by A. W. Gray
There was a sharp intake of breath over the line. “Why would I need a witness? I thought you said …”
“That no one’s accused you, right,” Sharon said. “But you never know. Regardless of who did what, whether you’re officially accused, you’re going to have to testify at some point as to your activities on Friday night. When that happens, you should have legal counsel every step of the way until the Dallas D.A. gets your story as it actually happened.”
“Gets my story?” Darla sounded puzzled. “I thought you said I shouldn’t be talking to them.”
“Shouldn’t be talking to them alone. With your attorney present, that’s a different story. If you give these cops and prosecutors the total cold shoulder, they’ll hound you to your grave, and will go right on leaking to the papers that you might be the homicidal maniac of the year. With your lawyer there, the legal eagle can weed out fishing expeditions and make them stick to the issues. Any question it’s not in your best interest to answer, the lawyer can intercede. Trust me. You have the advantage that you can cause the meeting to happen on your turf. Make them fly to L.A., Darla. It’ll put them in an inferior position from the get-go.” Sharon pictured Milton Breyer, with Stan Green’s able assistance, seated across from an international sex symbol with palm trees outside the window and starlets walking the sidewalks, both Breyer and Green trying to think up a nifty string of questions. Might take those two bozos awhile.
“Couldn’t you do that?” Darla said.
Sharon’s brow knitted. “Do what?”
“Talk to the police with me?”
Sharon felt a surge of exasperation. Sure, she was concerned about Darla, but God, dealing with Darla Cowan was sometimes more difficult than coping with Melanie’s adolescent tantrums. How many different ways were there to explain all this? “What did I just say?” Sharon asked.
“That you couldn’t be my lawyer. But, just while I tell my story to the police? How could that hurt?” Sharon covered the mouthpiece and uttered a resigned sigh. Judge Shiver’s cattle-drive painting showed one cowboy waving a coiled lariat. She said to Darla, “Technically it wouldn’t hurt anything, but it’s just not a good idea. I could advise you during the questioning, but the second they said they wanted to talk to me as a witness, I’d have to resign. The same attorney should do the whole enchilada, represent you during the questioning and on from there.”
“Good,” Darla said. “Then you’ll do it.”
Sharon folded the newspaper and tossed it aside. “No, I won’t. We’re not communicating or something.”
“You have to, Sharon.”
“I’m not even licensed in California. At the very least I’d have to get co-counsel.”
“That could be Chet Verdon.”
Sure, Sharon thought, old Chet would just love it.
“Get an attorney out there,” she said.
“I’d want to pay you.” Darla paused. “Get you a plane ticket. Pay your expenses. Money’s one thing there’s no problem with.”
Sharon had a sudden picture of the orthodontist leering as he exhibited Melanie’s X rays, then quickly dismissed the image from her mind. “You’ve got a lot more to worry about than money. I can’t, Darla, and that’s that.”
Darla began to sob. Sharon rolled her eyes. God love Darla, but when she went into her pleading mode, she was damn near unbearable.
Darla said, “Couldn’t you just, maybe, be with me when I talk to this criminal attorney? To be sure whatever he’s telling me is right? I don’t trust all these people, Sharon.”
Sharon’s exasperation dissolved into pity. The vultures would be huddled around, all right, looking for bones on which to feast. Sharon wondered about her own stability, turning down representation of a movie star in order to do battle for Tired Darnell. She weakened a bit. “It would have to be arm’s length if I was your lawyer, Darla. As a friend, I’m at your beck and call and always will be. There will be no money changing hands, period. If you want me to hold your hand while you talk to this lawyer, I’m yours, babe. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I wasn’t.”
“When can you come?” Darla said anxiously.
Sharon dug in her shoulder bag and opened her checkbook. Her pitiful balance would last until the end of the month if she cut a few comers. “I’ll level with you,” she said. “I can’t afford the trip. If you want to spring for a ticket, I can be on the next thing smokin’. I don’t have anything scheduled for trial for two weeks, and there are things I could put off.”
