States of Grace

by Mandy Miller

  “Do it, Zoe. Make them believe you’re totally off the chain.”

  Twietmeyer reappears. “Counsel, let’s proceed. I don’t have all day.”

  “Let the show begin.”

  ***

  “The State calls Detective Reilly to the stand,” Hightower says.

  Reilly heaves his girth onto the stand, pulling the microphone towards his mouth, eyes fixed on me.

  Since it’s the State’s motion, it’s up to Hightower to justify his request to revoke Zoe’s bail with evidence. Enough to convince the judge she is a risk to public safety or a flight risk, and that the State has at least some evidence of her guilt, hardly a stretch here.

  I find myself repeating the anachronistic legal standard from the Florida Code of Criminal Procedure in my head, like a mantra. Proof is evident and presumption of guilt is great. Proof evident and presumption great. The same standard I brandished like a sword to keep many a bad guy locked up. But what the heck does that even mean?

  Reilly lowers his eyes to where his notes would be. If he had notes. What he needs to say requires no preparation. It’s simple. It’s all about the gun.

  And what other incriminating tidbits might they have unearthed during the investigation I don’t know about? The deadline for the State to turn over all of the evidence against Zoe is more than a week away, so I’m flying blind. I need an Academy-Award-winning performance of bat-shit crazy from Zoe. A bed in a psych ward isn’t ideal, but it beats three hots and a cot in the jail when you’re a little rich girl with an attitude problem.

  After swearing him in, Hightower gets straight to the business.

  “Detective, did you find the weapon used to murder Mr. Sinclair?” Hightower’s hands are clasped like a choirboy. No notes on the lectern. He thinks he’s got this in the bag.

  “Yes, we did. After we found Mr. Sinclair’s body in his office, we obtained a search warrant, and initiated a search of the premises. We located the murder weapon, a Glock 19, stuffed in a gym bag inside the defendant’s locker.”

  “And were there any fingerprints on the gun?”

  I hold my breath in anticipation of the evidentiary depth charge, the one upon which this case rests. The one which could put the murder weapon in Zoe’s hand and a needle in her arm.

  “Yes, the defendant’s fingerprints were on the gun, and the ballistics revealed the bullets extracted from the victim’s body matched that same weapon.”

  “Liar! Liar!” Zoe screams, stabbing her finger at Reilly.

  “You will contain yourself, Ms. Slim, or I will have you removed.” Twietmeyer’s eyes flick to Zoe and back to Hightower, who is pacing back and forth in front of Reilly like a TV lawyer.

  “And did the weapon have a serial number?”

  “Yes. It was registered to Anton Slim, the defendant’s father.”

  In the front row of the gallery, Anton buries his face in his hands.

  I shoot a wide-eyed glance over my shoulder at Zoe and nod.

  On cue, Zoe follows her initial salvo with, “Screw you, you screwball!” A pause, followed by, “You’re a lying bastard! You’re all lying bastards! Kangaroo court. Kangaroo, kanga-roo-roo. Kangaroo. Bastard kangaroos,” all of which she accompanies with the repeated slamming of her cuffed hands on the back of the seat in front of her.

  Twietmeyer, who had slipped low in his seat during Reilly’s testimony, to the point his glasses are barely visible above the bench, bounces up and bellows into the microphone. “If you cannot control yourself Ms. Slim, I will have you removed!”

  “You don’t care, Judge. Nobody cares. Care bear. Don’t care. Screw the bears.”

  Zoe flings herself back in her chair, curls into a ball, and launches into an off-key rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  “Ms. Slim, that’s enough. Ms. Locke, please control your client.”

  Before I have the chance to do or say anything, Zoe throws herself on the ground and bangs her head on the floor several times.

  Apparently, the judge pressed the panic button under the bench, because four deputies, weapons drawn, wearing bulletproof vests, burst through the courtroom door.

  “Detective, you may step down. And deputies, please escort Ms. Slim from the courtroom,” Twietmeyer says, smoothing back what little hair he has with a shaky hand.

  “I was with—” she says, as two deputies, one on each arm, drag her past me at the defense table, her shackled feet dragging behind.

