Hush My Mouth (9 page)

“Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t act like my concern was unusual—or misplaced. Probably saved him some paperwork.

“Thank you.”

Rudy’s office was around the corner, past the main entrance and information desk, and down another short, nondescript beige-green hall.

“Hey.” He didn’t even look up when I knocked on his open door. “What’s up?” He continued scribbling his signature on a stack of letters.

“I hate to show my ignorance to anybody but you. How long’s it take to get a bond hearing?”

“For?” He kept scrawling, his dishwater-blond head bowed over his task.

“Violation of a restraining order.”

He looked up at that. “You’re here to get a wife beater out of jail?” His tone was part surprise, part derision.

“No.” Mine was all derision.

He cocked an eyebrow and held his pen, waiting for the story.

“He was ordered to stop calling his wife.”

“Any violence?”

“Not that I know of. I haven’t seen the paperwork.” I didn’t want to confess the extent of my inexperience, even to an old friend like Rudy. I had, after all, only heard one side of the story—and limited vision is always fraught with peril.

“The magistrate who sets bond is out today. One of the judges is handling the bond hearings, but he’s moved them to this morning before the lunch recess. Just call the clerk.”

“Okay.” The clerk should have the paperwork filed in the case up to this point. I also needed to get my client to sign a contract of representation. More paperwork. My least favorite thing. “Thanks.”

I turned to leave him to his signing, but then stuck my head back in the door. “You gonna be here awhile?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Having a little trouble getting through with all this. Interruptions, you know.” He didn’t look up.

I patted the door frame. “See you later.” I wanted to see if he had any more information about Neanna Lyles, but I first needed to get a bond set for Mr. Mart.

The young deputy outside the interview room assured me that he could leave Mr. Mart in the interrogation room for a while longer.

At the courthouse two blocks away, Alma, the court clerk, said the judge had set the hearing right before he took his lunch break.

“Always a sandwich in his office,” she said, smiling over the purple glasses perched on her nose.

“Thanks.” I gave her my cell phone number, in case things moved more quickly than she anticipated. “I do you have the copy of the petitioner’s file in the Mart divorce case? Mr. Mart has recently retained me.”

I needed to explain my fee arrangement and get Mart’s signature on a fee agreement. At least I’d finally gotten smart and stuck several in my briefcase so I didn’t have to run down the block and across Main Street to my office. I put the photocopied sheets Alma had given me into my slender case and walked the two blocks back to the Law Enforcement Center. Might as well take care of some other business while we were waiting on the judge.

Mr. Mart sat twiddling his thumbs in the bare room. He nodded numbly as I explained our business details, and he carefully penned his signature.

“Would you like something to read?”

He shook his head. “No, not really.”

I’d rather be hung by my heels than left without book or paper and pen, but I slipped out and left him to study the stained Formica tabletop.

Rudy was nodding into the phone, so I stopped in the doorway.
He waved me in and kept nodding and muttering, “Mm-hm, mm-hm,” then, “Okay. Thanks.”

Fascinating conversation. No wonder he hadn’t minded me listening in.

“Yes’m, what can I do for you?”

I didn’t tell him not to start with the “ma’am” stuff. He’d never let up if he thought it bugged me.

“Any news about Neanna Lyles?”

I plopped down in the chair across the desk from him. His office could barely hold its furniture: a large desk, two thinly padded chairs for visitors, a bookcase, and a credenza behind his desk. The only window faced out into the hallway.

“Has the ME finished?” I asked.

“Autopsy’s done. Report isn’t. Should get the tox report today. If we need more, a full run might take weeks. Good news, her sister didn’t have to view the body. The coroner accepted her ID of the photo.”

I was glad Fran had been spared seeing Neanna’s body. Seeing a loved one is upsetting enough after the mortician has replaced the color drained from the face and covered what would haunt dreams and shouldn’t be seen.

“What do you think? Did she kill herself?”

He settled back in his chair. “Lots says she did.”

“Such as?”

“Single gunshot wound to the head. A killshot, disrupted the brain stem. Gun in the seat beside her. A positive GSR—gunshot residue—test on her hand.”

“A note?”

“No note. Not yet, anyway.”

“Not yet?”

“She could’ve mailed one to somebody. Or left a journal or something.”

“Who saw her last?”

Another shrug. “Dunno. She had a concert ticket stub in her pocket and a signed concert CD by the same group in her console.”

“Have you talked to her sister Fran? Or to Skipper Hinson?”

“I haven’t. It’s technically not my case.”

“Oh.” That surprised me. Was I treading on tender territory here?

Rudy gave a deep sigh. “A’vry, we just got this, okay. Things take time. There are other crimes around here that people also demand we pay attention to, you know.”

More important than signing letters asking for donations to the Police League? I didn’t say that out loud since I didn’t want him to know I’d been reading upside down, curious about the surprising amount of paperwork he’d been signing.

“Would you let me see the file?”

He stared at me over the cluttered expanse of his desk. “When we get a file, Avery, I surely will.”

My cell phone buzzed.

“Judge Lane can see you now.” Alma’s rich drawl didn’t waste words.

Judge Lane? Oh, no. Not him. Not twice in two days. Why hadn’t I bothered to ask which judge was holding the bond hearings today?

“I’ll be back.” Rudy didn’t act heartbroken when I took my leave.

Dang. The judge moved quicker than I’d expected. I hadn’t had time to read over the few pages Alma had copied for me on Tolly Mart’s divorce.

I tried to glance through them as I half ran back to the courthouse. Good thing I hadn’t worn heels today. For Mr. Mart’s sake, I couldn’t risk being late.

