Page 26 of The Devil's Advocate

‘He hurt you?’ I asked.

He pulled down the blanket, lifted his tee. I could only see his left side, but there were several vivid lines over his ribs and kidneys. I counted at least three. They were straight, with clearly defined edges, linear and parallel to each other. They looked like fresh bruises. Not more than a couple of days’ old.

Nightstick strikes.

‘Whupped me till I blacked out. He’s done it a couple of times. I don’t want anyone hurting my mother. I’ll just do what they tell me. Cody Warren got it wrong. The best thing for me to do is plead guilty.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EDDIE

I didn’t want to push things too far with Andy. Not on our first meet. Not when I was under arrest and had sneaked into his cell. Jury selection was tomorrow. Andy had agreed to let me act as his lawyer until Cody Warren came back. That was enough for now. I couldn’t start discussing details of the case, not yet. Andy was too scared. I needed to get him out of there first.

I left his cell, locked him in, returned to my own cell and locked the door. I told Seamus to quiet down, but there was no stopping him. After two renditions of ‘The Rising of the Moon’ and ‘Some Say the Devil is Dead’, I was banging on the cell bars myself.

Lomax came in. Butterball in tow. The big man reached for his keys to unlock the door and couldn’t find them on his belt. Lomax sighed, unclipped his own keys and opened my cell.

‘We don’t need cuffs now, do we?’ said Lomax.

‘I want to apologize for any misunderstanding,’ I said.

‘You can tell that to the judge,’ said Lomax.

I followed them out of the hallway, back into the office, casually placing the cell keys on a desk as I walked past, the move swift and unnoticed, taking the keys out of my hip pocket and reaching behind my back for the dump.

Instead of going out front, Lomax led me to the side door and a small processing office. I gave my prints, had my mug-shot moment, and they took me straight out a side door to a waiting car.

‘We need to cuff you for this part,’ said Lomax.

I was handcuffed, placed in the back of a patrol car and driven all of ten minutes to a tall, grand old courthouse that sat just outside of the town. The Sunville County Courthouse was painted white, and looked a little like an old church with its clock tower rising in a spire. Like a lot of old courthouses, there was no side door for processing prisoners. I was led in through the front door, down a side hallway and into cells. This was a single courtroom kinda place. Criminal work would take precedence ; family and civil law would have to fit in around it.

I wasn’t in the cells long.

A deputy took me into court via a side door. The courtroom was straight out ofTo Kill A Mockingbird. The movie, with Gregory Peck, not the book. Two large ceiling fans whirred above my head. A balcony wrapped around the huge room, in a ‘U’ shape with a central, stained-glass window at the base of the curve, although it didn’t give much light. The light came from a beautiful chandelier that hung between the fans. The gallery consisted of walnut church pews, about a half a dozen each side, separated from the action end of the courtroom by a wood panel divider with a swing door in the center. The paneling had been hand-carved, but instead of extracts from the constitution, or legal maxims, or even judicial insignia, the panels themselves represented scenes from the Old Testament.

Two long tables sat parallel to the gallery – one for the defense, one for the prosecution. The judge’s bench faced the tables, with the jury box on the right and the witness stand on the left. An American flag hung limply from a pole behind the judge’s empty chair. On the wall above the flag was another piece of wood carving. A huge slab of pine, with the scales of justice at the top, and below it, the Ten Commandments, chiseled into the wood.

I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Religious symbolism isn’t allowed in court buildings. The constitution forbids it. And yet, I got the feeling if any defendant or defense attorney complained about it they wouldn’t get much of a reception. This wasn’t a courthouse, this was a personal fiefdom.

The overgrown guy in the tight suit that I’d seen in the diner that morning came into court, trailing behind a tall, pale man carrying a leather briefcase. I sat down at the defense table still cuffed to the front.

‘My name is Randal Korn, I’m the district attorney for Sunville County. This is my deputy DA, Tom Wingfield. I would shake hands, but I fear you’re still wearing your jewelry,’ said the tall man.

Korn didn’t even look at me as he spoke, just fetched papers from his briefcase and set them down on the prosecution table. An odor came to me just then. Something smelled bad, but I couldn’t say where it was coming from.

‘I wouldn’t shake your hand anyway,’ I said.

His expression changed, and it took me a second to realize he was smiling. If that’s what a smile looked like on his face, I didn’t want to see him angry.

‘We’ll be objecting to bail, unless you agree to my terms,’ he said. ‘One, you are released on your own recognizance of five hundred dollars. Two, do not enter the city limits of Buckstown except for your next court appearance. Is that agreeable?’

‘No can do,’ I said. ‘I represent Andy Dubois. I’ll be staying right here for his trial.’

‘Since when did you speak to Andy Dubois?’

‘This afternoon. He’s innocent. And I’m going make sure he gets an acquittal.’