The Calamity Janes

by Sherryl Woods

  “Did you spend a lot of time with your son and his wife?” he asked.

  “I had my own husband at home to tend to,” Kate Carter said with a self-righteous expression. “I couldn’t be gallivanting off to visit them every time I turned around, but I was there often enough to know what was what.”

  “When you were there, did you ever hear Donny and Sue Ellen argue?”

  “Never,” she declared. “He was a sweet boy. He doted on her. Had ever since high school. He never said a cross word to her.”

  “That’s not what the neighbors have said,” Ford pointed out. “They said there were loud arguments almost every night.”

  “They were lying,” she said flatly.

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Who knows why people do what they do?”

  “What about your own marriage, Mrs. Carter? Did you and your husband get along?”

  She seemed taken aback by the question. “My husband’s been dead for six months now, God rest his soul. Besides, what does that have to do with anything?”

  “I just wondered what sort of example might have been set for Donny?”

  “My husband had a temper, if that’s what you mean. Some men do. It’s natural.”

  “He ever hit you?”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Not unless I deserved it.”

  Ford resisted the temptation to tell her that no husband had a right to hit his wife, nor did the wife ever deserve it. “So, Donny grew up thinking this was acceptable? You never told him it wasn’t?”

  She frowned at the question. “Are you trying to trick me?”

  “Trick you how?”

  “Make me say my husband and I set a bad example for our boy.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “No, it’s not possible. Donny was a good husband. A good provider. Sue Ellen should have been grateful.”

  “And if he hit her occasionally, that was just part of the package?” Ford suggested dryly.

  “Exactly,” she said, then caught herself. “He never hit her. If you write that I said that, I’ll call you a liar.”

  “Your words are on the tape.”

  She grabbed the recorder and hurled it across the room. The tape sprang free and unraveled as it fell to the floor. “You find those words on there now.”

  “I will,” he said quietly. It would be easier than she imagined to recover the tape. “I believe the interview is over, Mrs. Carter. If I’m going to use you as a source, I have to know you’re being honest with me.”

  To his dismay, tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Don’t you make my boy look bad,” she whispered. “He was a good son.”

  Ford took pity on her. Clearly she believed that. And maybe he had been. That didn’t mean he’d been a good husband.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said quietly.

  “Nobody understands that it was a loss,” she whispered. “For me, it was a loss. When his father came after me, that boy tried to protect me, even when he was an itty-bitty little thing. More than once he was the one who wound up taking a beating. Can’t you see, the least I can do is protect his memory.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ford said again.

  After she’d gone, he sighed. Kate Carter wasn’t isolating her remarks to him. He knew better than that. She was going to tell anyone who’d listen exactly what she’d told him. She was going to try to convince people that Donny deserved their pity, maybe even their respect. It might play well before a jury, too.

  Emma needed to know about this. She also needed to know that some of those words were going to wind up in print, which made it more critical than ever that she let her client talk to the media.

  He envisioned her reaction to that, then heaved another sigh. The dinner she’d finally agreed to have with him tomorrow night was no doubt going to leave them both with indigestion.

  Emma glared at Ford. “You interviewed Kate Carter?” she asked, her voice climbing until it carried throughout Stella’s. Silence fell from one end of the diner to the other as everyone turned to hang on every word of their exchange.

  “She came to me,” he responded quietly. “I thought you should know.”

  “Are you going to print what she said?”

  “Some of it.”

  “Well, if that isn’t the most irresponsible, one-sided excuse for journalism I’ve ever heard,” Emma said.

  “It doesn’t have to be one-sided,” he reminded her. “Let me talk to Sue Ellen.”

  She saw what he was trying to do. Once more he was trying to manipulate her. “I’ve already told you that there’s not a chance in hell I’ll let you do that,” Emma said. Especially now. With Sue Ellen’s state of mind so unpredictable, she couldn’t allow it. Sue Ellen was entirely likely to say that she deserved to be convicted for her crime.

  “Even if it means that Kate Carter’s side of the story is the only one people will read about?” He reached across the table and covered her hand. “I’ll be fair, Emma. You know that. But I can’t do it without your help. You know that, too.”

  Emma sighed, not liking any of the options available to her. If she let Kate’s words go unchallenged, it would be bad for Sue Ellen. If she allowed Sue Ellen to speak up for herself, there was a chance she would condemn her own actions out of her deep-rooted sense of guilt.

  “I’ll think about it,” she promised eventually.

  “You’ve been thinking about it for weeks now,” Ford pointed out. “The trial date is just around the corner. There’s not a lot of time left.”

  “Dammit, don’t pressure me. I hate being pressured.”

  Ford held up his hands. “Fine. You think it over and let me know what you decide. I’m running my story in next week’s paper, with or without Sue Ellen’s side of things.”

  Emma felt as if the walls of the diner were closing in on her. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “We haven’t even ordered dinner yet.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Okay, then, what would you rather do?” he asked, tossing a couple of bills on the table to pay for their iced tea.

