Maximum Security (15 page)

Geraldine was positioned in front of the bench, chomping at the bit to begin, well before Judge Long took his seat and called the noisy courtroom to order. He didn’t acknowledge her at first, though, didn’t give her an opening. Instead, he donned his half-glasses and peered over them to the defense table, at me. He didn’t utter a word, didn’t need to. His question couldn’t have been clearer if he’d shouted through a bullhorn.

“Your Honor,” I said, getting to my feet but remaining at our table, “the defense is prepared to go forward.”

The shake of his head was barely perceptible. And it was not intended to be unkind. Leon Long is the last member of the judiciary who would question a citizen’s inalienable right to be judged by a panel of her peers. He deemed it foolhardy, though, for Louisa Rawlings to go forward under the circumstances. And I don’t disagree.

Geraldine is adding the final touches to her presentation now and I suspect she’ll be nominated for an Academy Award before the day is out. Under the guise of getting the substance of her case against Louisa Rawlings on the record—a legitimate end—she managed to spoon-feed every delicious morsel of this sordid saga to the salivating members of the media. More than a few reporters ran for the double doors to phone their press rooms after she showcased the brass swan. They stopped short, though, huddling in the back like an indoor football team, when she brought the bloodstained portion of the oak floorboards to center stage.

She’s just about finished, I think, talked out at last, and the press benches are empty. Only the photographers remain, roaming the aisles in search of one last opportunity to bag a front-page shot. And Woody Timmons is still here too, scribbling in his notepad. He’s off on his own again, this time seated on the end of the back bench.

“And so, Your Honor,” Geraldine concludes, “the Commonwealth respectfully prays that the defendant be held over without bail, as she poses a clear and immediate danger to the community.”

I’m on my feet. Geraldine is out of line, even by her own standards. Bail isn’t an issue here; murder is a nonbailable offense. Never mind the “clear and immediate danger to the community” nonsense.

Judge Long is way ahead of me. He bangs his gavel even before I voice my objection. “Attorney Schilling,” he says, “that’s enough.”

I sit again, certain the judge’s admonition will rein her in.

“She’s a cold, calculating murderer,” Geraldine adds, facing our table. As fate would have it, she’s facing the cameras, too.

So much for the judge’s admonition. “Your Honor!” I’m up again, but I doubt my words can even be heard over the explosion of commentary from the spectators.

Judge Long is on his feet now too, pounding his gavel with abandon. “Enough, Ms. Schilling,” he repeats.

Geraldine fires the slightest of smiles at our table.

“Murder
ess
,” Louisa hisses.

Maybe I imagined it.

Geraldine’s green eyes smolder. “
What
did you say?”

Maybe I didn’t imagine it.

Louisa stands beside me and I grab her shoulder—hard—to tell her to shut up. She’s not taking my advice today, though. None of it.

“Murder
ess
,” she repeats calmly.

“Pardon me?” Geraldine’s eyes ignite now. She seems to think Louisa is accusing
her
of murder. Even I know that’s not the case, though I understand precious little else about this scene.

“What did you say?” Geraldine demands again.

“If you’re going to accuse me of such dreadful acts,” Louisa says, her voice low and steady, “do it right. If I had done the things you say I’ve done—which, for your information, I most certainly did not—I would
not
be a murderer. I’d be a murder
ess
.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Geraldine Schilling speechless before. And I’m fairly certain no one else in this courtroom has either.

“Now here’s a new wrinkle,” Harry mutters from his chair behind us. “Just when you think you’ve seen it all.”

Louisa wrests her shoulder from my grasp. “If you call me a murder
er
once more—” she says.

“Your Honor!” The Kydd shouts and jumps out of his chair. He grabs Louisa’s elbow so hard he jolts her into silence. “Mrs. Rawlings isn’t feeling well.” He’s still shouting, though there’s no need. The rest of us couldn’t be any quieter. “With the court’s permission, she’d like to leave the proceedings at this time.”

The Kydd moves Louisa away from our table and propels her toward the side door, motioning frantically for the startled matron to come take her off his hands. She does. And they exit before the equally surprised judge utters a word. “Permission granted,” he says as the door slams shut.

