Atty at Law

by Tim Lockette

  “No answer from the court clerk,” I said. “Just a message.”

  “You have the number for Judge Grover’s secretary,” she said.

  “I’ll try it,” I said. Nothing. “Gaaaah! No cell phone coverage here! I hate when that happens.”

  Behind us, a siren.

  “Oh, no,” Taleesa said. “Getting pulled over. Keep trying to call, Atty.”

  On the side of the road, we waited for what felt like hours while the deputy, parked behind us, talked on his radio. Why wouldn’t he just come up and write us a ticket? Come on!

  Finally, he stood beside us. “Driver’s license and registration, please,” Taleesa handed them over. More agonizing wait. Then: “So, ma’am, what’s the hurry?”

  “You explain it, Atty,” Taleesa told me. “You know the case.”

  I took a deep breath as I quickly went through the whole case again.

  “. . . and so we have to get to court and present that evidence as soon as possible.”

  The deputy stood there poker-faced, his eyes behind dark glasses. When I was done, he just kept staring, like I hadn’t said a thing.

  “So, you’re Atty Peale, the dog lawyer,” he said.

  “I’m Atty Peale,” I said. “A dog advocate. Can’t call myself a lawyer.”

  “Colonel Atticus Peale,” he said.

  “Not a real colonel of anything,” I said, sighing. “It’s just an honorary title.”

  “An appointment from the governor?” he said. “Lieutenant colonel, aide-de-camp to Governor Fischer King.”

  “That’s what it says on the paperwork,” I said. “Really, I don’t see—”

  “Hold on, Colonel,” the deputy said. Then he turned to the radio on his shoulder. “Dispatch, Unit 42. I’m going to be out of service for about twenty minutes. I’m escorting a member of the governor’s staff to the Strudwick County Courthouse.” He handed Taleesa her license. “Just follow me, ma’am, and try to keep up.”

  And off we went. Faster than I’ve ever gone before.

  “You know,” Taleesa said. “It’s cool that my daughter’s a colonel.”

  “Damn straight,” I replied.

  So, I’ve told you again and again how courtrooms and jails aren’t like what you see in the movies. Well, this was kind of like the movies.

  We burst into the courtroom in our beach clothes—colorful shorts, flip-flops, T-shirts—so fast that the deputy by the door didn’t even have time to stop us. The door swung over and hit the wall with a bang that echoed off the green tile. I had sunglasses on my head and a forbidden cell phone in hand. Martinez, for some reason, was now wearing floaties.

  We could see Dad and Jethro at the defendant’s table. Jethro was looking handsome in a charcoal gray suit. And he was standing.

  If you’ve ever been in a courtroom you know that just about the only time a defendant stands up in the courtroom is to say “Guilty” or “not guilty.” Or to hear a jury say the same. We were just in time.

  So here’s what I didn’t expect: at the other table stood a young white man with thick black hair, in a nice-fitting dark suit. This was the prosecutor, the guy who was arguing that Jethro was guilty. It wasn’t Backsley Graddoch. I had always assumed Graddoch would be on the other side in this case. I don’t know why. There are plenty of lawyers in the world. In fact, Graddoch was sitting calmly in the audience, legs crossed lazily, a couple of rows behind where Dad stood.

  In the center was Judge Grover, looking like he was ready to snatch every one of us bald. I don’t know if I explained this, but making a commotion in a courtroom is, in any judge’s eyes, just about the worst thing you can do. Contempt of court. A judge can throw you right into jail for it, without a trial.

  We all stood there staring at each other for a second, trying to think what to say. It was so quiet you could hear a floaty squeak. I took a deep breath.

  “If it please the court,” I said, and I said it loud.

  Judge Grover stood up. Judges never stand up. It’s the judge equivalent of turning into a megazord.

  “IT DOES NOT PLEASE THE COURT, Miss Peale,” he said. He turned to Dad. “This court has been very open to this young lady’s arguments, but let me tell you, Paul Peale, if this keeps up I’ll be holding you in contempt.”

