Local Rules

by Jay Brandon

  The judge shook his head. “The court has set aside the entire morning of court time for your motions, Mr. Marshall. We do not propose to spend any more time.”

  “This is a formal request for a continuance, Your Honor. I’ll find the witnesses myself.”

  The judge made no reply at all. After a moment of eye contact, Jordan spoke quickly. “I’ll, um, I’ll take that as denied. Then I would ask to carry the motion with the trial, Your Honor. After the appropriate testimony at trial I’ll ask the court for a ruling before submitting the issue to the jury.” There was another pause, but Jordan felt himself on solid ground at last. He stared back. “I believe that is my option, Your Honor, under the Code of Criminal Procedure.” Which takes precedence over your persnickety hometown rules.

  “Very well, Mr. Marshall. That will be acceptable. What other motion do you have to present to the court today?”

  “Uh, a motion to—no, a motion for discovery,” Jordan said, returning to his table. He sorted quickly through his stack of motions, drawing out a couple that would require no testimony, only legal rulings from the judge. He skipped the motion for a change of venue. “A motion asking that the court reporter be directed to transcribe testimony, which I see she’s already doing”—Jordan flashed his winning smile at her, but the smile had apparently grown bedraggled on the long drive south that morning—“but I would like to make it formal.”

  “That will be granted.”

  They disposed quickly of two more formal motions, and Jordan stopped. Judge Waverly could easily see that they hadn’t nearly covered all the documents under Jordan’s hand. “Other motions?” he asked with an edge.

  “I believe any other motions I’ll file at a later time, Your Honor, after I’ve had more time for investigation. I under­stand that any motions filed at least ten days prior to trial will be timely, and I can request any necessary hearing at the time of filing. Or does the court have any local rules providing otherwise?”

  Their bland expressions were belied by the duration of the stares Judge Waverly and Jordan directed at each other.

  “Very well,” the judge finally ruled. “Any other matters? Mr. Arriendez? Then this court is adjourned.”

  Jordan remained on his legs, which grew a little shaky as the judge retired from the room. Jordan drew a deep breath, which only seemed to provide fuel for the shakiness. He saw the court reporter stacking her narrow reams of paper, their dots and bumps chronicling his humiliation. It was nice to be off the record.

  Jordan began packing his briefcase. Wayne was watching him, too, but that stare Jordan could endure. “We’ll talk in a minute,” he said.

  Arriendez was at his shoulder. “Sorry about that. You should have asked me what was going to happen today. I don’t know what your rules are like in San Antonio.”

  “Yeah, right. Look.” Jordan turned on him. Blood, which seemed under the judge’s stare to have retreated somewhere south of Jordan’s ankles, rushed back into his face. “I tried to be friendly about this, I told you we could work some­thing out.” His client was listening, but Jordan didn’t care. “But everybody here would rather jerk me around than be professional about this. That’s fine. I understand now. That’s how we’ll do it”

  “Hey.” Arriendez held up his hands. “I didn’t do anything to you today, man. I just watched. If you want to work something out, let’s talk.”

  “You mean your fifty-year offer is still on the table?” Jordan asked sarcastically.

  And a new voice was heard from. It was Wayne’s, hollow and scratchy. “I’ll take it,” he said.

  Jordan barely turned toward him. “And you, shut up! You don’t have a voice here. If you have something to say in court, it’ll be my voice you hear, because I’m the only one who speaks for you. Understand?” He turned back to the district attorney, whose lips were pursed and his eyes ques­tioning. “Maybe we can be done with this,” Jordan said. “Let me talk to him, and I’ll come see you afterward.” Arriendez shrugged. When Jordan turned back to his client, he almost bumped into the deputy with the amber sun­glasses, who stood right at Jordan’s shoulder and had his hand on Wayne’s. “He’s going back,” the deputy said stonily.

  Jordan put a peremptory hand on Wayne’s other shoulder. “Not yet he’s not. He has a right to confer with his attorney, which you’ve interfered with every step of the way so far. I am going to talk to him right now—or would you rather get the judge back out here, and I’ll make the request more formal and let him know how you people at the jail have interfered with his attorney-client privilege and have the judge order you to let me talk to him?”

