Local Rules

by Jay Brandon

“The State opposes bail in this case,” Arriendez said hast­ily. “Your Honor is aware of the danger this defendant poses to the community—”

  “I’m not aware of it,” Jordan said, turning to him. “Is the district attorney offering evidence?”

  “We—”

  “I’m—”

  The judge’s gavel tapped its base. “Bail is set in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars,” the judge said.

  The amount told Jordan that the judge intended for Wayne Orkney to remain in jail. One hundred thousand dollars was at least ten times the amount of bail such an offense would normally require, but it was low enough that it would probably be upheld by an appellate court if Jordan bothered to appeal. On the other hand, it was probably high enough to keep Wayne Orkney where he was. A bail bonds­man would make the bail if someone paid his fee of ten percent and put up property sufficient to pay the bail if the defendant went south before trial. In this rural county where the average income probably hovered around the poverty level, Jordan doubted anyone who held Wayne Orkney dear had ten thousand dollars cash and property worth ten times that amount.

  “And I will set a hearing for motions for two weeks from yesterday. Mr. Arriendez, do you believe that will allow suf­ficient time for the grand jury to act?”

  “Oh, yes, Judge. I’m sure.”

  “Mr. Marshall, will that date be convenient?”

  “Certainly, Your Honor. I’ll be here.”

  “Then this court is adjourned.”

  And they were done. The judge left so quickly his robe swirled. Jordan turned to his client “That’s an awfully high bond, Wayne. Do you want me to file an appeal, try to get it reduced?” Shrug from the defendant. The judge’s departure had removed even the slight animation Wayne Orkney had shown while court was in session.

  “I’ll try to see you before the next setting. And I’ll need to talk to—anybody you can think of. Can you think of any witnesses who might help us raise a defense? Justification or self-defense?” Nothing. The eyes remained downcast “Or maybe—”

  Jordan looked up. The deputy with the iron face behind the amber shades was standing over him. He grabbed Ork­ney’s arm and lifted him to his feet “He’s going back,” he said flatly.

  “Damn,” Jordan said. “We were just beginning to bond.” He let his client, less substantial than the deputy’s shadow, be towed out of the room. Then he realized he was standing in a courtroom in shorts and tennis shoes; what had passed felt like a dream. He turned to the prosecutor.

  “This must be the fastest court in Texas. Two weeks from arraignment to motions setting? Is there something about this case that makes the judge anxious?”

  “You’re letting your regional prejudices show,” Arriendez smiled. “All our cases go this fast.”

  Jordan didn’t think so. This case had about it the strong odor of grease. The railroad tracks that descended from this courtroom to the state penitentiary gleamed with lubricant. Arriendez retained his little smile. He took everything in stride, except—Jordan had noticed—letting the judge think the prosecutor wasn’t doing everything in his power to slam-dunk Wayne Orkney.

  “I think I’ve figured out what’s going on,” Jordan said companionably. “Ol’ Wayne there obviously isn’t the terror of the county, so it must be everybody hates him because this Kevin Wainwright he beat up is so well beloved. What is he, the high school quarterback? The great white hope of the Green Hills Goliaths or something?”

  There was an unexpected snort and Jordan turned to see that the bailiff was standing close by, frankly eavesdropping. “That little shit,” he said, “never amounted to—”

  “ ’Milio,” the district attorney said quietly. But his voice brought the bailiff to an abrupt halt “Don’t you have some work to do?”

  The bailiff stayed to stick his finger into Jordan’s chest. “Your little bastard of a client’s going down hard,” he said.

  “Fine. You’re breaking my heart, Emilio. Do I give a damn? What d’you think, he’s my brother? Look,” Jordan continued, transferring the complaint to the prosecutor as the bailiff lumbered away, “like I told the judge, I’m really more of a prosecutor still than a defense lawyer. I’ve seen guys that needed to be hammered harder than the offense report would indicate. I’ve tried for high sentences on cases that looked minor just because the defendant was such an all-around shit. I can see that. Just tell me what’s going on. Maybe I’ll help you out He wants to plead.”