  “Paul,” Taleesa said. “Paul, this is an emergency. You’ve got to stop. You’ve got to hear us, now, Judge. We have important information, and it’s about this case.”

  Grover plopped down in his chair again. “I’m not sure this case is any of your business, Mrs. Peale,” he said. “Mr. Gersham, in consultation with his attorney, is here to change his plea to guilty and accept what looks like a pretty generous sentence. Is that still your stance, Mr. Gersham?”

  “Jethro,” Taleesa said. “Look me in the eye. Are you guilty? Did you shoot anybody?”

  Jethro didn’t say anything. He just started shaking his head vigorously. First, in our direction. Then he turned to the judge, still shaking his head. A tear rolled out of each eye.

  Grover shook his head, too, in exasperation.

  “That’s it,” he said. “In my chambers. All of you. Even you, with the rubber duckies on your arm. We’re going to straighten this out.”

  And it was all of us. Me, Taleesa, Martinez, Dad, deputies, the prosecutor: everybody, oddly, except for Jethro, who had to go back to a cell. Even Backsley Graddoch was there, for some reason, in the back of the room. Martinez and I walked Judge Grover through the whole Easy/Edward story. A couple of times. Maybe we’re not so good at explaining things we’ve just discovered.

  “And then we headed here, Your Honor,” I said in closing. “As quick as we could. I’m truly sorry for barging in, but I couldn’t see any other way.”

  Judge Grover leaned back in his swivel chair and rubbed his face in exasperation.

  “Well, I can tell you this,” he said. “I will not be accepting a guilty plea today.”

  He stared Dad in the eye for a few seconds. Then he turned to the prosecutor the same way.

  “Like the song says,” Grover said. “Everybody’s looking like they’re supposed to, but ain’t nobody looking very good. We’ve got a man who apparently can’t read, but he’s signed a typed confession. We’ve got a potential second suspect who doesn’t appear to have been questioned very thoroughly. And on the defense side, we’ve got a lawyer who’s willing to let his client plead even though there may be a bunch of holes in the case. Peale, why couldn’t you and Mr. Graddoch find the things these children found?”

  Now I was shaking my head. “Wait,” I said. “Backsley Graddoch is on Jethro’s side?”

  “I’m just helping out a bit,” Graddoch said. “Not writing anything. Just doing a little research, collecting some information. Just like you were doing a couple of days ago in Jethro’s neighborhood, or so his neighbors tell me.”

  “So you’re the lawyer-man the neighbors said they talked to,” I said.

  “He’s doing it pro bono,” Dad said. “For free. In his off time.”

  “But you’re the lawyer for Strudwick County,” I said.

  “In civil cases,” he said. “This is a different kind of case. And unlike some people, I got the court’s permission to stick my nose in it.”

  “I don’t get it,” Martinez said. “Why would you get involved? And for free?”

  Graddoch shrugged. “Same as you,” he said. “Jethro’s my friend. I hate to see a man I know get strapped to a table and put to death. Not when I can help get him a deal, and maybe an appeal, where he’ll see the sun again someday.”

  Grover held up a sheaf of papers. “I’m not even going to get into what kind of damn fool would sign this deal if he knew he were innocent,” he said. “What I really want to know is: as smart as all y’all lawyers in this room are, how did you miss these things that a couple of children were able to u
ncover? Smart people with law degrees. What do these children have that y’all don’t?”

  “Hope,” Taleesa said, still sniffling.

  She’d been crying, off and on, ever since Jethro first shook his head at her. She turned around to look at all the faces in the room.

  “None of y’all have been in the system, have you?” she said. “No. My father was in the system a few times, for little stuff. County jail. Some of the things he went to jail for, he did. Some of them he didn’t. After a while, he gave up. After seeing a judge tell him ‘guilty’ when he wasn’t. After saying he was guilty when he wasn’t so he could come home to me quicker. At some point he just lost hope. Not hope in himself or hope in me but hope in y’all. Hope that you’d really hear a man when he says he’s not guilty. Hope that you’d stop churning people in one door and out the other and maybe stop to give a man a real trial. And once you give up that hope, you don’t come through the courthouse doors the same way you used to. You don’t hope for justice. You just put on your armor and hold your breath. Maybe you hold your breath for a month. Maybe for years.”