“Just tell me where to send the money,” Darla said, and after a pause added, “Would you like to bring your little girl? Her father does live out here, you know.”
Sharon was suddenly overcome with gratitude. Darla could be insufferable, but not one person in a million would think of Melanie at a time like this. “Melanie will love you for it. Plus, hey, I’ve got a few financial matters to discuss with old Rob-oh myself. Such as a certain orthodontist’s quote which resembles the national debt.” Sharon thought for a moment. “I hate to come across like one of the homeless, but my current financial situation borders on the desperate. It will be awfully expensive for you.”
Darla sighed. “Chet Verdon’s demanded a twentyfive-thousand-dollar retainer just to help me pick out a lawyer. What’s a couple of airline tickets more? You could stay at the Malibu place with me.”
Sharon thought about the details, what clothing she’d need for the trip. Her standard lawyerly attire, of course. Couple of loud prints for lounging around Studio City or wherever. What the hell, maybe a pair of sunglasses with “L.A. Eyewear” etched into the lens. She opened Judge Shiver’s middle drawer and found a pen, averting her gaze from the Penthouse magazine which the old goat had stashed and weighted down with a spare gavel. “Give me your phone number. It’s written down at home, but I don’t have it handy,” Sharon said.
Darla dictated the number as Sharon wrote it down. “It’s settled, then,” Darla said.
“Darla, this matter is so far from settled you wouldn’t believe. I’ll check the airline schedules and call you back with the flight number, time and whatnot, and you can phone in with a credit card number and leave the tickets at the counter. Unofficially I can nose around over at the D.A.’s office and determine when Milt Breyer can get a crew together to come out and interview you. Knowing him, he’ll drop everything and haul ass for the airport.” Sharon mentally snapped her fingers. “One more thing. How did you know to call me in court?”
“Some guy at your office.”
“No one’s at my office. You should have gotten a machine.”
“I talked to a Russ something. He put me on hold while he called the courthouse to run you down. How else could I find you? I don’t have ESP.”
Sharon was stunned. Russell Black wasn’t due to return for two weeks. “Or a direct line to Paris,” she said. “I’ll call you when I have the flight number. I have to hustle back to the office. If it wasn’t Russ you talked with, then we have a ghost clanking around.”
Sharon reentered the courtroom as Judge Shiver, scratching his head, finished reading over the stack of motions and appeals regarding Tired Darnell. She stood before the bench. “Sorry for the delay, Judge. I’ve had something come up.”
Shiver’s mouth twisted in resignation. “So have I. A calendar fulla’ cases, and you wanting to bring the wheels of justice grindin’ to a halt over this one secondrate burglary case.”
Sharon sniffed through her nose. “My client’s constitutional rights aren’t second-rate to him, Your Honor.”
Shiver pinched his chin. “How far you willin’ to pursue this, Miss Hays?”
“All the way. I’d be lax in my duty if I didn’t.”
“And all you’re wantin’ is for me to reduce Tired’s sentence to three years?” Shiver’s look said he was giving up, just as he’d have to do eventually when the appeals were heard. Shar
on had him and he knew it. Normally she would have left well enough alone, but Shiver’s obstinance had kept her up until the wee hours. She said, “For starters that’s all, Your Honor. That’s all in accordance with his plea bargain. We’re only asking for what he agreed to.”
Shiver regarded Sharon with the look of a man watching a lazily circling bee, one with its stinger out. He said, “For starters? You mean there’s more?”
Sharon produced another legal paper from her satchel. “There is, Your Honor. We’re asking the court to consider now our application for bail.” She laid the motion before the judge, then pulled out more papers and held them in her hand. These were her appeal notices in case Shiver denied bail. The waver in Shiver’s gaze said he understood very well that if he turned her down, she was going over his head.
“Miss. Hays, askin’ for bail on a man I’ve just sentenced to the penitentiary is a little bit far out, even for you. In anybody’s court.” He squinted. “What’s the basis for your motion for bail?”
