by Jodi Picoult
“I took Delia, and left.”
“I meant before that. Did you bother to see whether your ex-wife was all right? Did you call anyone to take care of her?”
“She wasn’t my responsibility anymore.”
“Why not? Because you had a piece of paper saying you’d gotten divorced?”
“Because I’d done it a thousand times before,” Andrew says. “Are you defending me, or Elise? For God’s sake, Delia was in the very same situation when she got pregnant, except you were the one lying drunk on the floor.”
“But she didn’t run away from me,” I point out. “She waited for me to get my head straight. So don’t even begin to compare your situation to hers, Andrew, because Delia’s a better person than you ever were.”
A muscle tics in Andrew’s jaw. “Yeah. I guess whoever raised her must have really known what he was doing.” He stands up and walks out of the conference room, beckoning to an officer to take him back to the safety of his cell.
* * *
Delia calls me on my cell phone while I am driving back to Hamilton, Hamilton. “Guess what,” she says. “I got a phone call from that prosecutor, Ellen . . .”
“Emma.”
“Whatever.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “She asked to meet with me, and I told her I had a spot in my calendar between Hell Freezing Over and Not in This Lifetime. Where are you, anyway?”
“I’m on my way back from the jail.”
There is a silence. “So how is he?”
“Great,” I say, adding a lift to my voice. “We’ve totally got this under control.” My cell phone beeps, another incoming call. “Hang on, Dee,” I tell her, and I switch over. “Talcott.”
“It’s Chris. Where are you?”
I look over my shoulder at the merging traffic. “Headed onto Route Ten.”
“Well, get off it,” he says. “You need to go back.”
The hair stands up on the back of my neck. “What happened to Andrew?”
“Nothing that I know of. But you just got some mail from Emma Wasserstein. She’s filed a motion to remove you as counsel.”
“On what grounds?”
“Witness tampering,” Chris says. “She thinks you’re feeding information to Delia.”
I slam down the phone, cursing, and it rings immediately; I’ve forgotten that Delia was on the other line. “What else did you say to the prosecutor?” I ask.
“Nothing. She was trying to do the buddy thing, you know, but I wasn’t falling for it. She said she wanted to meet with me, and I refused. She pumped me for information about my father.”
I swallow. “What did you say?”
“That it wasn’t any of her business, and that if she was fishing for information about him she’d have to talk to you, just like I do.”
Oh, shit.
“Who called?” Delia asks. “Who was on the other line?”
“A courtesy call from Verizon,” I lie.
“You were on for a long time.”
“Well, they were being very courteous.”
“Eric,” Delia asks, “did my father say anything else about me?”
Her question is clear as a bell; the cell phone reception is crystalline. But I hold the phone away from my ear. I make static noises. “Dee, can you hear me? I’m going under some power lines . . . .”
“Eric?”
“I’m losing you,” I say, and I hang up while she is still talking.
* * *
In the motion filed by Emma Wasserstein, Delia is referred to as the victim. Every time I read the word, I think how much she would hate that. Chris, Emma, and I sit in Judge Noble’s chambers, waiting for His Honor to speak. Massive and formidable, he is busy spreading peanut butter on a cheese sandwich. “Do I look fat to you, Counselor?” the judge asks, although the question is directed at none of us in particular.
“Robust,” Emma answers.
“Healthy,” Chris adds.
Judge Noble pauses his knife and looks up at me. “Generous,” I suggest.
“You wish, Mr. Talcott,” the judge says. “I don’t understand this whole good cholesterol, bad cholesterol thing. And I sure as hell don’t understand why, if I’m going to eat a sandwich, I have to have a quarter of a teaspoon of peanut butter to go with it.” He takes a bite and grimaces. “You know why I’m going to lose weight on the Zone diet? Because no one in their right mind would eat any of this crap.” He takes a deep, rumbling breath and shifts in his chair. “I don’t normally hold hearings during my lunch hour, but I’m going to suggest to my wife that perhaps I should. Because frankly, I find the subject of this motion so unpalatable that it has nearly ruined my appetite entirely. Why, if I got a dozen motions like this a day, my abs would look like Brad Pitt’s.”
