Local Rules

by Jay Brandon

  “Ms. Lopez, what county do you live in?”

  “Madera,” the young woman testified. She wore a simple dress that might have been the best she owned. When Jor­dan had met her, she’d been wearing a waitress’s uniform She seemed unfazed by the witness stand. The judge had smiled at her as if they knew each other.

  “You remember my talking to you about this man next to me?” Jordan asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Who murdered Kevin Wainwright, Ms. Lopez?”

  She pointed. “Wayne Orkney did,” she said matter-of- factly.

  “Did you see it?”

  “No, I was home that day. But lots of people did see it. Everybody knows who did it.”

  “You’ve talked to people about the murder?”

  “Sure.”

  “And they’re all agreed that Wayne Orkney is guilty?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Answer yes or no, please, Rachel,” Judge Waverly said gently.

  “Yes, sir. Yes.”

  “I pass the witness.”

  Mike Arriendez said without pause, “You understand, Rachel, that Wayne Orkney hasn’t been tried yet?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And he’s going to be found guilty or not guilty based on what a jury hears in this courtroom, not on talk in the streets?”

  “Yes, that’ll be different,” Rachel Lopez agreed.

  “If you were on that jury, could you put aside what you’ve heard about the case and decide a verdict based only on the evidence you heard in court?”

  “You mean pretend I didn’t know Wayne did it? Sure,” the witness said, “I could do that.”

  One of those exchanges of looks occurred. Jordan saw Laura Stefone raise her eyes to the ceiling. “No more ques­tions,” the district attorney said resignedly, and Jordan re­peated the same phrase with satisfaction.

  Jordan called three more citizens of Madera County and offered affidavits from five more, all to the effect that “ev­erybody knew” that Wayne Orkney had murdered Kevin Wainwright. “He weren’t exactly devious about it,” one crusty farmer interjected to smiles from the bailiff and the clerk.

  Laura Stefone did not join in the general amusement. Jor­dan had noticed before that good court reporters sometimes appear to go somewhere else while recording testimony. Ms. Stefone knew that route. She was again staring at the side wall of the courtroom, her expression muted and distant. Her fingers on the keys of her machine seemed to move independently of the rest of her. Jordan was glad he now had the tape recorder to rely on.

  Mike Arriendez endured the parade of unknowingly ad­verse witnesses with good grace, smiling at his constituents and chatting with them as if they were standing at the counter of the hardware store. He only interrupted Jordan’s questioning once, when Jordan asked one witness, “Do you know who killed Jenny Fecklewhite?”

  “Objection. Irrelevant.” The district attorney was on his feet fast.

  “Sustained.” Judge Waverly directed one of those stares at Jordan, both stern and questioning. The question renewed Laura Stefone’s interest in the out-of-town lawyer as well. The tone of the whole courtroom glimmered into alteration for the next few moments as if magic, forbidden words had been spoken. The bailiff glanced at the clerk and at the judge.

  “The defense calls Helen Evers.”

  The reporter for the Register hadn’t expected to be called as a witness, but she came forward quickly from her spot on the front row of spectator seats. Mike Arriendez smiled at her but objected, “Your honor, this witness has been present for all the other witnesses’ testimony.”

  “But no one invoked the rule,” Jordan pointed out, won­dering if the written record would back him up.

  “I don’t believe Ms. Evers would be influenced by what she’s heard. Helen, do you swear the testimony you will give in this hearing will be the truth and nothing but the truth?”

  “Yes, I do, Your Honor.” Helen Evers lowered her right hand, which still held her reporter’s notebook, and took her seat in the witness stand, pen poised over paper.

  “We don’t allow witnesses to take notes,” Judge Waverly admonished her mildly.

  “But, Judge, I’m covering this hearing for the Register. I wouldn’t want to misquote myself.”

