Rituals of the Season Read online

  “Mr. Young?” said Judge O’Donnell, who was presiding that day.

  Zack Young looked over the top of his glasses and thanked me for coming, as if I were doing his client a favor rather than helping to build the case of dishonesty against him. “Judge Knott, you said that was not your signature on the order. Do you know for a fact who signed your name?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Could it have been a clerk or a—”

  “Objection. Supposition,” said Frazier.

  “Sustained,” said O’Donnell.

  “In fact,” said Zack, “you do not know that my client signed it, do you?”

  “No, sir.” Mine not to add that it really didn’t matter who did the actual forgery. It was last in Russell’s hands before it was filed with the clerk of court’s office.

  “Now, when you said you normally activate the original sentence, what does that mean?”

  “It means that the more severe punishments that the original offense carried would now be put into effect.”

  “And in the case of Mr. Moore’s client?”

  “It would have meant that all of his driving privileges would have been revoked.”

  “So that he couldn’t operate a motor vehicle under any circumstances?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “How was he supposed to get to work?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not the State’s problem, Mr. Young.”

  “It didn’t bother you that he might lose his job if he couldn’t drive to work?”

  “It did bother me. That’s why I didn’t take away his license the first time he appeared before me. But I explained very thoroughly that he would lose it if he were charged with a second DWI.”

  “I’m sorry,” Zack said with an air of innocent bewilderment. “I thought you didn’t remember this case. How can you know you explained it so thoroughly?”

  “You’re quite right,” I conceded. “Spelling out the consequences of a second DWI is what I normally do, but I can’t say with certainty that I did so in this particular case.”

  “No further questions,” said Zack.

  I’m sure he hoped that some members of the jury would be so befuddled by my less than absolute memory about something irrelevant to begin with that they might think I’d somehow been lacking in my rulings that day.

  “You may step down,” said Judge O’Donnell.

  As I walked back to my own courtroom, I was dispirited to think of how hard Russell had worked, only to throw it away for that quick dollar.

  If his secretary had been the one to open that unexpected insurance check, if his client hadn’t assumed his claim had been denied, would Russell be sitting there as a defendant now?

  Because even though he hadn’t confessed, I was sure that his downfall must have began with that first sudden temptation, coupled with the knowledge that he could probably get away with it.

  “What if you were tempted like that?” whispered the preacher.

  “By money?” the pragmatist jeered. “Give me a break.”

  “It’s a dark night. You’re driving too fast. You’re not drunk, but you have had a glass or two of wine. You feel a sickening thump off your bumper and realize that you’ve hit something. Maybe it’s a deer. Maybe it’s a person. Do you stop or do you keep driving?”

  The pragmatist hesitated, weighing his options.

  “I thought so,” said the preacher.

  It’s my worst nightmare: that I will be faced with a choice like that and will come up wanting in that split-second decision that separates principle from self-interest.

  Some judges, those who know they’ve driven with a blood alcohol level over .08, are apt to give middle-aged DWIs the benefit of any doubt. Judges with teenage kids tend to go a little easier on the teenagers who show up in their courts. Me? I can’t help empathizing with defendants who are there because they yielded to that first self-serving impulse, especially if they make me believe that they’re totally appalled by that yielding.

  Grown men and women have stood before me with tears running down their faces, practically begging me to give them the maximum, anything to help ease the load of guilt they carry for doing something they’d always thought themselves incapable of doing.

  O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

  In chambers, I hung my jacket on a peg and put back on my heavy black robe.

  “All rise,” said the bailiff as I took my seat at the bar of justice.

  We moved methodically through the calendared cases. Plaintiffs and defendants had their minutes before me, then left, as did their supporters and accusers. By midafternoon the whole courtroom had turned over at least three times except for a wiry young black man. Eventually I realized that he had been there since shortly after I convened court this morning. I hadn’t seen him confer with any of the attorneys and he didn’t seem to be connected with any of the cases. He was neatly dressed in faded straight-legged jeans, a cranberry turtleneck, and a heavy black wool jacket that he’d removed and laid in his lap to act as a desktop for a spiral-bound notebook.

  A new reporter for the local paper?

  He was back after lunch and was still there when the last case of the day was disposed of.

  As I stood to leave, he closed his notebook, hooked his jacket over his shoulder, and came forward.

  “Judge Knott? May I speak to you?”

  The white bailiff started to put himself between the young man and the bench, but I waved him back.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so. I’m Nolan Capps.”

  He paused as if that would mean something to me.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Stephenson didn’t call you about me?”

  Call? Oh, Lord! I fumbled in the pocket of my robe. My phone. Still switched off.

  “Sorry,” I said. “My phone’s been off all day. What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering if I could talk to you about Martha Hurst?”

  “Martha Hurst?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Stephenson thought you could help me.”

  I didn’t see how, but I invited young Mr. Capps back to chambers so I could pick up my briefcase and coat. Mindful of my promise to Dwight, I warned him that I could give him only a few minutes.

