This was Wednesday. Long, long ago had been five days earlier.
The book, it turned out, was about a boxer, a semiprofessional middleweight. Apparently Stephen had written a guy story.
She took it to bed with her (or at least to the sofa, where she rolled herself in the blanket and propped her head against the cushion), figuring to skim the first few pages. She ended up reading for two hours, and she might have read more, but she wanted to get up in the morning before Stephen, so he wouldn’t end up having to make breakfast for his uninvited guest as well as dinner. Still, it was hard putting the book down. Not only could the man write, but his characters talked the same way real people talk, and they did things that real people do, and from time to time they fucked up just like real people fuck up.
Like Stephen himself had fucked up?
Of course, he had a lot to learn about boxing. Like the difference in the rationales behind the mandatory eight-count and the three-knockdown rule, or the proper weight in ounces of training gloves versus sparring gloves.
It was well after midnight by the time she forced herself to put the book down and turn off the light. The sofa may not have made the most comfortable bed in the world, but it couldn’t have been too bad, because the next thing she was aware of was that it was light outside. That and the aroma of brewing coffee - which, if it tasted half as good as it smelled, promised to be a good deal better than yesterday’s tea.
She followed her nose into the kitchen, where Stephen was putting mugs on the table. “How long have you been up?” she asked him.
“An hour or so. Long enough to dig your car out.”
“Thank you,” she said. A polite invitation to leave? Your car’s dug out; you can go now.
The coffee was hot and strong. She declined a second mug, explaining that she ought to get going. She noticed that he didn’t argue.
“I’m afraid you never got your interview,” he said.
“Maybe some other time,” said Theresa. “And anyway, I got much more than an interview.”
“Like what?”
“Like a good meal and a good night’s sleep, for starters. On top of that, I got to meet a very special person, an extraordinary father, and a pretty good writer.”
“Oh?”
“The Dying of the Light?”
“Why that one?” he asked. “I wrote it a long time ago. And I can’t imagine you’re into boxing.”
She shrugged. “I figured I might learn a thing or two,” she said.
“And did you?” His smile struck her just a tiny bit condescending.
“Sure,” she said. “Only I’ve gotta tell you: For my money, Everlast makes much better gloves than either Lee or Title.”
Once Theresa had left, Stephen went back to work on the rest of his driveway. It took him nearly two hours to clear enough snow for the Fiesta to make it down to the road and have half a chance of getting back up. Two hours of serious, heart-attack labor. It made him understand why, when a snowstorm was predicted, some of his neighbors simply moved their cars as close to the road as they could.
Next time.
The roads themselves were in good shape, as he’d expected. The snow had stopped sometime during the night, giving the plowers a chance to get things cleared for the folks who had to get to work early, like the truckers and the school-bus drivers. Snow was a fact of life in Columbia County. The prosperity of the ‘90s may have fattened the traders down on Wall Street, but up on Main Street, things were still pretty much touch and go. A minor inconvenience like a couple of feet of snow was no reason to miss a day’s work, which would mean a day’s pay. So the roads got plowed, the trucks got through, the schoolkids got picked up, and their parents were able to go off to work.
Stephen Barrow went off to see his lawyer.
“We’ve got a double-header tomorrow,” Flynt Adams told him. “You get arraigned on the indictment in the morning. And then, in the afternoon, we have to be at a hearing on your ex-wife’s show-cause order.”
“Jesus,” said Stephen. “Not exactly what you’d call a Good Friday, huh?”
“Actually, the timing might just help us a bit.”
“How’s that?”
“Well,” said Adams, “the way I see it, it’s less likely that Judge Wainwright will put you in in the morning, knowing that if he does so, Judge McGee won’t be able to squeeze more money out of you for your ex-wife.”
“Put me in? Can he really do that?”
“Yes,” said Adams. “The way he does it is to set bail.”
“But I thought you convinced that other judge, whatshis-name-”
“That was then. This is a different judge and a different situation. You’ve been indicted now.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means a grand jury has heard a little bit of the evidence against you and voted to formally charge you with a felony. Or felonies. On top of that, Everett Wainwright is much tougher on bail, as well as most other things, than Homer Quackenbush.”
“Great,” said Stephen. “Will I get a chance to say anything?”
“Yes. You’ll say the words, ‘Not guilty,’ when they ask you how you plead.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. I’ll do the rest of the talking. It’s what you’re paying me the big bucks for.”
“And suppose he does set bail?” Stephen asked.
“We’ll do our best to deal with it. Do you own your home?”
“Me and the bank.”
“What’s your equity in it?” Adams wanted to know.
“What do you mean?”
“Market value less outstanding mortgage.”
“I don’t know,” said Stephen. “About $11 or so.”
Adams laughed.
Stephen wished he were only kidding. “And in the afternoon? What happens then?”
“Any money you have left, Judge McGee orders you to turn it over to your wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
“Ex-wife, sorry.”
“Unless they can make me marry her again.”
“That’s the one thing they can’t do.”
But everything else, they could.
