In Self-Defense

by A. W. Gray

  So cool was Sharon, in fact, that she’d carried her briefcase nearly to the prosecution side when, behind her, Russell Black said, “Uh, Sharon.”

  Sharon stopped and turned.

  Black set his briefcase down on the defense table and motioned. “Here,” he said. “We set up shop over here.”

  Sharon’s cheeks burned as she crossed over to sit beside her boss. Visible in the periphery of her vision, Fraterno and Breyer exchanged grins. Sharon snapped her attaché case open, withdrew a sheath of papers, and pretended to study them.

  Black leaned over and whispered, “Come on. Might as well get it over with.”

  Sharon said, without looking up, “Get what over with?”

  Black nudged her with his elbow and, as she faced him, winked at her. “The introductions.”

  Sharon’s gaze flicked toward Breyer and Kathleen, then back down to the meaningless papers before her. “I already know them,” she said.

  “If Milt Breyer reacts the same way that you are,” Black said, “then we’ve got him beat goin’ in. First things first. First we get all the mumblin’s and how-ya-doin’s out of the way, then you and I can go about defendin’ this teenager.” He firmly stood. “Come on, Miss Hays.” He held her chair for her while she stood, then followed a step behind her while they approached Breyer and Fraterno. Sharon thought briefly of a long-ago time in grammar school when a teacher had marched her to the principal’s office.

  Pretending to read the paper at the court reporter’s desk while waiting for court to convene, Sharon knew, was one of Milton Breyer’s favorite tricks. If Milt remained at the prosecution table, where he really belonged—and which afforded a more comfortable place to read the sports page—the courtroom entry would be to Breyer’s back and he would be unable to see everyone who came and went. The makeup of the audience had never mattered to Sharon when she’d been in trial, but Breyer had ulterior motives. It was well known that he planned to run for judge in the next election, and the identity of his listeners was every bit as important to Breyer as the case at hand, if not more so. Breyer folded the newspaper under his arm and waited expectantly. Kathleen Fraterno left the stapled pages she’d been going over where they lay, on the witness box railing, and stepped up to stand beside her boss. Breyer held the paper under his left arm so that his silver wedding ring faced outward. He’s slipped the ring on and off so often when entering singles bars, Sharon thought, that he’s probably got several duplicates ready in case he loses the original. She stopped before the prosecutors and was conscious of Russell Black’s looming presence on her left.

  “Y’all know my new sidekick, Miss Hays,” Black said.

  “I seem to remember her from somewhere,” Fraterno said, showing a genuine smile. Kathleen was mid-thirties, a couple of years older than Sharon, and had a decade with the county under her belt. When Sharon had been promoted over her, Kathleen hadn’t tried to hide her resentment; Sharon had understood Kathleen’s predicament and had been glad that Fraterno hadn’t bullshitted around about the way she felt. Later on they’d tried a couple of cases together, one a successful death-penalty prosecution, and Kathleen had showed to be a boobs-out, bang-up trial lawyer. If Milt Breyer had any sense, he’d stay out of the way and let Kathleen prosecute the Rathermore case while he gave all the interviews and took all the credit. Good politician that he was, that was likely exactly what he planned to do. So much for trying the Rathermore case against a fumbling Milton Breyer, Sharon thought. “How you doing, Sharon?” Kathleen Fraterno said.

  “So-so,” Sharon said. “Better since I got a job. Hello, Milton.” She forced her tone to be casual and did a good job of it. Sophomore acting class, Sharon thought, Elementary Method. Remembering the satisfying crunch when she’d brought her thigh up between Breyer’s legs even caused Sharon to show a real-live smile. I should have stayed in show biz, Sharon thought.

  Breyer patted his hair in a womanlike gesture. Sharon had once seen a tube of Grecian Formula in Breyer’s desk drawer, and had delicately kept her mouth shut about it. Now she wished she’d told the world. Breyer’s teeth were all capped and resembled a row of piano keys. Sharon recalled a Milton Berle reunion special which she’d watched with Melanie on ABC, and one of Uncle Miltie’s stale jokes came suddenly back to haunt her. Your teeth are like stars. They come out at night.

