Pleasantville (29 page)

Maxine stares at him a good long while.

Whatever is playing behind those dark, bark-colored eyes, it is not rage.

She nods toward his car at the curb, the two shadows in the windows.

“Those your kids?”

Jay glances over his shoulder, reminded of this one miracle.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Maxine nods. “I only ever had the one,” she says plainly.

She repeats the words, a whisper this time. “I only ever had the one.”

They're the same
words she says on the stand three days later, when she's called as the state's first witness, the one who will start this story with that Tuesday, election night, when Alicia failed to return home from “work,” which Maxine had assumed was a shift at her job on the grill at a Wendy's not far from their home. Maxine is wearing a dark gray dress with a wide patent leather belt. She sits with her shoulders hunched up a bit, as if she's cold, shivering actually. She leans forward, speaking softly into the microphone. Matt Nichols is at the lectern. At the state's table, a second lawyer and Detective Moore watch the proceedings. Jay, seated at the defense table on the left side of the courtroom, has no second chair, just Rolly riding shotgun in one of his work suits, looking, except for his single black
braid, like a funeral director. He sits on the other side of Neal. Lonnie is still running leads in the streets, and behind Jay in the first row of the gallery, close enough that he can whisper in Jay's ear, sits Sam Hathorne, center in a row of Hathornes, Axel, Vivian, Ola, Gwen, Camille, and Delia. The courtroom is packed to the wood-paneled back wall. The media have doubled in size since the injunction, with reporters from across the state and a few national bureaus, the
Washington Post
and the
New York Times
again. Nichols, his back to them, walks Mrs. Robicheaux through the remainder of that night and her first call to law enforcement the following morning. Judge Carolyn Keppler watches from the bench. She is a white woman in her late sixties, with hair dyed the color of coffee. On her right hand she wears a large turquoise and coral ring, on her left wrist a line of silver bangles, chiming softly as she takes notes. As Maxine testifies, Jay glances at the jury: three white men; two Latinos; four white women; one man from Pakistan; and two black men, native Texans both, born and raised, and the only two brothers to survive the state's peremptory challenges during voir dire. Jay will play this whole trial to the back row, where they're seated. Surely at least one of them has been accused in his lifetime of something he didn't do.

“Mrs. Robicheaux,” Nichols says, looking down at his notes.

“Yes,” she says, anticipating the next question. She's been well coached; most of her answers to the D.A.'s questions have been a simple and easy yes.

“Finally, ma'am, as Detective Moore and his partner, Detective Oakley, asked you during your very first interview, and if I could have you reiterate it here, do you or your husband have any idea what happened to your daughter?”

“Objection, hearsay,” Jay says. “She can't testify to what her husband knows.” It was sloppy phrasing on the D.A.'s part, but for whatever it's worth, Jay got in the fact that Maxine and
Mitchell might have two wildly different stores of knowledge of what happened to Alicia Nowell. It was a tiny crack in the state's presentation, but he'll take it. “Sustained,” Judge Keppler says, not looking up.

“Do
you
know what happened to your daughter between the time she left your home Tuesday, November fifth, and the day her body was discovered?”

“I don't know anything, no,” she says softly.

“Do you have any idea what she was doing in Pleasantville?”

A sigh into the microphone, and then, “No.”

The last question was Nichols doubling down on statements he'd made during his opening this morning, promising the jury that the state's was a straightforward, commonsense case: the defendant met the girl; the defendant flirted with the girl; the defendant gave the girl his phone number; the defendant pursued the girl; the defendant met the girl on a street corner in Pleasantville; the defendant was the last person seen with the girl; and, most important, he lied about all of the above. “Defense counsel is going to put on a show for you folks,” he said. “Political espionage, corruption, and election tampering, and I ask you good people of Harris County what in the world that has to do with the price of tea in China?” Jay has yet to meet a young lawyer south of Kansas who doesn't put on his best Atticus Finch every time he stands in front of a jury, who doesn't speak in an overly folksy manner, as if he'd dropped years of sophisticated law schooling and legal prolixity like bread crumbs on his way to the courthouse, leaving a trail to find his way back once the audience is gone.