Stephen showed up early for his arraignment, as Flynt Adams had instructed, and in the suit and tie Adams had strongly recommended. He felt as though he were going to a wedding or a bar mitzvah, or perhaps his own funeral.
He’d been to the county courthouse in Hudson only once before, when he’d needed to look up the deed on his home for some reason a couple of years ago. Now he climbed the flight of stairs to the courtroom, entered, and winced at the yellowest paint he’d ever seen. Flynt Adams was already there, frowning over a set of papers that comprised the indictment. The original charge of Possessing a Sexual Performance by a Child, Adams explained, had been retained, joined by three new charges: Promoting a Sexual Performance by a Child, Use of a Child in a Sexual Performance, and Endangering the Welfare of a Child.
The people who had taken his daughter from him and sent her to live with her neurotic mother were accusing him of endangering her welfare.
There were maybe twenty or thirty people in the room, not counting court personnel. Stephen recognized Theresa Mulholland, but not an older man who was with her. Theresa made a point of smiling at him, but kept her distance. Adams pointed at a large man who stood at one of the tables up front.
“That’s Jim Hall,” he said. “He’s the district attorney, the one who’ll be prosecuting you. He says he’s got a couple of other arraignments on the calendar, which they’re going to do first, in order to get them out of the way.”
Evidently, Stephen was the main attraction.
The judge took the bench promptly at ten. Well over six feet tall, with sharp features and graying hair, he looked like an Everett Wainwright. “Good morning,” he said, and those who knew the drill returned the greeting. Stephen took a seat next to his lawyer in the second row. He could hear his own heart beating.
The other two cases involved
middle-aged black defendants, both accused of selling small amounts of crack cocaine to undercover officers, right there in Hudson. Both were led into the courtroom handcuffed, through a side door, by sheriff’s deputies - Stephen recognized the gray uniforms only too well. Both pleaded not guilty. Jim Hall, speaking in an accent that sounded more Southern than upstate New York, requested that $50,000 bail be set on each of them, and Judge Wainwright complied. Both were led out through the same side door. One of them tried to wave at his family sitting in the rear of the courtroom, but the handcuffs made it difficult. The thought of either of them, or their families, raising $50,000 was simply beyond imagination.
“People versus Stephen Barrow,” announced the clerk, and Stephen stood and stepped forward with his lawyer. “Are you Stephen Barrow?” asked the clerk, who was dressed in gray slacks and a blue blazer, and could have passed as a desk clerk at a fancy hotel.
“Yes,” said Stephen.
“The grand jury of Columbia County has charged you as follows.” As he listed the crimes, a hush fell over the courtroom, and Stephen could feel the back of his neck redden. “How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty,” Flynt Adams whispered to him.
“Not guilty,” said Stephen.
“Are the People requesting bail?” the judge asked. Just in case Jim Hall might forget.
“Most certainly, your honor. These are serious charges,” he intoned, sounding more Southern with each word, “involving a child of very tender years. The People ask that bail be set in the amount of $30,000 on each of the three felony charges and $10,000 on the misdemeanor, for a total of $100,000.”
Judge Wainwright turned to Adams. “Counselor?”
“Your honor, my client is a longtime resident of the county. He has no prior record whatsoever. He took a couple of photos of his daughter that with better judgment and the gift of hindsight, perhaps he shouldn’t have. But he’s not going to suddenly abandon his daughter and his home, and flee the jurisdiction. He was released on his own recognizance by the town justice and appeared today as directed. In fact, he got here a full half hour early. Finally, none of the charges are armed felonies, or violent ones. I’m asking you to continue his present status.”
“Who R-O-R’d him?”
“Justice Quackenbush.”
Judge Wainwright chuckled. “He’d R-O-R Attila the Hun,” he said, to a ripple of laughter. “And you say these aren’t armed or violent felonies?”
“That’s correct, sir,” said Adams. “The Penal Law-”
“Never mind the Penal Law. As far as I’m concerned, this defendant was armed with a camera and did serious violence to a child. Still, he did show up today. Does he have a passport?”
Adams turned to Stephen, who shook his head from side to side. He had one, but he’d let it expire a couple of years earlier.
“No, your honor.”
“Bail is set in the amount of $50,000, cash or surety bond,” said the judge.
Stephen gasped audibly.
“I understand your client has an appearance before Judge McGee this afternoon?”
“That’s correct, your honor.”
“See that he’s there. I’ll give him to the close of business Tuesday to post the bond.”
“Might we have a few extra days, your honor? He’s going to need-”
“Close of business Tuesday,” Judge Wainwright repeated. “It’d be Monday, but that’s a holiday, and I won’t be here. Now, Mr.-”
“Adams.”
“Right. How much time are you going to need to get your motions in?”
“I’d like three weeks, please.”
“March third.”
Adams studied his calendar book. “I think that’s only two weeks, your honor.”
“I know,” said the judge. “I can count.”
if the morning’s arraignment was a qualified success - at least Stephen was permitted to leave the courtroom by the main door, rather than the side one in handcuffs - the afternoon’s hearing was a different story.