  “That’s okay,” he said, looking around with interest at the behind-the-scenes hallways where so many plea bargains are worked out between DAs and attorneys. The halls were pretty much deserted now, although I was waylaid by a white police officer who wanted me to sign a search warrant for him. I skimmed through it and noticed that he’d neglected to fill in the house number on the street address.

  “If you aren’t specific, a good attorney will probably get the results thrown out if you do find the drugs and it comes to trial,” I told him. “And in that neighborhood, you can bet it won’t be a court-appointed one either.”

  “Oh, shit!” he said without thinking, and immediately apologized. “Sorry, ma’am. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back.”

  “So how can I help you?” I asked Nolan Capps as I unzipped my robe and hung it behind the door.

  “It’s sort of complicated,” he said. “I believe you know Bessie Stewart?”

  Now there was a question straight out of left field.

  Bessie Stewart was to Dwight’s nosy, gregarious mother what Maidie Holt had been to mine—technically a domestic employee: cleaning woman, cook, babysitter, yet at the same time a friend as well, a friendship rooted in mutual need and mutual dependence. Like Maidie’s husband on our farm, Willy Stewart was a tenant on the Bryant farm. When Miss Emily married Calvin Bryant and went to live there, she discovered that a childhood friend was there before her, eight years’ married and already the mother of four children. I’ve heard Miss Emily speak more than once about how Bessie was the one who taught her the practical side of running a farmhouse and how to grass tobacco and cotton without chopping up all the money plants. She actually helped deliver Dwight when he arrived in the middle
of a hurricane that blocked the roads with downed power lines and fallen trees. And when Calvin Bryant was killed in a farm accident three more children later, it was Bessie Stewart who pushed her to upgrade her certificate and go back to teaching, “’cause you never gonna be no farmer, I don’t care how long you live on one.”

  Miss Emily is principal at Zachary Taylor High School these days and Bessie Stewart is still running the domestic side of the farm for her, so yes indeed, I certainly do know her. In fact, she intimidates me a little because I’m not quite sure that she approves of me as a proper wife for Dwight.

  “How do you know her?” I asked.

  “Her granddaughter’s in one of my law classes.”

  “You’re a law student at Eastern?”

  “Third-year.”

  He was aiming for nonchalance, but I heard the pride in his voice, a well-deserved pride because Eastern’s law school is making a name for itself in the ranks of smaller universities. Located over in Widdington, it was one of the first Negro colleges in the state after the Civil War; and while it opened its doors to all after segregation ended, the student body is still mainly black. At least it is in the science and liberal arts programs. For some reason, though, Eastern’s law school attracted some top names in the field from the moment it opened and there has always been a good racial balance in its classrooms.

  “You won’t remember me,” he said, “but we’ve met before. You did a symposium at Eastern last year. ‘The View from the Bench’?”

  “You came to that?” Luther Parker and I were there to represent North Carolina’s district courts. Ned O’Donnell represented superior courts, and Frances Tripp, who administered my oath of office when I came to the bench, spoke about her work on the Court of Appeals.

  “Yes, ma’am. It was great. Made me want to run for judge someday.”

  “Hold that thought,” I said as my phone rang. One of Dwight’s numbers appeared on the little screen.

  “You on the road yet?” he asked.

  “Just leaving,” I assured him. “But I don’t have a window here. What’s the weather like?”

  “Rough and getting rougher. It’s raining and the temperature’s dropping fast, so be careful, okay?”

  “I will. See you in about an hour.”

  “We don’t have anything on for tonight, do we?”

  “Nothing on my calendar that I know of.”

  “I’ll bring pizza.”

  “A man after my own heart.”

  “That’s what I’m aiming for.”

  “Sorry,” I said to Nolan Capps as I rang off.

  “That’s okay. I know you need to go, so I’ll be quick. See, our criminal law clinic is connected with the Actual Innocence project. We’ve already taken on our limit for the year, and besides, we don’t do death penalty cases because they have access to a lot of legal reviews. But when I was telling my mother about it, she got all excited and wanted us to stop Martha Hurst’s execution. You know about Martha Hurst?”

  “A little,” I said cautiously.

  “Then you know that she’s never confessed to killing her stepson. That’s one of the criteria for taking on a case. Usually a prisoner can get a lesser sentence if they confess. Of course in Hurst’s case, she wasn’t offered a deal, so she had no incentive to confess. But she’s still maintaining her innocence after all this time even though most killers eventually admit that, yeah, they did it.”

  As he spoke, the police officer returned with all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed on his search warrant. I signed it and picked up my heavy coat.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Capps. I have to leave now, but walk out with me and tell me why your mother’s interested in Martha Hurst.”

  He slid on his own jacket, tucked the notebook into an inner pocket, and held the door for me.

  “They used to be on a team together when I was a kid and we lived in Cotton Grove. Fastpitch softball. Mom played third and Martha Hurst played short. I think I saw her hit two home runs in the same game once. Then we moved to Widdington and Mom started playing with a team there. They kept in sort of loose touch since sometimes their teams would be in the same tournament, and when the murder happened, Mom heard all the talk about it. Nobody on her team thought Ms. Hurst had done it, and Mom went to see her in prison a couple of times. She swears she would have known if Ms. Hurst was lying.”

