Pleasantville (17 page)

“Don't say another word,” Jay tells him.

“
Stop
this,” he hisses at Jay.

“I can't.”

From her desk beside the judge's bench, the clerk holds a freshly stapled stack of papers. Jay, stunned, doesn't move right away. It's Nichols who crosses the courtroom to the clerk's desk, retrieving the amended complaint and delivering it to opposing counsel himself. Jay stares at the first page, the words laid out in black and white: they're charging Neal with first-degree homicide.

“Are we ready to proceed, Mr. Porter?” the judge asks.

“Uh,” Jay says, stammering. “Just a minute, sir.”

He turns to his client, who, for the first time since they met, is speechless. He appears to be in shock. Behind them, Gregg Bartolomo is scribbling away in a notebook. Jay can see him out of the corner of his eye. Ellie too. He hadn't noticed her before now. She's back from the clerk's office with a quarter-inch pile of white papers in her lap, and she's staring at her father. His breath jagged and quick, he seems fragile in a way she's never seen. “Dad?”

“I'm fine,” he says, swallowing the sour taste in his mouth.

He looks at Neal and then the judge.

“Yes, Your Honor,” he says finally. “We're ready to proceed.”

“No,” Neal says, shaking his head. “No, I want to postpone.”

Nichols, the A.D.A., objects on behalf of the state. “Considering the gravity of the new charge, Your Honor, I don't see how that's prudent.”

“I agree,” the judge says.

Jay listens as the judge reads the official charge into the record:

“State of Texas versus Neal Patrick Hathorne. Case number HC-986723.

“It shall be noted for the record that the defendant is hereby charged with one count of criminal homicide, in violation of Texas Penal Code 19.02, a felony to wit the defendant did knowingly and intentionally cause the death of one Alicia Ann Nowell.”

Neal, panicked, looks from the bench to Jay. “What the hell is going on?”

“They think you did it,” he says again.

“Based on
what
?”

Jay hasn't a clue. For whatever questions Neal has yet to answer about Tuesday night, Jay can't see how they rise to the level of a capital murder charge. It makes it hard
not
to see the situation the way Neal does, as a political stunt.

“How does your client plead, Mr. Porter?”

“Not guilty,” Neal says indignantly, practically shouting it.

“Not guilty, Your Honor.”

“You have an argument as to bail, Mr. Porter?”

Neal grabs Jay's arm. “I am
not
going to jail.”

In front of the bench, Jay stammers, trying to line up a simple argument. He hasn't done this in over a decade, and never in a capital case. “The defense would, uh, request that Mr. Hathorne be released on his own recognizance.”

“The state can't allow that, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Hathorne poses no flight risk, Judge. He's got roots in this community, is at this very moment, in fact, deeply involved
in a citywide election, the details of which may be of some interest to Your Honor, since the candidate running against my client's employer runs the very department that brought these charges,” Jay says, his words picking up speed, remembering the power of calling someone out in open court, the truth trotted out onstage. “Absent compelling evidence against Mr. Hathorne, it certainly gives the appearance that someone is gaming the system to gain an advantage that doesn't have the least bit to do with administering justice for Alicia Nowell,” he says.

“Are we doing opening arguments now?” Nichols says.

“Save it for trial, Mr. Porter. Is the state ready to set a date?”

“Not at this time, Your Honor.”

“Bail is set at five hundred thousand,” the judge says. As he calls the next case on the calendar, a bailiff approaches Neal to handcuff and print him for processing. He is absolutely terrified, shaking all over. “Call my grandfather,” he says to Jay, who, having walked in here to go through the motions of a misdemeanor arraignment, has just laid out, in open court, an explosive defense argument, one that Gregg Bartolomo is still busy getting down on paper. As Jay starts out of the courtroom with Ellie, he comes, for one tense moment, face-to-face with Maxine Robicheaux. Red-eyed, her voice low and quivering, she whispers, “Shame on you,” before turning and walking out of the courtroom.

