The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [41]
“Sure.” To his secretary: “Sue!” She popped in within seconds. “Sue, get Bobby a firm check for twenty-five hundred.”
When she left, Bobby said, “Thanks.”
Scott waved him off. Twenty-five hundred was pocket change at Ford Stevens.
“Kind of funny, ain’t it, Scotty?”
“What?”
“Back in school, we used to talk about working together. After all this time, we are.” He shrugged. “Kind of funny.”
Scott stared at his former best friend.
“Yeah, Bobby, this is fucking hilarious.”
Boo screamed with delight. “A. Scott, you’re on TV!”
Her father and mother walked over to the kitchen TV and saw what she saw: on the evening news, A. Scott looking like a reluctant movie star, pushing through a crowd of TV cameras and microphones as reporters shouted questions.
“Did your client murder Clark McCall?”
“How will she plead?”
“What’s your defense?”
“This morning,” her father said. “The mob at the courthouse.”
“You couldn’t get out of the case?” Boo asked.
“No.”
“You’re going to trial?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“August.”
“Well, there goes Vail,” her mother said with an exasperated sigh. “We’ll be the only family in Highland Park suffering here in August. That’ll be embarrassing.”
“Can I go?” Boo asked.
“Yeah, you and Mom can still go to Vail,” her father said.
“No. To the trial.”
“You want to come to the trial?”
“I’ll still be out of school.”
“No, you may not, young lady,” her mother said. “A murder trial is no place for a nine-year-old girl.”
“But it’ll be like, history in the making.”
Her mother gave her another exasperated sigh. “Murder trials happen every day.”
“No, I mean A. Scott representing a human being.”
Her father looked at her and she at him; they both laughed.
Rebecca was not laughing.
“This won’t affect your position in the firm?”
Upon retiring to the master suite, that was Rebecca’s first and only question, her way of asking, Will this affect your income?
“No, of course not. I’m still Tom Dibrell’s lawyer.”
Her expression said she wasn’t buying it.
“Rebecca, look, I’ve got Bobby working the case. He’ll get me through it, she’ll get convicted, and things will go back to normal. Don’t worry.”
But Scott was worried. That feeling of impending doom had grown stronger. He plopped down in his chair in the sitting area off the master bedroom and used the remote to turn on the TV. The late news. A story about Clark McCall’s funeral this afternoon, video of people in dark suits and dark dresses entering Highland Park First United Methodist Church, wealthy people, white people, important people, the vice president, members of Congress, the governor, the mayor, and Scott’s senior partner.
TEN
THE REST OF JUNE passed quietly. The temperature climbed steadily as summer set in so that by the end of the month the mercury was pushing one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Rain became an infrequent occurrence and the sun beat down on the landscape with a vengeance. Native oak trees burrowed their roots deeper into the earth to suck the last drop of moisture from the parched Texas soil, and all God’s creatures hunkered down for another merciless summer, except those wealthy Dallas families who could afford to flee to the cool air of Colorado or California. The less fortunate remained behind and relied on air-conditioning and backyard pools to survive the heat.
Rebecca Fenney continued her relentless climb up the Highland Park social ladder; Boo Fenney occupied herself at home with her computer and her books; Consuela de la Rosa was reunited with Esteban Garcia, just back from the border; Scott Fenney billed two hundred hours at $350 an hour for Ford Stevens’s paying clients; Bobby Herrin billed one hundred hours at $50 an hour for the firm’s only nonpaying client; and the federal grand jury formally indicted Shawanda Jones for the murder of Clark McCall. The federal magistrate set her bail at $1 million, which meant she would remain in custody until the verdict was read, at which time she would be either set free or shipped off to a federal prison