He’s waiting to see if Nichols is at least willing to play.
“What if we were able to move the runoff back a month, maybe two? Is that even feasible on your end?” the judge says, turning to Wayne Duffie. The county clerk stands, catching a side-winding stream of sweat off his brow with the palm of his hand and clearing his throat several times. After a long, partially rehearsed statement about the date of the runoff having been set for more than a calendar year, tradition holding that thirty days out from a general election, the county settles each and every draw with another go at the polls, he concedes that the final ballots are not actually due to be printed until next week, and, no, he can’t think of a single reason why the runoff election couldn’t be postponed.
“Mr. Nichols?”
“Your Honor, I don’t need to remind the court of the intricacies of trying a murder case. It’s not something the prosecutor’s office takes lightly, nor something that we can just throw together. I cannot try a capital case between now and December tenth, sir, nor do I think it’s fair to hold up a city election.”
“He can always drop the charges and refile after the election is over,” Jay says, which is what he really wanted all along: for Wolcott to drop this.
“And let a murderer–”
“Alleged, Your Honor.”
“–walk out the door? I’m sorry, Your Honor, but Alicia Nowell’s family, the ones that Mr. Porter claims to be so concerned about, they deserve justice, first and foremost. And justice, sir, justice does not wait.”
“I couldn’t agree more. My client and I are ready to go when you are.”
For the first time, Judge Little smiles.
The balls on this one, his expression says.
“I’m not gon’ rule today,” he says finally. “I’d ask for case law on the matter, but I suppose if you had it, you’d have already laid it out.” He looks back down at his copy of Jay’s motion, almost marveling at it, like a three-legged horse or a blind dog nosing its way through a maze, an honest-to-god wonder of nature. “I will say for the record, Mr. Porter, that I don’t for one second take the halting of a city election lightly. I can’t think of anything more grave than messing around with our democracy.” He looks down again at the papers and sighs, his pleasure in the morning’s enterprise slowly deflating, like a slow, whistling leak in a circus balloon. The show is over, and the cleanup doesn’t look like nearly as much fun. He reminds all parties to hang near a phone for the next day or two, so his clerk can reach them. When it’s all over, Matt Nichols looks pleased–that is, until he turns and sees Jay Porter looking equally optimistic. It was a stunt, a shot a mile long. And Jay just argued his way into another day, another twenty-four hours. He packs the satchel briefcase, fingering the brass buckles to secure it. As he turns to leave, he sees Keith Morehead escorting the Robicheauxs out of the courtroom, a hand at the elbow of Maxine’s pink nursing uniform. She turns and glances back at Jay, a look as piercing as the last time their eyes met. Only it’s not vitriol he sees, but a kind of stumbling confusion, a haunting terror at the thought of losing her daughter all over again, not to men in dark cars, on the dark street corners of her worst nightmares, but to men in dark robes, men in suits, men who, inside the walls of this hallowed courthouse, will wrest from her daughter’s life what they can use and leave the rest, men who are no better to Maxine than the killer who snatched Alicia on the street.
CHAPTER 18
He pulls Lonnie off the road first.
Rolly agrees to put in another hour or so tracking down print shops, and then he’ll pick up Hollis’s tail when Alonzo clocks out of the tire shop in Aldine, where he’s been on shift since eight o’clock this morning. Rolly’s only news to report, after three days’ surveillance, is thin: “He wasn’t working last Tuesday, election night,” he says. “At least two of his coworkers willing to talk said he wasn’t on the schedule, but, hell, even if he was, place closes at seven, giving him plenty of time to get out to Pleasantville to snatch the girl.” A scenario, Jay knows, that does not match the grand jury testimony about the night in question, the eyewitness who fingered Neal. Rolly is embarrassed to admit that after three days he has no idea where Hollis was that night or any more details about the man’s nighttime activities. “Not much I can do staring at the man’s front windows.”
For the second time, he pushes for a different, more direct approach.
Jay still thinks it’s a bad idea.
“If this goes like I think it will, we may have a shot at interviewing him, even getting him on the stand,” he says. “You roll on him now and he might get cagey or, worse, he might run. I can’t afford to lose him, not yet.”
“You insult me, Counselor.”
“What are you going to do, give him a ride home in a Town Car? Buy him a drink at his favorite bar?”
“I got more tricks than that.”
“Save ’em.”
Rolly feigns uninterest. “It’s your money, Counselor.”