And that was a big problem for her. She had liked where things had been heading with Walker. Oh, well. It had been fun while it lasted, she supposed.
After leaving the courthouse at around nine Sunday night, CiCi called her staff and told them about the problems at the courthouse, including the fact that the auditors could be there in the morning. She also advised her clerks to bring their own fans, clearly marked with their names so they wouldn’t get wrongfully claimed by another. After making those calls, CiCi hopped in her Mini and sped to the Walmart in Lawrenceburg to buy as many fans as possible. No stores in little Bourbon Springs would be open at that time of night on a Sunday, and even if there had been, said stores wouldn’t have the number of fans she needed to buy.
She didn’t get home and into bed until well past midnight, although her trip was successful and she’d stuffed about a dozen or more fans into her car. Before falling into bed, CiCi laid out the outfit she planned to wear the following morning: a simple khaki skirt that hit at the knee and a sleeveless purple silk tank top. It was about the coolest thing she could think to wear short of wearing nothing at all.
Come Monday morning, however, the heat was the least of CiCi’s worries at the courthouse.
When she came through the front entrance after parking in her reserved spot, the first sensation upon setting foot in the courthouse wasn’t the oppressive heat.
“Good Lord! It smells like the devil’s outhouse in here! What the hell is that stench?” she cried as she arrived at the sheriff’s station at the courthouse entrance.
“We think it’s a dead raccoon up in the attic,” Kyle said. “But I’m not going up there to check, and I’m not sending any of my deputies up there either.”
“If there’s one raccoon, there’s probably more,” CiCi lamented. “I hope Rachel’s not here today.”
Kyle shook his head as he continued to screen a few people filtering into the building. “No, I already checked with Brady. She’s at home. Has no business being here pregnant and in this heat. And now there’s the smell,” Kyle said as he handed a woman’s purse back to her after he’d examined its contents during the security check.
CiCi asked Kyle to call her as soon as a certain disabled juror arrived, and he agreed. After reviewing the juror forms the previous week, she’d discovered one juror who used a wheelchair. She always made a point to come to the sheriff’s station and greet anyone who might need assistance. She wanted every juror to fully participate in the process, and if someone needed extra assistance doing that, CiCi was going to be there to help. It was part of the job and simply good government at work.
CiCi took the stairs to the second floor, and the dead critter smell became more powerful as she ascended. Once in her office, CiCi looked up the number for a pest control company, CrittersBGone!, and called and requested they get to the courthouse at once.
After getting that task done and listening to the gripes of the deputy clerks as they trickled into work, CiCi ordered all windows to be opened. She grabbed the stack of juror questionnaires, her rule book and keys, and headed to the circuit judges’ office on the third floor to check on Judge Craft. She found Brady opening all the windows in the office suite he shared with Rachel. After helping him and inquiring after Rachel, she reported critter control had been called and crews were on the way to work on the A/C and the basement flooding.
“Oh! I almost forgot the fans! I’ll see you in court in a few,” CiCi said and turned to leave.
“Don’t you want to have one of your deputies assist me today with jury orientation? It’s going to be miserable in that courtroom in this heat.”
“And that’s exactly why no deputy of mine will be doing it. I’m the boss. I’ll suck it up and do it. That’s why I get paid the medium-sized bucks,” she said with a wink and left.
CiCi went back down to the sheriff’s station and charmed the sweet but dim-witted Deputy Carver into helping her get the fans from her car. Within a few minutes, all the fans she had purchased the night before were in the courtroom. She directed the deputy to start setting them up as she went to the bench and started reviewing the juror questionnaires and seeing how many jurors had actually returned the required form. As she flipped through the stack and began to cross-reference names against a printed list, she stopped when she came to a familiar one.
Walker Cain.
CiCi couldn’t resist looking at his information. Even though she’d known for a few weeks that Walker was going to be on jury duty, she’d never pulled his questionnaire to review it. That would’ve been snooping. But today, as she sat there in the courtroom and with jury orientation about to begin within the half hour, she felt perfectly comfortable taking a look at the somewhat personal information Walker had provided. It was just part of the job, she told herself, trying to assuage any feelings of guilt for her nosiness.
She learned that Walker was about to turn forty that summer, on July 1. Too bad she wouldn’t be throwing him a special little party. She read his impressive resume of past work experiences and noticed that he’d spent a few years as assistant master distiller at a major corporate distillery. Little wonder he wanted to strike out on his own and be a master distiller in his own right at Old Garnet. Looks like he’d gotten antsy about moving up in the world, and she couldn’t blame him for being ambitious and wanting a change.
The information she’d gleaned was moderately interesting but not revelatory, and CiCi put Walker’s form back into the stack. She was about to continue to pick through the pile of forms when Deputy Carver cried out—he had tripped over a cord between a fan and the wall.
CiCi was startled, and her elbow hit some of the papers and made them scatter to the floor. After making sure the deputy was fine (he was, only a bruised ego rather than actual bodily harm), she bent over as she sat in the small bench chair and picked up the forms from the floor. Now the stack was out of alphabetical order, and it would take time she didn’t have to tidy the papers.