  The judge made no reply other than a slight shrug that Helen Evers could interpret as she would. She kept her notepad before her. Judge Waverly’s control over the court­room, which in earlier sessions had seemed absolute, had relaxed. He watched the witnesses attentively as if curious himself what the outcome of the hearing might be.

  After establishing her name and occupation and that she had covered Wayne Orkney’s arrest, Jordan asked carefully, “Did the Register report that Wayne was a suspect not only in the murder of Kevin Wainwright but in—another murder as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has this been a big story for you?”

  “The biggest we’ve had since I’ve been reporting.”

  “Splashed across the front pages, you might say?”

  “It’s been on every front page we’ve had since it hap­pened,” Evers agreed.

  “Have you ever identified anyone other than Wayne Ork­ney as a suspect in the murders?”

  She laughed shortly. “No.”

  “You reported that Wayne was arrested for the murder of Kevin Wainwright?”

  “Of course.”

  “How many newspapers are published in this county?”

  “Just the Register. We’re the only one.”

  Jordan shifted in his chair to indicate a shift in the direc­tion of his questioning. “When you were reporting on the story, Ms. Evers, did you speak to people who thought Wayne Orkney guilty of murder even though they hadn’t seen the fight?”

  The reporter frowned. “Well, when I was covering the story of the murder itself, I only spoke to eyewitnesses.”

  “It must make your job easier, Ms. Evers, this ability you have to distinguish at once between actual eyewitnesses and only rumormongers, so you speak only to the former.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Jordan said, a little annoyed to see that Evers had forgotten to keep taking notes, “didn’t you, while look­ing for witnesses, talk to people who talked as if they’d seen the fight between Wayne and Kevin but in fact hadn’t, who were only passing on what they’d heard?”

  “Oh. Sure.”

  “And didn’t you find that some of them had already formed impressions of what had happened even though they hadn’t seen it?”

  “Oh, yes. Everybody knew, long before we could report it”

  “Make a note of that answer, Helen, that was a good one. I pass the witness.”

  Arriendez didn’t ask many questions. Jordan knew the DA understood the law on change of venue when he asked, “Has the Register run any editorials about this murder, Helen?”

  “No. We don’t go in for editorials much.”

  “No stories saying something like, ‘We all know Wayne Orkney did it, let’s get him’?”

  The reporter smiled at the joke. “ ’Course not.”

  “How did you refer to the defendant in your stories?”

  “As the accused. Or a suspect.”

  “The accused. Not the convicted. No more questions.”

  The hearing had seemed to be going all Jordan’s way, but with those few questions and one prosecution witness, Arriendez disposed of the motion for change of venue. After Jordan rested, Arriendez called the registrar of Madera County, who came up from his office on the first floor of the courthouse to testify that the county held some nine thousand registered voters.

  “Most of them Democrats?” Arriendez asked with a grin.

  “Most of the living ones and damned near all the dead ones,” the registrar replied in the same spirit. Jordan saw that Laura Stefone’s fingers didn’t move on the keys of her machine during this exchange, but he didn’t register a protest.

  The hearing was done and anyone who understood knew t
hat Jordan had ably demonstrated his premise that Wayne couldn’t get a fair trial in his home county, but they also knew how likely the judge’s ruling was to reflect that fact Jordan had presented through live testimony or sworn state­ments eight witnesses to say that Wayne Orkney could not get a fair trial in Madera County because everyone informed about the case believed him guilty already. But the district attorney had demonstrated that those eight people were only a pitifully small percentage of the possible jurors in the case. Jordan could have presented eight hundred witnesses and still failed to prove that a change of venue was neces­sary. This particular burden of proof was virtually impossible to carry. It was a matter strictly left to the trial judge’s discretion.

  So whether to move the trial to another county was en­tirely up to Judge Waverly, and Jordan had no illusion that the judge would permit the trial to travel beyond his power base. Jordan was merely doing what had to be done and, in the process, proving to the judge that he knew what he was doing.

  “That motion will be denied,” Judge Waverly said after brief arguments. “Do you have any others to present today, Mr. Marshall?”

