Trial and Terror

by ADAM L PENENBERG

  The bailiffs moved quickly, rounding up the protesting news hawkers and bullying them to the exit.

  Angiers stood alone in the press box. “Freedom of the press does not mean you can come in here and disrupt my court. If any of you step inside these doors ever again, I’ll hold you in contempt!”

  After the last journalist funneled out the door, the judge calmed. “I believe it is time for the Stephanie Killington case.”

  He took his place on the bench, a bailiff unlatched the cage door, and Summer followed Levi to a section of the visitors’ gallery roped off for attorneys. The bailiff led SK by the elbow, maneuvered her to a spot in front of the judge. Raines, whom Summer hadn’t seen come in, planted himself a few steps away.

  Angiers flipped open SK’s file and skimmed the evidence, the police and medical examiner reports. He looked up. “Ms. Killington. Have you hired an attorney?”

  SK glowered at Angiers. “No.”

  “Can you afford a private attorney?”

  “All my money is tied up in the Women’s Center. I have no savings of my own.”

  Angiers nodded. “If you are willing to sign an affidavit stating this to be the case, the court will provide you with representation.”

  “No way, Judge. No public defender.”

  Summer looked to Levi for answers. He didn’t have any.

  Angiers massaged his neck. “Let me get this straight. You do not have funds available for a private attorney, yet you refuse a free one?”

  “You got it.”

  “Please tell me you’re not thinking of representing yourself.”

  “I’m not thinking of representing myself.”

  “Good,” Angiers said. “Better to leave it to the professionals. So, what do you plan on doing for a defense?”

  “Before I answer that, Judge, I have to inform the court that I’m being held in a cell a cockroach wouldn’t call home. There’s no sink, the toilet doesn’t flush, it smells bad, real bad, Your Honor, and there isn’t any light. I haven’t even had a shower.”

  Raines interrupted. “Your accommodations have nothing to do with—”

  The judge hammered down his gavel. “Raines! In my court lawyers have fewer rights than fraternity pledges. Don’t talk unless I tell you to.”

  Raines looked sideways. “I apologize to the court.”

  “I don’t think he means it, Your Honor,” SK said.

  “I don’t either,” Angiers said, cracking a smile. Summer couldn’t remember the last time he had done that. “Anyway, I can sympathize with your plight, Ms. Killington. But I have no powers outside this court. Take it up with your congressman. I can’t even get the jails to provide medical care to prisoners with open wounds.”

  “I’m being treated like I’m guilty when the law states I’m innocent until—”

  “Spare me Civics 101,” Angiers roared, suddenly out of patience, “and save me the hassle of reading your mind: Who is going to represent you?”

  SK shook her chains. “No, Your Honor. This is wrong. I refuse to participate until—”

  Angiers slapped the bench with his palms. “Participate?”

  “Yes. Participate. Until I’m moved to a decent—”

  “Where you are incarcerated while awaiting trial is not my problem. Look behind you, to those gentlemen waiting politely for us to conclude our business so that they may find out if they will have to stand trial. That is my problem.”

  “I’m innocent.”

  “Claiming you are innocent is irrelevant, Ms. Killington.” Angiers peered over his eyeglasses at the file. “I have no choice but to find that there is ample evidence to charge you with the murder of Harold Gundy. Now, for the record, who will be your attorney?”

  At the mention of Gundy’s name, Summer noticed that the prisoners in the cage quieted, watching SK. But when Summer tried to catch SK’s eye, she looked away. Fine, Summer thought, I don’t even want this damn case.

  Angiers said, “This is no time to mess around. If you cannot afford a private attorney, then I am forced to appoint a public defender. If you are dissatisfied with your representation, the law allows you certain options, which will be explained to you.” He looked over to Levi, who was sitting elbows on knees. “Mr. Levi, will you, at least for the time being, be in charge of Ms. Killington’s defense?”

  Levi stood. “No, Your Honor, I am here merely to assist. Ms. Neuwirth will have the honors.”

  Angiers eyed Summer coldly. He had taken a lot of heat over Cruz’s missing file and subsequent release. “As you wish. Because of the violent nature of the crime and the accused’s martial arts skills, which are documented in this file, I am forced to deny bail.”