  “Then we shouldn’t have any problem,” Arriendez said. And that was all he said.

  The beach sucked. It was the first time in years Jordan had been to Port Aransas by himself, and it was a bad idea. Oh, lying on the beach with a book was fine, and floating in the water by himself was okay, too. It was even nice that when he got bored with those things he could abruptly pack up and walk away from the beach without consulting anyone else’s feelings, but that left him about twenty-three-and-a-half hours of the day to fill, alone. Lunch became the high point of his day, when he could grab something and take it back to the rented condo and have a beer to wash it down, but there is no good way to have dinner in a restaurant alone. He took his book along to restaurants, too, which filled the time between courses, but when the food was set before him, he had to put the book down, and then while he carefully chewed he had the options of acting like he was a real people kind of guy who got a big chuckle out of just looking around at the other diners or he could stare off across the room pretending to be absorbed by the fascinat­ing thoughts inside his own head.

  One of the things he’d thought just before he’d become single again was, Wouldn’t it be great to go some place by myself, some resort, maybe, and be free to stare and flirt and just go along with whatever romantic possibility offered itself? Now he had an answer for that question: No, it wouldn’t be. The only unattached women at the beach were college girls who roamed in packs, and it would have lowered his opinion of himself to hit on some flighty girl who probably didn’t have a thing to say, when he was only attracted to her body and wanted nothing more than the kind of unbri­dled sexual romp that could only happen with someone per­fectly disposable. He couldn’t bring himself to do that—even if he’d thought he had a chance of success.

  Jordan was no good at fantasies. Instead of reveling in freedom, he fantasized about being settled, as he should have been, in his life, in his work. Name whatever had been important to him, that’s what he had failed at.

  There weren’t just high school and college kids at the beach, there were retired couples, there were families, there were real children. One afternoon Jordan watched a little boy, younger than two, who trundled around on pudgy legs, wearing a sunhat as big as he was, but not big enough to hide his smile that lit up like the sparkles on the waves every time he found a shell or a crab or a discarded beer can. Jordan wanted to grab the boy and hug him. He was stopped only by the certain knowledge that if he did he would terrify the boy and be arrested as a child molester.

  So he cut the beach trip short and when he went home to San Antonio, he went home to his old house.

  He didn’t call Marcia first to see if it was okay. They were still in that tricky period when Jordan felt like the house was his, too, and Marcia hadn’t yet gotten the locks changed or told him to shove off when he showed up unannounced. “Sure, come on in,” she said at the door.

  “Sorry to drop in, I haven’t even been home yet, I’ve been at the coast, I just wanted to see Ashley before it got close to bedtime. Boy, the beach…”

  To disguise the way she hung on his every word, Marcia turned and walked out of the room. It didn’t seem rude, it was intimate; in fact, she obviously expected him to follow her back, but Jordan stopped in the living room. The room looked just the same, so the way it made him feel must have emanated from him. The furniture hadn’t been rearranged, nothing was missing, but looking around he couldn’t quite remember living here, he couldn’t place himself in the house. There was the furniture Marcia had p
icked out and he’d said, “Yes, that looks fine,” the pictures to which he’d con­sented, the paint on the walls he’d agreed went well with the furniture, even the house itself that he’d liked well enough not to make an argument about buying it. It was a modern house, creating spaciousness by opening the rooms into each other. He could see into the dining room, over a counter into the kitchen, through a wide archway into the den, and he couldn’t see any trace of himself. Yet he couldn’t name anything that was missing except him. He’d been subtracted from the house without leaving any blank spots.

  “Ashley, honey? Is she here?”

  “Ashley,” Marcia called. “Come see who’s here!”

