I barely made it to the jail for the four o’clock meeting with the attorney, and I was still shivering inside and out when the guard showed me into an abbreviated version of the room I’d visited Jake in before. There was a small divided table in this one, with Jake on one side and Dan and an African-American man on the other. I was still so addled I didn’t realize the guy was our new lawyer until he put out his hand to me and introduced himself as Will Yarborough. He dispensed with any other pleasantries, and I appreciated that. All I wanted to do at the moment was look at my son.
Jake looked cleaner today, and calmer by a degree. He wasn’t picking at his mole or jiggling his knees back and forth, and I thought I knew why. Will Yarborough was a big man, and soft-spoken, and he didn’t bother smiling at what was a decidedly unhappy situation. I was feeling calmer myself just being in his presence.
But after I searched Jake’s face and made sure he showed no evidence of internal injuries or shell shock or pinkeye or any of the other things I’d visualized happening to him in there, I surveyed Yarborough with caution. So far no one in the legal system had listened, and I didn’t want to expect too much.
“We have a lot to talk about before Monday,” he said.
“What’s Monday?” Dan said.
“The first day of the trial. You weren’t notified?”
Dan and I looked at each other. The skin around his lips was blue.
“No,” we said in unison.
“It doesn’t give me much time to prepare,” the lawyer said, “so I’d like to start by asking Jake some questions.” He looked over the divider. “Are you up for that?”
Jake’s eyes sprang open, and for a hopeful instant I thought he was going to let it all out. But he looked down at his hands and muttered, “No.”
“Jake, please,” I said.
But Yarborough shook his head at me and folded his hands closer to the divider.
“We’ll get back to you, then.” He looked at Dan and me. “I’ve read the file. Is there anything either of you can tell me that might help with Jake’s defense?”
It was Dan’s eyes that startled open this time. “You’re actually building a case?”
A strong eyebrow shot up into Yarborough’s deep-brown forehead. “Why wouldn’t I? There were no witnesses. No one seems to be able to explain exactly how this all happened. My job is to create reasonable doubt.”
I thought I might cry. I turned to Jake, ready to renew my plea, and stopped. His lips were moving soundlessly.
“Did you want to say something, Jake?” Yarborough said, with a warning glance at me.
“There was a witness,” he said.
“Who was it?”
“Miguel,” Jake said.
I couldn’t have deflated any further if I’d been a leftover party balloon.
“Unfortunately, he can’t help us,” Yarborough said quietly.
“I thought he was going to wake up and tell everything. Then I wouldn’t have to.”
Jake looked up and moved his sad gaze to each of us in turn, like he was willing us to understand what he meant. I knew by now he wasn’t going to elaborate, and the frustration pumped again. Until I thought of something.
I dug through my purse and pulled out the list I’d made on the legal pad.
“I don’t know if this will help,” I said to Yarborough. “It’s just some thoughts. I tried to put things in chronological order.”
He took it out of my hand, and I immediately wanted to snatch it back. This was ridiculous. The man was a professional defense attorney. He wasn’t going to use the desperate scribblings of a hysterical mother.
As I sagged back in the chair, I could feel Dan watching me, probably waiting for me to turn the table over.
“This is very helpful,” Yarborough said. “May I keep it for now?” I nodded.
“One question—the parts in red?”
“Oh, those refer to our younger son, Alex.”
“Leave Alex out of this!”
Our heads all whipped toward Jake, who scraped his chair back and stood up. The guard was already on his way from the door.
“He doesn’t know anything!” Jake said. “You’re just gonna get him hurt. Leave him alone!”
“Either sit down or you’re done,” the guard said behind him.
“I’m done.” But Jake didn’t turn away. He looked at me with the same pleading I’d directed at him so many times. “Mom—no Alex, okay?”
“I can’t promise that, Jake,” I said.
He shook his head at me, slowly. He was still begging me with his eyes as the guard ushered him through the door.
“Do you know what that’s about?” Yarborough said when they were gone.
“Alex knows something,” I said.
“He would have said so by now, wouldn’t he?” Dan rubbed his hands across the tops of his thighs. “Maybe he wouldn’t. I don’t think I know either one of them like I thought I did.”
“Do you want me to talk to Alex?” Yarborough said. “Impress on him how important it is for him to tell the truth?”
“Let me try first.” I looked at Dan again, waiting for him to disagree. He didn’t say anything.
“Let’s talk outside,” Yarborough said.
Dan and I followed him to the checkout counter. The female officer glanced up at me when I slid my badge to her.
“One thing he’s got going for him,” she said.
“My son?” I said.
“He gets a lot of visitors. Keeps him from feeling isolated. Once they feel like everybody’s forgotten them, they start—”
“A lot of visitors?” I looked at Dan, but he appeared to be as baffled as I was.
“He had one right before you came.”
“Who?” I said.
“Can’t tell you that.” She looked, in fact, as if she shouldn’t have told me that much.
