mini chain-gang directed them to seats in the front of the jury box. Jonah entered last, shackled like the others by his wrists to the steel cord that connected all four inmates. He took one look around the packed courtroom then dropped his eyes to the rail before him. Without his spiked hair and facial jewelry, and without his tattoos displayed, he looked not much more than a teenager.

  A rumble of interest rose up from the gallery. I couldn’t catch complete sentences, but the general tone seemed to be a sense of satisfaction over the bruises swelling Jonah’s face. Mr. Wallis, the dead boy’s father, was not there, but feisty little Mr. Mann was.

  One gaze was directed at me rather than Jonah. It came from the rear corner of the courtroom, far away from where I leaned against the wall next to the prosecution table. But even from the distance of thirty feet, I could feel its heat. Mattie Freda was huddled alone there, her pale skin turning an angry pink from having seen Jonah’s battered face.

  I considered walking through the low swinging doors dividing the well of the court from the gallery, excusing my way down the last aisle, and attempting to make an explanation. To tell her what had happened. That I wasn’t responsible. The look on her face told me she would need some convincing.

  But I didn’t move. I was responsible, in a way, and I didn’t want to draw attention to her like that. Plus, having already seen how high-strung she could be, I didn’t want to risk another scene with her. Instead I looked away and watched the county’s public defender shove up from his table and hike across the well to stand before the prisoners. He was a fat man, dressed slobbishly except for well-styled silver hair.

  I was close enough to hear what he said to them in a low voice.

  “Gentlemen, I’m Jake Henning, the public defender in this county. I’m probably going to be serving as the attorney for most of you. None of you, frankly, looks like you got a pot to piss in, much less the cash to hire an attorney of your own. Anyway, the judge is going to tell you why you got yourselves hauled in here. He’s going to tell you what rights you have, and ask you if you want to talk to an attorney. Provided you qualify, you can have me represent you on the county’s dime, and I’ll probably be able to work out some kind of deal with the county attorney.”

  Then he pointed to Jonah.

  “Excepting you,” he said. “You’re Jonah Strasburg, right?”

  Jonah nodded, his eyes still down on the rail.

  “Yeah.”

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you, son.”

  Jonah looked up.

  The lawyer leaned in close to him, but when he spoke his voice was lou
d enough to be heard in the gallery.

  “I’m not going to represent you, whether you qualify or not. Understand? I’ve got a conflict that’s going to prevent that.”

  “A conflict?” Jonah asked softly.

  “That boy you killed—excuse me, allegedly killed—he was my wife’s cousin’s son. So I’m not going to have anything to do with you or your case except to hang around here as a spectator. And to do some serious celebrating when they convict your sorry butt. Now, I’ve already talked to the judge, and he’s going to find some other fool to take your case. If the poor sucker’s willing, he might come see you next week.”

  The fat lawyer gave Jonah a long, contemptuous look then stalked back to the defense table. Several men in the gallery gave him clenched-jaw nods, approvingly.

  Luke, who had come into the courtroom just before this and was arranging papers on the prosecution table, motioned for me to bend over.

  He whispered, “Don’t think old Jake’s all that noble. He’s just running for my job next term. Wants to show everyone he can be a hard-ass even when he’s on D.”

  I looked at Jonah again, expecting to see him looking down again, his expression as hangdog as it had been last night. I was surprised to see him glaring at the defense attorney, his damaged face as hard as the faces of the men and women in the gallery.

  Good for you, I thought. Being mad beats being sad.

  An elderly woman came in from the door behind the judge’s bench. She called, “All rise!”

  There was a rustle of clothes, a rattling of chains, and the stomping of boots as everyone complied. The judge then entered through the same door. He was old, too—a shrunken, bent figure with flapping wisps of white hair and a robe that billowed around him as he marched to his chair. He glared at all of us, lingering for a long moment on me and Luke. I wondered what I had done. Maybe he’d somehow heard about the ruckus in the jail.

  The judge didn’t sit right away, or allow us to sit either, with the customary muttering of “Be seated.” Instead he issued a warning in an angry voice.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I understand why so many of you are here. I empathize with you, too. But this is a court of justice, not public opinion.” He glanced meaningfully at Luke and me again, then continued, “I won’t tolerate any outbursts, and there’s going to be no screwing around. That includes the parties to these cases. Anyone makes so much as a peep without my permission and I’m going to clear the room. Do we understand each other?”

  No one made a sound.

  “Then please sit down.”

  The judge’s threats seemed to me as inappropriate as the defense lawyer’s comments to Jonah. No one had said anything. If there’d been a hint of a coming outburst, I hadn’t seen it. And I wondered about the reason for the stink eye directed at Luke and me.

  I sat down next to the county attorney, as uncomfortable in my role as advisory witness as I was in my navy suit. After what had happened last night, I’d gotten dressed at my camp instead of coming in to shower in the jail and adjacent deputies’ locker room. It felt a little weird to be dressing so formally in an isolated canyon thirty miles from town. The temperature was only a little above freezing when I splashed myself clean in the river, and I still had a slight headache from dunking my head.

  One by one Jonah’s fellow inmates were called to stand at the podium between the prosecution and defense tables. The judge recited a list of their rights, asking if they understood after each statement. They would answer “Yes” or “Sí,” although even I, with eight years of experience in law enforcement and a master’s degree in criminal justice, couldn’t fully comprehend all the nuances that went along with each constitutionally protected right. Luke then read the charges against them and the potential penalties if convicted. The judge asked if the inmates wanted to consult a lawyer before entering a plea. All did, and all indicated that they would like to have the county pay their legal costs. Jake Henning, the PD with the nice head of hair, stood and gave each man a form and a business card. I grew close to drifting off.