  Summer banged the back of her knee into her chair when she stood. She talked fast: “Your Honor. Ms. Killington has been a model citizen and done much good for the people of Haze County. She’s not a likely candidate to flee. At the very least, she should have the right to remain free until a jury decides her fate.”

  Angiers stared, dumbstruck, then passed his hand across his forehead. “Ms. Neuwirth, when God gave out nerve, you somehow managed to wrangle a subscription. The last client of yours to grace this court lasted one day on his own recognizance before ending up back here on drug charges.” He pointed to his photo gallery, where Jimi Cruz’s picture was covered by a yellow stickie. “If I let Ms. Killington free on bail, no doubt you’ll have her on a plane to Tijuana in time for the next bullfight. Speaking of bull, request denied. Next case.”

  Before Summer could respond, Levi gave her a keep-cool tap on the shoulder.

  But SK wasn’t finished. “Your Honor. I’m innocent.”

  “I said, next case,” Angiers said.

  “Don’t send me back to that hellhole.”

  Angiers said simply, “Bailiff. Remove the prisoner.”

  When the bailiff nudged her, SK turned his momentum against him, and in one easy motion, tripped him to the floor. She stood her ground, hands still shackled. “I didn’t murder anyone! This is all a mistake!” When the bailiff jumped up to grab her, she pushed him down again with her foot.

  Bedlam erupted. While the perps in the cage woofed and spectators crowded for a better view, the other bailiffs descended on her. SK didn’t resist. She let them corral her from behind, lift her off the ground, until the one she had tripped, his face balled up in anger, rushed over, club drawn.

  “No!” Summer leaped forward to intervene, but Levi held her back.

  For a split second, Summer saw a smile crease SK’s face. Then, suspended a foot off the ground by the struggling bailiffs, she doubled him over with a kick so laser-quick that Summer almost blinked through it.

  The other bailiffs shackled her feet and carted her off, while the prisoners jangled their chains. It started as a low clanking that picked up when they added foot stomps, whistles, and then a chant: Fuck the system.

  Angiers tried to bring the court to order, but others in the visitors’ gallery joined in, until the entire courtroom rumbled.

  The chanting and chain music continued long after SK was gone.

  Chapter 7

  Summer wished the hands probing her breasts weren’t so cold, so flinty. She closed her eyes, waiting it out. Goosebumps rode up her neck, under the sweat.

  She was twisted around, face-to-wall. She didn’t resist. Fluorescent light buzzed above, blinding her, the wall painted institutional gray. Fingers ran down her leg, then up the other. Summer took it.

  The butch prison guard leered at Summer. “Proceed,” she grunted.

  Summer hated visiting clients at the jail, hated the barbed wire lining the roof and the armed guards paroling there, hated being frisked, hated being drawn into her clients’ pathetic lives and lies. She promised herself that if she ever ended up here as an inmate, she would kill herself. Never would she be able to cede control of her life to a fixed schedule: a gray breakfast at 7, mindless work detail from 8 to 4, exercise for an hour, TV, lights out at 10. The mindless death scared her
as much as prison violence.

  Summer tucked her blouse into her skirt and stepped through the metal detector. She was buzzed through another door, into another guard station.

  “I’ll take over, Maggie,” Joseph Spivak, another guard, called over the intercom. “Why, Summer and me, we go way back. Her dad and I were like this—” he held his fist up to the portal.

  Maggie pushed back her cap and nodded, like she had heard it all before, and returned to her post.

  Summer pecked Spivak on the cheek. When Wib died, Spivak had taken care of the funeral arrangements and comforted Sonia. Summer was so grateful, she’d let him take over the mortgage on Wib’s condo, where he guzzled beer, watched sports, grew tomatoes, and raised Dobermans.

  “Hey, Spiv,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

  “Saw from the visitors log you were on your way in; figured I should be your tour guide.”

  Summer scrunched up her nose, not at the prospect of Spiv acting as her escort—which was, she admitted, a relief—but at the flat odor that permeated the air, a cloying mixture of unwashed inmates, institutional chow, bug poison, and detergent.