  Marcia was in the bathroom, seated in front of the big mirror, creating her face. It was more formal than her first-thing-in-the-morning face, more emphatic, with darker eye­brows and more shadings of color. Both faces were lovely, but Jordan no longer imagined he knew what lay behind them. Being divorced from Marcia didn’t seem strange—in some ways it seemed more natural than being married had been—but the speed of it still dazzled him. It hadn’t been much more than a year since Jordan had realized there was a gap growing between them, a gap composed of their pro­fessional lives—that’s all he’d thought it was—and when he’d tried to close the gap, Marcia had taken offense. When Jordan said no, she didn’t understand, he wanted to keep trying, she’d said no, she didn’t want to be an object of effort, and he’d said that’s not what I meant, and she’d said she knew what he meant, so then there was no point in saying anything after she’d gone into her mind-reading act from which there was no appeal. Anyway, by that time, he’d been standing on the doorstep with a suitcase. It had hap­pened so fast and so confusingly that it took Jordan weeks to realize that maybe Marcia’s drift from him hadn’t been unintentional. She seemed to thrive on being divorced.

  He’d stood in the bathroom doorway too long, watching her, until she looked up curiously. He smiled awkwardly and called, “Ashley? Where are you?”

  He found her in her room, having a tea party with her dolls, an important engagement apparently, because she couldn’t look up from it

  “How are you, honey?”

  “Fine.”

  Her name had been a bone of contention between him and Marcia; he hadn’t liked it, but names take on a life of their own after they’re imposed, so now he couldn’t imagine her as anything else. He’d called her Ash a few times in a spirit of playfulness, but his daughter had cured him of that by not responding. At three and a half she knew what she liked, and she didn’t like nicknames.

  He reached out and touched her. It was difficult to find enough flesh to squeeze on her skinny frame. Ashley was pale like her mother, with surprising auburn hair that was still babyish, fine and curly, so that she carried her own aura.

  “Give me a hug, baby.”

  “I will.” A ploy she’d invented, pretending that a state­ment of intention was as good as the act. But she didn’t move.

  “Want to see what I brought you?” Jordan hated to resort to that, but he always did.

  “Oh, yes,” Ashley said, but her enthusiasm was polite, feigned. Jordan rocked back on his heels, puzzled, until he looked around his daughter’s room. A net hanging from the ceiling sagged under its load of stuffed animals; the bed was covered with them, too. On a card table an elaborate circus was permanently set up, with roaring lions and a wirewalker that could slide down a long string. There was a small book­case that couldn’t hold all her books, two inadequate wall shelves for dolls, play makeup on the dressing table, cos­tumes in the closet, a dresser bursting with T-shirts. There’d been more toys in the living room and dining room and den, too. The damned house was full of them. Jordan brought a toy every visit, but there were many he didn’t recognize. Grandparents probably brought toys, too, maybe even a new boy friend of Marcia’s. Everyone was trying to give the kid visible affection. They were drowning her in toys.

  Marcia was standing behind him. She was wearing a light­weight summer dress, nothing fancy. It showed a bit of cleavage. He didn’t say anything. “Just some people from the office,” she said.

  “You’re taking Ashley? Would you like me to—?”

  The doorbell rang. Jordan stiffened, not liking to be there when someone came to pick up his wife. Ashley jumped up and ran out of the room. Oh, great, she liked this guy.

  “That’s okay,” Marcia said. He followed her out into the living room, wearing an indifferent face. Ashley flung the door open and screamed, “Poppy!”

  The man in the three-piece pinstriped suit bent and picked her up, his face cracking in a big grin. “How’s my baby?” he asked, and Ashley put her arms around his neck.

  The woman behind the man hadn’t been able to get in the door. She smiled indulgently, edged past, and cocked her head at a surprised angle. “Jordan!”

  “Hi, Mom.” He walked over and they pressed their cheeks together, leaving him feeling powdery.

  “Well,” his mother said, letting everyone know she wasn’t going to pry. She wore an emerald green dress with a strand of pearls, and her tan was better than her son’s.

  “I just got back from the beach,” he said.

  “Jordan!” His father had just noticed him.