They met in a conference room, with Judge McGee seated at the head of a long table. Stephen and Flynt took seats on one side, across from Ada and her lawyer, Jane Sparrow, a small, shrill woman with beady eyes that never stopped darting around the room. Two deputy sheriffs, a court reporter, and one of the hotel clerks completed the gathering. Stephen had wondered if Penny would be there, but she wasn’t. It had been six days now since he’d seen her or spoken a word to her. He just wanted to see that she was okay, that was all - that she wasn’t sick, that she was eating all right, that she was still the same Penny.
Priscilla McGee could have been a young sixty or an old fifty; she wore a lot of makeup, so it was hard to tell. She had a habit of glancing at her watch as soon as anyone else started speaking, as though she were timing their remarks and might interrupt at any moment, something she did constantly when it was Adams who happened to be speaking.
The hearing lasted thirty-five minutes. By the time it was over, Ada Barrow had been granted exclusive custody of Penny until “further order of this court,” an event that seemed likely to occur sometime after the next ice age; Stephen’s child-support payments had been increased from $300 a month to $750; Penny would immediately be seen by a therapist who was a “qualified expert” in child abuse, and who would evaluate Penny and report directly to the court; and Stephen would bear the expense of the therapy, as well as all of Ada’s legal bills.
When Adams had asked about the possibility of Stephen’s having visitation rights, Judge McGee had shot him down. “Certainly not before I’ve heard from the therapist,” she said, “and we find out just how much irreparable damage your client has already caused this poor child.”
Irreparable damage, thought Stephen. This from a woman who had never met Penny, had never so much as set eyes on her, let alone heard her singing, “Don’t worry, be happy,” at the top of her lungs, the day after Stephen had caused her irreparable damage by photographing her mooning him.
It was enough to make you appreciate Judge Wainwright.
That same Friday afternoon, Jim Hall finally got a copy of the search-warrant return, the inventory of property that had been seized from Stephen Barrow’s home. As he looked down the list - which ran a full three pages of single-spaced typing - he placed little checkmarks by those items he considered particularly noteworthy. He ended up checking the following:
Numerous photos of child complainant, some in underwear or bathing suits, some topless
X-rated and sacrilegious video, “The Devil Made Me Do Him”
4 anatomically correct female dolls, all apparently named “Barbie”
1 Valentine’s Day card from the child complainant to Stephen Barrow, containing a child’s depiction of Barrow in some sort of undergarments, and signed “I love you”
3 Valentine’s Day cards from Stephen Barrow to the child complainant, one of which is inscribed, “To the love of my life,” and signed “Love, Stephen”
1 camera, Nikon brand
8 pairs of child’s underpants
1 child’s drawing depicting a small girl and a man embracing each other
The camera, Hall figured, could be the weapon - or instrumentality was probably the correct way to phrase it. The underdrawers would be submitted to the state police lab to test for semen stains. The porn movie Hall would have to take home, so he could examine it on his VCR. It was evidence, after all, even if the title didn’t seem to suggest it was kiddie porn. But the item that intrigued him the most was the Valentine’s Day card Barrow had mailed to his daughter, the one that said, “To the love of my life,” and was signed, “Love, Stephen.”
Now what kind of man sends a card to his six-year-old kid and signs his name to it? “Daddy,” “Dad,” “Pop,” “your father,” “the old man,” whatever. But Stephen? What kind of a man wants to be called Stephen by his daughter? And what did that say about his relationship with her?
To Jim Hall, it said plenty.
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br /> He found Flynt Adams’s phone number and dialed it. Adams picked up on the first ring and said, “Law office.”
“That you, Flynt?”
“Yes.”
“Jim Hall here. Just got the return on the Barrow search warrant, and the law says you’re entitled to a copy. Going to mail it out to you, if that’s okay.”
“How long is it?” Adams asked.
“Looks to be about four or five pages.”
“Think you could fax it over?”
“Sorry,” said Hall. “I’m afraid our fax machine is out of paper.”
“You’re faxing it to me,” Adams told him. “I’m the only one who needs paper, not you.”
“Not paper” said Hall. “I said it’s out of order.”
There was a pause while Adams seemed to think over that little juke. “Anything significant in the return?” he asked. In other words, it seemed he’d already accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to get to see it until next week.
By God, Hall thought, I love lawyering.
“Not really,” he said. “A camera, a porno flick. I honestly can’t remember seeing anything else in there that seemed interesting.”
“I’ll look for it in Monday’s mail,” said Adams.
“You do that,” said Jim Hall.
Cathy Silverman was straightening up her office and getting ready to leave for the evening when her phone rang. It was already dark out and almost five o’clock, and she toyed with the idea of letting it ring, or at least allowing the answering machine to pick up. But Cathy Silverman was a dedicated professional, and letting a phone ring unanswered was all but impossible for her to do.
“Child Counseling Services,” she said.
“Cathy?”
“Yes.”
“Jane Sparrow here. I’m glad I caught you. Judge McGee agreed to appoint you to evaluate the Barrow child.”
Best Intentions Page 14