  Unable to hear what she said and anxious no one else does, I jump up and follow, but a third deputy orders me back to my seat.

  A stunned silence freezes the scene. The Slims are clutching each other. Twietmeyer’s chest is heaving. Hightower’s cowering behind the clerk, who is making a show of filing her nails.

  I seize the moment. “Judge, may I be heard?”

  “Yes, yes, you may proceed, Ms. Locke.”

  “As the Court can see, my client is mentally unstable. I would ask the indulgence of the Court that this hearing be suspended for now, given her extreme condition, and that she be taken to the state psychiatric hospital. It’s a locked facility. There will be no risk of her going anywhere, or of her further hurting herself.”

  All that’s visible of Hightower is the crown of his head. Seated back at his post, he’s searching for the legal equivalent of a lifeboat in a dog-eared volume of the Florida Criminal Statutes.

  “I am ordering Ms. Slim be transferred to Everglades State Hospital. And, not to waste this Court’s time coming back here for a third hearing for Ms. Slim, I am ordering the initial bond of one million dollars be reinstated when, and if, the good doctors decide Ms. Slim is no longer a danger to herself or others.”

  “But, Judge—” Hightower’s whiny words echo off the walls in the almost empty chamber.

  The judge flees the bench before Hightower can finish his comment. Soon enough, he’ll realize he should have asked the Court to appoint a psychologist to examine Zoe for competency, a motion typically made by the defense to stall for time, but also an option for the State. That way he would be able to get all the damning details of her mental state back on the record.

  The clerk shoots me a toothy grin and points a pen at Hightower, who is flopped back in his chair, hands over his face. It’s easy to believe you’re always on the side of the angels as a prosecutor. I don’t envy him one bit. He’s going back to his moldy closet of an office to report defeat to his supervisor who will make him feel like a turd for losing with a stacked deck.

  On my way out, Anton grabs my arm. “What the hell happened?”

  I spy a pack of reporters gathered by the elevators like a kettle of vultures. “What happened is I saved your little darling a trip back to jail, at least for now. Now you have to do something for me.” I motion for the Slims to follow. “Come on. Not here.”

  We crowd into the stairwell, my back against the heavy steel door to keep the jackals at bay. “I bought us a little time to figure out who might have wanted Sinclair dead, someone that’s not named Zoe. I need all her medical and psychiatric records now, and by now, I mean yesterday.”

  “Ms. Locke, I—” Anton starts.

  “Stop,” I say, waving him off. “Copies of everything, and I mean now.”

  “This is hard for my wife,” he says, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiping Gretchen’s tears away as if she were a child. “We’ll get her doctors to email you everything right away. Sadly, it’s not a happy tale, but she’s our only child, and—”

  “I’m doing everything I can for your daughter. That’s why you hired me, correct?”

  “Of course, it is.”

  Chapter 16

  I stare out the window and groan. “A monsoon. Perfect.”

  Miranda hops up beside me by balancing on her one back leg and placing her catcher’s-mitt-sized paws beside my hands on the window sill, her huge head cocked to the side as if to say, “Speak dog, why don’t you?”

  Side by side, we stare into the rain blo
wing on shore in hypnotic waves, the wind whipping the ocean over the sea wall like a relentless taskmaster.

  Miranda trails me to my munchkin-sized closet and settles herself on the dog bed Vinnie bought for her, a pseudo couch upholstered in red velvet.

  I hold up a black Prada suit.

  A low growl.

  “You’re right. Too fancy. It’ll look like I don’t need a cent at the mediation.”

  Then jeans. “Too casual?”

  She looks away, one eye narrowed. “Bad idea. Too scorned, angry wife with no respect for the legal process, only one of which is true.”

  Trying to strike a balance, I hang up the suit along with the I-don’t-give-a-damn jeans and opt instead for black pants and a blue button-down. I hold the outfit up in front of me. “What do you think? Faith would say it looks too manly, wouldn’t she?”

  She barks once.

  “I agree. The perfect choice.”

  I slip into the clothes and check myself in the mirror. “Apart from you, Oscar,” I say, patting him, “suburban housewife all the way. Not a trace of Racy Gracie.”

