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“I’m okay. Just worried about Lorna. I think I’ll go to her bond hearing at five.”
“It’s at five? I’ll go, too. Maybe I can get something out of her parents.”
“I hope you have better luck than Nate did.”
“Nothing, huh?”
She shook her head. “And frankly, I don’t expect anyone will get anything out of them.”
“You seem awfully certain about that.”
“I have my reasons.” And more than that she would not say.
Chapter 3 (#u5ac1458c-a478-531b-af62-b7a8e7025ab1)
Cowboy was disappointed when he finished inspecting the church roof and Anna still hadn’t come back. Not that he had any business being disappointed. Anna
Fleming was two or three cuts above the women who usually consented to spend time with him. And since deciding to clean up his act and get on with life, he was avoiding the women who didn’t avoid him.
He was kind of ashamed of himself anyway, ashamed of the way he’d fallen apart. He knew as well as anybody that post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t something you opted to have, but he still felt weak for having had it. Nothing had happened to him in his life that didn’t happen to a whole lot of people, but he’d come apart at the seams anyway, after the Gulf War. It had been one straw too many, so to speak.
Not that he was excusing himself. He never excused himself. And it wasn’t that he felt he’d done anything wrong. He’d been a soldier doing a soldier’s job. But nightmare images eventually gave rise to nightmares.
Still, he wasn’t particularly interested in wandering down the paths of his own memory lane. Learning to look forward was one of the biggest hurdles he’d had to clear on his road to recovery, and he wasn’t going to allow himself to backslide.
After he gave Dan Fromberg the roofing estimate, he made his way back to his one-room apartment on the second floor of a hotel that was almost as old as Conard City. Not that that was so godawful old, he supposed, but the building bordered on ancient.
It must have been a grand old hotel in its day, he often thought, near enough the train terminal to be convenient, but not so close that its patrons would have been breathing coal smoke and the aroma of cattle in the stockyard awaiting shipment. In fact, it was just about midway between the courthouse and the terminal. The way people were apt to lay things out in the days when your own two feet were the favored form of transportation.
What a person mainly noticed about the place now, though, was that the halls were dark and musty, the stairs and floors creaked and it looked like a firetrap.
His apartment was different, though. In the old days, they’d believed in building rooms big. He had a huge living room, an alcove for his bed, a tacked-on kitchenette and a bathroom with a claw-footed tub. His tall windows overlooked the street and faced south, so that sunlight poured in all winter long. All of this for less than anything else he could have rented in town.
If he hadn’t been so fixed on his plan for a youth ranch, he could have turned this place into something spectacular.
But this afternoon, with the sky so leaden and a sleet storm getting ready to move in, he was finding it just a bit difficult to remember the potential he’d seen here. The hallway and stairs were as dark as if it had been night, and his apartment wasn’t much better. He turned on a couple of lamps, but it didn’t help much. The early-winter night would be falling soon, and all of a sudden he didn’t want to be sitting here alone.
He decided his budget could handle dinner at Maude’s, so he pulled on a warmer jacket and drove back up the street toward the church and Maude’s place, which was right across the street from Good Shepherd. By the time he reached the diner, night had fallen.
Maude’s was brightly lit but nearly empty. He slipped into a booth that let him look out the front window, and as he scanned the menu, he saw Anna and Dan leave the church together and get in their cars.
Anna’s was an old vehicle, one that had seen all its better days long before it had come into her possession. It was big, built like a tank, and she backed up cautiously before pulling out of the parking lot and heading up the street. He realized she hadn’t brought the dog, and he wondered if she was going to leave it in the office all night. That didn’t seem right.
But then he noticed that she wasn’t heading toward her home. Instead she turned up to the courthouse square. So did the reverend.
Shrugging, he went back to the menu. Maybe they had a meeting to go to.
“What’ll it be, Cowboy?” Maude asked in her usual belligerent fashion as she slapped a mug of coffee down in front of him. She was a plump, older woman with grizzled gray hair and a no-nonsense face. “Eat hearty.
