She took a puff and grinned. Antonia Teresa García. Taking yourself way too seriously. Thinking too damn much. Again.
To Sammy’s music, her body could not help but slant this way and that. Inside, her father danced past the open doors with her mother’s sister, Lucille. She watched as he coughed into his handkerchief.
Footsteps ground the gravel. “What you doing out here? There’s a party, if you hadn’t noticed.” Carmen carried a bottle of soda.
“I wanted a smoke, and it’s so hot in there.” Toni passed the cigarette to her sister.
“Damn, girl. It’s hot out here, too.”
They shared the soda as well as the cigarette.
“When I throw my bouquet, watch out for Susan López. She wants it real bad, and she’ll squash you like a bug,” Carmen said.
“I’m tough.”
“I know you are. You used to beat up Jimmie Navarro in the fourth grade.”
“And the fifth.” Toni took another drag of cigarette and handed it off to Carmen.
Toni held her lips together tightly to keep from asking about their father’s health. She didn’t want to spoil the wedding, but promised herself that the minute Carmen got back from her honeymoon in Tijuana she would sit her sister down for a talk. Ever since she had returned home, she tried to raise the topic, but Carmen always changed the subject.
Her sister squirmed beside her. They often joked they could read each other’s minds, and Toni guessed Carmen knew exactly what she wanted.
Francisco stepped out the door of the hall.
“Geez, it’s Dad.” Toni neatly tossed the cigarette into the dirt parking lot and waved to clear away the smoke.
“You girls always did sneak off and get into trouble.” Francisco dabbed the sweat off his face with a handkerchief.
“Pops, you’re thinking of the kids next door,” Toni said.
Carmen gathered her dress. “Anyway, it’s almost time to throw the bouquet.”
Francisco motioned for them to get a move on. “Ven, Antonia.” He smiled mischievously as she put on her shoes. “Hijita, you could have finished your cigarette.”
“What cigarette?”
To cheers and whistles, Víctor slid off Carmen’s lacy garter in the center of the floor. He stretched the garter and snapped it into the air, sending it to the waiting hands of boys and men. The winner twirled the bit of lace around his fingers.
“You single girls get in the middle,” Sammy announced into the microphone.
Toni muscled in front of the other women. Susan López’s breath heated her neck. Susan weighed a good 200 pounds.
“Ready?” Carmen raised the prize. The bouquet of red roses and ribbons hooked into the air. Toni jumped, outdistancing Susan by a good foot, and caught the flowers.
Susan stomped her size nine heel. “It’s not fair. You’re the sister of the bride. You should let somebody else have a chance.”
“Sorry,” Toni shrugged. “I deserve something, since I didn’t get a husband today.” She flicked the bouquet in the air and caught it again.
Susan cursed.
At ten o’clock, a flurry of kisses, lots of tears and a drum roll sent Carmen and Víctor on their honeymoon. Too good to end, the party continued without them. Francisco danced with each González sister, who stepped lightly despite their girths. John Herrera and Hugo Martínez finally threw fists, and Víctor’s cousins threw them out of the hall. Toni watched from the back door, relieved the unmarried sister of the bride was the most ignored person in the wedding party. That made slipping outside for another smoke so simple.
Walking to the back of the churchyard, Toni sat down on the side of a fountain located in the middle of a brick patio. She swore she tasted nectar from the nearby flowers. Placing her fingertips in the water, Toni wet the back of her neck. The splendid light of the full moon was like a vow she had not yet made.
In the fairy stories she had read, such a setting usually signaled the arrival of a prince to whisk the princess away to his rich kingdom. With no prince in sight, however, Toni was satisfied with the breeze she had waited for all night long.
4
ALL MORNING, MICHAEL FOUGHT THE URGE to lie down on the cool white-and-green marble floor of the Mitchell County Courthouse. The temptation always increased on Mondays after a weekend of drinking. Mondays were law and motion day. He and the other attorneys would sit in the front row of the main courtroom, waiting to ask a judge for a ruling, continuance, dismissal or some other legal favor. The lawyers sweated in their pressed shirts and gray flannel suits, with the creaky ceiling fans providing no relief in the summer. The temperature kept all the county clerks exhausted and in a bad mood.
