Mo grunted. She glared at Sam, waiting for her to back down. When she did not, the woman said, “I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.” She reached under her desk and pressed a buzzer. She winked at Sam. “Room’s on the right. Sixteen minutes.”
Charlie pumped her fist in the air, then sprinted toward the stairs. She was so light on her feet that she barely made a sound.
Sam moved her purse to her other shoulder. She leaned on her cane as she dragged through the door. She stopped in front of another door, effectively boxed in as the first door behind her closed. Another buzz, and the second door swung open in front of her.
Sam was besieged by the long-forgotten odors of a holding cell: putrid vomit mixed with an alkaline sweat, the ammonia of urine, the sewage stench from the one toilet that serviced roughly one hundred inmates a day.
Sam pushed herself off with her cane. Her shoes slapped brown puddles of water. No one had cleaned up the flooded toilet. There was only one inmate left in the holding cell, an older, toothless woman who was squatting on a long concrete bench. Her orange jumper bulked around her like a blanket. She moved slowly back and forth between her feet. Her rheumy eyes followed Sam as she walked toward the closed door on the right.
The knob turned before Sam could knock. The female deputy who came out looked burly and brusque. She closed the door, her back pressed to the opaque glass. “You the second lawyer?”
“Third, technically. Samantha Quinn.”
“Rusty’s oldest.”
Sam nodded, though she hadn’t been asked a question.
“The inmate has puked approximately four times over the last half hour. I gave her a pack of orange crackers and one can of Coke served in a Styrofoam cup. I asked if she wanted medical attention. She declined. You’ve got fifteen minutes before I come back in.” She tapped the watch on her wrist. “Whatever I hear when I come in is what I hear. You got me?”
Sam took out her phone. She set the timer for fourteen minutes.
“I’m glad we understand each other.”
The woman opened the door.
The room was so dark that Sam’s eyes could only slowly adjust. Two chairs. A metal table bolted to the floor. A flickering fluorescent light hanging crookedly from two furred lengths of chain.
Kelly Rene Wilson was slumped over the table. Her head was wrapped in the cocoon of her folded arms. When the door opened, she jumped up to standing, arms at her sides, shoulders straight, as if Sam had called a soldier to attention.
Sam said, “You can sit down.”
Kelly waited for Sam to sit first.
Sam took the empty chair by the door. She rested her cane against the table. She reached into her purse for her notepad and pen. She changed out her glasses for her readers. “My name is Samantha Quinn. I’m your lawyer for the arraignment. You met my father, Rusty, yesterday.”
Kelly said, “You talk funny.”
Sam smiled. She sounded southern to New Yorkers and she sounded like a Yankee to southerners. “I live in New York City.”
“Because you’re cripple?”
Sam almost laughed. “No. I live in New York because I like it. I use a cane when my leg gets tired.”
“My granddaddy had a cane but it was wood.” The girl seemed matter-of-fact, but the clink-clink sound from her handcuffs indicated she was nervously bouncing her leg.
Sam said, “You don’t have to be afraid, Kelly. I’m your ally. I’m not here to trip you up.” She wrote Kelly’s name and the date at the top of her notepad. She underlined the words twice. She felt the odd sensation of butterflies in her stomach. “Did you speak with Mr. Grail, the attorney who came to see you earlier?”
“No, ma’am, on account of I was sick.”
Sam studied the girl. She spoke slowly, almost as if she was drugged. Judging by the S on the front of her orange jumper, they had given her an adult small, but the uniform was voluminous on her petite frame. Kelly looked wan. Her hair was greasy, speckled with pieces of vomit. As thin as she was, her face was round, angelic.
Sam reminded herself that Lucy Alexander’s face had been angelic, too.
She asked Kelly, “Are you on any medication?”
“They give me liquids at the hospital yesterday.” She showed Sam the bruised red dot near the crook of her right arm. “Through here.”
Sam transcribed the exact words. Rusty would need to get the girl’s hospital records. “You think they gave you fluids, but no medication?”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s what I was told. On account of being shocked.”
“In shock?” Sam clarified.
The girl nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re not currently on or have not taken any illegal drugs?”
“Illegal drugs?” the girl asked. “No, ma’am. That wouldn’t be right.”
Again, Sam copied her words. “And how are you feeling now?”
“Okay, I guess. Not so poorly as before.”
Sam looked at Kelly Wilson over the top of her reading glasses. The girl’s hands were still clasped under the table, shoulders rolled in, making her look even smaller. Sam could see the red of the plastic chair peeking out on either side of the girl’s back. “Are you okay, or are you okay, you guess?”
Kelly said, “I’m pretty scared. There’s some mean people here.”
“Your best strategy is to ignore them.” Sam jotted down some general notes about Kelly’s appearance, that she looked unwashed, unkempt. Her fingernails were chewed down. Her cuticles showed dried blood. “How’s your stomach now?”
“It’s just a little upset this time of day.”
“‘This time of day.’” Sam made a notation and wrote down the time. “Were you sick yesterday?”
“Yes, ma’am, but I didn’t tell nobody. When I get like that, it usually calms down on its own, but that lady out there was nice and give me some crackers.”
Sam kept her gaze on her notepad. She did not want to look at Kelly because she felt an unwelcoming softening each time she did. The girl did not fit the image of a murderer, let alone a school shooter. Then again, perhaps Sam’s past experiences with Zachariah and Daniel Culpepper had framed the wrong image in her mind. The fact was that anybody could kill.
She told Kelly, “I’m working with my father, Rusty Quinn, until he’s feeling better. Did someone tell you that he’s in the hospital?”
“Yes, ma’am. Them guards back at the jail were talking about it. How Mr. Rusty got stabbed.”
Sam doubted the guards had anything good to say about Rusty. “So, did Mr. Rusty tell you that he works for you, not your parents? And that anything you say to him is private?”
“It’s the law,” she said. “Mr. Rusty can’t tell nobody what I say.”
“That’s correct,” Sam said. “And it’s the same with me. We both took an oath of confidentiality. You can talk to me, and I can talk to Mr. Rusty about the things you tell me, but we can’t tell anyone else your secrets.”
“Is that hard, knowing everybody’s secrets like that?”
Sam felt disarmed by the question. “It can be, but that’s part of my job requirement, and I knew that I would have to keep secrets when I decided to become a lawyer.”
“You gotta go to school for a lotta years to do that.”
“I did.” Sam looked at her phone. She normally charged by the hour; she was not accustomed to abbreviating her time. “Did Mr. Rusty explain to you what an arraignment is?”