They say it’s gonna get damn cold tonight.”
“Sleet’s in the forecast.”
“Yup. And don’t skip the pie, neither. We got an elderberry pie that’ll knock your socks off.”
“Save a piece for me, then.” He gave her a smile, but she didn’t return it. He wondered if anyone had ever seen Maude smile. “Two bacon cheeseburgers with extra fries and a bowl of spinach, please.”
“Spinach?” She looked surprised.
“If you have it.”
“Oh, I have it, but most folks want salad.”
“I like spinach.” He shrugged.
“Why don’t you have a side of onion rings instead of them extra fries? We got a shipment of some really good sweet onions.”
“Sounds good.” He’d never eaten here when Maude hadn’t changed his order somehow. On the other hand, he’d never regretted following her suggestions.
She stomped away, leaving him to sip his coffee and stare out into the night. It was warm in here, he found himself thinking. Warm. Despite the threatening weather, people would come and go.
He figured he might stay here a while.
He was certainly in no hurry to go back to his empty apartment.
The five-o’clock bail hearing for Lorna Lacey was a special session called for the child’s benefit. The court’s earlier business was finished, and no other prisoners stood in the dock.
The girl herself, hands handcuffed before her, sat with her head down at the defense table. Beside her sat an attorney Anna didn’t recognize, apparently someone the Lacey family had brought in from another town. Sam Haversham, the prosecutor, was standing at his table skimming through a thin file. Probably Lorna’s file, Anna thought.
It was amazing how quickly you could develop a file when you got in trouble with the law.
Apart from herself and Dan, the only other observers were Bridget and Al Lacey, both of whom were sitting with Dan in the front row. Anna sat farther back, preferring to be unobtrusive. Besides, she hated courtrooms. They gave her the willies.
At the front of the room, the court clerk sat at her desk beside the judge’s bench, and in front of the witness box sat a stenographer, feeding the leading edge of a fresh stack of fan-folded paper into her machine. Two bailiffs stood to the side, chatting quietly with Nate Tate.
The door to the judge’s chamber opened, and one of the bailiffs called out, “All rise” as Judge Francine Williams walked to the bench. Lorna, Anna noticed, had to be encouraged to stand by a gentle tug on her elbow. When the judge sat, everyone followed suit.
Judge Williams sat and spent a moment glancing over some papers in front of her. “Good afternoon.” She devoted a few minutes to reciting the case number and charges for the record, and having the attorneys identify themselves.
“Now,” she continued, “let’s get right to the point, shall we? We all know why we’re here, and I’m willing to dispense with the usual formalities, if no one has any objection?”
“No objection, Your Honor,” both lawyers answered immediately.
“Good. I’m sure everyone wants to get home for dinner. We have an unusual case here, unusual at least for Conard County. We have no facilities suitable for the keeping of a thirteen-year-old girl. Our limited juvenile facilities are set up only to handle boys, and I really don’t want to see this child in the county jail overnight, so I’m going to ask the prosecutor to be reasonable in requesting bail. Mr. Haversham?”
“We’re fully prepared to be reasonable, Your Honor. In fact, considering that Lorna Lacey has never been in trouble before, we were prepared to agree to have her released on her own recognizance. However, another fact has come to light, which I need to bring to the court’s attention.”
“And that is?”
“Miss Lacey told Sheriff Tate that if she is released on bond she will start another fire.”
Anna’s hands clenched in her lap.
Judge Williams looked at Nate. “Is that true, Sheriff?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned her attention to Lorna’s attorney. “Mr. Carlisle, what’s going on here?”
The lawyer cleared his throat as he rose to his feet. “A moment to confer with my client, Judge?”
“By all means,” the judge said. “Be advised that if your client made such a threat, I won’t be able to release her from custody. Would you like to straighten that out for me?”
“Certainly, Judge.”
The lawyer sat back down and had a hurried, hushed conversation with Lorna. Anna found she was holding her breath, and her nails were digging in to her palms. Her heart squeezed when the man stood back up to speak.