  “Certainly, Miss Hays,” Breyer said. “Delighted you’ve landed on your feet. We were all worried about you.”

  Give me a break, Sharon thought. Breyer would have already heard the rumor that his former assistant (and planned piece of ass on the side) had been talking to the federal Equal Opportunity folks, and likely would have lost some sleep over it. At least Sharon hoped he had. She didn’t permit herself so much as a blink. “Thanks for your concern,” she said, then thought, Hard thigh to the nuts, and smiled at him.

  Black now said, “Listen, I guess y’all know I’ve just recently taken on this case. I haven’t even met my client. A continuance on this hearin’s probably in order.”

  Breyer frowned. “It’s been scheduled for a while, Russ.” Acting as if you were going to give the other side a hard time whenever they asked for something wasn’t particular to Milton Breyer. SOP for the Dallas DA’s office: make the defense sweat blood over every little detail.

  “Lemme finish,” Black said. “What I was goin’ to say is, I won’t bother filin’ a continuance motion if you folks could use your good influence with the court to postpone the hearin’ about an hour. That’ll give us a chance to let the little girl know at least she’s got a lawyer.”

  Breyer placed his tongue against the roof of mouth, poising to form the word no. Kathleen took a quick half step forward. “That shouldn’t be any problem,” Fraterno said. Breyer closed his mouth. Kathleen smiled and extended her hand. “Kathleen Fraterno, Mr. Black. Your reputation precedes you. It’s an honor.”

  Black’s huge, gnarled hand engulfed Kathleen’s like a whale swallowing a minnow. “Nice to know ya,” Black said. Breyer looked miffed, and Sharon wondered what diplomacy Kathleen would use in explaining to the frigging moron that giving the defense a ration of shit over motions which the judge would grant automatically was nothing but a waste of time. Sharon had wondered more than once during her tenure as an ADA whether Breyer had actually attended law school, or if he’d used some of his wife’s money to pay someone to go to class in his place. Having Kathleen Fraterno on the other side would make defending Midge more difficult, Sharon thought, but in ways Kathleen’s presence would be a relief as well. Sharon came out of her trance as Black turned to her and said, “Guess we better go meet our employer, huh?”

  Sharon nodded, first to Kathleen and then to Breyer, then led the way as she and Black moved toward the exit leading to the holding cell. Black said, barely above a whisper, “Well, at least the little girl won’t have to go through these proceedings alone. We’re all she’s got in this courtroom, Sharon.”

  She stopped and quickly surveyed the spectator section, the two reporters hunched over steno pads, lawyers and parents seated side by side. “What about her real mother?” Sharon said.

  Black said, “Huh?”

  “Her mother. You know, the one who’s paying your legal fee. She’s not attending the hearing?”

  Black regarded the floor, then looked up. “No, she’s not. Listen, one thing I didn’t tell you. Nobody’s to know who hired us. If the little girl asks directly who’s payin’ her legal fee, then we’re goin’ to have to tell her. Otherwise, as far as Midge knows, we’re court-appointed just like her last lawyer was.”

  Sharon frowned. “I never heard of such a thing. After all, it’s her daughter.”

  Black took her arm and steered her toward the exit. “I’ll have to fill you in on that one later. It’s sort of a touchy subject. Let’s just say she wants to be anonymous unless somebody forces our hand on it.”

  Sharon had seen quite a
few teenagers in lockup in her time, and she’d long ago passed the point of feeling sorry for them. There had been a time in her days as a fledgling prosecutor when she’d gotten flak from her superiors for being too soft on juveniles. Criminals, according to the DA’s creed, were criminals, and it was the prosecutor’s job to hammer all offenders as hard as the law would allow regardless of the offender’s age. If the little bastards were going to go around robbing and shooting people, then no way was the DA going to let up on them just because they were kids. Sharon had finally gotten the message loud and clear. One of her juvie cert cases had been a youngster who, two days after his fifteenth birthday, had blown away two convenience store clerks as they kneeled begging in front of him. One of the bullets had passed through a clerk’s hand on the way to his brain, the hand held out in supplication. After that case Sharon had had no problem at all in prosecuting juveniles.

