Atty at Law

by Tim Lockette

  “I’m following the rules,” she said. “I’m going to do all the things Purple Devils do. And I’m going to do them in the most annoying way possible. You can obey the letter of the law and still defy the law. You of all people should know that, lawyer girl.”

  Here’s what I love most about Reagan: she does these crazy things and gets true respect from everybody. A big beefy senior in boots tipped an imaginary hat at her and called her ma’am, with a flirty glint in his eye. A cheerleader in the hallway told her earnestly that she loved the dress, and thought it was bold.

  “You realize it’s a joke,” Reagan said.

  “I know,” the cheerleader said. “It’s still a good look.”

  Teachers didn’t say a word about it, but all of them seemed to sort of fume at Reagan all day. And to make it worse, Reagan stayed awake through every class, raising her hand to answer. The ultimate form of sarcasm: no sarcasm at all.

  I wasn’t feeling so ironic, not after the encounter with Dad. At lunch, I told Reagan the whole story.

  “Does your Dad ever do that stuff to you?” I asked. “Ask if you’re thinking about hurting yourself?”

  “Of course he does,” she said. “I mean, I had purple hair yesterday. I’m cross-stitching a sampler that says ‘Hell is other people.’ And I spend my free time playing sad songs on the cello. So yeah, I have like eleven of the ten signs of depression.”

  “What, you play cello?” I asked.

  “Every day,” she said. “Four hours on Saturday and Sunday. I can also speak pretty good German. Let’s just say I went to an unusual preschool. Me and three other kids sawing away in an Austrian immigrant’s basement.”

  “You’re blowing my mind,” I said.

  “I’m large,” Reagan said. “I contain multitudes.”

  “Wow, that’s deep,” I said.

  “It’s not my line,” she said. “It’s from some poet. My mom used to say it when she was feeling manic or whatever. That’s the kind of depression she had. Sometimes she was down, but when she was up she would talk a mile a minute and felt like she could do anything. I think that’s the stuff that really worries my dad. If I play a long cello piece without messing up I’m like ‘I’m king of the world!’ And he looks at me all warily, like I’m turning into her.”

  “Lord,” I said. “You ought to be able to have ups and downs without worrying that you have depression.”

  “Ups and downs, Atty,” she said. “You need to stop moping about killing this dog and just go kill the dog.”

  We worked out a plan. First we’d go on foot, up and down the streets of Houmahatchee, putting up flyers at the intersections we couldn’t reach the first day. Then we’d go outward in a kind of spiral, to the little towns like Snoad and Parrott, and flyer the convenience stores. And we’d wait for calls. The flyer said to call the sheriff’s office, but I scribbled my own cell number below it on some of the flyers. Taleesa would have killed me for that, but I wanted to be in the loop if Easy was found.

  “Where would I go, if I was a dog?” Martinez asked one afternoon. He showed me a list he’d been keeping crumpled in his pocket. It made me cry.

  WHERE I’D GO

  DOG FOOD FACTORY

  ANIMAL SHELTER

  MARTINEZ’S HOUSE

  WHEREVER I LIVED BEFORE

  “Strudwick County just isn’t a good place to be a dog,” Martinez said. “Maybe he split.”

  That’s the thing. I wasn’t just worried about Easy being spotted and killed. There was also the idea of Easy out there trying to make it on his own. When stray dogs came to us at the shelter, they often looked like doggy zombies, with scars and red watery eyes and scuffled fur. It was tough to think of Easy out there, scrounging in the trash for food, fighting with other dogs. Where did he sleep? I know the stars are beautiful, but I’ve always felt like nighttime was probably the saddest and scariest time for a stray of any sort, dog or human.

  “On the bright side, at least there’s not a big alligator out there to eat him,” Reagan joked one day. “Too soon? Sorry.”

  She always pretended to be hard-hearted, but I knew that deep down inside she was rooting for Easy to get away. Easy was an outlaw, in her book. I kept hoping I could use that, in some way, to get her to join me in my shelter work.