  “Before we head in,” she said, “could I have my notebook and a pen back? I’m having a meeting with a client, not digging her out of here with a ballpoint.”

  Spiv yawned. His belly strained against his uniform, tufts of white undershirt briefly visible, reminding Summer of a plastic pack of tissues. “Orders is orders, Sunshine. In the hands of some of these fruitcakes, pens can be weapons. When I worked the men’s side, I once saw a guy carve out his own Adam’s apple. Blood everywhere. Lots of crazy shit down here.”

  Summer had a formula for calculating the veracity of Spiv’s tales: subtract two-thirds. If he said it took fifteen guards to bust up a riot, it was five. If he claimed he earned a few hundred by selling his urine to another guard trying to beat a drug test, the thought had probably just crossed Spiv’s mind, and that thought became the story.

  “First time in maximum security?” Spiv asked, as they headed down a sterile corridor.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re in for a treat.”

  They took the corrugated steel elevator to the bottom, where they were buzzed through two more doors, and then proceeded down a flight of brick steps.

  Spiv blew his nose and sighed. “What would your father think about you defending a D.A. killer?”

  “Aren’t there some steps missing?” Summer asked. “Like a trial and a verdict?”

  “What would your father think about you defending an alleged D.A. killer?”

  “That’s better. Probably”—she imitated Wib’s croak—“‘Where’d I go wrong raisin’ you? Workin’ for crooks, scum, and pervs. I musta fucked up if I didn’t teach you respect for the law.’”

  Spiv laughed. “Hey, that’s pretty good. Wib never liked Gundy. Hell, from what I’ve heard, nobody did. I don’t know how he could walk with that skyscraper up his ass. But at least he took out the trash.”

  Wib, Summer knew, had felt much the same way. His qualms with Gundy had centered on Gundy’s penchant for playing to public opinion. Drug sweeps, sex solicitation roundups, drunk driver roadblocks, fag spa shutdowns, misdemeanor offenses that strained the court system and forced cops off the streets to deal with the paperwork.

  Spiv waved to a ceiling-mounted camera, and they were buzzed through another door into a stretch of hallway. The farther they walked, the worse the stench—feces, urine, and other signs of human decay. But it was the sounds, the eerie wails of insanity, that put Summer on edge.

  There were a dozen cells set in cement, with two-inch-thick doors, each with a tiny window. As Summer passed, women pounded on the portals, their bulging eyes distorted by the glass. Caged bulbs lining the hall provided ghostly light.

  Summer held her nose. “Who are you, the Marquis de Spivak? Maximum security is for convicted psychos, not for people awaiting trial. Move my client to a decent cell.”

  Spiv grinned. “She’d be having more fundy if she hadn’ta whacked Gundy.” When Summer scowled, he added sternly, “Don’t give me a hard time. You got a problem, take it up with the warden.”

  “Maybe I will,” Summer said. “At the least, I want to talk with my client in private, inside.”

  Spiv buzzed his lips. “That’s a negative. If I were you, after what she pulled in Angiers’s court today, I wouldn’t be so anxious to spend time alone with her. It took, like, ten guys to carry her out.”

  Summer poked his shoulder three times. “Three. I was there, remember? Maybe the bailiffs should have asked her nicely.”

  Spiv stepped aside and peered through the window. He motioned Summer over with fluttering fingers and hissed, “Look at this.”

  Summer stood on tiptoes and pushed her face against the scratchy glass. SK was inside, her Haze County Jail jumpsuit unzipped to her navel, the sleeves rolled up to her shoulders. She was sparring with her shadow. Her hair flew with each kick and punch. Sweat sparkled on her forehead.

  Spiv whispered into Summer’s ear. “She could kill you before you could even yelp.”

  This time Spiv wasn’t exaggerating. In fact, the thought had crossed Summer’s mind earlier, the moment SK sent Angiers’s bailiff crumbling. She ran a hand over her glassy stomach. “I’m going in. Alone.”

  “She could crack your neck, smash your nose through your brain. Lots of ways to kill someone with just your fists. I’ve seen it.”