  The deputy didn’t back down, but when he spoke, it was in the snide tone of a bully whose bluff has been called. “So go ahead, talk.”

  “In private. Mr. Orkney and I’ll go over by the wall. Why don’t you sit over there by the door with your big old gun in your hand, and if he makes a break for it, you shoot him.”

  The deputy leaned into Jordan’s face. “I don’t need a gun to take care of a punk like him.”

  “Not if you could catch him. Come on, Wayne.” As Jor­dan turned away, he caught a glimpse of Mike Arriendez smothering a laugh and the bailiff, past his shoulder, smirk­ing at the stony deputy with the smoky glasses and the ample gut.

  Wayne shuffled after Jordan to the far wall of the court­room, where they sat on a bench under a tall wooden win­dow with wavy panes of glass. “You pick a fine time to finally start talking,” Jordan said. “So fifty years sounds good to you? You want to plead guilty to murdering Kevin Wainwright? You want to get the judge back out right now and take the plea? That’s fine with me. So you did intend to kill Kevin, is that what you’re saying?”

  “I guess.” Wayne Orkney had a strange young/old quality about him, as if an old man had been deposited in a boy’s skinny body. His hands rubbed his cheeks and swept his hair back from his forehead, moving slowly as if he were just waking up.

  “No guessing, Wayne. If you’re going to admit you did something, you have to know what you did. You know Kevin didn’t die that day, he died in the hospital days later.”

  Wayne nodded. “They didn’t let me out for the funeral. Did you go, did you see him?” Jordan shook his head. Wayne fell into distraction again. “I wish I could talk to him, I wish Kevin was here to tell me—”

  “You should have thought of that before you beat him to death,” Jordan said unsympathetically.

  “Not to death,” Wayne denied emphatically. He leaned toward Jordan. “I was amazed when the ambalance come. You know I helped lift him into the ambalance myself? And I rode with him to the hospital. That’s where the cops ar­rested me. Before that, while Kevin was still lyin’ in the street, the last words he said to me (Or to anyone, Jordan thought) was, ‘It’s okay, Wayne.’ He tried to take my hand ...”

  Oh, good, Jordan thought, a deathstreet absolution. That’ll win the case for us. But mad as he still was and in spite of the cynicism defendants’ reminiscences always aroused in him, he could see the pain in Wayne’s watery brown eyes. His left hand was trying to close over a weak, almost life­less hand – his late friend’s.

  “So you didn’t intend to kill him,” Jordan said quietly. “You were surprised you’d hurt him badly enough that he had to be taken to the hospital.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I can’t let you stand up and say you committed intentional murder. Not without looking at the law a little more. Listen, Wayne, there’s something else. I’m sure the

  police questioned you about it. About Jenny Fecklewhite. You knew her?”

  “Sure. Jenny was the best girl in this town. Ever’body knows that.”

  “They think you killed her, Wayne.”

  Wayne’s head jerked up, and for the first time, his eyes were wide with astonishment. “That I —?”

  “Did you?” Jordan asked, although the look on Wayne’s face had already answered his question. Jordan’s shoulders slumped at the sight. “You must have seen
her, Wayne. You told me you were coming from Pleasant Grove Park when you attacked Kevin, and that’s where her body was found, in the park.”

  Wayne’s eyes were darting back and forth. Wonderment ruled his face. This guy can’t lie, Jordan thought. He doesn’t have the face for it.

  “Listen to me, Wayne. This may be more important than the murder they’ve got you charged with. Did you kill Jenny?”

  Wayne’s baffled eyes reached his lawyer’s face and stayed there as if he’d never seen Jordan before. Darkness began closing down again. Wayne looked wary in a way that was almost comic because it was so obvious.

  “Tell me.”

  “No,” Wayne mumbled. He could have been refusing Jor­dan’s demand that he talk rather than answering his ques­tion, but Jordan already had his answer, and it made him feel very tired all at once.

  Wayne stood up and motioned to his guard. Then he saw for the first time the two people who were still waiting in the courtroom. They’d been sitting patiently on the last row of the spectator seats. When Wayne waved to them, they stood and came toward him, the man shuffling, the woman walking more quickly.

