“Yes, ma’am. Two old buddies, just like old times.”
I stuck my head into the courtroom again. Lee shot me an impatient glare, but the DA’s counsel table was empty. I ducked back into the hallway.
“So Cary, do I have this right: after dinner, you joined Lee in his hotel room?”
The voice on the other end of the line was urgent, plaintive. “Just popped in to give him a present. Something special for Lee. The Scotch.”
I chose my next words with care. “And a woman joined y’all.”
He groaned into the phone. “Just another little surprise. I don’t mean no disrespect, but she walked in looking good enough to eat. Lacy shorts, fishnet hose, skin like brown sugar.”
In the glass panel of the courtroom door, I saw my face twist into a grimace. He was talking about a dead woman. I forced myself to relax my features. “And then the three of you drank the Scotch in the hotel room.”
His voice was hesitant. “Well, I poured a round. But when that little girl sat on Lee’s lap, I made myself scarce.”
“Okay.”
“I said—Lee, buddy, I’m gonna scoot on out of here and give y’all some privacy.”
I needed more detail. Cary Reynolds’s testimony was my only light into the events of that night. The next morning, Lee and the hooker were found in the room, and the girl was dead.
Chapter 44
STILL HOLDING THE phone to my ear, I glanced to my right. Two uniformed deputies lingered nearby. I knew one of them: a young guy, Deputy Brockes. I ran into him at the courthouse on a regular basis. Brockes was a sweet kid.
He stood beside a gray-haired deputy I didn’t know too well. Though I encountered most of the sheriff’s department personnel in my line of work, the older guy—Potts was his name—was a newcomer to Rosedale, and we had yet to come face-to-face in court. But as I stood in the courthouse hallway, it seemed that Potts was staring me down, right at that moment.
It made me uncomfortable. Was he listening in to my side of the phone conversation? I turned my back to the deputy and lowered my voice.
“Cary, when I come up to see you tonight, we’ll need to nail down specifics.”
He paused. “Specifics?”
“Yeah. Like, about how much Lee had to drink that night. How much did he imbibe at dinner? And the bottle of Scotch was empty when the police searched the room—was it full when you brought it in? The hooker—when she arrived, did she appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol?”
Cary sighed into the phone. He didn’t answer right away. The uniformed deputies, Brockes and Potts, had edged closer. They were seriously intruding on my circle of private space.
Brockes said, “Hey, Miss Bozarth.”
I pointed at the phone in my hand. “On a call,” I said.
He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I’ll be in the courtroom with you this week. The Vicksburg judge asked for extra security, since it’s a murder trial. Old Potts here is going to have to ride patrol without me.” Brockes was puffed up with importance, and his face shone with pride.
On the phone, Cary Reynolds said, “Are you talking to somebody?”
“Sorry.” I turned my back to the deputies. “What were we talking about? The hooker. Tell me more specifics.”
In a voice of concern, he said, “I want my testimony to be helpful, I surely do. But I don’t know if I can recall every minute of that night. It was a while back, you know? I do know about the Scotch. It was a new bottle. Is it okay if I testify to that?”
My reflection revealed that I was frowning again. If I didn’t stop it, I’d be a wrinkled-up crone at the age of twenty-seven. Cary needed to help me establish the plausibility of the defense. The hooker who came into Lee’s room that night died of an overdose of drugs and alcohol while she and Lee were in bed, and the DA intended to pin that death on Lee Greene. I needed to plant a reasonable doubt and convince the jury that the OD could have been a result of the woman’s own actions.
But I also played by the rules. “Cary, you have to tell the truth. You’ll be under oath.” The court reporter walked up to her seat near the witness stand, signaling that court would convene soon. I said again: “So we’ll meet tonight at your lot, and you’ll come to Rosedale to testify in the case—right?”
“Sure, I’ll be there. I owe him.”
Chapter 45
AS I SAT beside my client at the counsel table, I checked the time over my shoulder. The big courtroom wall clock read 9:08.
But the prosecution table was empty, the bailiff’s desk was unoccupied, and the judge’s seat at the bench was vacant. I pulled out my phone to ascertain whether the courthouse clock was running fast, but no. Nine past nine in the morning.
Lee Greene jabbed me with his elbow. “Where is everybody?”
“Dunno.”
I smelled it again: the cologne. It was my client. Seemed like the scent hovered around him in a cloud.
Lee’s parents were seated behind us, in the front row of the gallery. His father leaned over the railing that separated the spectators from the court. In a whisper, he said, “Doesn’t court start on time in your county?”
I peered into the hallway, where no court personnel could be seen. “Well, it usually does.”
Mr. Greene leaned in closer; I could feel his breath in my ear. “And where is my sister? Why isn’t Suzanne here?”
I’d been wondering the same thing. I sent up a silent entreaty: Suzanne, come and rescue me.
In the meantime, it fell to me to solve the mystery of the missing courtroom personnel. I left the counsel table and approached the court reporter, a gaunt woman with a helmet of hair dyed midnight black.
“Roseanne, have you seen the DA this morning? Isaac Keet—the guy from Vicksburg?”
She nodded as she inserted a roll of paper into her reporting device. “He’s been hanging around since eight o’clock. I saw him talking to the judge.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. The DA had no business conferring with Judge Ashley outside my presence. It was called ex parte communication, otherwise known as “woodshedding” the judge. It was not an ethical practice.
I felt like odd man out with Judge Ashley, anyway, since both he and Keet were from Vicksburg; they clearly enjoyed a private camaraderie. Thank goodness Ashley had agreed to let me try the case in my own backyard, in the Rosedale courthouse. It was a lucky break. I needed the hometown advantage.
The court reporter was staring at me over the top of her eyeglasses. I hoped it wasn’t because I was wearing yet another scary expression. I said, “Thanks for the info, Roseanne. Guess I’ll go crash that party.” I opened the door that led to the judge’s chambers.
I bumped into the Vicksburg DA—literally. Isaac Keet took a step back into the narrow passageway. “There you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Snappish, I said: “I’m not hard to find, Isaac. My office is across the damned street.”
Yes, my nose was out of joint, but I also was attempting to cover for the fact that Isaac Keet intimidated the shit out of me.
I squared my shoulders and said, “So if you’re trying to justify your private communications with Judge Ashley on the basis that I’m out of pocket, let me set you straight: it won’t fly.”
He flashed a rare smile, startling in its intensity. “I get it. You’re showing me what a tough cookie you are. Showing me who’s boss.”
I glanced away, uncomfortable with his sharp eye. It took all the nerve I possessed to match Isaac Keet blow for blow in court. He had every advantage over me: age, maturity, experience. He was old enough to be my daddy (by Mississippi standards, anyway). He’d served overseas in the navy for eight years. And in the past fifteen years, he had risen in the ranks of the Vicksburg DA’s office.