“That he’s already done his time,” Sharon said. “Look, Judge, Tired’s been in the county six months. With allotted good time and parole eligibility requirements, he’s already eligible for release.”
“Tired would know that,” Shiver said, “as much time as he’s done in his sparklin’ career.”
Sharon ignored the dig. “If they take him to Huntsville, they’ll parole him from the walls in two or three days anyhow, Judge. If I can have him released on bail, we can apply directly for parole while he’s on the street and save the taxpayer the expense of housing him for unnecessary time.”
“An’ save Tired’s butt from the hard bench on the prison bus,” Shiver said.
“That, too, Your Honor.” Sharon blinked. “Could I have the court’s consideration?” She glanced down at the appellate papers.
Shiver expelled a long sigh. He snatched up a pen and scribbled his signature. “Bail petition granted, Miss Hays. Now will you get outta my courtroom.”
Sharon stuffed the appellate papers away. “Thank you, Your Honor.”
Shiver eyed the stack of motions before him. “Get the hell outta here, Miss Hays,” the jurist said.
Sharon stepped across the street to Fuzzy Breedlove’s bail bond office, and gave Fuzzy the bail papers’ along with a check for the bond fee for Tired Darnell. Normally she would have accompanied the bondsman to the jail and waited for her client’s release, but she had other things to do. She left the bondsman and drove to the office.
She parked her Volvo in the converted service station parking garage across from the back of the George Allen Courts Building, and hurried across the street. Her high heels clicked snappily on pavement, her pleated skirt swirled around her calves, and her satchel bumped her hip with every step. The zocko fall weather had held up; the temperature was in the middle sixties, and the sky was robin’s egg blue. She skipped two steps up from street level and went through a glass-paneled door. There was a sign on the glass: RUSSELL BLACK, ATTORNEY in large letters, with SHARON J. HAYS, ASSOCIATE in smaller characters underneath. She zipped through a reception area containing a secretarial desk but no receptionist, and squinted at the crack underneath Russ’s door. His light was on. She threw open the door without knocking and stood in the entryway. Black was at his desk with his feet propped up, reading a magazine.
“You cut your trip short,” Sharon said. “You promised me you’d stay a month and relax.”
Black frowned at her. He had a craggy, lined face, with leathery creases around his eyes, and Sharon thought her boss and mentor looked like the sheriff of Last Ditch Gulch. He had the courtroom voice of a tree-stump evangelist and gave jurors the impression that he was their fishing buddy.
“So unless you’ve got a good excuse for being here,” she said, “don’t unpack your bags.”
“Don’t know as how I need any excuse,” Black said. “My associate might need one, gettin’ involved in a mess like this.” He showed her the cover of Time. David Spencer was front and center in a buckskinjacketed pose from Spring of the Comanche, with the caption DEATH OF AN IDOL above and to the right. Darla’s photo was in an insert positioned beside Spencer, a still from Fatal Instinct wherein she wore a lowcut tank top. It could only be worse, Sharon thought, if they’d showed her with a knife raised over her head.
Sharon sank down in one of Russ’s visitors chairs. “I don’t think the headline’s very original.” She swallowed. “Don’t tell me I’m mentioned in the story.”
“Nope,” Black said. “The killin’ only happened Friday night, an’ I suspect the magazine folks were up till all hours gettin’ this out. All that’s in the story is early stuff. The information that my assistant was mixed up in it, that came on French TV. I’m gettin’ out of the shower, an’ there you are on the tube. I had to get one o’ the bellhops to interpret what they were sayin’.”
Sharon scrunched her shoulders together. “The scenes in front of Planet Hollywood?”
Black nodded.
“Oh, that,” Sharon said nonchalantly. She’d been so wrapped up that the worldwide impact of this whole mess hadn’t struck home. “Look, Russ,” she said, “it’s not that big of a deal. Nothing to make you cancel all your plans.”
Black took his feet down and folded his arms. “Somebody’s gotta do some practicin’ of law around here, young lady.”
“That’s what I’m here for. I told you before you left I’d take care of things.” Sharon felt a touch of resentment.