“My client…is aware of the consequences of her statement,” he said.
“Does that mean she’s not taking it back?”
“I…for ethical reasons, Judge, I…ah…”
A sound passed through the courtroom then, a sound of muted dismay. Bridget Lacey looked as if she might cry.
Judge Williams sat back, a perplexed frown on her face. “You leave me no choice, young lady.”
Sam Haversham stepped forward. “Your Honor, we have an alternative to propose. Sheriff Tate has offered to take Miss Lacey home to his family in custody so that she won’t need to spend the night in jail.”
“That’s highly irregular.”
Francine Williams tapped a pencil on the bench, frowning down at the girl. Finally, she sat forward. “Off the record here.”
The court reporter’s hands dropped to her lap.
“Mr. Haversham, I’d like you to consider a grant of immunity here.”
Anna leaned forward, holding her breath. What was happening?
Sam stepped forward. “I think I know what you have in mind, Your Honor. I’ll offer immunity.”
Williams looked over at the young girl. “Miss Lacey, you’ve been offered immunity for any answer you give to the questions I’m about to ask. That means whatever you say is off the record and can’t be used against you in any legal proceeding. Do you understand that?”
Lorna’s attorney added a quick, whispered explanation. Lorna nodded.
“Good,” Judge Williams said. “Now, Miss Lacey, are you telling me you want to stay in jail?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
Lorna lifted her head then, looking straight at the judge, and the anguish in her voice caused Anna’s heart to break. “Because I’m bad! I do bad things! And I’ll keep on doing bad things! I tried to burn down the school! If you give me a chance, I’ll try to burn it down again!”
When Lorna finished, she dropped her head to the table and sobbed.
The judge let out a heavy sigh. “I’d like to see counsel in chambers, please.
Miss Lacey, I’d like you to come, too. And, Sheriff Tate, I think you’re going to need to hear this, as well, if the defense has no objections?”
Mr. Carlisle hastened once again to his feet. “No objection, Judge. That’s fine.”
“And, counsel, I imagine her family hired you?”
“Yes, Judge.”
“You know where your ethical duties lie here, right?”
The attorney put his hand on Lorna’s shoulder. “She’s my client, Judge. I made that clear to the family.”
“Make sure you remember that.
Let’s go talk this over.”
Anna had the feeling everyone in the courtroom knew what was coming. The type of thing you didn’t say out loud, in public. The type of thing no one wanted to hear about someone they knew. The kind of thing Anna knew all too well.
As soon as the group had disappeared into the judge’s chambers, Al Lacey rose and walked from the courtroom. He looked at no one as he left. Anna felt her stomach turn over in revulsion as she watched him go. Bridget followed a few moments later, her face set like stone.
Dan came to sit with Anna. “I’m praying I’m wrong, but the handwriting is about six feet high on the wall, isn’t it?”
She nodded, battling a storm tide of emotions that all of this was raising in her. “That poor child,” she managed to say finally. “That poor, poor child.” Long-buried anger simmered in her stomach, making it hurt.
“It could be something else.”
Anna didn’t even bother to reply. She’d given up on vain hopes a long time ago. “Why didn’t somebody keep him from leaving?”
“Al? I don’t think they can detain him without some kind of proof. That’s probably why Judge Williams took Nate into chambers with them. If Lorna says anything about what’s going on, Nate will take action.”
Anna folded her hands tightly together. “I hope she tells the judge. Oh, God, I hope she tells.”
Dan reached out and gently touched her shoulder. “She might not, Anna. There are an awful lot of people in that room, some of them strangers to her.”
“I know.” And she did, only too well. Some things just couldn’t be spoken of, no matter how they tore you apart. There were some things just too awful to tell strangers. “If she doesn’t tell them, Dan, I’m going to do everything in my power to find some proof, some evidence. We have to help her!”
“We could be wrong in our supposition,” he reminded her gently. “The problem might not be her parents at all.”
She looked him straight in the eye.
“You don’t really believe that.”