“It's all smoke, people, subterfuge,” Nichols said. “A way to distract you from the fact that his client has no alibi for the time in question, that his client lied to law enforcement about knowing the victim. It's cheap and, make no mistake, it's a
trick, and it speaks to the very cynicism that defense counsel will try to make you believe is the reason we're all here. Politics. Gamesmanship. When the truth is, a young woman is dead, and
that
is the reason we're all here. The defense will try very hard to present to you that Alicia Nowell was working for Sandra Lynn Wolcott, a candidate for mayor and the current district attorney for this county. But there is no evidence that supports this. I know that. He knows that. And soon you will know it too,” he had ended, trying to get out ahead of anything Jay might present during trial. Jay, who frankly wasn't sure he would present
any
defense testimony at all–and was still unsure as to whether he could bank on A.G. being present in the courthouse at the needed time–had given the shortest opening statement of his career. “Well, as long as we're on the subject of
no
evidence,” he said, “let's start with the fact that there isn't a single piece of
physical
evidence that ties Neal Hathorne to the murder of Alicia Nowell. In fact, we could pretty much start and stop there. There is no way any man could do what was done to her without leaving a trace of himself behind. But what you did
not
hear in Mr. Nichols's opening, and what you
won't
hear during this entire trial, is any physical evidence to show that my client did this horrible crime. No blood, no hair, no DNA of any kind.” He spoke, total, for less than ten minutes.

“I have nothing further, Your Honor,” Nichols says to Keppler.

“Mr. Porter,” she says.

Jay stands, passing Nichols on his way to the lectern.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Robicheaux.”

She nods, but doesn't utter a greeting.

“Did you know your daughter was interested in politics, ma'am?”

“I don't believe she was, no.”

“Are you aware that in the spring of this year, your daughter attended a candidate forum at Jones High School, where she was a senior?”

“I am now, yes. I believe it was a mandatory thing.”

“It wasn't, actually,” Jay says. “Alicia elected to attend that event, along with other students interested in volunteering; were you aware of that?”

Maxine shakes her head.

The judge has to remind her to speak up for the court reporter.

She clears her throat, leaning toward the microphone. “No.”

“At this candidate forum, are you aware that all three major candidates for mayor in this election sent representatives to the high school?”

“Objection, beyond the scope of direct,” Nichols says, standing.

He's late, Jay thinks, but right.

Keppler looks at the defense table. “Mr. Porter?”

“The state asked the witness if she knew why her daughter was in Pleasantville on election night–”

“And I believe she said no.”

“I am, with the court's permission and in as few steps as possible, trying to broaden our understanding of her knowledge of her daughter's activities.”

“The objection, as to
that
question, is sustained.”

Jay looks down at his notepad on the lectern, stalling.

The pages in front of him are completely blank.

By habit, he usually maintains a separate legal pad for the questioning of each individual witness, but without the chance to interview the Robicheauxs prior to trial, he was at a loss as to how to prepare, or what Maxine might say.

He clears his throat. “Mrs. Robicheaux, your daughter's personal
effects were discovered a day before her body was found, is that correct?”

Maxine sighs, closing her eyes briefly. “Yes.”

“They found her purse, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And inside there was a wallet and a pager.”

“
I
didn't buy her that,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Yes, ma'am.”

He glances at the jury.

In the front row, one of the white jurors, a woman, nods approvingly.

“There was also a campaign flyer in her purse, was there not?”

“It was some kind of flyer they said, yes.”

“I'm sorry, Your Honor,” Nichols says, the chair creaking as he comes to his feet. “I'm going to have to object to this whole line of questioning as hearsay. Where is she getting this information from, from what the police told her?”

“They showed it to me, her purse,” Maxine says, looking up at the judge.

“Overruled.”

“It was a flyer bad-mouthing one of the candidates, was it not?”

“Something like that.”

“Bad-mouthing Axel Hathorne, right?”

“For all I know that's why he killed her,” she says, looking at Neal.