  “You stay. I’ll go for a walk.”

  “I’m coming with you.” He stood up and followed her outside.

  Once they were on the sidewalk, Emma leaned against the building and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I caused a scene in there.”

  “I don’t give a damn about that,” he said. He touched her cheek, then gently brushed a stray curl away from her face. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head. “Can I be honest with you about something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Off the record?”

  He smiled. “We’re on a date, darlin’. Everything that happens tonight is off the record.”

  She nodded, and because she was feeling so completely lost and alone, she decided to trust him. “I’m scared.”

  “Of?”

  “Losing this case. I don’t think I’ve ever had one with the stakes so high. Oh, I’ve had cases with more money on the line, but never one where my client could spend the rest of her life in jail if I mess up.”

  “You’re a good lawyer. You’re not going to mess up.”

  “What if I’m wrong about how strong Sue Ellen’s case is? Or how well she’s likely to perform on the witness stand? What if she breaks under the pressure? What if I should have told her to accept a plea bargain?”

  “Do you believe that she would have been better off if she had?”

  “No,” she said honestly. “She doesn’t deserve to spend one single minute in prison for this.”

  “Then you’re giving her the best legal advice you can, right? No client can expect more.” His gaze met hers. “Why the doubts, Emma?”

  She sighed heavily. “A whole lot of things, I suppose. Sue Ellen’s discouraged. Kate got in there the other night and began badgering her about being guilty, so now she doesn’t even want to fight. Ryan’s scared for her. Then you tell me that Kate�
�s gotten your ear and you intend to print what she said.”

  “But you haven’t really changed your mind about what happened that night, have you? You still believe that Sue Ellen merely defended herself.”

  “With all my heart,” she said firmly.

  “Then I don’t see that you have any choice. You have to handle things exactly as you are.”

  She studied his face, tried to read exactly what he was thinking, but his expression was neutral. “You disagree with me, though, don’t you?”

  “It’s not about what I think.”

  “Isn’t it? If I can’t convince you, how I can I convince a jury?”

  Ford sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “Emma, I only know part of the story, at least firsthand. You know all of it.”

  “We’re back to the interview again.”

  He nodded. “It’s the only way. Do you intend to put Sue Ellen on the stand?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll have to.”

  “Do you doubt for a second that the prosecutor will be harder on her than I could ever be?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  In fact, one of the things that terrified her was that Sue Ellen would crack under the pressure of cross-examination. Worse, Emma feared that Sue Ellen would retreat into a passive, accepting behavior that allowed the prosecutor’s verbal assaults to go uncontested. Emma’s objections would only protect her so much.

  And no matter how well Emma tried to prepare Sue Ellen for being questioned, Emma couldn’t guarantee that Sue Ellen would fight on her own behalf. There had been too many years of battering, too many years of thinking that she deserved to be mistreated. The pattern might be too ingrained to change before the trial. If the prosecutor started to badger her, she might simply consider it her due.

  “Talking to me could help prepare her for court,” Ford said.

  But allowing Sue Ellen to be interviewed would require a huge leap of faith on Emma’s part. She wasn’t sure she was ready to take such a leap just yet. She looked into Ford’s eyes and saw only the thoughtfulness and compassion she had come to expect from him.

  “There would have to be ground rules,” she said slowly, coming to a decision she prayed she wouldn’t regret.

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I’d need to see what you intend to print.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do that. You’re going to have to trust me.”

  “But—”

  “That’s the way it has to be, Emma. I don’t send stories out for approval. No respectable journalist does. If there is any question at all in my mind about accuracy, I will go over it with you, but that’s the best I can promise.”

  It wasn’t so much the accuracy that worried her, it was the slant he might put on the piece. And once it was in print, if it was devastating to Sue Ellen’s case, it would be too late to fix things.

  He tucked a finger under her chin and met her gaze. “I am not out to get Sue Ellen,” he assured her. “I only want to get to the truth. The whole truth.”

  Emma felt her heart lodge in her throat. She was fairly certain—no, she knew—that Ford wouldn’t deliberately try to sabotage her case. Because he cared about her, because he had something to prove to her, he was probably the most sympathetic journalist she could ever find. He would be fair to Sue Ellen, at least as fair as he knew how to be.

  “I’ll make the arrangements,” she said finally, knowing that there was a lot more on the line than Sue Ellen’s future. Their fate—hers and Ford’s—was hanging in the balance as well.

  Glancing into his eyes, she could see that he understood that as clearly as she did. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

  “I won’t let you down,” he said solemnly.

  For all their sakes, Emma prayed he was right.

  Chapter 17

  Ford knew exactly what was at stake in the interview Emma had promised to arrange. Her face had been a mirror of her emotions. She was terrified that she was making a mistake, yet she had weighed the odds, struggled with her own biases and, in the end, decided to trust him. He didn’t take that trust lightly, because he knew what it had cost her. If he failed her—or even if she only perceived that he had—it would destroy them.