The courthouse stood four stories high, at one time the tallest building in Borden, now dwarfed by the ten-story First National Bank, where Michael had a corner office on the sixth floor. An investor in the building, his father had a top-floor office that was three times the size of Michael’s.
Despite the good view from the bank building, Michael preferred the courthouse, which echoed of experience instead of steel. He appreciated the elegant staircases of dark wood and the dome of stained glass depicting a cactus plant in the desert. He found it ironic that the glass shed a classy ambiance on the people below who waited to be sentenced for a crime or to complain about their taxes. Mostly, he loved the marble columns, because even when the weather reached 115 degrees outside, they were chilly to the touch.
His court business completed, Michael leaned against one of the marble columns while waiting for his client to get out of the ladies’ room. Making sure no one watched, he gave in to his urge and placed his face against the column. The chill spread along his spine. Maybe, if he stood there long enough, he would transform into marble. So cool and indifferent for all eternity.
Unfortunately, the newly divorced Mrs. Jay R. Williams emerged from the ladies’ room and cut his relief short. The paper work he had filed on her behalf charged adultery, but the circumstances were more colorful. She had unexpectedly shown up at her husband’s office to have him choose fabric for his den curtains. There, Mrs. Williams had caught Mr. Williams dictating in the nude to his equally nude secretary. At the divorce hearing, the woman’s broad, rouged cheeks grimaced at her soon-to-be ex-husband’s lack of remorse. On the contrary, he appeared cheery, even after the judge ordered him to pay a hefty alimony.
“Thirty years of marriage all over so quickly. It’s not decent.” Mrs. Williams had a squeaky ingenue voice.
“So indecent.” Michael checked his watch.
“You think you know a person, Mr. Shaw, but I didn’t know him at all.”
“He’s a cad for treating you so cruelly. In the old days, he’d be horsewhipped.”
“I have to say he was a good provider.”
Michael patted her wide back. “You certainly won’t have any financial worries. With the settlement, you can maintain your lifestyle.”
“Such a load off my mind.”
“The final divorce papers will be ready in a few weeks for you to sign. If you have any questions, please call me.”
“I’ve appreciated your kindness in all of this terrible business, and I need some kindness now.”
He shook her hand, and she tottered off on heels much too high for her swollen ankles. Michael felt sorry for the old girl. Her husband had disregarded her for a secretary with a tiny waist and welcoming mouth. All their children were grown and flown, so Mrs. Williams was destined to haunt endless bridge games at the country club, inflict herself on in-laws and spoil grandchildren. She would live down the humiliation by playing martyr to anyone patient enough to listen. Lots of Mrs. Williamses haunted the country club. Hell, he had represented half of them.
Locating the nearest drinking fountain, Michael popped three aspirins and slurped the water.
“Mr. Shaw.”
Michael brushed water drops off his tie.
Behind him stood Judge Frederick Morton’s secretary, a rod of an older woman whom
Michael had never seen smile.
“The judge wants to see you in chambers. Right now,” she ordered.
When Morton called, everyone had to snap to. “Mrs. Gill-man, it would be my pleasure.”
The closer the administrative judge neared retirement, the gruffer he became as every attorney in Mitchell County had discovered when Morton thundered at them from the bench. Michael affectionately called him “Mortilla the Hun.” His empire encompassed only the county judiciary, but he ruled it with terror.
A collector of Indian artifacts, the judge exhibited glass displays of arrowheads in his sizeable office on the top floor of the courthouse. The place reminded Michael of an unhappy museum as the secretary directed him into the judge’s chamber. Morton had a hefty build and a gray handlebar mustache. His mahogany desk held a lamp, a piece of paper and his folded hands.