  Grover pulled a handkerchief out of his coat and handed it to Taleesa.

  “Your point is well taken, Mrs. Peale,” he said. “We’re given too little, by the state and the taxpayer, to do the job we’re really supposed to do. If we held a trial in every case that came to us, I couldn’t finish this week’s docket in a year.”

  “I don’t care,” Taleesa said. “I don’t care how much work it takes. Jethro doesn’t care how much work it takes. None of us do.”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence, interrupted only by Taleesa’s sniffles. Backsley Graddoch was the first to speak.

  “Maybe this is not a good time,” he said. “But it occurs to me that I owe Colonel Peale an explanation. I’m sure that to you, I look like a big meanie, always stepping up to fight a little girl in court. I’m a big boy, I can take that. It’s my job. If it’s ever seemed like I take it too personally, if I’ve ever seemed angry about you, this is why. I’ve seen the court shuffle hundreds of young men through the door to jail. Men who don’t own a Sunday shirt to wear in court, men who don’t know to stand up straight and say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ until a judge tells them to. They come in and they go out so fast. And here’s a young woman who wants to take up the court’s valuable time for animals, when so many human beings come in and out as if pleading guilty to a crime were as common as cashing a check. Maybe I should have said that more plainly from the start. I just want more time for the people who need an advocate.”

  Dad sighed. “I see what you mean,” he said. “And yet, with all our passion for justice, you and I didn’t manage to get a real trial for our man—for our friend. Did we?”

  “No,” Graddoch said. “No, we didn’t.”

  16

  “You’re a jerk,” Reagan Royall said. “You saved a guy from the electric chair and you didn’t bring me along! What kind of friend are you?”

  “Alabama doesn’t have the electric chair,” I said.” We inject people with poison. And nobody was going to inject him with poison. He was signing a plea deal to avoid exactly that.”

  Jethro didn’t plead guilty, of course. But clearing his name didn’t work as fast as I thought it would. After we broke up the plea hearing, they sent him right back to jail. Dad said he’d be out in a few days, released without bail because he’s no longer considered a “flight risk.” The cops were pretty sure they could let Jethro go home without him running away.

  “It’s a sign that they know they’ll probably drop the charges eventually,” Dad said. “Down the road, when it won’t sound like such a drastic shift.”

  The hammer didn’t fall on Gary Dudley—Cloudy Hair—just yet, either. They brought him in for questioning, and he had his lawyer present from the start. I’m told he didn’t give the investigators anything glaringly obvious. But a bunch of other stuff popped up that fit our theory of the case nicely. Folks at the marina said Dudley returned to the marina without any fish that day, and that he had a limp when he came back that afternoon, and told people he injured himself falling out of his boat, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Deputies even found a red ball cap under the seat of his boat.

  There wasn’t any video from the pawnshop itself. But a camera at a service station on the corner caught an image of a dog limping past, leaving a trail of blood. The same camera caught Jethro strolling toward the pawnshop and back, long after Easy went by. The police had watched the video before, but at the time they didn’t think the part with the dog was relevant.

  I can’t tell you how I know those details. They’re not from Dad. I have my sources. I’m a colonel, you know.

  And word of the whole thing just seemed to get out there. Cloudy Hair was free, but I bet that anywhere he went, he was hearing the same thing I was: that Jethro was innocent, that the cops were looking at Gary Dudley closely, that some meddling kids had solved the case. With their faithful dog. All we needed was a van and Scooby Snacks, I guess.

  And Scooby himself. Now that Easy was pretty much cleared of biting without provocation, we had a new reason to look for him: We could bring him home safely to Megg. And deputies were on the lookout, too, now, because Easy was a walking, barking piece of evidence.

  It’s weird to be congratulated for solving a murder. Particularly in the hallway, while your ex-sort-of-boyfriend is holding another girl’s hand.