She hadn’t been noticing the names on the forms until she came to the last one she picked up from the floor. Something about it caught her eye, and as she examined it more closely when she sat up and placed it squarely on the bench in front of her, it became evident to CiCi why this particular form had stood out.
That was because it was Jana Pogue’s juror questionnaire.
That’s why the name had seemed familiar to CiCi at the distillery when she’d first met Jana on Saturday. CiCi had seen Jana’s name on the form or on the juror list for this month but had failed to make the connection when introduced.
This meant that Walker and Jana were going to be serving together on the jury panel for that month.
CiCi uttered a little curse at the strange coincidence and then turned her attention to the information Jana had provided about herself.
Jana Pogue had a notable résumé. She had worked at Four Roses with Walker for a few years before leaving to go to the small craft distillery in Danville. CiCi did some calculations in her head; it looked like Walker and Jana had left their former employer at about the same time, with Jana perhaps leaving a few months earlier than her former husband. Jana’s job descriptions at both distilleries indicated that she did a lot of public relations work but had some management and personnel experience as well. From her work history, CiCi could understand how Jana would be an extremely attractive candidate for the position at Old Garnet.
Perhaps the most interesting thing CiCi discovered in reading the questionnaire was that Jana was the same age as Walker. Not that you could tell it from looking at her. In fact, Jana looked ten years younger than her listed age.
Even though CiCi had made her decision about Walker, she still found herself hoping that one of them—Jana or Walker—would get seated on the grand jury while the other remained on the petit jury. It was a silly, childish resentment—the notion of keeping the two former spouses apart. But CiCi wasn’t feeling particularly grown-up at that moment. She was still hurt and disappointed and felt like sh
e’d lost something by giving up the idea of continuing to develop a relationship with Walker.
But she realized she had lost something. She’d lost a little bit of hope, of optimism, about her future.
Shrugging off her self-pity, CiCi began to rearrange the juror questionnaires back into some semblance of order. She satisfied herself that the forms were organized and then thought about going to snag a fan for herself and place it at her feet as she did bench clerk duty for Brady during jury orientation. It had been a terrible day already, and she sat there hoping there were no more nasty surprises, like ten dead raccoons in the attic instead of the expected one.
As she sat musing about these annoying trivialities, the phone to her left rang, and she picked it up, knowing it was for her; the deputies in the office downstairs likely had the video monitor on in the courtroom and could see she was sitting there.
“CiCi, it’s Bonnie,” came the young woman’s voice. “Thought you should know the auditors just arrived. They… um… aren’t a very happy bunch. Started complaining about the heat and the smell.”
“Of course they have. As if I could do a damned thing about either problem,” CiCi sniped. She wished she could’ve been there when the tiny legion of doom had arrived, but so much for that plan. “Tell them I’ll be there in a sec.”
What a lovely start to the week, CiCi thought as she glimpsed the clock on the wall opposite the bench. And it still wasn’t even nine on Monday morning.
* * *
Walker sat in his car on Main Street, debating when he should go into the courthouse.
He’d arrived early that Monday morning since he’d been unable to sleep well the previous night. In fact, he’d gotten little sleep Saturday night as well. Walker was still preoccupied with very naughty thoughts of CiCi.
At about three that Monday morning, Walker had been awakened by a very intense dream. He’d been making love to CiCi in the dream, and Jana had not made an unwanted appearance in this fantasy. But Walker awoke before he came, so he had to once more hop into the shower to get the job done. It didn’t take him very long—a few hard, quick strokes and it was over—but it wasn’t satisfying.
Now he sat in his car, holding a cup of coffee he’d picked up at Over a Barrel and occasionally glancing at the courthouse. Walker knew CiCi was inside because he’d spotted her Mini in her reserved parking place around the courthouse square. He’d had the idea of going in early to try to find her and talk to her, to try to get an answer from her about going out that weekend—and he didn’t care where they went. He just wanted to be with her.
He was about to go inside when he saw a sign that it was not the most auspicious moment to go on the hunt for his probably-not girlfriend.
Actually, he saw four signs.
First, a cleanup van arrived from one of those professional services that cleaned up after a fire or flood. Since he hadn’t heard any sirens last night and the courthouse was still standing, Walker surmised that there was some kind of water issue in the building. The van pulled up in a no-parking area directly in front of the courthouse, and a sheriff’s deputy immediately appeared out of the front doors to greet the crew.
Then a white van with the name CrittersBGone! emblazoned on the side in bright blue lettering pulled up behind the cleanup van, shortly followed by a truck from Art’s HVAC Service.
Instead of going into the courthouse to seek out CiCi and talk to her, Walker thought that perhaps he needed to dash into the building and rescue her.
But any wild hopes of spiriting CiCi away to some safe (and private—would definitely be private if Walker had his way) locale were crushed when he saw the last vehicle to arrive.
It was only a simple white sedan, but the alarming bit was the sign on the side of the car: Office of the State Auditor.
With the four vehicles of the apocalypse lining the front curb, Walker completely discarded any hope of trying to catch CiCi for even a simple hello. The clock in the courthouse steeple chimed, and he knew it was time to get moving.