  “Give me that!” I grab a high-heeled shoe from Miranda’s slobbery jaws. “Gotta be tall, even if I have to limp a little.”

  Experience has taught me that tall, good-looking people get more respect and get more of what they want than short, ugly ones. Fat ones are doomed no matter their height. True? Yes. Unfair? Also, yes. And I do love my heels, one-legged or not. It took some work, but I’ve trained myself to walk on them again since acquiring Oscar.

  Miranda settles her head on her paws. “Easy for you to look so calm. You’re not the one who has to air her dirty laundry in front of a complete stranger.” I sit on the futon to put on my shoes. “Not that it matters any more. I’m tired of fighting.”

  I stroke her coat. “No more fighting for either of us, okay? Even warriors have to give up the fight some time. The key is knowing when to call it. Manny kept his end of the bargain and I intend to keep mine.”

  The Timex I won in a poker game in Iraq says tells me it’s two minutes until the bus arrives. “Gotta run. Well, hobble,” I say. “You stay here. I can’t risk sicking you on Manny if he acts like a douche.” She nuzzles my leg. “See, I knew you didn’t know what I was saying. If you did, you’d be game to ride shotgun.”

  I grab a rain jacket and umbrella from the hook behind the door and step outside. The parking lot’s swamped, cars in water halfway up their wheel wells, but Vinnie’s parked at the bottom of the stairs, hand flapping out the driver’s side window.

  I fling myself onto the passenger seat. “There’s a special place in heaven for you, Vin. I can’t believe this rain. It’s worse than Ophelia. There’s no way the buses will be running on time.”

  “If you believe the weather girl, it’s time to bust out the ark.”

  “Thank God we have this old boat then.”

  “Hey, lay off my trusty chariot. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  I pat the cracked vinyl dashboard. “Your ride is my knight in shining Detroit armor. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

  As Vinnie steers into the flooded street, I sink into the seat and smile. Even in the worst of times, he’s here for me. He may insist he owes me, but in my book, we’re all even or, more likely, I owe him now.

  “Thanks, Vin. The drowned rat look isn’t in fashion for divorce mediations these days.”

  “How you feeling, kid?”

  “Trying not to feel much at all.”

  “Probably a good idea.”

  “Would you mind looking in on the mutt while I’m out?”

  “Would I mind?” The look on his face flips from serious to joyful in one beat. “What do you think?”

  “I suspect there was more to getting Miranda than making a beat-up war dog feel better.”

  “You calling yourself an old war dog?”

  I rub his shoulder. “Thanks.”

  Driving in a tropical storm is more akin to navigation. Reservoir-sized puddles. Jagged pieces of sea wall broken off and deposited in the road. Blinding rain and the occasional gust of wind so fierce it rocks your vehicle, even a four-thousand-pound hunk of steel like Carmela.

  We sail on, Vinnie laser-focused on the road, me under the metronomic spell of the windshield wipers, escaping into a final dreamy montage of what life was like with Manny. Leafy afternoon walks through Riverside Park in New York, oblivious to the cold, warmed by the growing fire between us. How miserable I was when he went home to Miami after graduation and I stayed behind. How he cried when I told him I’d enlisted. His sweet missives when I was deployed—how he yearned for us to be together again, to have a family of our own. The care packages of M&Ms and foot powder which he cautioned in the accompanying note should be stored and consumed separately. How he did his best to keep my demons and leg pain at bay after he coaxed me south and found me my job as an ASA. South Florida was my home too, he assured me. The long hours we both worked were difficult, but we were building something, weren’t we? His work as a real estate developer took him away to Tallahassee, some at first, and later, a lot, but he always called to say goodnight. At least until I wasn’t there to answer the phone. The all-American success story on the outside. But on the inside, trouble was brewing.

  I shake myself. “I just want to get on with it. With my life, or whatever’s left of it. Or, maybe I’m done for and there’s nothing left.”

  Eyes glued to the road, Vinnie says, “There’s plenty left. Trust me. I know what done for looks like. And you ain’t that.” He slams on the brakes, shaking a fist. “Goddamn it! Use a turn signal why don’t ya! And besides, now you’ve got someone else to be responsible for.”