  A part of him chafed at being put to such a test, but another part understood it. Her ex-husband and the reporter who’d conspired with him had given her good cause to be wary of journalists.

  His interview with Sue Ellen had been scheduled for two o’clock. In the meantime, he spent his morning writing out questions, reading through the stack of books he’d accumulated on battered-wife syndrome.

  When he was as prepared as he could possibly be, he went on the Internet to do a few last searches for information. And while he was there, he called up the archives of the Denver papers in search of the story that had almost destroyed Emma’s life.

  It wasn’t that difficult to find amid the list of references to her name. Only one had a screaming headline about a breach of ethics. He read that and the story that had preceded it, the actual news story that suggested Emma had leaked confidential information.

  The reporter had been clever, Ford would give him that. His wording had been precise, relying on innuendo rather than explicit statements that could later be pointed to as libelous. As she had told him, anyone reading it casually would get the distinct impression that Emma was the source for the inside information about her client. Only a more thorough scrutiny would prove that the reporter had never actually said that.

  Indignant on her behalf, he called the paper and asked for the city editor, listed on the masthead as Clay Jennings. When the man came on the line, Ford explained who he was.

  “I’m wondering if a reporter named Guy Northrup still works for you,” he said.

  There was a hesitation, then the editor said, “No, he left about three years ago.”

  “Was he fired?”

  “No, he resigned,” Jennings said.

  “In the wake of the Emma Rogers debacle, I imagine.”

  The man didn’t even try to hide his surprise. “You know about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your interest in it?” he asked. “Guy’s not looking for a job with you, is he? I thought he’d pretty much given up on getting a job in the newspaper business. We certainly haven’t given him any references.”

  “Not a chance,” Ford said. “I just wanted to see if the man got what was coming to him.”

  “Last I heard, he was selling fertilizer at one of those mega-home stores. Seemed to me like it was a job right up his alley,” Jennings said wryly. “By the way, isn’t Ms. Rogers handling a case up your way now?”

  “As a matter of fact, she is.”

  “Keep an eye on her. She’s damned good at what she does.”

  Ford found himself grinning at the admiration in the man’s voice. “I know that. Glad to hear you recognize it down there.”

  He hung up, feeling better for some reason he couldn’t precisely explain. He wasn’t even sure why he had made the call other than to be sure that there had been no lasting damage to Emma’s reputation and that the man who’d harmed her had paid by losing his job. As for Kit Rogers, he was pretty sure that losing Emma would have been punishment enough for him. He was probably still reeling from the discovery that she had been strong enough to walk away.

  Ford didn’t intend to make the same mistake.

  Emma was more nervous than she would have been if she were the one being interviewed. The minute the words had left her mouth the night before, she’d wanted to retract the offer. How could she put Sue Ellen’s fate in Ford’s hands?

  How could she not?

  As a result of the internal struggle, she hadn’t slept a wink all night. Instead, she had played through different scenarios, trying to figure out ways she could leap into the middle of the interview if things started to go awry. An image of Ford’s indignant expression if she did just that was the only thing that gave her any reason to smi
le.

  When she could stand her own company no longer, she went into town and headed straight for Stella’s. Lauren had flown in again the night before and had promised to meet Emma to lend her some much needed moral support.

  When she walked into the diner, she found not only Lauren, but Karen, Gina and Cassie, as well.

  “I see you’ve rallied the troops,” she said to Lauren, managing a weak smile as she sat down.

  “Only because you sounded as if you needed us. We all know you made the right decision,” Lauren said with absolute confidence.

  “Oh, really? And how do you know that?”

  “Wisdom,” Karen said, grinning. “We are getting older and wiser, you know.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with us. We have faith in your judgment,” Cassie corrected.

  “And confidence in Ford,” Gina added.

  “You sound so sure,” Emma said wistfully.

  “Everything is going to work out, not just for Sue Ellen, but for you and Ford,” Cassie insisted. “I’ve never seen two people better suited for each other.”

  “Or who make more sparks fly,” Gina added with a grin.

  “I can’t even think about that,” Emma responded. “There’s too much riding on this interview.”

  “Well, I recommend hot-fudge sundaes all around,” Lauren said. “Nobody can be depressed when they’re eating all those gooey calories.”

  “I thought you were back on carrot sticks and yogurt,” Gina said, regarding her curiously.

  “Yeah, well, things change. If I want hot fudge, I can have it.”

  “Of course, you can,” Karen soothed, then beckoned for Stella and placed the order.

  They were still indulging when Ford strolled in and came straight to the table in the back. He nodded at the others, but his gaze locked on Emma’s.

  “Moral support?” he inquired lightly.

  “Yes,” she said unrepentantly.

  He sighed. “You don’t need it, you know.”