  We walked down a double flight of marble stairs that led to the main rotunda of the old courthouse. It was a few minutes past five and most of the offices were dark. Our footsteps echoed off the marble-clad walls as we passed through the rotunda and continued down a long gloomy hall to the side entrance nearest the parking lot.

  “So where do I come in?” I asked.

  “First I tried the DA’s office. Mr. Woodall said that as far as he was concerned, the case was over and done with. That she’d had all the benefits of the law, that she was guilty and now the law could take its course. But Ms. Johnson was prosecuting over in Widdington week before last. I got her to talk to me and she finally said she’d take a look at the records. I think she found something because she said she was going to ask to see the first defense lawyer’s case file. That would be Mr. Stephenson’s father, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And now she’s been shot?”

  “You think there’s a causal link?”

  “Not necessarily. But it sure does complicate things.”

  I pushed open the door. A cold wet wind smacked us in the face, but the portico above sheltered us from the rain itself. The steps already looked slick, though.

  “Anyhow, Kayra—Kayra Stewart—she said her grandmother knew just about everybody in this end of the county and that she worked for the mother of the chief deputy and she’d put in a word with him. And Kayra said she’d help while we’re on Christmas break. Then, when I called Mr. Stephenson this morning to tell him we had Martha’s permission to see all her records, he said he wouldn’t mind if I looked at his, but he’d given them to the deputy. He said he had a feeling that you’d probably read them and that he’d call you and—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I really do need to go. Maybe we could talk tomorrow?”

  “Martha Hurst only has a month to live,” he said, giving me a soulful look.

  It was too cold to argue. I opened my umbrella and started down the steps. He offered me his arm so I wouldn’t slip.

  Young, idealistic, and polite, too? He reminded me of my nephew Stevie. I sighed.

  “You like pizza?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then follow me,” I told him. “It’s about a forty-minute drive, so keep up.”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  CHAPTER 14

  Never, when advancing an opinion, assert positively that a thing “is so,” but give your opinion as an opinion . . . your companion may be better informed upon the subject under discussion.

  Florence Hartley, The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, 1873

  I expected Dwight to be annoyed when I called to say I was bringing a law student home with me, but I hadn’t factored in his affection for Bessie Stewart. Not only was he not annoyed, he was actually pleased because Bessie had called him earlier that afternoon and asked him to help her granddaughter and “her young gentleman friend.”

  “Kayra’s over at Bessie’s right now,” he said, “so I’ll tell her to meet us at the house and I’ll pick up an extra pizza.”

  “Don’t forget my anchovies.”

  “How you can eat those disgusting things, I’ll never understand.”

  That’s what he says every time I ask for them. “Yours not to reason why,” I said.

  “Yeah, well mine not to kiss you either.”

  “Hey, what about for better or for worse and all that?”

  “In sickness and in health, yes. In anchovies, no.”

  I laughed, told him what landmark I was passing at the moment, and clicked off. Rain fell in slower, thicker drops, but so far the interstate was ice-free
and I was able to keep it up to the speed limit. Nolan Capps’s headlights stayed right with me.

  We passed the cutoff I’d taken Friday evening to get away from the backed-up traffic and, a few miles later, the overpass where Tracy had crashed. The lights from the cars around me picked up shards of broken glass, which twinkled briefly in the darkness. By the time we got to my usual exit, the wipers were clearing icy slush from the windshield. Driving became more iffy on the back roads and there was a definite fishtail effect when I cornered too sharply at Possum Creek. It was a relief to turn off the hardtop into the dirt lane that led to the house.

  An unfamiliar car sat next to Dwight’s truck and both were sheeted with a thin glaze of ice. Dwight met us in the doorway. There might not be any post-anchovy kisses in my immediate future, but the pre-one would hold me for the moment.

  I introduced Nolan Capps and he, in turn, introduced me to the young woman seated at the table in front of two large flat boxes that had filled the dining area with the entrancing aroma of tomato sauce, cheese, and oregano.

  Kayra Stewart appeared to be in her early twenties. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she had good bones that would probably age well. I looked for a resemblance to Bessie but couldn’t see any beyond her yardstick-straight posture and her level appraisal of me as we shook hands. Her smooth skin was the color of mellow oak, her dark eyes were widely spaced and flashed with good-humored intelligence when she greeted Nolan. Her hair curled even more tightly than my friend Portland’s and she wore it clipped short like Portland, so that her shapely head sat elegantly on a long slender neck. She was dressed in formfitting jeans and a slouchy old red crewneck sweater over a white jersey turtleneck. No jewelry beyond a mannish-looking square-faced wristwatch with a black leather band.

  Nolan Capps hung his hooded jacket on the back of a chair and tried to look casual when he sat down beside her, but it was clear that he could eat her with a spoon.

  I divested myself of coat and scarf and Kayra got up to help me put together salads.

  “It’s really nice of you and Dwight to talk to us,” she said as I set out a bag of mixed greens and some bottled dressings. “This has to be a busy time for y’all. Grandma says the wedding’s next Wednesday week?”