Verdict in the Desert

by Patricia Santos Marcantonio

  “How’s it going in there?” Jim said.

  “Pretty quiet, so far.”

  “It’s early yet. Old Mr. Shaw can’t help but tell young Mr. Shaw how to run his life. They’ll get into it real soon.”

  “That’s the way Mr. Martin treated his first wife, God rest her soul. She didn’t have a moment’s peace,” Josita said with a sigh at her aching bunions.

  Jim’s cigarette dripped out one side of his mouth. “Old Mr. Shaw should leave that boy alone and let him have his own life.”

  “Never has and never will.”

  Jim added a garnish. “Now off with you, and we’ll see you at the next course.”

  Picking up the tray, Josita headed toward the large dining room where the Shaw family sat around a long table. To Josita, they were like an advertisement in one of the home magazines she saw in Miss Melody’s bedroom, everything clean and unreal, like wax fruit.

  “Josita, take away the soup dishes first before you start serving the entrée. Do I have to tell you every time?” Melody Shaw’s fake sincerity caused Josita’s bunions to ache all over again.

  Michael shook his head. His latest stepmother jumped on every opportunity to display her breeding, or at least, what she wanted people to think was class. Truth was, Melody came from the middle-class side of town, but her large bosom had gotten her out of there. Melody had begged Michael to call her Mom, but he could barely manage to hold a conversation with her painted cherub face. He slurped the last of his soup as loudly as he could.

  “I ran into Judge Hower at lunch the other day. He said it was gratifying to see you back in his courtroom,” his father said.

  “Did he mention he refused to reduce the bond for my client?”

  “I’m sure he had good reason.”

  “He probably worried about that woman coming after him in the night.”

  Jenny sensed a rising argument. Her husband and father-in-law never yelled. But their civilized quarrels made her want to bite her nails down to the nubs. She hoped to divert them. “Michael is really working hard, Dad. I have to tell him to slow down all the time.”

  “Thanks Jenny,” Michael said, “I’ll lie on my own.”

  Josita removed his soup bowl with her familiar chapped hands. Michael smiled. Her returned smile hinted of the front gold tooth he loved as a little boy. He even once asked Josita if she could pull out the tooth so he could wear it for a while. She laughed so hard she cried. He had spent a lot of time in the kitchen with her, doing his homework, watching her cook and learning Spanish words, which he had mostly forgotten. She baked him chocolate chip cookies, and he taught her to play checkers. He told her what he had learned in school when his stepmothers didn’t have the time or interest to listen. Every summer, he accompanied her when she took lunch to her husband Diego, an amiable fellow with a thick mustache who could fix anything on the ranch or at the house. After he grew up, she became a passing figure in his peripheral vision.

  Michael realized he hadn’t really looked at Josita for a while. White now streaked her black hair, and her body was fuller. Her calm face was mostly unlined by age, although she was almost sixty. He still loved her gold tooth.

  “Michael?” his father said.

  “What?”

  “As I was saying, your client confessed. You might consider having her plead guilty and hope for leniency.” Martin sipped water. He never drank alcohol.

  Melody pepped up her hairdo with one hand. “I hope you two aren’t talking the law. I’ll be bored to tears.”

  “My darling, since when aren’t you bored to tears?” Martin said.

  His wife just giggled, the insults soaring over her curls.

  Michael finished his wine. “Confession or not, we’re going to trial, Father.” He watched Josita fill his wineglass. “There are mitigating circumstances in this case.”

  “You have more important ones.”

  “I can handle those and everything else. Don’t worry about me. Besides, providing the best defense is part of those darn lawyer rules.”

  “You’re very argumentative tonight. Save it for the courtroom. Joe Brennan has the killer instincts of a mountain lion, even though he does look like an accountant.”

  By the end of dinner, Josita could hardly wait until she got to her small home on the ranch. She would put on the terry cloth slippers her son had given her last Christmas. Then she would say her rosary and fall asleep well beside her husband. For now, she went into the kitchen for the coffee.