  It seemed silly to shake hands with one’s own father, and they weren’t huggers, so what the Marshall men always did was approach each other as if delighted, then stop a few feet apart, smiling. “Hey, Pop. Just come from court?” Emory Marshall laughed at the joke. The elder Marshall was a corporate attorney, the kind of lawyer who prospered without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom. Going to the courthouse represented a failure of his practice. Law clerks went to the courthouse to file papers.

  Jordan had followed out of his father’s footsteps, into law but then on a contrary, indolent course into criminal law— not precisely like being arrested oneself, but not something his father would boast about at the club either.

  His father, holding Jordan’s daughter who had run to him, looked every inch a grandfather, with his florid face and his stomach expanding the watch chain that crossed his vest. But he’d always looked like that.

  “Are you two—” Mr. Marshall asked, not feeling his wife’s elbow.

  “No, no,” Jordan said, thinking he heard Marcia echoing him. “I just dropped by. I just got back from Port A”

  “Ah. Well.” His father became hearty. “We’re taking Ashley to dinner at the club. Show her off. Want to come?”

  Jordan laughed. He was underdressed again. “What for, to clear tables? No, thanks. Listen, I’ve got to get going. I haven’t even been home yet, and I’ve got work tomorrow.”

  They all made departure motions after that, but Jordan was the only one actually to leave. He kissed his daughter’s cheek and she said, “Bye, Daddy,” but didn’t look up from her conversation with Poppy and Mamaw. Jordan remem­bered one of the reasons he’d hesitated at the idea of di­vorce was the thought of how terrible it would be to tear grandparents away from their only grandchild. But that hadn’t happened. Only Jordan was gone.

  There was no urgency at all to getting home. He sat in his car staring at the street until he realized Marcia might think he was spying on her. He started the car and drove aimlessly away.

  The next day at the office there was only a short, unde­manding stack of messages, mostly from a former client who was already back in jail. The message with the least familiar name and phone number he had difficulty placing for a mo­ment until the pink message slip suddenly seemed to turn warm as he remembered standing in a small, unfamiliar courtroom dressed for a tennis game. It was nice to be wear­ing a suit and sitting at a desk with his diplomas on the wall behind him when he returned the call.

  “Mike Arriendez, please,” he said, and when the Madera County district attorney came on the line, Jordan said pleas­antly, “I knew you’d be wanting to improve your plea bar­gain offer once you had time to think about it. Or did the grand jury balk at calling a little spat between
friends at­tempted murder?”

  He could hear the prosecutor grin through the long dis­tance phone line. He could hear Arriendez lean back in his own desk chair, stretching out his pleasant sense of anticipa­

  tion. “No, it’s the other direction, actually,” Arriendez drawled. “Now we’ve got a little elbow room to work with on the sentence. Kevin Wainwright died in the hospital.”

  3

  The only mourner for Kevin Wainwiight seemed to be his murderer, Wayne Orkney. “I asked to get out to go to the funeral, but they wouldn’t let me,” he said to his attorney.

  Jordan just stared that down until Wayne said petulantly, “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “You said you intended to kill him.”

  Wayne shrugged. Before he could retreat back into his coma, Jordan asked, “What happened, Wayne? That day you jumped on Kevin.”

  The interview was in a cramped visitors’ room where there was no room to pace, but Wayne was standing, turned half away from his lawyer. He said wonderingly, “Just what they say. I hit him, and—I must’ve ...”

  “Why, Wayne?”

  There was no answer. Wayne seemed lost in his own world. Need to get him evaluated, Jordan thought, and just ask around to see if Wayne had a reputation for being simple. The next time Jordan was having a nice chat with some­one, he could ask.

  “They said you had just jumped out of your truck, Wayne. Where were you coming from?”

  His voice emerged from the fog. “Pleasant Grove.”

  “Is that a town? I’ve never heard of that”

  Wayne turned to him. “The park,” he said, softly as a curse.

  “What happened there? What did you do there?”

  But as if a timer clinked, communication ended for the day. Wayne sat and bowed his head. Jordan’s questions bounced off him. That’s how he can stand to stay in this jail, Jordan thought. He’s not even here.