  “You, my friend, are more than responsible for yourself. And that’ll be ten bucks.”

  “Jesus, woman. I meant Miranda,” he says and we both laugh hard. “You’re gonna be fine, Gracie. Better than fine. Great. See, you and me and Miranda, we’re survivors from way back.”

  ***

  The mediation is being held in a broom closet-sized room in the old wing. I know the location well. It’s the place where summer interns went to do the dirty, at least until courthouse space was at a premium and it was converted into a hearing room. But “converted” is a gargantuan overstatement. The room is scarcely big enough for a scarred wooden table and five rickety chairs, one for each party and their counsel, and one for the mediator. Windowless, the space is lit by one flickering strip which chirps like a cricket.

  I’m the first to arrive and choose the seat nearest the door, putting my briefcase on the adjacent chair which would be for my attorney, if I had one. I’m going it alone. Divorce lawyers make me sick, what with their shiny suits and vicious, underhanded tactics, like the mean girls in high school. Poke, poke, poke away until you expose a weakness, and then poke even harder until it bleeds. Not in service of freedom or justice, not even to win—they get paid no matter who comes out on top—but for the almighty dollar.

  A couple of minutes after I arrive, a doughy, bespectacled woman enters, trailed by Manny and a tall brunette in a sleek suit and sexy librarian horn-rimmed glasses.

  “Janice Bucknell. I’m your mediator,” the doughy woman says, extending a hand.

  The brunette chimes in. “Candace Knight, counsel for Mr. Martinez.” Candace doesn’t offer to shake my hand and sits beside Manny, crossing her long legs into pretzel knots.

  “Ms. Locke, is it? Or is it Martinez?” Bucknell asks.

  “Locke. I kept my maiden name.”

  “At least that’s one less piece of paper you’ll have to file when this is all said and done,” Bucknell says.

  “Sorry?”

  “To change your name back, I mean.”

  No one laughs.

  “And do you have counsel, Ms. Locke?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m representing myself.”

  To avoid eye contact with anyone, I occupy myself with reading the divorce petition, even though I can recite chapter and ver
se on every last allegation Manny leveled against me.

  Bucknell explains the ground rules like a school marm who doesn’t want any trouble from her students. Each party will share a written settlement offer with the other, and then retire to separate rooms and she will engage in shuttle diplomacy to identify areas of agreement and define those in dispute. If a compromise results, the settlement agreement will be entered as a court order by a judge and its contents will not become part of the public record, an outcome Manny wants more than anything—wayward wives are hardly good for political careers. Abracadabra, no more “us.” My only play would be to pressure him with the threat of a trial in open court. That is, if I wanted to. But I don’t. A deal’s a deal.

  Settlement offers exchanged, I follow Bucknell to an adjacent room.

  I flip through the document, looking for the time bomb. It has to be here, given I said I’d sign anything.

  “Bottom line, there’s $40,000 in cash, give or take, to split between you,” Bucknell says.

  It sounds like a fortune to me now, but it’s a small fraction of what we once had, what we squandered on luxuries that seemed like necessities. Dinners, vacations, fancy cars. The thought sickens me.

  “And as for the marital domicile, you may buy out Mr. Martinez’s share, should you so desire,” she says, a preposterous proposition. “If you cannot, as an alternative, he is willing to keep you on the title as joint owner, but he will pay the mortgage and live there. If he sells, he will split any profit with you. As for personal effects, you will work together and submit a written inventory to the court of who wants what.”

  That’s it? I get half of everything? No war? No tit for tat on every last pot and pan out of spite? I agreed to sign whatever he wanted, but I didn’t expect he’d make that easy to do. But why? There has to be a catch—I frittered away way more than him, and he can prove it, if he wanted to.

  “One last thing, Mr. Martinez will sign a building on Sistrunk over to you.”

  I feel lightheaded.

  “Ms. Locke? What do you think?”

  Each time I open my mouth speak, the words stick in my throat, the vocabulary of conciliation not my strongest suit. “It’s…the terms are…more than acceptable.”