  Jim put out his cigarette when he saw her. “Thank God, this night is almost over.” He filled the silver coffeepot and placed éclairs on paper doilies on a glass plate. “So who’s winning in there?”

  “Don’t know, but young Mr. Shaw started hitting the brandy.”

  “That’s a bad sign.”

  Holding the pot and the plate of éclairs, Josita entered one of the sitting rooms off the dining room. Michael sat in a big chair like a lost boy with a brandy glass in his hands. Old Mr. Shaw stared out the window. Miss Melody thumbed through a magazine. Mr. Shaw’s young wife wiped the lipstick off her teeth. How sad, these white people with all their money having no fun and not talking to one another. Noise and laughter lived in her house, along with yelling and cursing, too, but each room was full as life itself.

  Melody held her cup out for Josita to serve her more coffee. “Jim did a first-class job with the chicken. Very tasty. He’s not a bad cook once we get him to wash his hands and stop using lard. And thank goodness for Josita here. I don’t know how I’d run the house without her.”

  “And when was the last time you had a raise, Josita?” Michael asked. Josita stiffened, leaving him ashamed for putting her on the spot. All he wanted was to needle his father.

  Martin cleared his throat with annoyance. “We pay you well, don’t we?”

  “Yes, Mr. Shaw.” Josita stared at the carpet.

  “Michael, I suggest you think about your future instead the future of our Mexicans. Right, Josita?”

  “Yes, Mr. Shaw.”

  “Sorry,” Michael told Josita when she offered him an éclair. She nodded. He was glad to see she had on her forgiving smile—the one he had always received whenever he broke dishes in the kitchen or did something stupid when he was a kid.

  “You can go now, Josita.” Martin added a spoon of sugar to his coffee. “Michael, I guess you heard Joseph Grant is retiring next month.”

  “I won’t be sorry to see him go. He’s one of the meanest sons of bitches to ever sit on the bench.”

  “You might consider putting your name up for his position. You have a definite advantage with civil and criminal experience, and the Shaw name can’t hurt. View it as a step up.”

  “To where?”

  “A political future. As a senator, even governor.”

  “I thought you hated politicians.”

  “Not when they’re named Shaw.”

  Michael swirled his drink. “I have to admit, I’ve always dreamed of being elected dog catcher.”

  Martin put on a contemptuous stare, the kind from which others keeled over. Michael just took another drink.

  “Your grandfather had nothing and built an empire in the desert. He knew the importance of ambition and hard work.”

  “Don’t you mean he knew how to work everyone else for slave wages, filch state land grants and rig a few elections? I’ve read the history books, Father.”

  Jenny and Melody sat still, expecting the disagreement to escalate.

  “You don’t know the first thing about sacrificing for your family. But I’ll teach you, if it’s the last thing I do. Excuse me, I have several telephone calls to make.” Martin took the stairs to his study on the second floor.

  They all watched him go.

  “And that, my dears, ends the sermon for tonight. Next week, the Reverend Shaw will talk about how to turn shit into gold.” Michael drained his brandy glass.

  On their way home, Jenny snored a little. Michael drove past the Mexican worker
s walking on the side of the road. The headlights of his roadster flashed on the men, who went straight ahead as if it was the only way to go.

  15

  AS TONI AND MICHAEL CROSSED LINCOLN STREET, he took off his jacket and slung it over his arm.

  “Seven in the evening, and it’s a cool ninety-nine degrees,” he told Toni and wiped sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. “I think my hair is melting.”

  “We’ll find more people home at this time of day.”

  She had wanted to stay with her father that evening, because every minute away was time with him lost. But Francisco went to work despite her pleas and threats. Besides, she couldn’t really stay home while María sat alone in jail. She had to help Michael Shaw. The desperation over her father’s illness eased, however, whenever she talked with Michael, which unnerved her a bit.

  Michael and Toni were going to visit six neighbors whom María and her friend Bonita Ramírez thought might be willing to testify for the defense.

