Mrs. DeMateo’s arraignment has just ended. She’s here alone today, sans the mister, and she doesn’t seem to miss him much. She’s beaming at Harry, who’s still at the bench. Harry doesn’t notice, though. He’s busy beaming at Geraldine. He must’ve persuaded Judge Long to set a reasonable bail.
Geraldine gives Harry her best “it ain’t over ’til the Fat Lady sings” look, but he keeps beaming at her anyway. In this business, he always tells the Kydd and me, we have to savor the minor victories. Most days, that’s all we get.
Judge Long tells Mrs. DeMateo she’s done for today and she dutifully heads toward the courtroom’s side door. Halfway there, she turns and waves to Harry, calling out an effusive thank-you. Her not-quite-ready-for-Hollywood smile grows enormous when he waves back, and she keeps her eyes on him until the door slams shut between them. She seems to have gotten over her initial dissatisfaction with her court-selected lawyer.
“Ain’t she a peach?” Harry asks as he approaches our table. He doesn’t realize Geraldine is inches behind him. She stops in front of us just as he does and they face each other for a moment. Geraldine scowls. Harry grins. “Well,” he says to her, “ain’t she?”
Geraldine doesn’t deign to respond. Instead, she turns away from him and looks down at me. Harry is dismissed, though he doesn’t seem to realize it. Geraldine folds her thin arms, silently awaiting word on Louisa Rawlings’s willingness to sing.
“She’s wrongly accused, you know,” Harry interjects. It takes a moment for me to realize he’s still arguing the DeMateo case. “It’s that no-good scoundrel husband of hers who’s dealing. Not his blushing bride.”
Geraldine makes no effort to hide how annoyed she is. She’s done with the mom-and-pop shop for now. And she’s sure as hell done with Harry. She pivots slightly and points an index finger at him, her tapered nail not quite poking his lapel. “Mr. Madigan,” she says, “do the county a significant favor. Get lost.”
Harry looks genuinely wounded. “Now you’ve done it,” he mumbles pitifully. “You’ve gone and hurt my feelings.”
Geraldine reverses her pivot, flicking both hands to shoo Harry away, and then looks down at me again. Harry doesn’t go anywhere; he looks at me too.
“No deal,” I tell Geraldine.
She tosses her head back and laughs out loud.
I feel a little bit sick.
“And people wonder why I stay in this line of work,” she says, wiping her eyes as if her laughter had induced tears. “No federal judge has more job security than I do.”
Geraldine must be referring to people I haven’t met. No one I know has any doubt about why Geraldine Schilling stays in this line of work. She prosecutes criminals for the same reasons spotted leopards eat raw meat: it sustains her.
I consider offering the explanation for Louisa’s refusal to talk, but when I look up, it’s obvious Geraldine is distracted. Her attention is focused on something over my shoulder, in the gallery. Harry stares in the same direction, his eyes as wide as they get. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispers. “Morticia on steroids.”
The Kydd swivels his chair around and then does his best to swallow his reaction. He leans toward me, hiding his lips from the spectators with one hand, and mouths, “Anastasia.”
I force myself to sit still. We don’t all need to gape at the deceased’s daughter. She’s agitated enough already. And besides, my mental picture of Anastasia Rawlings is alive and well. As usual, Harry hit the proverbial nail on the head.
“Daddy’s little girl?” Harry asks.
“Right as always, Kimosabe,” the Kydd answers.
An abrupt barrage of flashes tells me Louisa has arrived. Geraldine turns and abandons our table without another word. She’ll be on in a few minutes, after all. She needs to polish her script.
Once again, Louisa stands tall, dignified, as she crosses the courtroom. Bursting flashbulbs dog her as she approaches, but her somber expression brightens as she nears our table. By the time she reaches us, she looks downright delighted.
“Harold,” she says, extending her hand.
Harold?
Harry laughs, takes Louisa’s hand in both of his, and drinks her in.
“You look marvelous,” she says finally.
He laughs again, still clasping her hand, as if she might leave the room otherwise. “So do you,” he says, “considering.”
She giggles.
I’ve watched at least a half dozen men fawn over Louisa Rawlings in the past few days. Not one of them earned a giggle. Harry managed with four words.
“All rise,” Joey Kelsey intones. Joey always does his best to sound as if he’d sing bass if he were in a church choir. He should give it up. He’s a natural tenor and his efforts to prove otherwise make him sound like he’s thirteen.
Harry seems unwilling to release Louisa’s hand. She has to forcibly extract it from his grasp so she can take her place at the table. She blushes in the process, something I suspect Louisa Rawlings doesn’t do often. Harry walks backward to a seat at the bar, his hazel eyes melded with Louisa. All of her.
None of it is lost on the Kydd. He watches their slow-motion separation, then focuses on Louisa’s pink cheeks as she takes her place between us. When she turns toward him, he hangs his head and stares down at the table.
It hits me so hard I can’t breathe for a moment. A truth so obvious it’s almost tangible. And it was here all along, right out in the open, begging to be recognized and called by its proper name. But I ignored it, pretended it didn’t exist, until now.
I steal a glance back at Harry, whose eyes haven’t wavered, and then look over at the Kydd. He’s studying the table as if he’s never seen one before. And then the truth gels, crystallizes. Technically, the Kydd is the only lawyer in the room who has run afoul of the Canons of Professional Conduct. But in point of fact, when it comes to Louisa Coleman Powers Rawlings, we all have a conflict. All three of us.
CHAPTER 24
Geraldine was positioned in front of the bench, chomping at the bit to begin, well before Judge Long took his seat and called the noisy courtroom to order. He didn’t acknowledge her at first, though, didn’t give her an opening. Instead, he donned his half-glasses and peered over them to the defense table, at me. He didn’t utter a word, didn’t need to. His question couldn’t have been clearer if he’d shouted through a bullhorn.
“Your Honor,” I said, getting to my feet but remaining at our table, “the defense is prepared to go forward.”
The shake of his head was barely perceptible. And it was not intended to be unkind. Leon Long is the last member of the judiciary who would question a citizen’s inalienable right to be judged by a panel of her peers. He deemed it foolhardy, though, for Louisa Rawlings to go forward under the circumstances. And I don’t disagree.
Geraldine is adding the final touches to her presentation now and I suspect she’ll be nominated for an Academy Award before the day is out. Under the guise of getting the substance of her case against Louisa Rawlings on the record—a legitimate end—she managed to spoon-feed every delicious morsel of this sordid saga to the salivating members of the media. More than a few reporters ran for the double doors to phone their press rooms after she showcased the brass swan. They stopped short, though, huddling in the back like an indoor football team, when she brought the bloodstained portion of the oak floorboards to center stage.
She’s just about finished, I think, talked out at last, and the press benches are empty. Only the photographers remain, roaming the aisles in search of one last opportunity to bag a front-page shot. And Woody Timmons is still here too, scribbling in his notepad. He’s off on his own again, this time seated on the end of the back bench.