“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
He’s known Lonnie a good fifteen years and Neal Hathorne a matter of days, but Neal is his client now, and, for better or worse, there are things he’s not at liberty to discuss, not now at least. He thanks her for the afternoon, walking his kids outside to the curb. Over the roof of her crumbling, redbrick duplex, he can hear the hum of the Cowboys and 49ers game playing on the outdoor speakers at the Ice House on West Alabama, the bar’s patio abutting the rear border of Lonnie’s weed-choked backyard. The howl of beer-soaked cheer floats over the wooden fence. They’re smoking links and brisket on a grill behind the bar’s kitchen. Starving, Jay takes the kids to James Coney Island for chili dogs on the way home. Walking into the house later, he tells them he needs them up and at ’em early tomorrow, something big going on for him downtown. “I don’t have school, remember?” Ellie says, clearing away the leftover breakfast dishes without being asked, either out of genuine contrition for her outburst this morning or to soften this reminder that she was suspended from school. Jay had completely forgotten. He sighs, trying to figure just how this is going to work. He doesn’t want her home alone, not with the mysterious man in the Z on the loose. “I guess this means you’re coming with me,” he says. “Dress for court.”
“What does that mean?”
“No jeans.”
CHAPTER 12
The formal charges of obstructing a government operation into the investigation of the death of Alicia Ann Nowell are to be read at one thirty this afternoon, sandwiched into a docket filled with DWIs and domestic-assault charges, and any other leftovers from the weekend arrests. Jay has arranged to meet Neal an hour before that, when most court watchers are out to lunch. He’s to come alone, no campaign staff, as too many of them together at one time might as well be a campaign event; Neal on his own will draw far less attention.
Jay will be waiting.
Until then, he’s holed up at his office on Brazos.
Eddie Mae has made a proper fuss over Ellie, bringing her glasses of lemon tea and letting her use the desktop computer. Ellie’s been asking Jay for an e-mail account for a few months now. “Maybe,” he tells Eddie Mae, “it’s something you can set up for her,” as Jay doesn’t know the first thing about how one would go about sending a message from one computer to another. He stows himself away upstairs, in the conference room, picking through the old Cole Oil files, still trying to see if anything’s been stolen. A little after ten, he hears Eddie Mae coming up the stairs, the ancient wood steps creaking beneath her weight and the thick soles of her Clarks. About halfway, she stops and demands he meet her there, holding out a box full of invoices when he starts down the stairs. “It’s everything. Every receipt for which we were billed on Ainsley v. Cole Oil Industries, from trial prep through litigation, years’ worth.”
“Thanks.”
“And Jelly Lopez called,” she says with a sigh, leaning her weight against the carved stair railing. “He’ll put it all in writing, but he’s officially informing you that he’s releasing you of your duties as his attorney. His words, not mine. He wants his name off the suit, and he wants copies of any of the official case filings with his name on them, as well as a copy of his initial interview, his client forms, and his deposition. You got six more calls just like it. Rodriguez, Vega, Patricia Rios, plus Fred Poynter, Ned Werner, and Jim Wainwright.”
That last one hurts. “Jim? Are you sure?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.”
He tells her not to copy a thing. “Don’t promise anybody anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
He takes the box of invoices back into the conference room.