The only people in the courtroom to witness the judge’s displeasure were Mr. Mart and a very young assistant solicitor I didn’t recognize. Probably fresh out of law school—could she have just finished in May and be here handling cases on her own? Alma sat in the clerk of court’s chair waiting to take notes on whatever was making Judge Lane look so dyspeptic. My guess? Something to do with what I hoped I’d misread on my way up the courthouse steps.

“Am I to understand that you are asking me to set bond for Mr. Mart?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

He sounded incredulous, as if bond did not exist, as if the Magna Carta itself had never seen the pen of King John.

“Miz Andrews.” His frown deepened, directed only at me. “I realize you’ve come to town with quite a reputation for courtroom—” He paused.

My adrenaline pumped and I fought the urge to tighten my muscles, relaxing and shifting easily on my feet. Fight-or-flight responses could backfire in a battle of wits if those primitive instincts weren’t channeled.

“—fireworks,” he said finally. “Some successes, certainly.” His acknowledgment was grudging. “But I must say, in our two short meetings, I fail to see evidence of the courtroom prowess of which I’ve heard.”

I kept my gaze steady, shifting my stance only slightly, my version of a fighter getting the feel of the ring. No way I’d let him think he’d landed a blow.

“First, you failed to effectively counsel a client about the law prior to a hearing held at taxpayer expense. Then—” He leaned forward, as if to get in my face even though I stood a good ten feet away.

“Then you come in here in my very next court session and
ask me to set bond for a man who, despite my stern warning and his professed understanding of the consequences, has persisted in phoning his estranged wife, the petitioner in the case, a total of—” He stopped more for effect than to actually read the number. “One hundred twenty-seven times!”

Exactly as I’d feared. I hadn’t misread the paper.

“Not only that!” The judge’s face had bloomed into a burgundy hue. “He persists in denying that he’s done this, despite overwhelming—” His voice squeaked at that point. Judge Lane had never been a trial lawyer, and family court judging likely hadn’t allowed him to develop an oratorical timbre.

He cleared his throat and took a long breath. Some of the redness faded from his cheeks. “—overwhelming evidence in the form of telephone company records showing these calls at all hours, day and night. Made from his phone to the petitioner’s home phone number. Does your client deny he was at his residence at 2:00
A.M.
on Sunday night? Just to pick one instance.”

Before I could respond, Mr. Mart was shaking his head.

“No, Your Honor,” I said.

Judge Lane took another deep breath, an angry one. “Miz Andrews, I suggest that you do whatever necessary to present yourself and your clients in a better light the next time you appear in this court. Because of the repeated nature of the offense, the lack of acknowledgment or remorse, and my concern over the petitioner’s welfare, bond is set at fifty thousand dollars. Court is dismissed.”

He whacked the gavel with such force, I feared the head would fly off. Even the court reporter flinched, her eyes wide as she spoke her final words into her dictating mask. The judge swept through the door behind his bench in an angry swirl of black robe.

I sat down next to Mr. Mart. My legs were shaking too much from pent-up anger to stand. I released it in the only direction I had.

“A hundred and twenty-seven times?” I leaned close, my voice low.

He looked like he wanted to either start crying or throw up. He showed none of the flash of anger I’d felt at the judge’s berating. He leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees, his fingers knotted together.

“I haven’t.” He looked up, still shaking his head. “I haven’t. How do I prove I haven’t?”

His voice trembled, like lava sending up a tiny vapor stream through a fissure. I liked the anger, glad he didn’t let it flare out of control but glad it was there. For me, it pointed toward his innocence. But then, I can be duped.

“Wait here for just one sec,” I said, mostly to the police officer waiting to escort him away.

I caught the young assistant solicitor just outside the courtroom and introduced myself.

“I’m April,” she said, her handshake mostly limp fingers. She had heavy brown hair that swathed her shoulders and porcelain skin that shows up in retouched ad photos more often than on real people. In her very high heels, she towered over me. A distinct disadvantage.

“I just got this case this morning and wanted to make sure I had the latest phone records and other information from your files.” I wasn’t asking a favor. Prosecutors are required, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s
Brady
decision, to turn over all evidence—including exculpatory evidence that might free a defendant. Most do it without a formal
Brady
motion, but many have to be reminded.

She hesitated, looking first at the creased brown accordion file under her arm, then at me. “Um, I think you do?” When her experience level caught up with her polished looks, she’d be quite formidable. By then, though, she’d be long gone from the Camden
County solicitor’s office and hired on with a first-rate firm, making real money with her criminal court trial experience.

I pulled a business card from my jacket pocket. “I’m not certain that I have everything, especially the phone records that precipitated the arrest this morning. The judge didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk about the evidence. Don’t know what blew a breeze up his robe.”

“No-o.” She actually twittered, looking nervously around. Embarrassed for Judge Lane, for me, or for herself because she witnessed it?

“I take it Mrs. Mart’s attorney supplied those records?”

“Um.” She rolled her eyes up, thinking. “I believe so. I can check.”

“Would you mind faxing over what you have? I got the file from the clerk’s office this morning. I’d appreciate seeing anything you have as soon as you can get it to me.”

“Sure.” She nodded, her luxurious hair cascading as she wrestled with her bulky files and extended her hand. I shook her birdbone fingers.

Mr. Mart still slumped in his chair at the defendant’s table. The deputy sat in silence near the courtroom door.

“Okay.” I slid into the chair and leaned close for privacy.

“I don’t have fifty thousand dollars,” he said, looking heartsick.

“A bail bond usually requires ten percent and it doesn’t have to be in cash.”

His expression said fifty thousand and five thousand were all the same to him.

“I’ll try to find out what’s going on with these phone records. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt for you to talk to a bail-bond company.” His cell buddy Dells could probably give him a name or two.