“Your Honor,” Chris says quickly, intercepting.
“Sit down, Mr. Hamilton. This isn’t about you, and much to my chagrin, Mr. Talcott apparently has a mind of his own.” The judge levels his gaze at me. “Counselor, as I’m sure you’re aware, witness tampering is one of the biggest ethical violations you can make as a defense attorney, one that will get your pro hac vice revoked and your ass kicked out of Arizona and most likely every other Bar association in this country.”
“Absolutely, Judge Noble,” I agree. “But Ms. Wasserstein’s allegations are false.”
The judge frowns. “Are you or are you not engaged to your client’s daughter?”
“I am, Your Honor.”
“Well, maybe in New Hampshire you’ve all intermarried so much that everyone’s a cousin, and there aren’t enough nonrelated attorneys to go around for your clients, but here in Arizona, we do things a little differently.”
“Your Honor, it’s true that I have a personal relationship with Delia Hopkins. But it will not affect this case in any capacity, in spite of Ms. Wasserstein’s specious allegations. Yes, Delia asks me about her father—but it’s how he looks, and if he’s being treated all right—questions that would be important on a personal level, and not a professional one.”
“We could ask Delia to corroborate that,” Emma says tartly, “but she’s probably already been coached in what to say.”
I turn to the judge. “Your Honor, I’ll give you my word, and if that’s not good enough, I’ll swear under oath that I’m not violating any ethical measures here. If anything, I have even more responsibility to my client, because I’m trying to keep his daughter’s best interests a priority as well.”
Emma folds her arms above the shelf of her belly. “You’re too close to this case to do a decent job.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I argue. “That’s like saying that you can’t try a child kidnapping case because you’re about to drop your own baby any second, and your emotions might keep you from being objective. But if I said that out loud, I’d be skating on pretty thin ice, wouldn’t I? You’d accuse me of being prejudicial and sexist and outright anachronistic, wouldn’t you?”
“All right, Mr. Talcott, shut your mouth before I wire your jaw closed for you,” Judge Noble orders. “I’m making a finding on this right now. Your first obligation is to your client, not your fiancée. However, the State has to show me that you’re actively engaging in witness tampering for me to actually remove you from this case, and Ms. Wasserstein has not proven that . . . yet. So you may remain Andrew Hopkins’s attorney, Mr. Talcott, but make no mistake—every time you come into my courtroom, I’m going to be watching you. Every time you open your mouth, I’m going to be caressing my Rules of Professional Conduct. And if you make one wrong move, I’m going to refer you to the State Conduct Committee so fast you won’t know what hit you.” He picks up his jar of peanut butter. “Oh, hell,” Judge Noble says, and he sticks two fingers into the Jif and scoops out a dollop to eat. “Adjourned.”
When Emma Wasserstein gets up and drops her papers all over the floor, I lean down to grab them for her. “Watch your back, you hick,” she murmurs.
I straighten. “Excuse me?”
The
judge watches us over the rim of his glasses. “I said, Nice comeback, Eric,” Emma replies, and she smiles and waddles out of the room.
* * *
When I get home, Sophie is in the front yard, painting a prickly pear cactus pink. Her hands are small enough to weave the brush between the spines. I am sure that in this state, what she’s doing is probably a felony, but frankly I am not in the mood to take any more family members onto my caseload. I pull the car up beside our elongated tin can and step out into the searing heat. Ruthann and Delia sit on nylon-woven folding chairs in the dust between our trailers, and Greta is sprawled in an exhausted puddle close to the paint can. “Why is Sophie painting the cactus?”
Delia shrugs. “Because it wanted to be pink.”
“Ah.” I squat down next to Sophie. “Who told you that?”
“Duh,” Sophie says, with the kind of ennui that only four-year-olds can pull off. “Magdelena.”
“Magdelena?”
“The cactus.” She points to a saguaro a few feet to the left. “That’s Rufus, and the little one with a white beard is Papa Joe.”