  “Atty, I heard you save a guy from prison,” Premsyl said. “Pretty cool. It will look good on a college application.”

  See? Weird.

  “Saved,” I said. “The past tense of save is saved.”

  Premsyl shook his head. “Atty, you’re still the same girl I broke up with,” he said, brushing a fist playfully past my chin. Braces Girl surveyed me with a lordly look and they turned and walked away.

  “Zumpfink bothering you?” Reagan prodded, imitating Premsyl’s accent. “Can’t keep your feelings in Czech?”

  I dismissed Premsyl and girlfriend with a wave of the hand. “Not them necessarily,” I said. “But look at this. Look at this hallway closely. What do you see?”

  I’ll tell you what I saw: boy-girl pairs. Everybody was coupling up, talking beside lockers, walking together in the hallway, flirting anxiously. It was mating season all of a sudden, and somehow I’d missed it.

  “The Halloween Dance,” Reagan said. “Didn’t you see the signs? Everybody’s looking for a date. You were too busy saving the world to notice. What, does it bother you?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “I think it bothers me that it doesn’t bother me. Is there something wrong with me that I don’t want to be a part of this?”

  “Not at all,” Reagan said. “You and I are destined for much better boyfriends than we can get here. Much cooler situations. All these people are pairing up out of fear. Because they think if you can’t get a date to the seventh grade dance, you’ll die old and alone in a house full of cats. And no one will come to feed the cats for days, and they’ll eat your face to stay alive.”

  “Well, I want to die old,” I said. “And I kind of take comfort in the idea that cats would eat my face. I mean, note to self, get a cat-sitter. But if they’re really hungry and I’m dead, I hope they would eat my face.”

  “I want cats to eat my face because it’s the most goth thing I can think of,” Reagan said. “So no dance for you then?”

  “On Halloween?” I said. “Heck no. I’m going trick-or-treating with Martinez.”

  “Oh, isn’t that sweet?” Reagan said. “Older sister taking time out to help widdle brother twick or tweet?”

  “Help, nothin’!” I said. “I want candy! I love Halloween. I’m going to trick-or-treat for as long as I can. I’m going to trick-or-treat when I’m twenty. I’m going to be a baghead.”

  I don’t know if they have bagheads where you live, but everybody in Houmahatc
hee knows them. They’re the big kids—sixteen, maybe seventeen years old—who come around late at night with a paper sack over their heads to ask if you’ve got any candy left. Kids who scoff at the idea of trick-or-treating, and say they’re too old, but then start feeling remorse as the night goes on and the little kids start bringing home candy. So they reach for the bag and the scissors and make one last pathetic effort to get in on the action.

  Of course, there are little bagheads, too. Houmahatchee has lots of kids who are too poor to buy a costume, so they draw a face on a bag. The rule in our house is that little bagheads get to pick through and get all the chocolate and other top treats, while big bagheads get candy corn and peppermints, the yucky stuff.

  “Colonel, you are the least punk person I’ve ever known,” Reagan said. “What are you going to be? Little Bo-Peep? Princess Jasmine in a plastic Walmart outfit, like a five-year-old?”

  “Oh, come on, this is a high goth holiday,” I said. “Surely you haven’t given up on trick-or-treat? How old were you when you stopped? What was your last costume?”

  Reagan hung her head. “Don’t tell anybody, okay? I’ve never trick-or-treated.”

  “What?” I said. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Look, it’s a church thing,” she said. “They’re not super-anti-Halloween at my church, but I guess the thinking is that if it even looks like it’s of the devil, a Christian shouldn’t be doing it. So they do lock-ins and judgment houses instead. The closest I’ve ever come to wearing a Halloween costume was when I played a car crash victim in a judgment house.”

  I’m not a fan of any kind of haunted house. I’ve never thought it was fun to be chased around in the dark by a guy in an ugly mask with a chainsaw. Judgment houses sound even worse. You go to a church and they walk you through a show where a bunch of rowdy teenagers die in a car crash. The haunty part comes when all the teenagers go to hell because they’re not Christians.