“You had a mother, Madison. She was lovely, one of the sweetest women I’ve ever known.”
“Why can’t I remember her better?” Madison had asked.
“You were too young when she passed away.”
“Some of the kids in my class have two moms,” Madison said. She knew this because she had playmates whose fathers had remarried after divorce or death. “I’d like to have a mother, even if it wasn’t my first mom.”
Madison had seen tears form in Peggy’s eyes before she turned her head back to the road.
“Your mother was so special that your dad hasn’t found anyone to replace her,” Peggy said.
“Does Dad work so hard because he misses Mom?” Madison asked.
Peggy looked surprised. “I think that’s it,” she said. “When your mother was alive, he didn’t work nearly as hard. After she passed away, Hamilton buried himself in his work because he was very sad. I guess he never got out of the habit.”
“Hey, you okay?” said Jake, waving a hand in front of her face.
Madison snapped out of her memories and looked across the table at Jake. “My mom died when I was young,” she said, hearing her voice go quiet.
Jake stopped smiling. He put his pizza down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . ”
“It’s okay. You didn’t know. How about you?” Madison asked quickly, to change the subject. “What do your folks do?”
“They’re doctors. They both work at OHSU,” he said, referring to Oregon Health Sciences University, the hospital that had been built on a high hill overlooking Portland’s city center. “That’s why we moved from Atlanta. They got jobs here.”
“What kind of doctors are they?”
“Mom’s a cardiologist, a heart doctor, and dad is a neurosurgeon. He operates on brains.”
“Do you want to be a doctor like your folks?” Madison asked.
“No. Their work is really interesting, but you have to be good at science if you want to be a doctor, and I am definitely not good at science. I really want to be a cartoonist or write graphic novels. But right now I just want to play soccer and make it through junior high in one piece.”
Madison laughed. “I guess we don’t have to make up our minds for a while,” she said, but she’d known for a long time what she would be when she grew up.
Chapter 8
The Mystery Woman
The Multnomah County Courthouse was a blunt, eight-story building of gray concrete that took up an entire block in downtown Portland. On Friday morning the line to go through the metal detector stretched out of the courthouse and along the sidewalk in front of the building. In the line were intense-looking lawyers carrying attaché cases and making important calls on their cell phones, uniformed police officers who were scheduled to testify in cases, and nervous-looking men and women with greasy hair and dangling cigarettes. Madison tried to keep away from the nasty cigarette smoke as the line inched forward. She scanned the street, anxiously looking for Jake, who was late. Five minutes after they’d agreed to meet, a Volvo station wagon stopped in front of the courthouse and Jake hopped out. Madison waved and Jake ran over. He was dressed up for his first visit to court in a blue button-down shirt with thin white stripes and pressed khakis.
“Sorry I’m late,” Jake said. “My mom made me change clothes when I told her where I was going. I feel like a dork in this outfit.”
The exterior of the courthouse was brutish, but the lobby was an elegant mix of marble, dark wood, and polished brass. It would have looked nicer if it wasn’t cluttered with metal detectors and guard stations. Madison had grown up in her father’s law office, so she was used to mingling with suspicious-looking people. Madison watched Jake force himself to keep his eyes forward when two bearded bikers in black leather jackets and stained jeans crowded in behind him, then shift them toward the floor when he found himself looking at a skinny girl with glazed eyes and a nose ring and her muscle-bound, tattooed boyfriend.
After Madison and Jake made it past the airport-like security, they rode the elevator to the fifth floor, where Mark Shelby’s bail hearing had just started. They tiptoed down the aisle and took seats on a hard wooden bench a few rows back from the low fence that separated the spectators from people having business before the court.
The Honorable Vikki Young presided in a grand, high-ceilinged courtroom with ornate molding, marble Corinthian columns, and a dais of polished wood. She was an intimidating, dour woman with jet black hair and piercing blue eyes who glared at the lawyers through glasses with Coke-bottle lenses. Madison really wanted to try cases . . . but she hoped Judge Young was retired by the time she graduated from law school.
“That’s my dad,” Madison whispered, nodding toward Hamilton, who was sitting at the heavy wooden counsel table at the side of the courtroom farthest from the empty jury box. Seated beside Hamilton was Mark Shelby. Madison studied him. He was a tanned, athletic man in his mid-thirties, thick necked and broad shouldered. He looked tall even sitting down. Madison only had to look at him for a few seconds to see that he was very nervous. Shelby was fidgeting in his seat, and his eyes darted around the front of the courtroom as if he expected to be attacked.
“Is that your dad’s client?” Jake asked as they sat down.
Madison nodded.
“I thought a murderer would look creepier,” Jake said.
“Mr. Shelby is an alleged murderer,” Madison corrected Jake. “Remember, accused people are innocent until found guilty.”
“This guy looks too nice to have killed anyone.”
“I know, most murderers look normal. If they all looked weird, it would be easy to catch them. But since they look normal, anyone could be a murderer—your dentist or librarian . . . anyone.”
“Okay, okay, smarty,” Jake whispered, smiling. “Where’s the jury?”
“This is a bail hearing to decide if Mr. Shelby will have to stay in jail until the trial is over or if he can post bail and stay out. A judge decides whether to grant bail. You have juries at the full trial.”
Before Madison could say anything else, a well-dressed African American in his early thirties stood up.
“The State calls Thelma Bauer,” he said.
“Who is that?” Jake asked.
“He’s Dennis Payne, an assistant district attorney. He works for the state, and his job is to convict people who are charged with a crime.”
“Is he any good?”
“Dad thinks he’s one of the best prosecutors in the District Attorney’s office.”
“Shh,” someone behind them said. Madison turned to see an old lady shake her finger at them for talking.
“Sorry!” Madison whispered.
The courtroom door opened and the key witness in the case against Mark Shelby walked to the witness box. Thelma Bauer was dressed in her Sunday best and had applied too much makeup. She was just over five feet tall, but she stretched to her full height as she proudly took the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Madison found herself thinking that Miss Bauer was relishing every second in the spotlight.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened on the morning in question, Miss Bauer?” Dennis Payne asked.
Miss Bauer sat up straight. She looked very serious. “My neighbors fight all the time, but this time their screams woke me up at five o’clock in the morning. My bedroom is on the side of the house across from their kitchen, and there’s only a thin strip of lawn to separate us. I had slept with my window open, which was unlucky for Mr. Shelby.”