Suitable for Framing

by Edna Buchanan

  After the usual delays over at the Justice Building, the show finally got under way. The woman judge was a disembodied voice piped through speakers on either side of the room. We would be appearing on three monitors at the other end, in the Justice Building courtroom. The largest faces the judge, like her own home-entertainment center. Smaller screens play to the gallery and the attorneys.

  As the judge called out our names, each hapless defendant stepped up to a podium, on camera, center stage.

  I wasn’t quite sure where to look when my name was called. The camera’s eye was in front of me, but the speaker was off to the side.

  “How do you plead?” the voice said.

  “Not guilty,” I said, succeeding in appearing shifty-eyed as I averted my eyes from the speaker to the camera.

  She called the next name.

  “Wait a minute.” I hogged the mike, loath to relinquish it to the next defendant, a blonde in a sequined sweater, who had stepped up to replace me.

  “Your honor?” I said, addressing the camera. Was it on? I wondered. I would have preferred eye contact with somebody who was just and all-powerful in an impressive black robe.

  “Don’t say anything!” a quick male voice said sharply.

  “J.T.?”

  Apparently he was there in the courtroom representing my interests, but before I could confirm that I was whisked away, upstaged by the blonde in black sequins.

  That was it? Somehow I had expected as much time on jail video as Trish got on the Today show.

  I wondered how I had looked on camera. I should have tried to do something with my hair. Inez was right.

  J.T. showed up at the jail that afternoon.

  “Was that you in court this morning?”

  “Yes. You weren’t supposed to say anything.”

  “I wanted to ask about the Arthur hearing.”

  “We have to be ready first. I’ve got somebody looking for the witness. He’s a homeless guy who lives in or around the park and collects cans for a living. Name is Carl Ashe.” He looked at me as though it might ring a bell.

  “I wasn’t there, J.T., and I see hordes of can collectors every day. They’re everywhere.”

  “The evidence found in the car was a little pearl button that matched the others on your blouse. There was even a bit of thread still clinging to it. Matches the thread on the remaining three buttons on the blouse you gave them.”

  “Is that it!” Relief washed over me. “No problem! Trish grabbed the front of my blouse in the parking lot and ripped off two buttons. I wanted to go back to look for them after I got in my car, but I was too embarrassed.”

  “How did one wind up in her car?”

  “Probably when I kicked at her purse,” I said, rueful at the recollection of my vile temper. “Some of her stuff flew out, and when she picked it up she scooped things back into it. Or maybe she just hung on to it and still had it in her hand when she left. A cop named Gravengood saw the whole thing. He even told me I should fix my blouse.”

  “His name again?”

  I told him. “He’ll remember. He’s the one who made the incident report. This so-called witness has got to be just as bogus. Find him, J.T. Find out who or what he saw. It sure as hell wasn’t me.” Nearly overcome by frustration and fatigue, I had never felt so helpless. “I wish I was out there working on this. When can we get the hearing?”

  “Look, you only get one shot. If we blow it, you’re stuck. We’ve got to overcome the presumption of guilt. It’s more important in this case that we do it right as opposed to just getting it done, which means I believe you, Britt I believe it when you tell me you had nothing to do with the murder. Let’s find the witness and see what the medical examiner’s report says first.”

  I tried to call my mother that night, but she wasn’t home. I wondered if she had disowned me. Maybe she had moved and left no forwarding address. She had always complained that I never called her. When I finally did, she wasn’t home—and I was in jail. I apologized in weepy fashion to her answering machine.

  By day four, I had a new haircut from the jail beauty salon, a good one, and was seriously considering green and black fake nails, though I stopped short of taking the plunge. Any variation in daily routine was a blessing. The absolute loss of privacy and dignity, under the control of strangers with never before dreamed-of schedules, rules, and regulations, was numbing.

  Where was everybody from the world I had left? Lottie had delivered some clothes and some books, but I kept missing her when it was my turn at the phone. Of course in the bad light, with the blaring TV and my pod mates’ constant battles over its control, it was impossible to concentrate enough to read.

  I thought a lot about Howie and reached the conclusion that my current situation was what I deserved, not for Trish’s murder but for his death. Nothing is sadder than when the dream dies with the dreamer. His life need not have been wasted. Had I wasted my own, in the naive pursuit of worthless goals? My job had always taken precedence, at the expense of family and personal life. Did the News matter now? How many of my friends believed me guilty? My editors had seemed so eager to replace me with Trish. Was any of it worth it? The News would publish every day without either of us. She is dead, I thought, and I am gone. We will not be missed.

  Freedom was all that mattered now. My life and my priorities would change forever, I swore, if I survived this crisis and walked free again.

  J.T. had been right. He was jubilant on his next visit. “I filed for the hearing,” he said, sitting down. “Here’s what we’ve got. The ME says Trish was strangled with so much force that her larynx was crushed into her spinal cord. It’s very unusual for women to be stranglers. It’s mostly guys because it’s a power thing. The ME seems to think it improbable that somebody your size, what is it?”—he scrutinized a copy of my booking card—“five feet four inches, one hundred fourteen pounds, would be able to exert that amount of pressure. The killer is most likely taller, stronger, heavier.