Gregg Bartolomo catches
them on the courthouse steps, along with a handful of television reporters, some court watcher having tipped off the local stations while Neal was in lockup waiting for a wire transfer of fifty thousand dollars from his grandfather's bank to a bail bondsman. Court staffers move aside, making way for the multiheaded beast moving down the stairs, the swarm of press and rubberneckers, Jay at the very center of it, his client on one side and his daughter on the other. Gregg, the seasoned newspaperman, doesn't let more than a few inches get between him and his subjects, making notes on the scene, letting the girls in heels and the men in shiny suits do the dirty work, shouting vulgar questions over their microphones and one another:
Did you have anything to do with
the death of Alicia Nowell? Was she working for your uncle's campaign? Did Axel try to stall the investigation?
Gregg notes every twitch of Neal's eyebrow, every upward curl of his lip, but is smart enough to simply observe at this point, leaning in at just the right moment to whisper in Jay's ear, “You let me know when you want to tell your side.”

Jay reaches for Ellie's hand, squeezing it tight, keeping her close as they push through the crowd. He turns to Neal. “Where's your car?”

“On Congress.”

“Then you're coming with me,” he says, as they start for Jay's car parked in the lot directly across the street.

He gets Neal as far away from the courthouse as fast as possible, taking whole blocks at forty miles an hour, Ellie riding shotgun. She keeps turning around every few minutes to sneak a peek at their passenger, the man in khakis accused of murder. Jay's cell phone rings the second they pull into the driveway outside his office. It's Lonnie. “You do realize you're going to be on the front page of tomorrow's paper. What in the world have you gotten yourself into?”

“I have to call you back.”

Inside, he tells Neal to have a seat in the parlor. The phones have been ringing nonstop, Eddie Mae reports. Gregg Bartolomo. Channels 2 and 13, 26 and KCOH. The entire news community is already on to the story, must be if within half an hour it's already trickled down to Lonnie, who's now at a Birraporeti's on Gray, interviewing for a job at its bar. It's a quarter to three, and Ben will be of out of school soon, a circumstance Jay hadn't accounted for. He hadn't expected the day to take the turn it has, from misdemeanor arraignment to a looming murder case. Sam Hathorne is on his way to Jay's office at this very moment. Jay leans over his desk, dialing Mrs. King's number into his office phone. Her house is ten minutes
from Poe Elementary School. Ellie stands on the other side of the desk, watching her dad. She's been asking a version of the same question since they left the courthouse. “Who was that woman?” she says, meaning Alicia's mother. “Why did she say that to you?”

When Alice King answers the line, Jay asks for a favor, running through a routine they've traded back and forth for months. Would she mind picking Ben up from school, and maybe swinging by to get Ellie too? She could take them back to her place. Jay promises to bring dinner later, if she wants.

There's an unexpected stretch of silence on the other end.

“Actually, I don't think Lori is going to be spending so much time with Elena anymore. I just don't think the girls are the best influence on each other.”

“Oh,” Jay says.

He's caught off guard at first, and then furious.

“Right, 'cause my daughter got yours pregnant.”

“Excuse me?”

“Dad!”

“Never mind,” he says. “Forget it.”

He hangs up on Mrs. King.

“Eddie Mae!”

He calls her into his office and begs her to take Ellie to pick up Ben from school, to try to kill an hour or so. “You all right here on your own?” she asks.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Dad, what's going on?”

“Just go, El.”

He locks the front door when they're gone and turns to Neal, sitting on the antique sofa, newly humbled from his brush with lockup, his clothes damp and wrinkled with sweat, circles of it spreading under his arms. He leans forward, head in his hands. “I can't believe this is happening.”

“Do not listen to a word Sam says. You need a lawyer, and you need a lawyer
now
. Forget the campaign, your uncle. You need to protect yourself.”

“I don't understand how this is happening.”

“I'll tell you how: your phone number in her pager, the fact that yours was one of the last calls before she went missing, and the gap in the schedule, not to mention your failure to disclose any of this to Detective Moore. It's circumstantial, and it's thin, but it's there. They don't have any physical evidence. But the autopsy isn't set until tomorrow. That could change, I guess.”