  Maybe I just wanted to spend more time with her. All the other girls seemed to be pairing up for after-school get-togethers, sleepovers where they’d do each other’s hair and talk about boys they liked. I really couldn’t imagine Reagan going through my closet and judging my clothes, and we rarely talked about real, actual boys—just Elric of Melnibone and Neville Longbottom and other boys from books and movies. But still, she was my best friend, and I wanted to hang out with her after school. The problem was that we both had jobs, of a sort.

  “You should come home with me,” Reagan said. “After I do cello practice, we could shoot clays with my dad. Or write some fanfic. I want to do a complete gender-reversed Harry Potter.”

  “I’m not going to sit there and watch you play cello for two hours,” I said. “You should skip a day of cello and come with me to the shelter. I can’t leave my shelter work.”

  “Well, I can’t skip practice,” Reagan said. “If you skip one practice, you’ll skip again and again, and soon you’re not a cello player at all.”

  “That’s weird,” I said. “You said that with a German accent.”

  “Well, I mean it,” she said.

  “Come on,” I said. “You can come to my house after the shelter. You’ll like my house. It’s exactly a hundred years old, and it’s creaky and creepy. Ghosts ring the doorbell in the summer, and the hallway closet pops open when you walk by.”

  Within days, she’d given up. She came to school on Friday with an overnight bag and a note from her dad. Even with the note, we had to haggle with the teacher in the pickup line when Reagan tried to hop into the car with me. Probably because Reagan just handed off the note to the teacher, said “keep the change!” and dashed for the car so she could get the front seat. I got in the back, and Taleesa had to get out and explain the sleepover thing to the teacher while a bunch of aggravated parents gunned their engines behind us.

  “For a minute there, I thought I had jumped into the wrong car,” she said. “It’s cool that your brother and stepmom are black.”

  That irked me a bit. “Well, I told you all about that already.”

  “Hello, white people,” Martinez said. “I’m right here. Should you really talk about black people like I’m not right here?”

  It was the first time I’ve seen Reagan at a loss for words.

  “Well, I’m just saying,” she said. “You guys are, like so not Strudwick County.”

  “Born and raised here, my whole dang life,” Martinez said, as if he were some old man. That wasn’t actually true: He was born in Atlanta, and I was born in Florida because there’s no hospital in Strudwick County. But I let it go.

  “I just meant,” Reagan said. “I mean, I didn’t mean anything . . .”

  “It’s okay to talk about race, Reagan,” I said. “We’re not going to break into little pieces or anything. Though I guess hair, hair can be a touchy subject.”

  Just then, Taleesa popped back into the car.

  “Hey,” she said. “I’m the mom, and I guess you’re Reagan. Oooh, your hair is so pretty. Atty told me about the pink stripe. I think the all-black looks really good though.”

  Reagan just smiled and nodded and we drove on. After a minute or so, Martinez piped up: “Mom, it’s cool that you’re black.”

  Taleesa didn’t miss a beat. “Damn straight,” she said.

  Reagan slid down a little in the seat.

  Just then, the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Umm . . . the sheriff’s department? Is this the sheriff’s department?” a woman’s voice said.
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  Oh no. Someone had spotted Easy.

  “This isn’t the sheriff’s office,” I said. “Have you seen the dog? Where?”

  “It’s in the woods at the end of Galvez Road, where it meets St. Stephens Highway. I live across the street. I’m not going to let my grandbabies out until it’s gone. Are you the one that’s going to shoot it? You sound like a little girl.”

  “I’ll be there soon,” I said. “When you hang up with me, you need to call the other number on the flyer. That’s the sheriff’s office.”

  I told Taleesa about the call, and she turned toward Galvez Road. Then I called Megg at the shelter. And I called the sheriff’s office, just to make sure they got the message.

  On the way, everybody was quiet except Reagan.

  “What are we doing?” she asked. “Why are we going there to watch somebody shoot your dog? Why don’t we just let the deputies handle it?”

  “You’ve got a good point,” Taleesa said. “I didn’t even think about it. As a reporter, when I hear something’s happening, I want to go see it happen. It’s an instinct.”