Jay winces at the glass wall he just walked into. He's got nothing here and he knows it. He needs to retreat from the mess he's making as fast as he can. He looks at Judge Keppler, about to signal an end to his questioning, but then looks once more at Maxine in the witness chair and reaches for the only arrow left
in his quiver, poisoned though it may be. “What year were you married, ma'am?”

“Excuse me?”

“What year did you and your husband marry?”

“In 1990.”

“And Alicia was how old at the time?”

“She was twelve.”

“They get along?”

Maxine leans back a little in her chair.

“Yes,” she says, crossing her arms, guessing what he's getting at and hating him for it. She glances at the judge, as if she can't believe Keppler can't stop this, as if she can't believe someone is allowed to spread lies in open court. The D.A.'s chair is again creaking under the springy weight of a lawyer on the verge of getting on his feet again. Jay imagines he'll never get this line of questioning past the coming objections. It's pure innuendo, as thin as it is sly, and not worth it, not when Maxine's defensive posture is doing the job for him.

“Nothing further, Your Honor.”

Next up:
Elma Johnson.

She is led into the courtroom by the bailiff, a short white woman with a reddish buzz cut and a thick middle who takes extra care with the elderly witness, guiding her by the elbow to the edge of the witness stand, where she will be sworn in. Elma is wearing a floral blouse, black polyester pants, and thick-soled shoes. The newly pressed gray waves on her head are oiled and shining under the white lights, and she cradles a small black purse like a baby, the gold-link strap hanging over the side of her arm. She got all dressed up for a mere twelve minutes on the stand, the length of time it takes her to repeat a story
that by now Jay has heard half a dozen times. Election night, at approximately eight forty-five, Mrs. Johnson looked out her kitchen window and saw Alicia Nowell standing at the corner of Guinevere and Ledwicke; she is sure it was her. “It looked like she was waiting for someone.”

Jay stands for cross. “That's a bus stop, isn't it?”

“Pardon?”

“The corner of Guinevere and Ledwicke? That's a Metro bus stop.”

“Objection, beyond the scope of direct.”

“She said the victim was ‘waiting for
someone.
' I think it's fair to probe her knowledge of the fact that there's a bus stop where Ms. Nowell was standing.”

“But that's a misstatement of the witness's testimony, Your Honor.”

“That's right, she said it
looked
like she was waiting for someone,” Jay says, making sure that the distinction is on record again. “I'm trying to understand the basis on which she formed her opinion, the testimony she gave on direct.”

“Overruled,” Keppler says, turning to the witness. “You may answer.”

“It's not marked,” Elma says.

“But it's a bus stop, isn't that right?”

“Yes,” she says softly.

“Why, then, did you tell police the victim was waiting for ‘someone'?”

“She was looking north, up Ledwicke. The buses come from the south.”

“But if someone, like Alicia Nowell, was fairly unfamiliar with the neighborhood, they wouldn't necessarily know that, would they?”

“Objection, speculation.”

“Sustained.”

But Jay had already got what he needed. “Nothing further, Your Honor.”

Next up:
Magnus Carr.

The retired postal worker is wearing a dark green, thickly knotted necktie and spectacles, round and gold plated, which he had not been wearing the day Jay visited him in his home. The shoulder pads of his camel-colored sports jacket are scrunched up around his ears and one side of his mouth is screwed up in a sort of half grimace, telegraphing his reluctance to be here. Every few seconds he keeps looking past Neal to Neal's grandfather. He has said, under oath, at least three times, “I hate to say anything against Sam,” as if it were the elder Hathorne he's accused in open court and not Jay's client–whom Mr. Carr had no trouble pointing to and identifying as the man he told detectives he saw outside his study, struggling with a young girl, who he now knows was Alicia Nowell.

When it's Jay's turn at bat, he begins with the obvious. “Are those prescription eyeglasses, sir?” he says, liking the start of this, feeling comfortable enough to slide his hands into his pockets and lean his hip against the lectern.

“Yes, sir.”

“You nearsighted or farsighted?”