  “Mama and Dad,” Wayne said. Wonderful, Jordan thought.

  Mr. and Mrs. Orkney were only in their forties, but they looked old, as if they expected to have shortened lives. The man was thin like Wayne. He wore clean pressed khaki pants and an embarrassed expression. His wife wore a flow­ered dress out of which her heavy arms burst, taut as gourds. She had a double chin and a small nose that flared when she breathed. She gave her son a hasty hug. “We wanted to see the way things happen in court,” she said. “You want us to get you a lawyer, Wayne? We talked to Mr. Piedmont, and he seemed awful smart about things.”

  Wayne shrugged in Jordan’s general direction. “This fella seems all right.”

  If he thought that, he hadn’t been paying much attention while court had been in session.

  “Mack Orkney,” Dad said, shaking hands with Jordan. He seemed glad to have someone besides his son to deal with.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Orkney. I’ll let you folks have a few minutes with your son, and then afterward, you and Mrs. Orkney and I can talk.”

  Wayne’s guard had stood up from his chair by the door and was coming toward his prisoner. Jordan walked out to the aisle, positioning himself between his client and the dep­uty. The deputy slowed to a halt, glaring. The only other person left in the courtroom, Helen Evers, took the opportu­nity to approach Jordan.

  “Evers of the Register,” she said as if their previous meet­ing hadn’t been official. “Well, that was something. We don’t often get to see big-city lawyers in action here in Green Hills,” she said without a trace of sarcasm in her voice. “Most of our local attorneys try to play up to the judge instead of antagonizing him. But I guess you have your own methods.”

  “Yes, I usually try to make people think I’m so stupid they can take advantage of me.” Jordan squinted sagely. “I think these people have fallen right into my trap, too.”

  Helen Evers said, “Have anything you want to add for publication?”

  Jordan thought of the headline he could make in next week’s Register. “Orkney Denies Murdering Jenny.” But he couldn’t see any advantage in that publicity, not yet. “Maybe I’ll have something for you before your deadline.”

  “All right,” Evers said and strolled away. She probably already had her headline: “Big-City Lawyer Makes Fool of Self in Court.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Jordan said in the general direction of clan Orkney and hurried up toward the judge’s vacant bench, then through the side door at the front of the court­room that led to the court offices. He found the court staff— the bailiff, the clerk, and the court reporter—lounging in the clerk’s office. At the sight of Jordan, their talk stopped abruptly. He thought he could still hear an echo of laughter in the air, but from the faces confronting him, that must have been an aural illusion.

  “Excuse me for interrupting. Ms. Stefone, may I see you for a minute?”

  “Yes,” the court reporter said, not moving.

  “Um, I’d just like to get a transcript of the hearing we just held. I want to see just how dumb I come across in print.”

  No one laughed. “All right,” Laura Stefone said in a clipped voice. “I can have it ready tomorrow. But you won’t be here then, will you? Are you on your way to the beach again, Mr. Marshall?”

  “No, I’ll be back in San Antonio. Could you mail it to me?”

  He handed the court reporter a business card. She took it without glancing at it. All three were still watching Jordan, waiting for him to leave. “I guess at least you three are happy with me, since I gave you most of the morning off. If I’d been ready, you’d all be working now.”

  No one smiled. No one thanked him. Jordan appealed to the bailiff, who’d smirked at Jordan’s upbraiding of the dep­uty guarding Wayne. “Is that deputy always that tough with prisoners half his size?” Jordan smiled.

  “Yes,” the bailiff said shortly and walked out of the office, bumping Jordan’s shoulder.

  The two women were still staring blankly at Jordan, obvi­ously wanting nothing from him but his absence. “I’ll mail the transcript to you,” Laura Stefone said. “Was there any­thing else?”

  Well, yes, I was looking for a little human contact, but I’ve obviously come to the wrong place. “No. Thank you very much.” Jordan wasted another smile as he retreated.

  That was the other piece of advice Jerry Ramirez had given him. “Try to make friends with somebody. Not a law­yer, somebody on the court staff.”