  Jordan did. But as the courtroom grew warmer, the pace of court proceedings slowed. Promptly at noon, Judge Wa­verly announced a recess for lunch. Wayne, who hadn’t spo­ken a word all morning, was taken away to his jailhouse bologna. Mike Arriendez gave Jordan a sidelong look but decided not to speak. Helen Evers appeared suddenly at Jordan’s shoulder.

  “You’re going to turn this into a big case, aren’t you?” she said, eyes bright. “A—what-do-you-call-it?”

  “Showcase?”

  “I was thinking vendetta,” Evers said slyly.

  “I’m not mad at anybody. Excuse me.”

  Jordan hurriedly collected his tape recorder and briefcase and almost ran up the aisle to catch the briskly walking figure of the court reporter.

  “Ms. Stefone, I want to apologize if I offended you. That wasn’t—”

  “No one has in mind to railroad your client, Mr. Marshall. Even if anyone were so inclined, it would be unnecessary, as he is so obviously, blatantly guilty. If you think he is going to obtain any less justice because this county is less populous than the metropolitan area you hail from, you are even dumber than you look in court.”

  “Who said anything about county size?”

  “I have been in the San Antonio courts,” Laura Stefone continued, not slowing the pace of either her voice or her steps. “And Houston courts. And Chicago courts. And let me tell you, the people in this courthouse are every bit as competent at their jobs as any—”

  “Who said they weren’t?”

  She looked at him for the first time, a quick, scornful study. “It’s been on your face ever since you first walked into the courtroom in your cute little tennis shorts.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “ ‘No it hasn’t been,’ ” Stefone corrected him crisply, “if you’re denying a continuing condition.”

  “What condition?”

  “Your face.” She saw Jordan’s surprise and amplified. “It displays contempt for this whole town.”

  “That’s not contempt, Ms. Stefone, that’s bafflement. At the barrage I’ve been under ever since I got here just be­cause I got saddled with defending the town schmuck. And the hostility that rains down on both of us.”

  Laura Stefone stopped and faced him. They were on the street corner in front of the courthouse—abruptly, it seemed to Jordan; he couldn’t remember coming down the stairs. He hadn’t even felt the glare of the sun yet. Only of Ms. Stefone’s eyes.

  “Maybe we’re just not as blasé about murder here,” she said. “Maybe we take it more to heart.”

  “Ms. Stefone, let me tell you a secret. Maybe I can make you, at least, understand. I don’t give a damn about Wayne Orkney. I did not come here to defend him What concerns me is ineffective assistance of counsel, which is what I’m going to be charged with if you keep distorting the record to make me look like a boob every time I—”

  “A bigger boob.”

  “A bigger boob,” Jordan agreed. “All I want to do is leave a clean record for appeal, put on the best defense I can, and wave bye-bye to Wayne Orkney as his bus leaves for Huntsville.”

  The court reporter looked him up and down again just as quickly but with a touch less scorn. Without an apology or an invitation, she turned and crossed the street. Jordan followed.

  “I have never altered a record in my life,” Laura Stefone said as he caught up.

  “Then you have very selective hearing.”

  “Maybe you’re just used to having transcripts cleaned up for you. Do the court reporters in San Antonio do that for prosecutors?”

  “No.” But the question set him thinking.

  “Maybe you need an elocution class then.”

  “Perhaps,” Jordan said distinctly, popping the t’s “you— could—suggest—a—teacher.”

  She didn’t laugh or smile. Maybe the set of her shoulders had softened as she turned away from him. He continued to follow where she led, even when she turned into an an­tique store, one that took up half a city block. The hardwood floor creaked beneath his feet. He smelled cracked leather and old wood. Confronting him, atop a dresser, was a por­trait of a stern-faced pioneer couple.

  “You came here spoiling for a fight. You shouldn’t be surprised if people push back.”