  “Here we go. Juan Jiménez.” Michael pointed his chin to a house on the other side of the Curry residence. With peeling paint, a slanting porch, cracked windows and green spots of weeds on the brown lawn, the neighbor’s place was badly in need of a demolition ball. “Bonita said she saw Juan outside smoking a cigarette when Ben chased María with the butcher knife and another time when he knocked her down.”

  “And he didn’t help?”

  “I guess he liked the show.”

  “Sounds like a great guy,” Toni said.

  Michael knocked. Sporting a black goatee and a scowl on his round face, Jiménez answered the door but wouldn’t let them inside. As Toni told Jiménez in Spanish how they were trying to help María, the man kept his eyes all over her. For that Michael wanted to kick him in the balls. When she finished, Jiménez shook his head and shut the door before Michael could ask any questions.

  “That went well,” Michael said and checked the next name on his list. “Let’s try Virginia Sampson. She lives directly behind María’s house.”

  “Thanks for giving me a ride, Michael. My car died, and I’m waiting for my cousin to fix it. Knowing him, I could be taking the bus for a very long time,” Toni said.

  “At least your cousins have talent. Mine can barely manage holding a cocktail and chewing gum at the same time. Incidentally, I happen to excel at that.”

  She put back her head and hooted.

  Michael loosened his tie. He liked the abandon of her laugh. When he had picked her up from her house, her lips formed a straight line and her hands were clamped in fists. He didn’t have to be a genius to see Toni was hiding something. Now as they walked down Lincoln Street, her arms hung loose at her sides. Her long hair waved along her back. She had submerged her secret, and he foolishly thought of what he might give to learn it.

  At the next interview, Virginia Sampson peered at them through thick cat-eyed glasses. She let Michael and Toni in the door but shifted her eyes back and forth at them like they were burglars casing her neat house.

  “Did you ever see Ben Curry beat up María?” Michael asked.

  “She must have liked it, because she stayed with that man.” Mrs. Sampson’s tone was clipped as a hedge. Her freckled arms were crossed under her plentiful bosom.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Mrs. Sampson.”

  “Everyone in the neighborhood saw them fight.”

  “María said you work with her at the motel and might testify on her behalf in court.”

  “I’m not going to say anything nice about that woman. She killed a man. That’s a mortal sin.” The folds on her neck jostled for emphasis.

  “María’s husband was going to kill her,” Toni spoke up. “She defended herself.”

  “A sin is still a sin,” the woman said.

  “Thanks for your time.” Michael gently pulled Toni toward the door.

  “Holy God.” Toni lit up a cigarette as soon as they were outside.

  “We definitely don’t want her anywhere near court.”

  Rubén Chacón lived next door to Mrs. Sampson. Whiskered and bent, he met them with a toothless grin and offered a cup of coffee in a tiny kitchen. He spoke no English and listened intently to Toni. Since there was only a chicken-wire fence separating their yards, Chacón could see everything that took place at the Curry house. Yes, he had witnessed Ben knock María to the ground at least three times. Yes, he saw her hold her arm and scream another time.

  “It would be a great help to María if you would come to court to testify about what you saw,” Michael said.

  “I’d like to help, but I can’t,” Chacón replied. “You see, I am not a citizen. I’m afraid they’ll send me back to Mexico. I’ve lived in Borden for twenty years. It’s my home. My children were born here. If they send me back, I’ll have nothing.” He apologized with tears in his eyes, which he wiped with a wrinkled handkerchief. “That’s why I didn’t stop her husband when he beat her up. To my shame, I did nothing. I will pray for María. That is all I can do.”

  The other neighbors on their list didn’t even open the door for Michael and Toni.

  “I need a drink,” she said after the last rejection.

  “I hoped you’d say that.”

  Toni directed him to drive to Manuel’s, a small bar a few blocks away. She had gone there once with Carmen and knew it to be dark and out of the way enough to avoid being seen by anyone. Borden was still a small town, made smaller by the division of Mexican and white.