  “We have a duty to see what happens,” I said. “I can’t explain it, exactly. Megg is there when they put the dogs to sleep. Maybe they don’t even know what’s going on, or why she’s there, but it matters. And it matters for us to be there, too.”

  Martinez put down his video game and looked around in shock. “They put doggies to sleep right there at the shelter? Miz Megg does it?”

  I sighed. “Martinez, have you paid attention to anything that’s happened in the past few months? Megg and I talked about this right in front of you. We had a whole big fight about it.”

  “I thought they took them to a farm and did it there. A farm upstate.” Martinez sounded like he was about to cry.

  “I don’t think Alabama even has an upstate,” Reagan said. “What difference does it make?”

  “It just does make a difference,” Martinez said. My brother’s voice suddenly got very small, as if he were a first-grader in bed with a fever. “I don’t like this. I don’t wanna go. Let’s don’t go there.”

  “We have to go,” I said. “We know what Easy looks like. What if she’s got the wrong dog? Do you want another dog to die because of mistaken identity?”

  And then we were there. The end of Galvez Road, just past the edge of town. On one side, a single-wide trailer with chain-link fence around it and a kiddie pool in the back. In the front yard, a little windmill that, when it spun in the wind, made a little wooden man chop endlessly at a piece of wood. Across the street from the trailer, a big two-story house up on the hill with a fence and a brick-and-iron gate. The driveway ran up the hill and ended in a big cobblestone circle in front of the house. I’d noticed the house before—we called it the Downton Abbey house sometimes—but until now I’d never noticed the name on the mailbox out front.

  B GRADDOCH.

  A woman in a nightgown was standing on the porch of the trailer. When we got out of the car, she just pointed to the woods across the field on the other side of St. Stephens Highway. “He’s over there.”

  We all peered at the field and the woods. No dog. Dying yellow weeds in the field, and behind them, purple-brown pine tree trunks.

  We were safe.

  There was a crunch of gravel as a sheriff’s office patrol car pulled up behind us. Out came Troy Butler, the radio on his shoulder squawking away.

  “Miss Taleesa, Colonel Peale,” he said nodding.

  “Not a colonel,” I said.

  “I’ll make a note of it,” he said. “So y’all have found our dog?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We can’t see anything.”

  Butler looked out over the field. Then put both pinkies in his mouth and whistled. “EASY!!” he shouted.

  A dog’s head popped up from the weeds. Then the dog stood up and looked at us intently. There was no doubt it was Easy. Black all over his back, a white face and chest with Dalmatian freckles, the one big black dot over one eye. All of a sudden I missed Easy with a real ache. And I knew that ache was about to get worse.

  “It’s the one?” Butler asked.

  I couldn’t speak. I nodded.

  “Y’all kids get in the car,” Butler said. “This is a dangerous dog. I’ll handle this.”

  Butler whistled and called Easy. Easy just stood there.

  “I can’t hit him from here, not with just a pistol,” Butler said through the rolled-down window. “I’ve got to get him closer. Maybe he’ll come if y’all call him.”

  “I ain’t doing that,” Martinez said.

  “I’ve never met the dog before,” Reagan said. “I don’t snitch to the police.”

  Butler looked at me. “Atty?”

  I nodded. But when I drew my breath in to call out, I started sobbing instead, like I haven’t cried in years. “I’m sorry,” I told him between gasps.

  But Troy Butler had already moved on. He was texting on his phone. “I could hit him if I had a rifle. I bet Backsley Graddoch has one up there at his house.”

  I couldn’t stop crying. In front of Butler and Reagan and everybody. It was embarrassing. By the time I stopped gasping, everybody was out of the car again, staring at the woods. Backsley Graddoch was there, too, looking strange in his suit, with a military-looking assault rifle cradled under his arm.

  “I’ll take the shot,” Graddoch told Butler. “It’s my rifle, I’ve got it sighted in. I used to shoot competitively. I was the best shot in the county.”