I turn to Ruthann. “You name your cacti?”
“Of course not . . . their parents do.” She winks at me. “There’s cold tea inside, if you want some.”
I walk into her trailer and feel my way through the cabinets, past buttons and beads and rawhide-tied bundles of dried herbs, until I find a clean jelly jar. The pitcher of tea sweats on the counter; I fill my glass to the brim and am about to take a sip when the phone rings. After a moment I find the receiver under a stack of brown bananas. “Hello?”
“Is Ruthann Masáwistiwa there?” a voice asks.
“Just a sec. Who’s calling?”
“The Virginia Piper Cancer Center.”
Cancer Center? I step to the door of the trailer. “Ruthann, it’s for you.”
She is wielding the paintbrush for Sophie, trying to work color under the tight armpit of the cactus. “Take a message, Sikyátavo. I’m busy with Picasso, here.”
“I think they really need to speak to you.”
She gives Sophie the paintbrush and steps into the trailer, letting the screen door slam behind her. I hold out the phone. “It’s the hospital,” I say quietly.
She looks at me for a long moment. “Wrong number,” she barks into the receiver, and then punches the off button. I am quite certain that she doesn’t realize she’s folded her arm like a bird’s wing, tucked over her left breast.
We all have our secrets, I suppose.
She keeps staring at me, until I incline my head just the tiniest bit, a promise to keep her confidence. When the phone rings again, she leans over and pulls the cord out of the wall. “Wrong number,” she says.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “It happens all the time to me.”
* * *
The McCormick Railroad Park is not crowded by the time we get there, just before sunset. With its combination playground-carousel-miniature-steam-engine ride, the sprawling recreational area is a hot spot for the kindergarten set. Delia invites Fitz to come along; and I invite Ruthann, who pulls her junk-lined trench coat out of her cavernous purse and begins to solicit her resale wares to tired mothers.
I wait on the sidelines as Fitz and Delia take Sophie onto the carousel. She scrambles up onto a white horse with its neck straining forward. “Come on,” Fitz yells to me. “What have you got to lose?”
“My dignity?”
Fitz swings onto a powder pink pony. “A guy who’s secure in his manhood wouldn’t be sitting out there like a loser.”
I laugh. “Yeah, and do you want me to hold your purse while you’re on the ride?”
Sophie fidgets on top of her horse as Delia tries to strap her in. “Nobody else has to wear the seat belt,” she complains. Delia chooses a black stallion beside Fitz’s. I listen as the music tinkles to life and the carousel begins to vibrate.
I won’t admit this to any of them, but carousels scare the hell out of me. That calliope melody, and the way all the carved wooden horses seem to be in great pain—their eyes rolling wild, their yellow teeth bared, their bodies straining. As the carousel turns, the mirrored pillar in the center winks. Sophie comes into view and waves to me. Behind her, Delia and Fitz pretend to be jockeys, leaning forward on their horses.
The acne-pitted kid manning the controls flips the switch, and the carousel begins to wheeze to a stop. Sophie leans forward, caressing the plaster mane. Fitz and Delia appear again, standing up in the stirrups for a last stretch at the brass ring. They’re batting at each other’s hands and laughing. There’s an S-curved steel bar at the top of the carousel that makes one of their horses rise as the other falls. It looks like they’re moving separately, but they’re not.
* * *
Two days later I land in the office of Sheriff Jack: head of the Maricopa County Jail system and general media hound, with a personality so colorful he could give up his day job and become a disco strobe light. Everything I’ve heard about him is, regretfully, true, from the spittoon that he keeps on his desk (and uses liberally) to the framed photos of himself with every living Republican president to the bologna sandwich he himself eats for lunch, along with his prisoners. “Let me get this straight,” he says, his amusement booming from beneath his bristled mustache, “your client refuses to see you?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“But you wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
I shift on my chair. “I’m afraid not, sir.”