  The jukebox played only Mexican songs, and the bartender made a point of minding his own business. She ordered a beer and Michael, a whiskey, which he downed and then ordered another.

  “We didn’t do so well today, did we?” she said.

  “Our list of defense witnesses is pretty thin. We do have Bonita and the owner of the motel where María worked. He’ll at least verify how many times she came to work with black eyes and bruises. We’ll also talk with her parish priest. Clergy are the best defense witnesses. They have God on their side.”

  “You know, when I heard the county had assigned María an attorney, I worried they’d send a lazy one.”

  He gripped his drink. “This is the hardest I have worked in a while. It’s difficult not to get lethargic with the law I usually practice. Divorce decrees and contracts. Legal by the numbers.” He swallowed more of the whiskey. “I haven’t been this truthful since the third grade, when I admitted killing the classroom’s goldfish.”

  She raised her glass in a salute.

  “Now, be honest with me, Toni.”

  “About what?” She couldn’t conceal her suspicion about what he wanted. She didn’t want to talk about her father.

  “How’d you get to be such a big jazz fan?”

  “Jo Littlefoot.”

  “Who the hell is Jo Littlefoot?”

  “My roommate in college. A full-blooded Zuni Indian who played jazz all the time. I grew to love it. We stayed up all night studying, drinking coffee and listening to music. She had the best collection of jokes and made me laugh. We used to compare histories to see who had it worse, the Indians or the Mexicans. She won, but we were a close second.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Toni’s mouth dried with the reply. “She killed herself our second year of college. She took a bottle of pills and slept forever. I found her the next morning. In a note, she left me her jazz albums and wrote, ‘Toni, you’re stronger than me. Don’t follow.’”

  Michael pushed away his drink.

  “I haven’t talked about Jo in a long time.” Gotta get out of here, she told herself. “It’s late. We better go. Besides, isn’t your wife expecting you?”

  “Good ole Jenny.”

  Sliding out of the booth, Toni smiled. “Yeah, good ole Jenny.”

  Michael didn’t want to leave the bar, but Toni already was out the door. Jo Littlefoot had it right. Toni was stronger.

  16

  ON THE SMALL BALCONY OF THEIR APARTMENT, Michael sat and sipped a beer. J
enny came through the sliding door wearing a slip taut over her heavy breasts, small waist and hips that grew wider each year. She cuddled up on his lap like a kitten with an agenda.

  “What you thinking about, baby?” she asked in a little girl voice she slipped on whenever she wanted to get him into bed. Funny how it didn’t work like it used to, she thought.

  “About my father.”

  She kissed his ear. “You two are more alike than different.”

  Michael started to stand, and she jumped off. “Come on, Jenny.”

  “You both went to law school and played football.” She tried to sound analytical. “That’s probably why you don’t get along—because you’re more alike than not.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Freud.”

  “Don’t be a sourpuss.” Jenny put her arms around him. She took his bottle of beer and placed it on the ground. “Let’s go to bed. If we can’t have a baby, maybe we can have some fun trying.” She pushed one of her legs against his groin.

  He stepped back. “I’m a little restless. I’m going to go out for a bit, Jen.”

  “Please, Michael. You know that cop let you go with only a warning the last time. You better not push your luck.”

  Michael kissed the top of her head. “They won’t catch me. Don’t wait up.”

  After she heard him go through the door, Jenny kicked the beer bottle, hurting her toe. She would show him a lesson. She clicked the deadbolt on the front door and placed a dining room chair under the doorknob to lock Michael out of the apartment. She got under the covers and turned out the light. After a few minutes, she got out of bed, took away the chair and unbolted the door. She was afraid Michael wouldn’t even try to get back in.

  At the Cactus Bar, Michael and Bobby Darin belted out the last chorus of “Splish Splash.” Bobby played on the jukebox. Michael sang loudly and badly. A young couple snickered at him as he and Bobby ended the song with a flourish. The couple applauded.

  “Thank you, thank you. No autographs, please.” Michael’s grin widened when he saw Tommy, the obese bartender, heading his way with another double whiskey.