  “I went to the station myself, with my investigator, to search for the other button. Locating it there would bolster your story, but it hasn’t turned up. Gravengood is on vacation but should be back tomorrow. And”—he looked pleased—“I hear their witness may not be credible, if they can find him.”

  “What have I been telling you?”

  “Now,” he said. “Here’s what you can expect.”

  J.T. was big on telling me what to expect, and I loved him for it. He had become my one ray of hope throughout this entire ordeal.

  “You will be transported to the Justice Building, but you won’t walk in the way you used to. You will be brought in through the prisoner walk-through and lodged in a holding cell at the rear of the courtroom. Eventually you’ll be brought in and they will handcuff you to a chair in the jury box, which is where the prisoners are kept.”

  He saw my face. Handcuffs make a poor first impression. I wanted this judge to believe me trustworthy, someone who could be counted on to show up in court when expected.

  “They’re very security-conscious right now. They’ve had some breaks recently,” he said.

  Thank you very much, Linelle.

  “And the judges are very nervous, frankly, since the shooting in that Broward courtroom.”

  It never helps your case to shoot the judge, I thought irritably. Some defendants make it tough on all of us.

  “The hearing itself will consist of three or four witnesses and a lot of arguing. It’s important, Britt, that you concentrate on remaining calm. If you hear something that doesn’t sound right to you, just make a little note to me. Don’t try to talk to me during the hearing, because I can’t listen to you and listen to the witness at the same time.

  “I have no idea whether we’re going to be successful,” he confessed, taking off his glasses, squinting through them, then wiping them with a handkerchief. “If not, we can appeal. But let’s not even talk appeal at this point. Let’s talk character witnes
ses. Do you think anybody at the News would testify in your behalf?”

  I wasn’t sure, given all that had happened, but I gave him some names.

  The Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building swarms with seething, surging masses of humanity. Apparently none of them flush, as the rest rooms are disgusting. No soap, no paper towels, no paper. I know the building well; it is a gold mine for reporters seeking stories. Today one of them was mine

  The prosecutor was Audra Evans, a star in the major-crimes division. I wasn’t sure if that news was good or bad. Her career was on the upswing. I had always admired her; she was sharp, eloquent, and persuasive and didn’t like to lose. I hoped she was also intelligent and experienced enough to be fair.

  The fifth-floor courtroom was small, with low ceilings, converted from old offices when the need for space became acute. Like the jail, the prison, the morgue, and the streets of this city—the Justice Building was over-crowded. Two small windows overlooked the city skyline, a stretch of elevated expressway, and a paved parking lot. When I had the opportunity to glance out, I could almost see the heat rising off it.

  The judge had not yet made his entrance. Waiting on the bench was a black plastic nameplate: Judge Stephen McLemore presiding. Etched on the wall behind his chair were the words WE WHO LABOR HERE SEEK ONLY TRUTH. I prayed that this time it would be true.

  The courtroom began to fill up. More prisoners arrived. A husky teenager with a shaved head shuffled in wearing leg irons. Delighted relatives in front-row seats, an elderly white-haired woman, a grossly overweight middle-aged woman, and a pale, short-haired teenage girl, pointed and waved enthusiastically at their errant progeny.

  “There he is! There he is!” they cried to one another, like fans spotting a rock star. No contact with prisoners was permitted, and they had to be content with mouthing messages across the room.

  In the criminal justice system you see the worst people on their best behavior, unlike the civil system, where the best people behave at their worst.

  From where I sat to the right of the bench I could overhear a young man in a dark suit, hunkered down in the front row of spectators next to a pouting little girl of no more than six.

  “I’m a friend of your brother’s,” he was saying. “I’m not going to get him in trouble, so anything you tell me…”

  There was movement at the back of the room and my heart surged as my mother, Lottie, and Onnie pushed through the double doors. My mother wore a dark suit and a somber expression. I hoped she hadn’t wandered into one of the rest rooms. Her searching eyes found me and she smiled, lighting up her face. Lottie blew a kiss and Onnie did a thumbs-up. A lump grew in my throat and tears stung my eyes. Stop it, I told myself, you need to look strong.

  J.T. was hunched behind them, curly-haired and intense, files under his arm. Fred Douglas followed, dignified in a suit, and took a seat toward the back. So Fred had showed up after all, I thought. Maybe they all didn’t hate me at the paper. Again, I fought tears.

  I wore a navy sweat suit left at the jail for me by Lottie. I didn’t know where she got it. It wasn’t mine, but it looked new and was my size.

  The judge entered and the buzzing stopped. Tall, thin, and brusque, he was a man in a hurry, facing a logjam of a calendar he could probably never clear if he lived to be a hundred.

  He was flanked by the flags of the United States and Florida. His clerk, seated directly below, was a black woman with a sweater over her shoulders and a profusion of plaited hair.

  Detectives Ojeda and Simmons were present, but I didn’t see our prosecutor, and that worried me. If a major player didn’t show up the case would be rescheduled.