“And Sergeant Concannon says that you . . .” He looks down at a piece of paper in front of him. “Sweet-talked her in an effort to get access to the inmate’s pod.” He glances up. “Sweet-talked?”
“She’s a very handsome woman,” I say, swallowing.
“She’s a hell of a detention officer, but she’s about as pretty as the business end of a donkey. A man less tolerant than myself might consider that sexual harassment.”
The last thing I need is to have Sheriff Jack calling Judge Noble and having a little chat. “Well, sir,” I say, “I find older women attractive. Especially those who are . . . diamonds in the rough.”
“Sergeant Concannon’s so rough the carbons are still forming. Try again, boy.”
“Did I mention I have a friend who’s a journalist from New Hampshire’s largest paper, who’d like to write about you?” I will pay Fitz, if I have to. Hugely.
Sheriff Jack laughs out loud. “I like you, Talcott.”
I smile politely. “About my client, sir.”
“Sheriff Jack,” he corrects. “What about him?”
“If I could just be brought up to his cell, even for five minutes, I think I could convince him that he ought to sit down with me for the sake of his own case.”
“We don’t allow attorneys into the pods. Unless, of course, they’re criminals.” He thinks for a second. “Maybe we should put the attorneys in the pods.”
“Sheriff.” I meet his gaze. “I’d really like to have the opportunity to speak to Andrew Hopkins.”
There is a beat of silence. “A journalist, you said?”
“Award-winning,” I lie.
He gets to his feet. “Oh, hell. I need a good laugh.”
Sheriff Jack himself escorts me to the elevator, up to the second floor. This is different from the visitation room; here, a central control tower monitors four spider arms that house the inmates. There are locks everywhere.
Everyone knows who Sheriff Jack is—as we walk through the halls, detention officers greet him, but even more impressively, so do the inmates. “Yo, yo, Sea Rag,” he says, as we pass a man who is being signed into his pod again.
“’Sup, Dawg,” the man replies, grinning.
Sheriff Jack turns to me proudly. “I speak it all. Ebonics, Spanish, you name it. I can say Get your ass in line in six different languages.”
He puts his hand on a doorknob that buzzes, and then opens. Another inmate, this one wearing a pink tank top, slouches on a chair with his nose buried in T
he Fountainhead. Up and down his arms words are tattooed: Weiss Macht. “Put your shirt on,” Sheriff Jack orders.
We walk down a hallway that opens into a large, two-tiered room. Each side of the square holds an enclosed pod—barred cells on top, a common area on bottom. What it resembles—what a jail always resembles—is a human zoo. The animals are busy doing their own thing—sleeping, eating, socializing. Some of them notice me, some of them choose not to. It’s really the only power they have left.
Sheriff Jack walks up into the control tower while I wait at the bottom of the stairs. A pair of black inmates start rapping, putting on a show for me.
I’m the O.G. Mr. Wop
On the trigga nonstop
Bust a cap on a cop
And watch his punk ass drop.
A 187 that’s what it was
Greetin’ all homies with the word of Cuzz
I was dressed in blue
Since the age of two
Down for my ’hood
’Cause it’s the thing to do.
To their right, an old man with white hair cascading past his shoulders is making elaborate hand motions to catch the attention of one of the detention officers. Behind the glass, his frail arm movements look like a modern dance performance.
Suddenly the sheriff is standing next to me again. “The good news is, your client isn’t in there.”
“Where is he?”
Sheriff Jack smiles. “Well, that’s the bad news, boy. Disciplinary segregation.”
* * *
Disciplinary segregation is on level three, house two, in pods A and D. Andrew knows I am coming before he sees me; prisoners can sniff out lawyers at a distance, and my arrival has created a hum in the air. He stands with his back deliberately toward me as I am led to his cell. “I don’t want to speak to him, Sergeant Doucette,” he tells the detention officer.
She looks at me, bored. “He doesn’t want to speak to you.”
I stare at Andrew’s back. “Well, that’s fine by me. Because God knows I don’t feel like hearing what the hell landed you in lockdown.”
He turns around and stares at me for a long moment. “Let him in.”