The Kydd returns to our table, winded and flushed, and I give him a grateful nod. That was quick thinking on his part and I’m fairly certain it averted disaster. Louisa’s defense is already on life-support. Threatening any prosecutor would be a mistake. Threatening Geraldine would be fatal.

“I’ve heard enough,” Judge Long says, taking his seat again. He looks out at Geraldine and shakes his head. “No, I misspoke,” he says. “Let me amend that. I’ve heard
more
than enough.”

Geraldine is still standing. She looks up at the bench and gives him her best angelic face, as if she has no idea what he’s talking about.

The judge turns to Old String Tie, who’s been dutifully tapping away for the past hour, to issue his ruling. “The defendant will be bound over,” he says. “Louisa Coleman Rawlings is hereby remanded to the custody of the Barnstable County House of Correction to await trial.” The judge bangs his gavel again, just once. “We’re adjourned.”

We stand as he leaves the bench. He reaches the door to his chambers and turns to face us again. “I want a scheduling conference in the morning,” he says, “so we can keep this thing moving. Be here at eight. And bring your three
C
s.”

Geraldine looks at the judge and frowns before she returns to the prosecutors’ table. Judge Leon Long always tells attorneys to bring their three
C
s to scheduling conferences. And Geraldine Schilling always frowns when he does.

All important dates for a case are pinned down during the scheduling conference. The discovery cutoff, the pretrial-motions deadline, and the start of trial itself are among them. Trials run more efficiently—and presumably more effectively—when both sides have enough time to do what needs doing. That’s why Judge Long asks each attorney to show up with three
C
s: common sense, a calendar, and a conscience.

Harry slaps this morning’s
Boston Herald
on our table. Even before I look down at it, I know the news isn’t good. There it is. Lou McCabe’s front-page headline. Over the top, even for Lou.

A low moan seeps into the room. I pause, thinking it sounds familiar, and then realize it’s coming from my throat. I feel a sudden need to go home to pull the blankets over my head, but the pendulum clock behind the jury box says it’s just five minutes before eight—
A
.
M
. I plant my elbows on the table and bury my face in my hands.

The Kydd wheels his chair closer to mine and leans on my armrest so he can read Lou McCabe’s venomous version of journalism. “Who the hell is Goody Hallett?” he asks.

I sit up straight again and face him. “She’s the little old woman of Nauset Sea.”

“A witch,” Harry adds.

“A
what
?” The Kydd starts to laugh, certain we’re joking, and then stops. We’re not.

“Goody Hallett is a local legend,” Harry tells him. “Cape Codders believe she lived here during the eighteenth century—all hundred years of it. She made her home along the shoals, dancing all night—every night—across the beaches and over the sand dunes.”

“In scarlet shoes,” I pitch in.

“Scarlet shoes?” The Kydd still looks like he’s sure this is a joke.

“That part doesn’t really matter,” Harry says.

“Yes, it does,” I correct him.

“Well, okay, it matters to Marty. She’s something of a clotheshorse. Anyhow, legend has it that old Goody had a penchant for conjuring up nor’easters. And an appetite for the souls of doomed sailors.”

“The souls of doomed sailors,” the Kydd repeats. He looks like he’s starting to worry about us.

“Right,” Harry answers. “Goody would whip up the weather whenever she got the whim and the ships near Cape Cod’s shoals would find themselves in serious trouble.”

The Kydd knits his brow, apparently having a little trouble of his own. Harry doesn’t notice. “And then old Goody would hang a lantern from a whale’s tail,” he continues.

“A whale’s tail.” The Kydd checks in with me to see if he heard correctly. I nod. He did.

“That’s right,” Harry says. “And to the men on the vessels struggling at sea, it looked like a lighthouse. Goody lured them to certain destruction and then gambled with the Devil for their souls.”

“The Devil.” The Kydd checks in again, and I take over.

“Word is that Goody outgambled the Devil and, eventually, he got sick of losing. He strangled Goody and, the following year, a pair of scarlet shoes turned up in a dead whale’s belly.”

“The Devil,” the Kydd repeats.

“That’s why the shoes are important,” I tell Harry.