  “Jonah Strasburg.”

  He stood as the guards unhooked him from the chain. Unlike the other prisoners, he remained handcuffed. Everyone watched him stumble as he came out of the box, then he had to cross the well under the weight of all those hostile eyes. I felt even sorrier for him than I had before. He glanced at me, but I couldn’t read what was in his gaze. Probably wanting to ask me to save him again, like I had last night. But I stayed stone-faced, sitting next to the prosecutor. Like a good cop.

  Luke climbed to his feet.

  “Luke Endow. For the People,” he announced for the spectators and the tape recorder.

  His voice was stiffer, more formal, than it had been when he’d entered his appearance on the other cases called that morning. He slapped a document on the podium in front of Jonah, then studied the young man’s face for a moment. When he turned back to me, Luke’s own face was grave but his eyes seemed to be twinkling with pleasure. I was beginning to understand why. With a disputed election coming up, this case would keep him in the spotlight. I cynically assumed that the public defender, Luke’s opponent, with his tenuous familial connection to the boy who’d died, had recused himself so as not to be sharing it, but for the wrong side. Jonah was going to be the main course in this election meal.

  I really didn’t want to be here. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to be performing my absolutely useless duty of tramping through the woods, scoping meth labs. This wasn’t an arraignment but a campaign event.

  “As you can see from the papers before you,” the judge said, “you are charged with a felony. That means it is a crime for which, if convicted, you could be sentenced to more than a year in prison.”

  He proceeded to read Jonah his rights. Any statement he made could be used against him. He had a right to an attorney even if he couldn’t afford one. Any plea he made must be voluntary. He had a right to a jury trial. And so on, all the things anyone who watches TV is aware of. Then, in a voice that seemed equally resigned and disgusted, he finally told Jonah the nature of the charges against him.

  “The crime you are charged with having committed on Thursday, the seventeenth of June, in Colter County, Wyoming, is the crime of murder in the first degree.”

  My head snapped toward Luke, who was sitting next to me. He was staring down at his papers, a faint grin on his mouth.

  “You got to be kidding me,” I started to whisper. Now I knew why the judge was so pissed.

  Luke put a finger to his lips.

  “For you to be found guilty of this crime, it must be proven that, after deliberation and with the intent to cause the death of a person other than yourself, you caused the death of the person. Or it may be proven that, under circumstances evidencing an attitude of universal malice manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life generally, you knowingly engaged in conduct which created a grave risk of death to a person, or persons, other than yourself, and thereby caused the death of another, namely Cody Wallis, age ten.”

  There was a rumble from the gallery, and an angry shifting of boots. The judge glared and raised his gavel—almost as if he might throw it—but didn’t strike. The gesture was enough. The noises subsided. I expected that if he were to throw it, it would be toward Luke and me. The judge clearly knew the first-degree murder charge was politically motivated and didn’t like it.

  I turned and looked back at the citizens. The concentrated gazes of all but Mattie were trying to light Jonah’s back on fire.

  I’d once been in a similar courtroom where such mass vengeance had been directed my way. Only it wasn’t a criminal courtroom—it had been civil. And the supposed “victims” hadn’t been children. But the faces had hated me just as much. One of them belonged to the prick of a reporter who had dreamed up the nickname QuickDraw.

  Mattie was the only one deviating from the hatred directed at Jonah. Her hatred was still directed at me, intensified now. I quickly turned away aga
in because Mattie obviously wanted to see me spark up.

  Instead I watched Jonah, feeling real sympathy for him now. Shit, I’d been there. Almost—my life hadn’t been at stake, only my job and reputation. Jonah seemed to be bearing up to the higher stakes as well as could be expected. He was standing rigid and pale, his fists clenched while his hands were still cuffed. But I suspected the muscular contraction was due to an attempt to keep from fainting rather than defiance. The breeze from an open door might knock the kid over.

  For Luke, the game was high-stakes poker. For Jonah, it was Russian roulette.

  The judge read on, outlining all the lesser included offenses Endow had thrown into the charging document just to make sure something heavy and hard would stick. Murder in the second degree. Manslaughter. Assault. Menacing. Criminally negligent homicide. He’d really piled it on. The only thing lacking from the Wyoming statute book was “sheepherder abandoning his flock.” The stacking of charges was usually intended to intimidate the defendant into accepting a plea.

  “Now, I’m not going to ask you to make a plea at this time,” the judge said. “I’m going to wait until you’ve had a chance to talk to counsel. As I said earlier, if you can’t afford to hire your own, the court will provide one to you. But at this point I need to ask you if you have an attorney, or anticipate hiring your own, because our public defender has recused himself from this case.”

  Jesus, I thought, I shouldn’t have arrested him. I should have given him a shove and shouted for him to run!

  Jonah cleared his throat, the microphone on the podium picking it up. Then he cleared his throat again.

  “Um,” he said in a quiet voice, “I, um, don’t think I can afford to hire an attorney.”

  “Then the court will appoint you one. I’m going to reschedule this hearing for five days from now.”

  The judge abruptly stood and concluded the hearing by leaving the room. No one moved for a moment, then the deputies grabbed Jonah and led him back to the jury box. The prisoners were rehooked to the chain and pulled out, Jonah leading this time. At the rear door, just before disappearing, Jonah looked back. His eyes sought out Mattie in the far corner. The slack, numb expression on his face was heartbreaking.