“Summer appears to be a very busy time for criminal offenses, Mr. Shaw.”
“When people sweat, they break the law.”
“Witty, I’m sure, at least to those without a sense of humor.” The judge had a voice just right for dealing out harsh sentences.
“Sorry, Your Honor.”
“If I may proceed. The public defender’s office is loaded down, Mr. Shaw. Your name is at the tip-top of the rotation list of private attorneys who agreed to handle overflow cases. You don’t have any pending trials—I checked. So I’m assigning you to defend one María Curry, who is charged with first degree murder.”
In his head, Michael went through all the swear words he knew, which were a lot. “But, Your Honor … ”
The judge barely shook his head, meaning he wanted no excuses or argument.
Michael knew he was fucked. “Well, pro bono is part of the package.”
“You’ll receive the standard fee from the county. I know it’s not what you’re used to, but it’s what you’ll be paid at any rate, and it’s all the county can afford.”
The judge put his hands in his lap, an indication of dismissal. Mrs. Gillman handed Michael a file on his way out.
Michael slouched through the halls with the file in his hand, cursing whatever lawyer invented pro bono. “For the public good, my ass,” he muttered and stopped for another drink from the fountain. A slap to the back nearly floored him, and he dropped his briefcase. “Jesus H. Christ.”
Adam Stevens’ broad face held a grin as he pulled at his ugly striped tie. In his work clothes Adam appeared like a stuffed sausage, because he never could find dress shirts that neatly fit his former-linebacker neck.
“How’s the crime business?” Michael asked.
“Outstanding.” Adam patted down the top of his reddish crew cut with the palm of his hand.
That habit drove Michael crazy. Bending down to pick up his briefcase, he moaned. His head felt ready to land on the floor, and he almost reached out to catch it.
Adam laughed. “You’re a damn mess. Must have been a good party.”
“I don’t remember. And why are you grinning so much? Your teeth are blinding me.”
“Mikey, I don’t understand why you’re considered such a hotshot lawyer when you’re hung over all the time.”
“Not all the time. Besides, my clients never know I’m hung over. I’m that good.”
“What’s doing today?” The freckles on Adam’s face budged with his huge smile.
“Nothing much, a seal of approval on a divorce. Even you could have handled it.” He and Adam played the insult game, which he regularly won over his friend. Michael speculated that Adam was waiting for the grand moment when he would score points on him and maybe win the game.
As they took the stairs down to the first floor, Adam continued to display his wide grin.
“What, Adam? You have the subtlety of a freight train at midnight.”
“I heard Judge Morton ordered you in for an audience.”
“The man’s a veritable knife of sunshine in my life. He handed me, ah … ” He stopped and checked out the name on the file. “The State versus María Curry, whoever she is and whoever she killed.”
“While you partied with the elite of this town—to which I didn’t get an invitation, I might add—said defendant carved up her husband in the less affluent area of this dreary place. The aforementioned incident involved one very large kitchen knife.”
“Damn. I hate murder cases. They’re so … long.”
“I’m glad justice doesn’t come into it. Let’s go to Pete’s. You can buy me lunch. Even if you didn’t have it made in the shade with a rich daddy, you earn more money than me.”
“I won’t argue about that,” Michael said.
As they opened the courthouse’s wide doors, the summer heat pushed them back a step. Michael wanted to retreat to the sanctity of chilly marble.
Immediately, Adam drew his handkerchief up to his forehead to catch sweat. “This heat could dry out a man’s eye sockets in hours.”
“Didn’t we know a girl in high school who could do the same thing?” Michael said innocently.
Adam laughed. “Quit talking about the girl I married.”
Minutes later, they entered Pete’s Café, located a few doors down Main Street from the courthouse. The attorneys sighed lustfully when they entered the arctic air. Two months before, Pete had installed air conditioning, making his restaurant, the bank and Acme Theater some of the few businesses in Borden to display an enticing AIR COOLED sign in their windows.