As we moved away from the counter, I grabbed Yarborough’s arm. “Can we find out—”
“I’ll work on it,” he said. “Listen, I have an obligation to bring this up, so let me get it out of the way.”
He pulled at his tie, the first uneasy gesture I’d ever seen him make.
“You’re going to talk about a plea, aren’t you?” I said.
“The DA’s office has made an offer, and I have to discuss it with you.”
I opened my mouth, but it was Dan who said, “No.”
“You might want to hear it. It does involve some jail time, but definitely less than what he’ll probably get if he’s convicted.”
I was still gaping at Dan when he turned streaming eyes to me. “What do you think?”
Something in me let me say, “Tell me what you think.”
He smeared his hand across his eyebrows. “I feel like I’ve failed him all this time. I thought he just wanted to take the consequences for a mistake, and I thought I could help him do that with dignity.” His voice caught. “But I think I was wrong. You never believed he was guilty, and now—I just want to give him a chance, even if he won’t give himself one.”
Dan’s shoulders collapsed, and he moved away from us. I shook my head at Will Yarborough.
“No deal,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Just had to ask.” He tapped his portfolio. “Let me work on this and I’ll be in touch, probably tomorrow morning.” “I’ll be available,” I said.
He shook my hand again, and before he turned away, he softened his dark eyes at me. “Jake’s lucky to have parents like you two.”
Sully found out some things during his night in the Dona Ana County Jail. One, no one was swayed by his doctorate in psychology or his standing in the Christian community. He was surrounded by bangers, as Baranovic called them, who would have been more impressed if he had a tattoo and a scar or two. He also discovered that even without that, everybody who passed through thought he was one of them.
And apparently if you were one of them, you were required to participate. Sully’s plan was to keep to himself and pretend to sleep, but nobody was having it. The savage next to him screamed obscenities at him. The one across the corridor spat green wads into Sully’s cell at regular intervals.
The guard who came to investigate that cursed Sully doubly by referring to him as Dr. Crisp. “Can I get you anything, Dr. Crisp? How about a nice porterhouse? I hear you’re pretty good with a steak knife.”
Another guard told that one to shut his mouth, but the damage was already done. For the next hour Sully was harangued with lewd questions and lurid requests for medical advice from the “doctor,” until he was on the brink of hurling back a few expletives of his own.
When they finally wore themselves out, Sully was left with the glaring lights that were evidently never turned off and the relentless stench of everything heinous about humanity. Somewhere near dawn, it occurred to him that Ryan’s son must be in here somewhere and had been for days. He wondered how long it took for a kid living in this black hole to actually become “one of them.”
Something they were passing off as breakfast was being delivered when the less mouthy guard unlocked Sully’s cell, put handcuffs on him, and led him down the corridor.
“Your lawyer’s on the phone,” he said when they were beyond the cells. “We have to let you talk to him.”
Sully didn’t mention that he didn’t have a lawyer. It didn’t matter, as long as this got him out of the fifth circle of hell.
The guard took him into a small room with a chilly metal table and one chair that appeared to be bolted to the concrete floor. The guard shackled Sully’s ankle to it before he unlocked the handcuffs and took a portable phone from another guard.
“Hello?” he barked into it. “Yeah, I got Sullivan Crips for you.”
“It’s Crisp,” Sully said as he put the phone to his ear. But he wasn’t even sure of that anymore.
“Sully?”
“Rusty.” Sully covered his eyes with one hand and hunched over the table with the phone in the other.
“I am so sorry,” Rusty said. “I didn’t get your message until last night, and then I couldn’t get through to you. Are you all right?”
“No,” Sully said.
“I got you a lawyer.” Rusty lowered his voice. “I told the guy I just talked to that I was your attorney.”
“Yeah,” Sully said. “Thanks. Listen, I’m worried about the clinic.”
“I called over there and got Kyle Neering.”
“You did? I thought he was out of town.”
“He said he just got in. He’s blown away by all this, of course. He recommended the defense attorney that’ll be calling you. Harlan Snow is his name—Kyle says he has a great reputation in Las Cruces.” Rusty gave a dry laugh. “That Kyle’s a go-getter, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Sully said. “Look, you can count on him for whatever you need.”
“He was all over me because I haven’t gotten you bailed out yet. I’m on my way, Sully. You know the full power of Healing Choice will be brought to bear on this. We’ll get you out.”
“I appreciate it.”
“I should be in by this afternoon. Kyle’s going to try to get in to see you.”
“Tell him to stay there and keep things going at the clinic. And tell him to just leave Martha alone and let her do her thing. Olivia can—”
“Sully,” Rusty said. “Don’t worry about all that. You’ve got to focus on getting through this.”
Sully thanked him again and hung up. How were you supposed to get through something when your every move was locked down or cursed at or mandated by people who thought you were a cold-blooded killer?
He watched the guard unshackle his ankle, and he put his hands out to be cuffed again. It chilled him that the routine was already becoming automatic, and yet the conditioned responses he’d been using for over a decade were failing him. He didn’t know what he would tell a client to do, except to pray. If God would even come into this place.