I sat up in bed. “Wait a minute. You telling me you haven’t got enough food down there?”
“We’re okay for another day or so. We’ve let the hostage negotiators know. They’re working out the details to have provisions passed through the lines.”
“I know.”
“You know? How do you know that?”
I bit my lower lip. “I was down there today. Howard let me through the lines.”
“Harry, what the hell did you think you were doing? I assume you had to tell Spellman what vested interest you had in visiting the trenches.”
“Marsha,” I said, hesitating for a moment. “They all knew anyway.”
There was a long, static-filled silence over the cellular phone. “Oh,” she said.
“Who cares? We’re both single. Nothing to be ashamed of, right? It’s not like we’re running around on our spouses or anything. I don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Do you?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “It’s just that … Well, I’ve just never, well, not never, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been involved with anyone so, so publicly.”
“Hey, screw ’em if they can’t take a joke, right?”
She sighed. “I guess so.”
“So what’s the latest? There hasn’t been much new on the news programs.”
“The PEs have modified their position. They’re willing to let us take X rays, do a visual and cavity examination, and take tissue and fluid samples for analysis. But they still don’t want us cutting her open.”
“So, can you guys live with that?”
“Law’s pretty clear. In all cases of suspicious death, you have to do an autopsy. But,” she added, “Spellman’s taking it to the state Attorney General’s Office tomorrow morning for an opinion. The Pentecostal Enochians want to bargain for amnesty as well.”
“And in the meantime you all just sit there.”
“That’s about it. We found one of those little battery-powered pocket TVs in Dr. Henry’s office. We charged it up in the cooler, so at least we can watch the news.”
I laughed. “I can just imagine five people huddled around a three-inch pocket TV.”
Marsha laughed quietly. “I’ve seen so many episodes of Cheers, I’ve got the hots for Norm Peterson. C’mon, babe, I’m tired of talking about me. What’s going on in your life?”
“I met with Phil Anderson today over at the insurance company.”
“Yeah? What happened?”
I recounted the whole, frustrating story, then segued into Slim’s arrest.
“You going to get involved?” she asked.
“No. I’m too preoccupied. With you, with my cash situation. It’s just not a good time.”
“Can I give a little advice, darling?”
“Sure, of course.”
“You’re not going to do anything but drive yourself and me nuts, not to mention hacking off the entire Metro Nashville Police Department, if you persist in trying to figure out some way to be a hero in all this.”
“That’s not what I’m-”
“I know. I didn’t mean it like that. But there is really nothing you can do, Harry. We just have to sit tight. And there’s probably nothing you can do about the insurance money as well. So for the sake of your blood pressure and my nerves, why don’t you find something to take your mind off all this?”
There was a ripple of an audio static wave in the phone, and I knew her batteries were on the way out.
“I’ll give it some thought,” I said.
“You do that. In the meantime I’m going to make my last cup of herbal tea and stretch out on my office couch. If nothing else, the last few days have sure given me a chance to catch up on my paperwork.”
There was a pop in the phone, and the signal dropped out for just a second, then came back. “Hey, listen,” I yelled into the phone, like that would do some good. “Call me tomorrow.”
“Goo-” Hiss, pop. Dial tone.
I hung up the phone and leaned back into the pillow. On the muted television, a silent anchorman’s image was replaced by footage taken at the police station earlier this evening. On the tape, Slim Gibson was standing before a magistrate, hands cuffed, head down, bathed in a corona of television lights.
What the hell, I thought. Maybe she’s right. I reached over and grabbed a notepad out of my shirt pocket and flipped to the last page, then dialed the number written on it.
“Ray?” I asked, when a voice answered. “What time did you say that hearing was?”
High-profile murders always seem to draw high-profile crowds. The highest-rated TV reporter in the city was jammed into the cramped hallway in front of the courtroom in the Criminal Justice Center as fans, hangers-on, spectators, musicians, cops, lawyers, and about fifty other people jostled for a spot.
Over the background din, I could hear her delivering her live remote from the courthouse for the morning news:
“Yes, Bob,” she said brightly, “the courthouse hallways are indeed packed as country-music fans, friends, family members, and onlookers struggle to get into the courtroom to see the man accused of murdering one of country music’s fastest-rising stars. The ex-husband of Rebecca Gibson, Randall J. Gibson, known as Slim, will stand before Judge Rosenthal and hear the preliminary case against him. The District Attorney’s Office has refused to comment on whether or not they will seek the death penalty against Rebecca Gibson’s ex, but we do expect them to seek to have him held without bond.”
At the words death penalty, all the hairs on the back of my neck got together, stood up, and did the Wave. Christ, I thought, I didn’t have any idea it was this grim. But then I settled down. The death penalty in this state is most often used as a weapon by prosecutors to scare the stew out of the accused, rendering him or her much more willing to negotiate when plea-bargaining time rolls around. Besides, Tennessee is historically reluctant to actually execute people. We hand out the death penalty like traffic tickets, but when it comes to yanking that switch, we really aren’t like Texas or Florida, where they’ll fry your ass for spitting on the sidewalk. We take almost a perverse pride in having a huge death-row population, but no executions in over thirty years.
I worked my way through the hallway past the television cameras toward the general-sessions courtroom where preliminary hearings are held. I’d spent many a morning in this building as a newspaper reporter; sometimes it was packed, other times I was the only one in the spectators’ gallery.
This time, they were jammed in like a 1930s revival meeting. Inside the small courtroom, the benches held row upon row of human in every imaginable combination. Some wore suits, but most were dressed casually, many with the affectations of musicians. The walls were even lined with standing men and women. I looked around the courtroom, searching the faces for one I knew. To my left, eight or ten down, stood an exhausted-looking Ray.
“Excuse me, excuse me, oops, excuse me-” I muttered to dirty looks as I wove my way around the bodies and edged in next to him.
“You made it,” he said, relieved. Ray pulled at the skin on his face like a rubber mask.
“Parking’s hell out there,” I said. “I drove around for ten minutes looking for a meter, then gave up and went into the garage behind the Ben West Building. Hell, took me five minutes to find a slot in there.”
“This one’s going to be pretty popular.”
“Yeah. You get any sleep last night?”
“Not much.”
“Who’s going to be representing him?” I asked. “We called Roger. There wasn’t much else to do,” Ray said. He hung his head like it was a heavy burden.
“Jesus, Harry, this is bad. News said this morning they might be going after the death penalty.”
“Don’t panic, guy. There’s quite a walk between going after it and getting it.”
On benches in a special gallery to the judge’s right, a row of suited lawyers sat talking and fumbling through papers. I recognized three of them from the Public Defender’s Office. They were huddled over the rail, making deals with the assistant DAs, shuffling through a huge caseload as quickly as possible.