  For the most part, the group of teenagers who milled about in the holding cell behind the family law courtroom was typical. There were two tall, skinny boys, their heads half shaved with the hair on the unshaven portion grown past shoulder length, each with an identical BORN TO RAISE HELL tattoo on his forehead. This lovely pair snickered and giggled as if the prospect of being transferred to the county jail with the big bad guys—which was the juvies’ next stop once they’d been certified—was the coolest thing going. The other two kids in the cell, a frail youth with a nasty scar over his eye and a feminine-looking youngster with big doe eyes, seemed scared to death. Midge Rathermore was the only girl, and was separated from the others. She was outside the barred door, handcuffed to a straight-backed wooden chair, and in spite of Sharon’s ingrained attitude toward prosecuting kids, her heart went out instantly to Midge. The Rathermore girl, at the moment the most famous teenager in Dallas County and easily recognizable from her newspaper pictures, was definitely hard to miss.

  She weighed well over two hundred pounds, and the greasy diet at the juvenile detention center hadn’t done her complexion any good. There were two pimples on Midge’s chin, one having already come to a head, and ugly red blotches on both of her cheeks. The beige county detention smock which she wore was designed for someone half Midge’s size. Her big breasts sagged against the smock’s front like balloons in shrunken burlap. The garment buttoned up the side. Two of the buttons had popped off, and the strained fabric parted to show rolls of fish-belly white, porky flesh. Midge’s posture was pitiful; her shoulders slumped forward and her big stomach pooched out. She pressed one of her pimples between dirty fingernails. A sorry sight to be sure, but what really got to Sharon was Midge Rathermore’s expression.

  Whereas the boys inside the cell were either sneeringly arrogant or properly terrified, Midge was neither. As Russell Black spoke to the uniformed guard, Midge regarded Sharon with a blank stare. Totally blank. No fear, no resentment. Nothing. Not a hint of a smile or frown. Dull gray eyes, not a spark of life in them, no shift to their gaze. Sharon attempted an encouraging smile. Midge showed no reaction. The fat teenager sat rooted to her chair like a resident of hell, all happiness gone, all emotion drained.

  Black was saying to the guard, “We’ll need her for about fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “Take your time,” the guard said. “This one don’t give us no trouble.” He was a sparrow-shouldered man in his forties whom Sharon remembered from when he’d been a guard down at the main jail. Years ago, working juvenile detention had been a plum of sorts for the guards, a relief from handling the hardened cons in central lockup. No longer. These days teenagers would stick a sharpened spoon between a hack’s ribs quicker than the older prisoners would. “Come on,” the guard said, “we’ll take her next door.”

  “Next door” was a conference room containing a small table and six chairs, a Mr. Coffee on a rolling server with black dregs in the bottom of the pot, low bookcases filled with the Texas Civil and Criminal Codes and Codes of Procedure. The books were dusty, as if no one had read them in years. The guard seated Midge on one side of the table and cuffed her chubby wrist to a chair arm. He nodded to Black, then to Sharon, said “Take your time” again, then backed out of the room and softly closed the door.

  Midge looked in turn at the coffeepot, the bookcases, and then at her lawyers, all with equal lack of interest. Black sat across the table from the teenager, and Sharon positioned herself beside her boss, opened her attaché case, took a legal pad out, and prepared to take notes. Black said in a fatherly baritone, “Midge, I’m Russ Black and this is Miss Hays. We’re goin’ to be your lawyers.”

  Midge played with her handcuff bracelet. “What happened to the other dude?” A high-pitched child’s voice, no emotion in its tone, distinctive private school accent. On the same wrist which wore the handcuff was a plastic ID band giving her name and prisoner number.

  “Mr. Tubb?” Black said.