Neal shakes his head at what Jay is suggesting.

“I never touched that girl.”

There's a loud knock on the front door.

Here they come, Jay thinks. He unlocks the door and lets in Sam and Axel, but blocks Marcie, the communications director, and Stan, the campaign's finance director, from entering the building. “They can wait outside,” he says, closing the door on them and relocking it. He turns to Sam and Axel. “Your time is up,” he says. “Neal needs a criminal lawyer, and a damn good one.”

Sam's face is damp with perspiration.

Axel too looks as if he might have run all the way here.

“Can we just sit somewhere and talk?” he says, looking out the window, where Marcie and Stan have a view of this confidential meeting from the front porch. Jay shows them down the hall to his private office. Neal is the only one who sits, picking a chair directly across from Jay's desk. The others choose to stand. Because the heating system is funny in this place, Jay's office is always a good ten degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Sam, sweating, removes his overcoat, tossing it onto the back of a chair. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

“I'd rather you didn't,” Jay says.

“Tell me you have something to drink at least.”

“You're not staying.”

Pacing the office, Axel seems utterly mystified, shaking his head over and over again. “You can't take someone to trial on what they have.”

“You can if you don't care if you win,” Jay says. “This isn't about a trial.”

“The D.A.'s office hasn't even set a date,” Neal says.

“They're going to let this sit out there,” Sam says, “on the front page of the newspaper, until the runoff. It's a goddamned death sentence for the campaign.”

“But why me?” Neal says.

“They saw an opportunity, and they took it,” Sam says.

Jay asks Neal again. “Where were you Tuesday night?”

“Wait a minute,” Sam says, stepping forward. “Before we get into potentially privileged information, we need to know that you're on board.”

“With what?”

“We want you to represent Neal.”

“I'm not a criminal lawyer.”

“You
were
.”

“Stickups and joyrides, sure, kids caught with a quarter ounce of weed. But I can't try a capital
murder
case.” He nearly laughs at the idea, looking around the room, waiting for the others to join in, to hear how absurd it sounds. “Look, if you want to call their bluff, call their bluff. Hell, get an injunction to stop the election, invoke your right to a speedy trial, and hold them to it. Make Wolcott and Parker put up or shut up. But you don't need me for that.”

You can almost hear a pin drop.

Neal looks at his grandfather. “Can we do that? Stop the election?”

“This is America,” Jay says. “You can sue anybody over anything.”

“Jesus, that's good,” Axel says. “It's brilliant.”

“It's dangerous, son,” Sam says, looking uncharacteristically tentative and unsure. “We could lose the small lead we have. We could
lose
.”

“We lost our lead the second they indicted Neal. But Jay is right. This is exactly the way this needs to be approached, a crusade against an injustice, to Neal personally, and to the city politically,” Axe says, taking control of his campaign, maybe for the first time. “That's why it's got to be you, Jay. Former civil rights activist, from rabble-rouser to lawyer with a conscience, working the courts in the people's best interests. You'd almost be as big a story as the crime itself.”

Jay winces at the thought, the crassness of the offer.

“I'm not interested.”

“Otherwise, it's some Johnnie Cochran–type dream team.”

Sam shakes his head. “We can't play this slick.”

“I couldn't agree more,” Axel says.

Jay shakes his head, adamant. “I can't go to trial, okay?”

“Yes,” Sam says, his voice taking on an edge. “I think there are a number of your civil clients who are afraid of that very fact. Look, we need you, Jay, so let me make plain that my offer yesterday, to help squash the defecting faction in Pleasantville, the ones that want resolution quick and are willing to trade you in to get it? Well, it goes both ways, Jay. I'm just as happy to use my influence to give my blessing to Ricardo Aguilar.”

Jay, in no uncertain terms, tells Sam to get the fuck out of his office.

Sam nods, unfazed. He doesn't move, though, not right away. “Let me ask you something, Jay. Do you really think my grandson killed Alicia Nowell?”

“I never touched that girl,” Neal says again.

