“I will.”
“I like that little boat,” Amberjack explained.
In Florida, a so-called first appearance hearing is normally held before a County Court judge on the morning following an arrest. Quite some time ago, the state’s Supreme Court had ruled that even a person accused of a capital crime was entitled to bail. Moreover, the ruling held that unless proof of the crime were “evident” or presumption of the crime “great,” bail could not be denied. It was my job to ask for bail and to argue that it should be granted. It was the state attorney’s job to argue that the evidence he possessed was so legally overwhelming that a verdict of guilty was inevitable and thus bail should be denied. The judge’s job was to decide one way or the other. The decision was exclusively his to make. Or, in this instance, hers.
The presiding judge this morning was a woman named Heather Grant, some forty years old and alarmingly attractive in black, probably because black was a good color for a redhead. Male attorneys tend to prefer homely female judges to pretty ones. I don’t know why that should be; no one in the legal profession debates whether a male judge has good legs or not. Heather had good legs and good breasts and flaming-red hair and beautiful brown eyes and she was a good dancer besides, as I’d discovered at many of Calusa’s charity balls. But she was one of the toughest judges on the County bench, especially where it concerned female defendants, go figure.
Lainie Commins appeared before the Court in her unfashionable jailhouse threads, wearing lipstick, eyeliner, and blush, which her keepers had allowed for this hearing that would merely determine her immediate freedom. Tomorrow morning at nine, a grand jury would decide whether to indict or to dismiss. It was my personal opinion that the state attorney — in this case, an assistant named Peter Folger — would get the indictment he was seeking. But that was no reason to keep Lainie in jail for the next six or seven months or however long it took for her case to come to trial on an exceptionally crowded calendar.
I told Heather that based on my investigation to date — which was bullshit, since all I’d done so far was talk to my client — I did not know of any eyewitnesses to the actual shooting, did not know of any conclusive forensic evidence, and believed that the prosecutions case was wholly circumstantial and that there was no evidence so great or proof so evident as to prevent the automatic granting of bail as provided by the statutes. Moreover, Ms. Commins had no previous record of violence, and no possible motive for the crime — she had, in fact, been seeking to resolve her differences with Mr. Toland in a court of law. In short, Lainie Commins posed no threat to society and was a responsible citizen with roots in the community, who would meet all scheduled court appearances. I then recited the “Let Freedom Ring” speech and asked that she be released on her own recognizance.
I was pretty good, if I say so myself.
Folger went the “Monstrous Beast” route, telling Heather that the victim had been shot twice in the face, that this angelic-looking woman sitting here was in fact a cold-blooded killer nursing a deep-seated anger against the victim, that exposure as an impostor and a thief was sufficient motive for the crime, that the danger of her fleeing the jurisdiction was very real in light of the airtight case the people had, and that releasing her on bail would also pose a danger to the state’s witnesses, whereby he sang the “Particularly Heinous Nature of the Crime” song and respectfully requested that bail be denied.
Heather set bail at half a million dollars, which I promptly assured her could be secured by the defendant’s home, offering to turn over to the Court the deed to her house, her current tax bill and her passport for good measure.
Whatever the grand jury decided tomorrow morning, Lainie was for the time being a free woman.
The first thing I say when I open my eyes is “Where am I?”
Hardly original, it nonetheless startles the ICU nurse into unaccustomed alacrity. Running from the room shouting “Doctor! Doctor!” she provides the first clue that I might be in some sort of medical facility. The second clue comes with the realization that I am lying flat on my back with a great many tubes running into or out of my arm or arms.
Someone leans over the bed.
“Mr. Hope?”
He has a little black mustache and little brown eyes opened wide in expectation and surprise.
“Who are you?” I ask. “Where am I?”
“I’m Dr. Spinaldo. You’re at Good Samaritan Hospital. In Calusa, Florida. Do you know where Calusa, Florida, is?”
“My head hurts,” I say.
“I’m sure it does,” he says. “Do you know your name?”
“What is this?” I ask.
“This is Good Samaritan Hospital in...”
“Yes, Calusa, Florida. What is this?” I ask, more forcefully this time. “Why are you asking me if I know my own name?”
“You’ve been very sick,” Spinaldo says.
There is now something close to unbridled joy on his face. I expect him to begin crying in ecstasy at any moment. I suddenly like him. And just as suddenly I remember. But not everything.
“Did I get shot?”
“Yes,” he says.
“My chest hurts.”
“Good.”
“My shoulder, too.”
“Very good.”
I cannot imagine why he thinks hurting so much is good and very good. I do not realize that he’s telling me I’m feeling things again. He’s telling me I’m awake again. The problem is I don’t remember having been asleep. Euphemism of the week. Asleep. It will later be explained to me that sometime while I was in surgery and they were frantically trying to repair the ruptured blood vessels in my chest, I suffered cardiac arrest and...
Well, what happened was my heart stopped for five minutes and forty seconds, and there was subsequent loss of blood to the brain...
No blood was being pumped to the brain, you see.
No blood was being circulated anywhere in my body.
In short, I was in a coma for seven days, eleven hours, and fifteen minutes, after which time — and with a mighty leap, don’t forget — I sprang out of the pit.
A different face suddenly appears above me.
This one I know.
This one I love.
“Daddy,” she whispers.
Joanna.
My daughter. Blue eyes brimming with tears. Blond hair falling loose as she leans over the bed.
“Oh Daddy”
Nothing more. And hugs me close.
And the nurse who’d earlier run to fetch the doctor cautions her not to knock over the stand holding the plastic bag of whatever the hell is dripping into my arm, I am beginning to feel crotchety already, you see, I want to put on my pants and get the hell out of here.
But now there is yet another face, and I love this one, too, and Patricia leans over the bed, and kisses my cheek, eyes as blue as my daughter’s, shining and wet, hair as blond as my daughter’s, it occurs to me that I may have a thing for blue-eyed blondes.
But, no, my former wife was a brunette, isn’t that so? And lo and behold, here she is now, right on cue, the once and future Susan Hope, leaning over me with a smile on her face and a whispered “Welcome back, Matthew,” which causes me to wonder where I’ve been because no one has yet explained to me that I’ve been in a coma, you see, although I am beginning to recall, vaguely, a bar someplace, I am waiting for someone in a bar, I leave the bar — and can remember nothing further.
I feel suddenly exhausted.
All at once, the room seems too noisy and too crowded and too active.
I want everyone to go away.
I want my pants back.