  “Is that his name?” Midge winced as she pressed one of the zits on her chin. The expression of pain was the only emotion she’d shown so far. “Skinny dude with glasses?” she said.

  “That sounds like him. I don’t know what happened to Andy, I just got your case.”

  “I didn’t like that dude,” Midge said.

  “I hope you’ll like us,” Black said.

  Midge looked at Sharon. There still was no expression in the teenager’s eyes, but there was a slight upturn of her dry, cracked lips. “I might like her,” Midge said.

  Sharon shrugged and dropped her gaze. A flush crept into her cheeks. What did one say to that? On the legal pad she doodled an oblong.

  “Well, I hope you’re going to like both of us,” Black said. Sharon permitted herself a quick sideways glance. Had there been an edge to Black’s tone? Surely not. Surely Russell Black was beyond being miffed because a troubled teenager might prefer his assistant, a female, over Black himself. I don’t know, Sharon thought, the male ego is a funny thing. She returned her attention to Midge. Midge continued to favor her new lady lawyer with a mirthless grin.

  “Midge, I’m not goin’ to ask you … First, you tell me somethin’. Do you understand what it is that the police are sayin’ you’re guilty of?”

  Midge’s smile suddenly broadened, accompanied by a shrill giggle. “They say I killed Daddy.” In spite of herself, Sharon rolled her eyes. A giggle, yet.

  “Not exactly that you killed him,” Black said. “That you had somebody else do it. For now, I’m not goin’ to ask—”

  “Chris and Troy,” Midge said, her expression brightening as if she’d suddenly recalled a couple of chums from her algebra class.

  “—if you did it,” Black said. “We can get into that later. I just want to make sure you understand what’s goin’ to be happenin’ today. In this court hearin’.”

  Midge frowned, a little girl denied dessert. “They say they’ll take me to the big jail.”

  “I got to tell you that’s a possibility, Midge. In fact, they probably will.”

  “Can I have chocolate there?” Midge asked hopefully.

  Jesus H. Christ, Sharon thought. You poor child.

  Black continued as if he hadn’t heard. “This hearin’s about chargin’ you with a crime as an adult. Do you know what that means?”

  “I think it means … that I’m not like a little girl?”

  Sharon searched Midge’s face, looking for some sign that the teenager was putting on an act. As a prosecutor Sharon had seen more than one crafty kid put on a performance in an attempt to beat adult certification. The ploy never worked, but some streetwise children would try anything. Not Midge Rathermore, though. She seemed mentally only a baby, and not a particularly bright one at that, a grossly obese little girl whom the system was about to decide was a mature and remorseless killer. There was very little either Midge or her lawyers could do about what the system was going to decide. Sharon swallowed a lump from her throat.

  “It sort of means that,” Black said. “The punis
hment they can give a minor is limited. If they try you as an adult and convict you, it means that you can go to the penitentiary.”

  Midge frowned quickly, then smiled again, the fat baby face going through the range of emotions quick as thought. “I did do what they say. Daddy was bad.”

  Black coughed into a cupped hand and looked quickly around, as if making certain there was no one else in the room. “Who else … did you tell that to anybody else?”

  Midge smirked and lowered her gaze, the child caught talking in class. “Tell them what?”

  “That you did it.”

  She kept her head lowered and regarded Black through her upper eyelashes. “I don’t know. Did I?”

  Black’s tone showed irritation. “We can’t be playin’ games, Midge.”

  “Midge,” Sharon said quickly, and felt Black tense up beside her. Sharon didn’t want to make her new boss angry, but being stern with Midge was a waste of time, like reading the riot act to a small baby. Midge now showed a pouty expression, the storm warning of a temper tantrum coming on. “Midge,” Sharon said again, “how was your daddy bad?”

  Midge’s expression softened into a smile as she looked at Sharon, like an infant relating to an adult whom she liked, wanting to please. “He was bad bad,” Midge said.

  Sharon decided to let that one alone for the present. “You said a moment ago that you did it, and Mr. Black asked who-all you’d told that. I’m going to ask you the same thing. Did you tell anyone else?”