He nods, giving up the point, and then turns back to the Kydd. “Old-timers take Goody out and dust her off any time they sit around a campfire with their grandchildren,” he says.

“To ensure the folklore lives on,” I explain.

“But mostly to terrify the little tykes,” Harry adds.

“The Devil,” the Kydd says yet again. He takes a deep breath, folds the newspaper in half, and hands it back to Harry. “Get it out of here,” the Kydd says. “Louisa is low enough. She doesn’t need witch talk.”

He’s right, of course. She doesn’t. And in spite of the inappropriateness of it all, I’m touched by his genuine concern for her. He’s a good sort, the Kydd. His heart’s in the right place, even if his pants sometimes aren’t.

Harry tucks the folded paper under his arm and moves to a chair at the bar, behind our table. As soon as he leaves, Judge Long and Louisa enter the courtroom simultaneously, the judge from chambers, Louisa from lockup. A flustered matron rushes to deliver Louisa to us and an equally ruffled Joey Kelsey tells us to rise after everyone in the room is on their feet. I’m not the only one who’s a beat behind this morning.

Louisa looks somewhat refreshed, markedly better than she did yesterday. She smiles at the Kydd and me as she joins us and I realize her eyes aren’t bloodshot anymore. I’m reminded of the Rule of Alternates, a principle Harry shared with me years ago. People newly imprisoned—most notably first-timers—tend to sleep on alternate nights. It’s impossible to fall asleep the first night in the joint; impossible not to the second. For some, the pattern persists throughout their entire stay in county facilities.

Judge Long tells us to sit and everyone except Wanda Morgan does. She stays on her feet instead and walks to the bench with a file that apparently needs the judge’s attention. I lean closer to Louisa so I can whisper and the Kydd leans toward her too, so he can listen. “About the trial date,” I ask her, “what’s your preference, sooner or later?”

Left to its own devices, the machinery of the Commonwealth will deliver a case like this one to trial in about a year. But if there aren’t an excessive number of discovery disputes or pretrial motions, that time can be shortened, sometimes by as much as a few months. For defendants who have a decent shot at acquittal, it’s a no-brainer. They want to get to trial as fast as possible. This particular defendant, though, isn’t one of them.

“That depends,” Louisa answers, looking at the Kydd and then back at me, “on how long the two of you need—”

I shake my head. “That’s not an issue.”

She shakes her head too. “—to find the murderer.”

Now
that’s
an issue. “What?”

“My head is clear this morning,” she says, “for the first time since this nightmare began. And now it’s obvious.”

“What’s obvious?” The Kydd’s starting to squirm.

“I didn’t kill Herb,” she says. “And I didn’t attack him. But the only way I’m going to convince
these
people of that”—she nods toward Geraldine and Clarence—“is to prove who did.”

The Kydd stares at me and loosens his tie a little.

“I’ll work every minute of every hour,” Louisa continues. “I’ll make notes. I’ll give you every detail that might be remotely connected to Herb’s death. I’ll do everything I can to figure out who killed him.”

She pauses and looks at both of us again. “But I’m stuck in this dreadful place,” she says, “so you two will have to go get him.” She faces front and folds her hands on the table, as if it’s all settled now.

The judge and Wanda are still poring over their file and after a moment, Louisa twists around in her chair. “Good morning, Harold,” she says.

Harold
leans forward and squeezes her shoulder.

She points to the newspaper in his lap. “Is that the
Herald
?”

He nods.

Her eyes move from Harry to the Kydd and then to me. “Have you read it?” she asks us.

We all nod. The look on Louisa’s face tells us she’s read it too.

“It’s preposterous,” she says, facing front again and folding her arms.

She’s right, of course.
Preposterous
is Lou McCabe’s middle name.

Louisa turns away from the Kydd and leans over the arm of my chair, as if what she has to say next is just between us girls. “Honestly,” she whispers, “what in the world was that man thinking?”

I shrug. Louis P. McCabe
doesn’t
think, as far as I can tell.

“A woman with my coloring,” she continues, leaning into me and pursing her perfect lips, “wouldn’t be caught
dead
in scarlet shoes.”