She waved the picture at me. “Now, you know these pictures are trouble. The prosecutor is going to use them to rile the jury up, try to prejudice folks against your client. But the fact is, it looks like Jewel took those pictures herself, at a number of different times—and always looked like she was having a good time. A real good time. You can use that.” She set the photocopy back down on her desk, in the midst of a pile of documents.
I gave her an earnest smile. “Ms. Greene, the reason I’m here…”
She winked at me. “Don’t let’s stand on ceremony. Call me Suzanne, hon.” She reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Golds. “Do you mind? It helps me to think.”
“Go right ahead.” I popped a nugget of Nicorette and chewed down hard. “Suzanne, when I bring Darrien into court, he needs to look presentable.”
She blew a plume of smoke up toward an antique light fixture. “Have you gone through the phone?”
“Beg pardon?”
“The phone—Jewel Shaw’s cell phone. Have you looked through it? Contacts, call history, all that?”
“No, ma’am. I didn’t know I could do that.”
She unearthed a crystal ashtray from its hiding place under a legal pad. Suzanne took another pull on the cigarette, surveying me over the glasses that now rested on her nose. “Hon, have you gone over to the sheriff’s department yet? Have you examined the physical evidence?”
“No,” I said, as a new wave of panic gripped me. “I didn’t think they’d let me touch it.”
She tapped an ash into the ashtray. “Oh, baby girl. Get into that evidence room.”
“What if they won’t let me in?”
She stubbed out the cigarette. “If you’re going to be a defense attorney, Ruby, you’re going to have to carry a big stick. I’ll send you the form: Motion to Compel.” She turned to her computer keyboard and said, “Jewel Shaw was kind of a legend in these parts—and not for doing the work of the Lord, if you catch my meaning.”
I nodded, wondering again why the name “Jewel Shaw” rang a distant bell.
“That phone should be full of revelations. Why, she likely had a double handful of lovers.”
I was in no position to doubt Suzanne, but at this, I had to speak up. “You mean I should slut-shame her?”
Suzanne picked up the Jewel Shaw selfies that were scattered on her desk and stacked them together, then raised her brow.
I ventured, “I think it’s bad practice, in general, to demean women. And really disrespectful when a person is dead.”
Suzanne smiled at me. “I was a feminist before you were born, Ruby. Second wave, I think they call me. But you have agreed to defend a man who has been charged with murder. To act as his advocate.”
She reached across the desk and dropped the selfies in front of me. “Jewel Shaw is dead. You can’t hurt her feelings. If you don’t do everything in your power to fight on Darrien Summers’s behalf, your client may end up dead, too.”
I couldn’t muster an argument to that.
In a brisk voice, Suzanne said, “Did you say you were looking for a suit?”
I offered a weak smile; it had occurred to me that we might never address the purpose of my visit. “Yes. Suzanne, Darrien doesn’t have anything fit to wear to court.”
“I’ve got you covered. My late husband’s closet is still full of his suits. I haven’t had the heart to throw them out.”
A grandfather clock in her office began to toll; it was noon. I put the photocopies back into my briefcase. “You’ve been such a help, Suzanne. When can I come by and pick up the suit?”
“When will you need it?”
“We are set for trial in twelve days,” I said. I closed my bag and took a step toward the door.
“Stop right there.”
I froze.
“You are set for trial in less than two weeks, and you haven’t even looked at the evidence yet? Girl, how many felony cases have you tried?”
My armpits began to grow damp. “I’ve never tried one. I don’t have any felony experience. None at all.”
Suzanne’s reading glasses slipped off her nose. “No felony jury trial experience? And you’re defending a black man on a murder charge in Williams County, where they have a monument to the Glorious Confederate Dead on the courthouse lawn?”
When I answered, I was ashamed to hear the quaver in my voice. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Don’t have a damned clue.”
“Y’all are getting railroaded.” Suzanne rose from her seat and shouted through the door to her secretary. “Marlene! Lunchtime! I’m taking Ruby to the Dixie Buffet!”
Chapter 9
THE WAITRESS AT the Dixie Buffet gave Suzanne a friendly wave as she approached our booth. “All-you-can-eat shrimp special today, Miss Greene.”
“Don’t I know it,” Suzanne said. “I’ll take a big glass of sweet tea with that, please.”
“Two shrimp buffets?” the waitress asked, glancing at me.
I raised a restraining hand. “No, thank you. Just iced tea for me. Sweet.”
As the waitress walked off, Suzanne looked at me with pity. “You’re not anorexic, I hope.”
That made me laugh. “Suzanne, I’m broke.” My wallet held one worn five-dollar bill, and I might need to pump a gallon of gas into the tank to get my car back to Williams County.
She scooted out of the booth. “Let’s get over to the buffet line. My treat.”
“No, ma’am,” I said, lifting my chin. “You’ve done too much for me already. I can’t add to the debt.”
Frowning down at me, she paused at the table side, but I was adamant. “You go on. I’m going to drink my tea.”
Suzanne returned with a loaded plate. As she peeled the shell off a pink shrimp, she asked how I was liking Rosedale.
“Just fine. No one knows this, but I’m not strictly new to town. My mom and I lived in Rosedale for a while, back when I was in sixth grade.”
As I took a sip of tea, my brain finally made the connection. It hit me with such force that I nearly spit a mouthful of liquid across the table.
“Oh. My. Lord. That’s it: Jewel Shaw, at Rosedale Middle School. I was in sixth, she was an eighth grader.”
“You just this minute figured that out?”
I picked up the damp napkin under my drink and wiped it across my forehead. “She didn’t go by ‘Jewel’ back then. They called her something else—like Julie, maybe. And we moved around a lot. I changed schools so many times, it’s kind of a blur. But Julie—Jewel Shaw. Good God.”
A thought struck me. “Does this mean I can’t be Darrien’s lawyer? Because I went to school with the deceased?”
Suzanne dipped a fried nugget of shrimp into a pool of cocktail sauce. “Well, that depends. Were you and Jewel friends? Were y’all close?”
My laugh sounded bitter. “I didn’t run in the same circles as Jewel Shaw.”
“Because she was older?”
“Because she was the ‘It Girl.’ I was the new girl, a tough kid from the wrong side of the tracks.”
Maybe that was the most compelling reason I’d returned to Rosedale after the broken engagement. I left that town as a girl just one step up from trash; I would return as a professional, with my head held high.
Suzanne shot a reassuring glance over her glasses. “Good. You can act as Darrien Summers’s lawyer, unless you believe your recollection of Jewel Shaw diminishes your capacity to represent the defendant to the best of your ability.”
Only the day before, I might have seized upon an opportunity to remove myself from the case. But the more I sunk my teeth in, the more determined I was to hang on. “It’s not a problem. I don’t have fond memories of Julie Shaw.”
The waitress paused at our table. “Miss Greene, they just put out a red velvet cake.”
“Honey, would you bring me over a piece? We’re brainstorming here.”
When Suzanne returned her attention to me, I said, “When I get the chance to see Jewel’s phone, I’ll be looking for other lurid pictures, right?”
“Oh, yes.” The cake arrived. She picked up her fork.
“But how does that help my case, exactly? Is it just about smearing the victim?”
Suzanne was chewing. I had to wait for the answer.
“Honey, you need the pictures to broaden the playing field. The prosecution is framing the case as a love affair gone bad. So you’ll want to show that there were other affairs, other lovers who might have wanted to plunge the knife.” She plunged the fork back into the cake. “Muddy the waters. Blow smoke. Jump up and down about the missing murder weapon. Yell about other lovers.”
“How will that help me to prove that my client is innocent?”