Sam holds out a hand to quiet him.

“Do you think for a second that with Neal up on these charges HPD is going to continue to look into the matter, to find out what really happened to Alicia Nowell, let alone what it has to do with Tina Wells and Deanne Duchon?”

“They're not even putting the cases together,” Axel says.

Jay knows that too. He has a sudden flash of Maxine Robicheaux in the courtroom, the way she looked at him, as a man with no grief in his heart apparently, no clue what she was going through.
Shame on you
, she said.

“We can make this easy on you, Jay, get you all the help you need behind the scenes, the best defense lawyers and consultants in the state.”

“No,” Jay says. “I'm not the one you want.”

Sam is grossly disappointed in him, almost to the point of disdain.

“I hope, for your sake, you don't come to regret this.”

“That's enough, Dad,” Axel says. He grabs Sam's coat. “I don't hold it against you, Jay, any of it. This is a mess, that's all. This is an absolute mess.” He and Sam turn to go. Neal lingers, waiting, it seems, until his family is down the long hallway, almost to the front door, before he works up the courage to look at Jay one last time. Whatever he wants to say, it gets distilled, in speech, to the two plainest words: “Thank you.”

Lonnie calls
the house after dark. “What the hell happened?”

“Waded in too deep, that's what,” he says, pushing pork chops, swimming in grease and onions, in a pan on the stove, the phone cradled to his ear. “Sam is holding Pleasantville like a golden carrot above my highly overextended head.”

“How much have you shelled out so far?”

“Enough,” he says, calling over his shoulder for his kids to come to the table. “Maybe it's for the best,” he says to Lonnie, “this whole thing coming to a head. Maybe Pleasantville deserves a better lawyer than me. I hadn't been in a courtroom in over a year before today, and I was an absolute mess.”

“That's not what I heard,” she says. “Gregg Bartolomo said you fought back in there. That's right. Guess who wants to play ball now? But only if I get him on the phone with you. He wants to do a Sunday feature on you, the case.”

“Tell him ‘No comment.'”

“The killer's still out there, Jay,” she reminds him, and he resents her for saying it. What does she expect him to do about it? “I'm not a trial lawyer anymore.”

“Then what are you?”

“Hungry.” He nods to Ben and Ellie, entering the kitchen, whispering to Ben to get forks on the table, Ellie to set out the cups. “I got the kids here, Lon.”

“Okay, okay,” she says. “I only called to follow up on Hollis.”

“Right,” he says, plating up the pork chops and black-eyed peas, potatoes roasted with carrots and tomatoes. He holds up a finger to the kids, to give him just one minute. Ellie has been remarkably uninterested in the telephone since she's called Lori's house at least ten times today and received not a single return call.

“You asked me about contacts?” Lon says. “Family?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, most of them, from what I remember, are all down in Needville, but when I went back through my notes, I did find a brother in Houston. Well, Aldine, actually. He lives in an apartment complex off the 45 Freeway.”

“Beechwood Estates.”

“That's it.”

“Tell me, what's the address, the apartment number?”

“It's here, hold on.” Jay can hear her blowing smoke on the other end, can picture this whole scene playing out over beer and cigarettes. “It's 27-B.”

So they had the wrong apartment.

Rolly had let himself into 27-A.

“Hmmph,” Jay says.

He tells the kids to go ahead and get started. Then, walking the cordless into the living room, he asks Lonnie to run Hollis's description by him again. White male, she says, between thirty and thirty-five years of age. Sandy, almost reddish hair, clipped in the front and kind of long and shaggy in the back.

The white guy in the blue Caprice; he can't believe it.

He'd been standing right in front of him.

“That his name hasn't floated around any of this is unbelievable,” she says. “It's shitty police work. But it's even shittier journalism. His name is all over the original police files on the first two girls. Mike Resner and his partner
talked
to Hollis, for god's sake, talked to his employer and his ex-wife. I don't know why the
Chronicle
is chasing this Neal thing down a rabbit hole,” she says. “Unless you know something I don't.”