  “Fine with me,” Butler said. “So here’s the plan. The dog’s lying down over there in the grass somewhere. We just saw him. If I call out to him, he should stick his head up. Then you plug him. I’m guessing he’ll run after the first one, like a deer, so you’ve got one shot.”

  “Ready when you are.” Graddoch pointed his rifle toward the field where we’d seen the dog.

  Butler whistled. “EASSSYY!!” he shouted.

  The freckled head popped up.

  Graddoch took in a deep breath, then slowly started to exhale. I saw his finger twitch on the trigger.

  “SUH-WING, BATTER!!” Reagan shouted suddenly.

  A shot rang out. I don’t know where it went, but it didn’t hit Easy. The dog turned and ran toward the pines as fast as he could. Graddoch’s rifle cracked twice more, but Easy kept going, disappearing into the woods.

  “Gaaah,” Graddoch said. He turned to me. “You! the judge ordered you not to interfere with catching this dog. Why did you do that?”

  “It wasn’t me, Mr. Graddoch, I swear,” I said, turning to Reagan.

  Reagan popped earphones out of her ear, looked up from her phone. “What? Sorry, I was watching the playoffs on my phone. Did I mess you up?”

  It was like her attention deficit disorder lie earlier. So bold, you almost wanted to clap.

  “Young lady, don’t play games with me,” he said. “You fouled my shot on purpose.”

  Reagan laughed. “Give me a break,” she said. “I coulda made that shot, even with somebody yelling in my ear. And I’m just a dainty little girl.”

  Graddoch turned to me. “Miss Peale, this is where your meddling has got us,” he said. “A dangerous dog on the loose. A deputy’s time wasted, and the court’s time wasted, on animals that are clearly dangerous. I hope you learn your lesson soon. These frivolous lawsuits of yours are making the world less safe for everybody.”

  “Speaking of safety,” Reagan interjected. “Is your safety on now? And come to think of it, do you even know what’s in those trees across the street? A responsible shooter always knows what’s behind the thing he’s shooting at. Any idea at all?”

  Graddoch looked down at his rifle and grumbled when he realized the safety was not, in fact, on. He lifted the gun up—more or less in our direction—as he moved to switch it on. Reagan suddenly jerked me over to h
er side, and put a hand up like a cop stopping traffic.

  “Whoa, cowboy!” she said. “Keep that weapon downrange. Deputy, are you really going to let this man swing a gun around while he yells at little girls?”

  Butler patted Graddoch on the back.

  “Thank you, Mr. Graddoch,” he said. “Looks like we’re done here. Best to clear out.”

  Graddoch slung the rifle over his shoulder and skulked off. “Trust me,” he said. “Judge Grover will hear about this.”

  14

  It’s hard to have a sleepover with someone who is large and contains multitudes. Reagan wasn’t herself at all during her time at my house. She called Dad and Taleesa “Ma’am” and “Sir.”

  At the dinner table—we rarely actually sit down for a family dinner, but we always pretend when company comes—she spent most of the time quizzing Dad about how he became a lawyer, where he went to law school, and what kind of law he practiced. She really got him going, to the point that he was telling his old military stories and talking about old criminal cases.

  “I’m actually working on a capital murder case now, but it’s about to come to a close,” he said.

  Martinez and I both sat bolt upright.

  “What?” I asked. “Jethro Gersham’s coming to a close? I thought you said it would take more than a year to come to trial.”

  Dad shook his head.

  “Forget I said anything,” he said. “It’s all between me and my client.”

  “No,” I said. “You said it’s coming to a close. That means he really is pleading guilty. How can you let him do that? Why would he do that? You know he’s innocent.”

  “My job is to get the best outcome for my client,” Dad said. “To some extent, he’s the one who decides what’s the best outcome. So if he was going to plead—and I’m not saying he is—I can only try to persuade him otherwise.”

  Martinez crossed his arms and pouted through the rest of dinner. Dad and Taleesa didn’t even notice. They were so delighted with well-behaved little Reagan Royall. Later, when we were washing dishes, Dad told me he fully approved of my friendship with Reagan.