  “I wasn’t looking for a fight. I wasn’t even looking for a case. I was on vacation.”

  “Yes, and you let everyone know that their little rinky-dink murder case was a waste of your important time.”

  “I’m not like that,” Jordan said. Laura Stefone gave him a look over her shoulder.

  In a back corner of the store was a tiny lunchroom, only five tables set for diners. That was Ms. Stefone’s destination. Without quite realizing what he was doing, Jordan sat oppo­site her at the small round table. “I’m not,” he repeated.

  Stefone gave him a small, ironic smile, then widened it for the waitress who suddenly appeared. “Hello, Doris. I’ll have the special.”

  “Uh—” Jordan looked around for a menu.

  “Mr. Marshall will have Alpo on lettuce,” Stefone added in the same pleasant tone.

  Doris made a second note on her pad. “Iced tea with those?” she asked without looking up.

  Laura Stefone raised an eyebrow at Jordan, who just stared back at her. “Please,” the court reporter said to the waitress, who nodded and withdrew.

  The joke in the midst of fighting with him struck Jordan silent He looked at Laura Stefone more closely. She was not the remote, officious lady he’d offhandedly pegged her; that was just her court persona. Ms. Stefone was about his age, somewhere in the broad range of thirties. This was the first time he’d looked straight into her face, and he noticed something unusual. Her face was not quite symmetrical. When he saw her in profile, as he had all morning in court, or when she tilted her head, it wasn’t noticeable, but as he looked at her full on he saw that one cheekbone was ever so slightly higher than the other, and the eyebrow on that side quirked marginally higher when she raised them. She was a pretty woman in profile, but in full face she was some­thing more, she looked thoughtful and quizzical and as if sadness hovered near her, waiting until she was tired enough to let it touch her.

  This kind of thing happened to Jordan once in a while lately, he saw something in a woman—maybe a woman he’d known for years—he’d never seen before and had the sud­den feeling he knew a part of her no one else knew. He could imagine Laura, for example, studying her face in the mirror until the imperfection became the most obvious thing about it, until she couldn’t realize that no one else would even notice, until she thought herself disfigured. In the rush of the insight, true or not, Jordan wanted to take her hand, kiss her cheek, tell her she was beautiful, and reveal some­thing about himself he’d never told anyone.

  Luckily, he’d restrained the recent impulses of this kind, and he hadn’t told anyone about th
e phenomenon. He could imagine what any of the jerks he knew would say: “You’ve only started having these bursts of sympathy for women since you got divorced, right, Jordie?” But he knew what he felt. He had to shake off the feeling to go on talking easily to Laura Stefone.

  Casting about, he asked, “Have you lived in Green Hills all your life?”

  She laughed. “It’s not the kind of place you move to." When Jordan renewed the question with a look she added, “Yes, except for two years at court reporter school in Chi­cago. I was planning to stay there, but then the judge’s old reporter retired, he offered me the job, and—” She shrugged.

  Jordan said, “Sometimes you get—” but was interrupted by the return of the waitress, who set a lettucy concoction in front of Laura Stefone and something steaming in front of Jordan. “You people really know how to run with a joke,” he said, because the plate in front of him held small meatballs in brown gravy ladled over wedges of toast.

  “No, no, Doris,” Laura Stefone said concernedly. “I said Alpo on lettuce. Mr. Marshall is dieting.”

  “Please, don’t be so formal,” Jordan said, taking in both of them with the invitation. “Call me Bozo.” He looked down at his plate and back up at the waitress. “It’s fine like this.”

  “Okay, enjoy.”

  Laura Stefone took a delicate bite of her salad and did not appear to be watching him, but she didn’t resume con­versation either. Jordan realized his two options: He could refuse to eat and look like a jerk, so stupid he thought a restaurant would actually serve him dog food at Laura’s instigation, or he could eat heartily and look like a jerk when he discovered that what they’d called Alpo and looked like Alpo actually was Alpo.