  “Those people don’t make friends, Jerry. They’re like three bricks in a wall.”

  “Come on, Jordy, you know there’s no court in America like that. People who work together gossip about each other and get mad at each other and some of them are friends and some of them don’t much like each other. Besides, people in courthouses love to talk. Somebody’ll want to talk to you, trust me.”

  Yes, Jordan was on friendly terms with most of the clerks and coordinators and court reporters in the district courts in San Antonio. He hadn’t deliberately cultivated their friendship, it just made doing business more pleasant to be friendly, to chat, to make requests rather than demands.

  But apparently the court personnel in Green Hills already had all the friends they needed. They were better than air-conditioning. Jordan rubbed his hands for warmth as he re­turned to the courtroom.

  His client and the amber-spectacled deputy were gone. Mr. and Mrs. Orkney were waiting for Jordan, who released an inaudible sigh. Talking to the families of clients was one of the great pains of defense work. They never saw the law operating in the practical terms with which Jordan had to deal with it. They always thought everyone was out to get their boy for no good reason. Mama would wring her hands and say, “He’s always been a good boy, he’s never been any trouble to us.” They would look at Jordan like it was his fault that poor little Wayne was in trouble now.

  “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Orkney. You understand, don’t you, that Judge Waverly appointed me to represent your son, Wayne, on this murder charge. Of course, he’s free—or you’re free if you choose—to hire a lawyer of your own choosing if you’d prefer.” Which wouldn’t be a bad solution, all around.

  But the Orkneys had no response. Mr. Orkney was nod­ding along with Jordan; Mrs. Orkney was studying him sullenly.

  “I practice in San Antonio, I don’t have an office here. Perhaps we could go to the diner and have a cup of coffee while we talk if you like. Or they might let us use a confer­ence room here if you’d rather.”

  Mrs. Orkney settled the question by plopping herself down on the first bench of the spectator seats. Her husband sat beside her, and Jordan pulled a chair up to face them. Before he could say anything, Mrs. Orkney folded her arms and glared at Jordan as she said, “Well, I always knew I’d be sitting talking to some damn lawyer about Wayne.”

  “Now hush,” Mack Orkney said mildly.
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  “Well, it’s true,” she retorted. “At least as long as he hung around with that Kevin Wainwright.”

  “They’d been in trouble before?” Jordan asked.

  “Not much,” Mr. Orkney began, but his wife interrupted. “No, but it was just a matter of time long as they stayed here. If they’d had the spunk to move to the city and get a job, they’d’ve been okay. But what’s there to do if they stay here but get into trouble?”

  Her eye stayed fixed on Jordan as if she expected an answer from him. Jordan kept his tone mild and profes­sional. “Wayne didn’t have a job?”

  “Oh, he pumped gas at the Texaco,” she said dismissively. “I don’t think he was on his way to being chairman of the board, though, do you?”

  “It was the best he could do for right now,” her husband told her.

  “Yeah, here.’’ She looked as if she were going to spit.

  “What did you mean, Mr. Orkney, when you said not much? What kind of trouble had Wayne and Kevin been in?”

  “Oh, you know, fights.” Mack Orkney spoke understandingly, but it was hard for Jordan to imagine the older man’s ever having harbored the passions that lead to fighting. “When they were drunk,” Mrs. Orkney added.

  “Getting kicked out of the roadhouse, or once they were arrested driving home,” Mr. Orkney continued.

  “Drunk,” his wife said again vindictively.

  “Now hush, Charlotte, you’ll make the man think alcohol ruled Wayne’s life.”

  “No,” Mrs. Orkney said, still simmering. “It’s just that they didn’t have anything better to do. Or the sense to get out.”

  “Had Wayne been drinking the day he attacked Kevin?”

  “This time?” Mack Orkney asked courteously. “No, sir. It was the middle of the afternoon. I saw Wayne right after at the jail and he was sober as a judge.”

  There went that defense. “This time?” Jordan repeated. “They’d fought before?”

  “Oh, you know, like boys will. Ever since they were kids. That didn’t mean they weren’t friends.”