“Just how you plan to do that?” Black reached inside his desk and produced a stack of call slips. He thumbed through the pink pieces of paper. “Dallas Mornin’ News. This is from Andy Wade, I guess it’s okay to talk to him. But these other people … New York Times. Los Angeles, both papers. Boston Globe. Hell, even the National Enquirer. I thought all they reported was women claimin’ that Martians fathered their kids.”
Sharon couldn’t help laughing. “Used to be like that, but I think they’ve cleaned up their act some.”
“These,” Black said, waving the call slips, “are only for starters. I cleaned all the messages off the machine two hours ago, and already the tape’s full again. Clients can’t even get through.”
As if on cue, the phone buzzed in the reception area. Sharon reflexively started to rise. Black raised a hand. “The machine, Sharon, that’s what it’s for. I made that mistake already, takin’ a call. It was that actress. She get you in the courtroom?”
Sharon nodded. Russ had spoken to one of the most famous people in the world and wasn’t batting an eye. “That actress” would be about as far as he’d go; they all looked like Ned in the first to Russell Black.
“So what I got,” Black said, is my associate involved in the biggest crime around here since the Kennedy assassination, an’ she wants to know how come I can’t loll around overseas.” He showed a sharp look. “You know you can’t represent anybody in that case, dontcha? From what I’m seein’, you’ll be a witness.”
“This sounds like a recording,” Sharon said, “of a conversation I just had with Darla Cowan.”
“What’d she say?”
“She wanted me to represent her in something. I told her I couldn’t.” Sharon folded her hands. “That’s not quite true. I am going to help her select a lawyer, but that’s a freebie. She’s an old friend, and she’s awfully confused.”
Black opened the magazine. “I thought I read she’d gone back to Los Angeles.”
Sharon had put her foot squarely into her mouth. She watched her lap as she said, “She has.”
“Well, then, how are you goin’ to … ?” Sharon looked at him.
Black sank back in his chair. “You’re goin’ to L.A.” She nodded sheepishly.
“An’ I’m supposed to be runnin’ around the Riviera with nobody here coverin’ home plate.”
“I won’t be neglecting the office,” Sharon said
. “We’ve got nothing set for trial for two weeks. Go back to Europe, Russ. You and Ginny need the quality time.”
Black’s mouth twisted. He spun his chair around and looked out the window, across Jackson Street toward the Allen Building. On the wall were his framed law degree—U of Houston, Class of ‘69—along with two photos of himself, one shot on horseback and another with him behind a steaming pot at the Terlingua Chili Cook-off. Sharon watched the back of Russ’s head for a moment, then said, “It’s something else, isn’t it?”
“Hmm?” Black’s tone was vacant and detached.
“You didn’t come racing home just because you saw me on television. Did you.” Sharon made a statement out of a question.
Black turned back around. His eyes looked very tired. “My daughter’s grown up an’ left me, Sharon.”
Sharon expelled a breath. Tender moments for Russell Black were few and far between. “Bummer of a trip?” she said.
“I wanted to show her things. What I wanted to show her she didn’ want to see, an’ what she wanted to see I didn’ want to take her to. I was an old man travelin’ in the company of a young woman. I want my little girl back. This young woman scares me.”
Sharon watched him. A similar experience was in store for her, with Melanie, and not too many years down the line. Hate it though she might, the time was coming. She said, “As for old, you’re barely fifty. As for little girls, they must disappear someday just like little boys. Ginny’s going to be twenty-one soon, and next year she’ll be a college graduate. I doubt she’s still interested in Bugs Bunny, but that’s something all us parents will have to get used to.”
“Paris,” Black said, “all she wanted to see was the nightlife. I got about as much business in a disco as I do drivin’ a racecar. We had a trip. We planned it to last too long. Believe me, she’s as glad it’s over as I am. Practicin’ law in Dallas, Texas, is what I’ve done for a quarter century. It’s what I like doin’. European vacations are for guys I don’t even know.”