  “Beat it, Spiv.”

  “Nah-ah-ah,” he said, staccato-like. “I’ll be right here. Watching.”

  “Any excuse to ogle pretty girls.”

  Spiv chuckled as he tapped the glass with his stun gun and unlatched the window. He called inside, “Stay away from the door.”

  SK kept fighting her shadow.

  “Ten minutes,” he told Summer. “That’s it.”

  After Spiv bolted the door behind her, Summer flashed a business card. “Remember me, your court-appointed attorney?”

  Punch-punch-kick-punch. Summer could hear SK’s hands and feet snap air.

  Summer put the card back in her pocket. “They didn’t rough you up too much when they brought you back from arraignment, did they?”

  SK continued to pretend she wasn’t there. Summer took a moment to look around. The toilet was molded steel, the pipes leaking, and the flush handle broken off. There was no sink. The mattress was chewed up, the foam padding ripped out and scattered. Pointing at the mattress, she said, “You didn’t do that, did you?”

  SK talked while she sparred. “It was like that when I got here.”

  “They’re not known for their maid service here.”

  SK grunted.

  There was never an easy way to start. “I’d like to ask you about what happened. From the beginning.”

  SK responded by ducking imagined blows.

  “I’m trying to help,” Summer said.

  SK concentrated on her training. Summer was almost relieved. If SK refused to talk with her, she might be able to convince Levi to assign someone else, maybe Rosie, who would be happy to match her fire with SK’s ire. Summer tried one last time—sans diplomacy. “What’s your fucking problem?”

  Finally a question SK deemed worthy of a response. She finished her workout with a flourish of kicks and slumped on the bench. After taking a few seconds to catch her breath, she spoke without looking at Summer. “A public defender kept the man who murdered my husband out of jail. Now he’s free and I’m here in this sewer suite. Alone. No husband. No family. Just me.”

  “You blame me because another P.D. got a client you don’t like an acquittal with an insanity defense?”

  “Yes.”

  “Funny. Most of my clients don’t begin blaming me until after the verdict is in.”

  SK scowled. She zipped up her jumpsuit and backhanded sweat beads from her forehead. “How long have you been a public defender?”

  “Four years.”

  “What’s your success rate?”
<
br />   “You mean, how many acquittals have I gotten?”

  “Yeah.”

  Summer watched a bug scurry across the floor. SK was wrong. Lots of cockroaches called this cell home. “I don’t get to cherry pick.”

  “How many?”

  “One.”

  SK shut her eyes and shook her head. “How many murder trials?”

  Summer hesitated. “This is my first.”

  SK buried her face in her hands and spoke through her fingers. “You want me to be a guinea pig for some Barbie doll bureaucrat who’s won exactly once and never worked a murder case in her life?”

  Summer’s forehead felt hot; her heart beat so hard that her vision blurred. She glanced through the portal at Spiv. He caught her eye and splayed his fingers over the glass. Five minutes. “If you’re that unsatisfied, you can file what’s called a Marsden. Usually the court is reluctant to approve a change merely because of a personality conflict, but give it a try. Perhaps we can find you another public defender more to your liking. But until you retain another lawyer, I’m it.”

  SK’s expression betrayed nothing.

  Summer kept pressing. “If you’re as innocent as you claim, let’s get to work so we can get you out of here.”

  She followed SK’s eyes as they took in the cell. Summer had seen this look before in clients: Am I going to spend the rest of my life here?

  She seized the moment. “Where were you the night Gundy died?”

  SK relented. “In bed. With a cold.”

  Summer didn’t give her time to stonewall. Keep the questions coming. Don’t let her hedge. “Did anyone see you there?”

  “No.”

  “Did you make or receive any telephone calls that night?”

  “No.”

  “No one can confirm where you were at that time?”

  SK shook her head.

  “Did you seek medical attention, or can anyone verify you were ill?”

  “It was just a bug, a 24-hour kind of thing.”

  “Blood matching Gundy’s was found on a glass fragment embedded in one of your boots. How do you think it got there?”

  SK raised an eyebrow. It was the first time she had displayed interest in anything Summer said. “What boots?”