Walker crossed the street with several people, all of them heading toward the courthouse, and he expected that he would soon see those same folks in the courtroom as his fellow jurors. The entrance became visible as he rounded a statue and clump of bushes, and he saw someone very familiar sitting on a bench near the front doors.
It was Jana.
He stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing her, which was the precise moment she noticed him.
Jana had been reading a newspaper, and she acted so startled by his appearance she didn’t notice when her paper slipped out of her grasp and onto the concrete path.
She looked absolutely resplendent. Jana’s long hair was up in a tight bun, although a few strands had come loose and curled into little ringlets to frame her face. He’d always thought she looked so classy with her hair up. And Walker could remember the times when he’d been the one to take that hair down from such a tight little bun and run his fingers through it. She was wearing a simple navy suit that morning; Jana apparently hoped to get to work after the orientation was over.
“Jury duty?” she asked him in stunned disbelief at the coincidence of their presences at the courthouse.
“Looks like we’re both here for the same reason,” he acknowledged and walked toward her. He picked up the paper and handed it to her, and they entered the courthouse together.
10
The auditors.
CiCi couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen so many uptight people. And that was saying a lot for someone who regularly worked with lawyers, criminals, and people suing each other.
They were like a tiny herd of the most humorless animals on Earth. CiCi suspected that they were put off because she hadn’t been in the office to bow and scrape to them upon their most unwelcome appearance. She desperately wanted to snap back at their curt and rude comments by saying she’d sent the red carpet out for dry cleaning and she was just so sorry that it hadn’t been rolled out for their arrival.
CiCi was showing the auditors into a small conference room adjacent to the clerk’s office when her cell phone rang. It was the sheriff.
“Your juror is here,” Kyle reported without further elaboration.
“Be right there,” she told him, and thanked the Lord that she now had an excuse to flee her unhappy bureaucratic guests.
She hastened to the first floor, taking the stairs instead of waiting on the elevators, and spotted her quarry near the sheriff’s station.
“Hi, I’m CiCi Summers, the clerk,” she said as she introduced herself to the older gentleman in a wheelchair and extended her hand to him.
“Johnson McCabe,” the man said, grabbing her hand and shaking it much too enthusiastically for her liking. “Whew! Sure is plenty hot in this place. And what is that smell?”
“The A/C is broken. We’re working on it, as well as the smell. If the heat is a problem for you, I can take you to Judge Craft right now. He might excuse you from jury duty because—”
“Hell, no!” Mr. McCabe exploded. “I’m here to do my civic duty!”
Mr. McCabe launched into a speech she was sure he’d prepared for the conversation she was having with him: how everyone should serve without complaint and be glad for the chance. Although it was a refreshing sentiment she rarely heard, CiCi didn’t have time to stand there and smile politely while the man nattered on and on and on.
But it became nearly impossible to maintain a façade of sweet attentiveness after she saw Walker opening the door and allowing Jana to enter first.
CiCi could not stop herself from rolling her eyes at the alleged noncouple. The way her day had been going, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Walker and Jana had reconciled, had somehow gotten to the county clerk’s office to get a marriage license, and were going to ask Brady to remarry them after jury orientation. It was like being trapped in a bad sitcom without a laughing studio audience, and she had to play the luckless, put-upon straight woman.
“Let’s get you upst
airs, Mr. McCabe,” CiCi said, interrupting the old man’s tirade. She grabbed his wheelchair and pushed it toward the elevators, leaving Walker and Jana in the lobby.
Once in the courtroom, CiCi deposited Mr. McCabe in a spot near the counsel tables and saw that Sherry, the judges’ secretary, was sitting at the bench in the clerk’s spot. Sherry told her that she’d do the bench clerk duties that morning.
“I know you have a lot going on,” Sherry explained with a sympathetic smile.
CiCi thanked Sherry profusely, told her where to find the juror questionnaires, and said to call her if she needed anything. She grabbed her rule book and cast a wary eye out onto the courtroom gallery, which was filling with jurors. Toward the front of the gallery and sitting side by side were Walker and Jana.
Walker’s face was tense and he looked uncomfortable, likely due to the heat and the odor. He nodded to her, but CiCi looked away without acknowledging him, and she strode from the courtroom and headed back to her office, needing solitude.
* * *
“So what’s up with you and your girlfriend?” Jana asked.
“Leave it,” Walker said warningly, straining to smile.
“What was her name? CiCi, right?”
“CiCi Summers,” he confirmed with a long sigh. “She’s a friend of both Hannah and Lila.”
“She’s cute.”
“I’ll grant you that she’s cute, but I’m not so sure she’s my girlfriend,” Walker declared sadly.
“She certainly acted like it on Saturday.”
Walker wouldn’t look at Jana but instead scanned the courtroom as he pretended to have a casual conversation with his ex-wife. He continued to plaster on a fake smile in the attempt to disguise the rising tension but sensed his increasing anger would soon be difficult to hide, particularly since CiCi had just blown him off.
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2) Page 9