  Dino Mandell, the husky teenager with the cheering section, was called first. For these hearings the defendants did not step before the judge, presumably to save time. Only the lawyers and the witnesses faced the bench, while those of us whose fates were at stake sat listening in the jury box. The accused looked sallow and sullen to me, though to be fair the courtroom lighting was not flattering to anybody, except perhaps the judge, who seemed to be in a better light, above it all. Everyone else looked drained.

  The teen’s hearing was abruptly canceled because of an oversight. A deposition had not been typed. “This will be reset,” the judge said, without looking up. The defendant’s relatives did not understand. “Thank you for coming.” He abruptly dismissed them. They had been waiting for more than an hour. The oldest, apparently the mother or grandmother, craned for a glimpse of young Dino as he was led away, signaling with a cupped hand to her ear for him to call her later. At least, I thought morosely, they know where he is now, which was probably never the case when he was free to boogie and had the keys to the car.

  I felt a surge of panic. Where was our prosecutor? She walked in at that moment, the enemy, the person trying to keep me behind bars. I was happy to see her.

  Audra Evans had to be in her early thirties but looked younger. Her short auburn hair was cut in a smooth, casual style, and she wore a simple gray knit dress over a slim, athletic body. Unself-conscious, she seemed totally focused on her goal. Looked like a fair and reasonable woman to me.

  The next defendant was a young Latino accused of robbing several jewelry stores at gunpoint and binding the elderly owners with duct tape. He and an accomplice tried to outrun police after the last robbery and were captured with loaded automatics equipped with silencers.

  His “fiancée” was present to praise his good character. No more than seventeen, with long, curly strawberry-blonde hair, high heels, and a tight-fitting dress.

  Does her mother know she’s here? I wondered.

  The defendant’s mother, a cashier at Office Depot, swore that her boy was a wonderful son who got mixed up with a bad bunch after they moved from New York three years ago, when he was seventeen. The male prosecutor asked if he had a juvenile record back in New York.

  The mother considered the question for a fraction of a second too long. Time enough to recall that juvenile records are not available.

  “No,” she said, “nothing.”

  She and the young fiancée swore they would be responsible for his appearance in court and were willing to go to jail in his place. Sure, I thought, they should try talking to somebody who’s been there first.

  The judge denied bond. Made sense to me.

  Ice skidded down my spinal column when my case was called next.

  “I’m ready,” said the prosecutor.

  She read a brief account of the basic facts, the prosecution’s version. I resisted the urge to jump up and scream “Lies! Lies! Lies!” Ojeda elaborated on his theory, that as a result of the witnessed dispute outside the station I had followed the victim, strangled her, and returned to the newspaper, where I made incriminating statements to my supervisors. He mentioned the physical evidence, the button.

  J.T. stipulated that the button came from my blouse but introduced Gravengood’s report. He argued that the button had obviously been carried to the murder scene by the victim and pointed out that no other physical evidence linked me to the crime.

  Evans stood expectantly, hands clasped, listening to the detective, as Ojeda testified about Ashe, the eyewitness. The man had not been located to view a lineup or give a deposition, “but we hope to have him available for testimony before the grand jury, when the prosecution seeks an indictment, and later for trial.”

  The judge frowned. “Who is he?”

  “A constant outdoorsman,” Ojeda said.

  The judge stopped writing on a file and glanced up for the first time.

  “The politically correct term for homeless man, your honor,” offered J.T. “We have been aware of the state’s predicament and have succeeded in locating the witness.”

  Ojeda glared, eyes searching the gallery. The prosecutor objected, her graceful hands pressed together prayerfully. The judge overruled her.

  Ashe shuffled forward from a back-row seat. Skinny, whiskery, and nearly toothless, he
was deeply tanned. He wore saggy trousers, too big around the waist, and a T-shirt He gave his name; his address, he said, was Miami. I could see where that might stymie a process server.

  Audra Evans rested her chin on her right hand as she carefully formed her questions.

  Ashe seemed to enjoy the attention almost too much. He remembered being at the park the day the body was discovered and talking to Detective Ojeda. “He ast me if I saw any blonde woman round there.”

  “And what did you tell him?” the prosecutor asked.

  “Yeah. I saw a blonde woman.”

  “Do you see her in the courtroom today?”

  The witness shrugged, smiled, and turned to a middle-aged blondish woman in the front row of spectators.

  “There’s one now.”

  Titters erupted across the room.

  “We’re talking about a specific blonde woman,” Evans said, looking coldly at Ojeda.

  “I see blonde women everywhere. I see ’em in my dreams.” He offered a toothless smile.

  Ojeda buried his face in his hands.

  The associate medical examiner, a mild-mannered young man in spectacles, spoke next.

  Trish was strangled from behind and pulled back, still struggling, over the seat of her car. A heel mark from her shoe was found on the dashboard. She had been so self-possessed in life that I found it difficult to picture her as victim. The doctor went on about petechiae and hemorrhages around the superior horns of the thyroid cartilage. “The hyoid bone was in its normal three parts in this case,” he explained “But the connections were stressed and hemorrhagic, and the greater horns on the right and left of the hyoid bone were fractured, despite the fact that the hyoid bone had not yet fused into a single structure as they do when we get older.”