Pete’s investment paid off. Restaurant profits rose twenty percent after the sign went up. But if people didn’t come in for the icy air, they came in for Pete’s biscuits and gravy. Because of its proximity to the courthouse, lawyers and cops made it their unofficial meeting place, of course sitting in their own sections because they didn’t fraternize. They were separated by education and how much pay they took home. They did share a love of Pete’s food and the aura of law hanging in the air like the smell of bacon fat.
Slim and pockmarked, Pete Mason greeted his customers. “You boys in for the special?”
“You know it,” Michael replied. “The best biscuits and gravy in the state.”
“Damn right,” Adam agreed.
Pete spread his arms. “How about that air conditioning?”
“Great,” Michael said.
“Yup, that old movie theater ain’t got nothing on me.” Pete smiled as he set off for the kitchen.
Town lore had Pete picking up the biscuits and gravy recipe while serving a four-year burglary stretch at the Arizona State Prison in Yuma. He had shared a cell with a former New Orleans chef serving time for robbing a gas station. After his release, Pete borrowed money from relatives and established his café within view of the courthouse to remind himself of his past troubles and to stay out of them in the future. Since then, Pete had never earned so much as a speeding ticket. He joined the Chamber of Commerce, Elks and Masons. His community-service zenith occurred when old Sheriff Joss Bentley made him an honorary deputy for his support of the widow fund and letting deputies build a tab when low on cash. The photograph of Pete receiving his faux badge hung in a place of honor—right above the cash register.
Michael ordered the special, plus three large glasses of water from Mavis Mason. Pete’s jovial wife had bleached blond curls rising six inches high on her head. Adam doubled the order.
“That’ll be right out, handsome.” Her eyes gleamed at Michael.
Adam feigned hurt. “What about me, Mavis? I’m devastated.”
“Mr. Stevens, too damn bad.” She toddled back to the kitchen.
When Mavis brought the water, Michael downed it in one long drink and started in on the other glass. He could feel the cold liquid flushing the alcohol out of his blood.
The specials soon arrived, and they attacked them. To Michael, Pete’s stout gravy tasted of grease and fresh peppercorns, something that went perfectly with an image of a homey kitchen occupied by a woman with round thighs and big tits fussing over a stove. Never being remotely close to such a circumstance, he was
still pleased to think about it. The biscuits were sure to sop up any whiskey not diluted by the water. He began to perk up as he emptied his plate. “By dinnertime I’ll be ready for a cocktail.”
Adam put down his fork. “Shit, Mike, I’ve never seen anybody get over a hangover so fast. You’ve got the metabolism of a field mouse.”
“While my college roommates puked their guts out after a night of guzzling, I’d be running the mile at midmorning, fresh as a daisy. Water and food were all I needed.”
“One of these days it’s going to catch up with you.” Adam rubbed his ample stomach. “During high school and college, I ate like a horse and didn’t gain an ounce because I’d work it off on the football field.” He took a piece of biscuit, twirled it in gravy and shoved it in his mouth. “Now, everything I eat goes straight to my gut,” he said with the fullest of mouths.
Huddled in the lower half of his law class at the state university, Adam had squeaked by the state bar. Despite their friendship since high school, Michael couldn’t talk his father into giving Adam a job at the Shaw firm, even an unimportant one. Michael believed Adam held a secret grudge against his family because that had forced him to get a job at more modest firm in town and, later, at the county attorney’s office. But Adam did have the smarts enough to manage a good living for the rest of his life. He had the abilities to work hard and follow orders without question, both unfettered by his mediocrity.
Michael placed his hands on the table. “Now, about this assignment. Doesn’t the judge know I haven’t tried a murder case in three years? All I’ve litigated is civil lawsuits. I even appeared before him last week. My client sued his own cousin for stealing cattle off the family ranch. This isn’t exactly the stuff of a capital case.”
Adam’s eyes widened at Michael’s vulnerability, a sure opening. “Sounds to me like you don’t have the stomach for it anymore.”
Verdict in the Desert Page 3