Fourteen

Even as she reached for the phone, Lola knew it was early, well before she’d set her phone alarm to go off. She wondered how long it had been ringing. It kept on, barely a few seconds’ pause for the kick to voicemail before the person calling hit redial. She looked at the screen. “Oh, no. Not again.” Donovan Munro.

“Do you always sound this bad when you wake up?”

“You didn’t wake me up.” Lola sat up in bed and hung on to the end table until the room righted itself. Vicodin had changed since her teens. Or maybe because the painkiller wasn’t wasting energy fighting actual physical pain, it had gone straight to her brain. Whatever the reason, she’d floated away into a blessedly dreamless sleep. That is, if she didn’t count Munro’s call as a nightmare.

“If this is how you sound when you’re awake, we’ve got trouble. I was just calling to make sure you’re set to go to the kid’s initial court appearance. I thought maybe I was being overly attentive, but I’m glad I called. I hope you don’t sound like this when you interview people today.”

Asshole. She was going to have to come up with a new expletive for Munro. This one was wearing thin.

“The hearing’s not until ten.” She had plenty of time.

Munro disabused her of that notion. “It’s rush hour. And court will be crowded and you don’t know anybody. Best to go early and scope things out, put names with faces.”

The sort of thing he might have said to a young inexperienced reporter or, back in the day, a student like Jan.

Her thumb slid toward the “off” icon.

“Wait. What’d you find out yesterday? Anything that’s not in the papers? Our next deadline’s not for three weeks, but if you’ve got good stuff, we can post it online. At least, we can if you verify it. Not anything like that throat-cutting thing you strung me along with yesterday.”

Still a newspaperman, she thought. He may have been trapped in the magazine’s cushy cage, but at least he retained his get-it-first instincts. “Actually—” She started to tell him about her conversation with Tynslee when a beeping noise on his end interrupted her.

“That’s the publisher. I’ve got to go. Listen, come by after the hearing and tell me about it. Better yet, come by my house later. I’m bogged down all day but I do Family Home Evening with my son on Wednesdays because his mom has him on Mondays, so I can’t stay here late. We’ll have pizza.”

Lola stared at the phone that had gone silent in her hand. Was Donovan Munro hitting on her? But no, his little boy would be there. Her phone flashed back to its home screen, the time prominently displayed. Eight thirty. Plenty of time for a shower and a stroll to the courthouse. Then she checked the distance on her phone. A mile. Once, she’d have jogged over without breaking a sweat. Now she decided to drive, which would give her time for a second cup of coffee before she left.

Lola put Donovan Munro out of her mind and headed for the shower.

He had warned her about rush-hour traffic. Lola thought of rush hour in terms of the freeway and not at all within the city center.

But a solid, unmoving line of cars confronted her when she pulled the car out of the hotel’s garage, not a single driver inclined to let her edge into a lane. Lola waited as the cars inched past through two turns of a light before long-dormant skills acquired in Baltimore reasserted themselves and she simply accelerated, forcing a motorist to hit the brakes and let her into the lane, or risk being struck by the crazy woman in the rental car.

Reality quashed her moment of triumph as the minutes on the car’s clock flipped past. She could have walked to the courthouse and back twice over in the time it took her to drive there. And, once there, she confronted the utter lack of parking spaces, a problem exacerbated by the TV vans taking up more than their share. Parking was never an issue in Magpie or on the Blackfeet Reservation or at most of the other places her job at the Daily Express sent her. She wasted still more time creeping along the blocks surrounding the modern courthouse, whose architectural excesses included a rounded entrance that looked like nothing so much as a multi-story R2-D2.

By the time she finally gave up on finding an empty space and opted for a parking garage, taking an extra minute to adjust to the reality of the eight-dollar fee, it was a quarter to ten. She trotted the three blocks back to the courthouse, yet again cursing herself for abandoning her running routine, and shouted a question about the courtroom’s location to a man standing outside the door.

He laughed. “Just follow the crowd. Can’t miss it.”

As soon as she entered the building, Lola heard the purposeful hum that accompanied any press gaggle. She endured the metal detector and slipped through the courtroom door just as the bailiff began to pull it shut. The benches were full. Television cameras on tall tripods lined the wall. The bailiff touched her arm. “Full up,” he whispered. “You’ll have to wait in the hall.”

The bailiff was dreaming if he thought Lola Wicks was going to miss the action. She stepped into the back row and lowered herself toward someone’s lap. “Hey!” Lola’s butt inched down. The person inched aside. Murmurs of outrage rumbled along the row. Lola shoehorned herself sideways into what felt like a hand’s width of space and avoided the bailiff’s eyes. She was in.

She’d wait awhile to pull out her iPad. People were mad enough at her already. Let them think, at least for a few minutes, that she was a grieving relative or at least a nosy neighbor.

She glanced around the courtroom, taking stock. Most of the reporters, including Anne Peterson, the woman she’d met at the crime scene, were in the front row, tweeting away on their phones. The Shumways filled an entire bench; across the aisle, the Ballard presence was touchingly sparse. Galon Ballard sat between Kwesi and Tynslee, clasping his daughter’s hand, whatever strain caused by her nighttime trysts dissolved by their mutual grief.

Galon, the Person Statistically Most Likely to Have Killed Sariah, had been immediately cleared by police by virtue of being, as Melena had already told her, a hundred miles away. Lola scrolled through her phone to the affidavit she’d downloaded after paying the fee required by the state’s public records system. In laconic legalese, it laid out the scanty but damning evidence against Frank—the hockey stick, his prints the only ones on it. No mention of the knife or whatever sharp object had killed her.

Galon had the weathered skin of someone who’d spent weekends since boyhood on the ski slopes, but his cheeks were pink from a recent shave and the blond sweep of his hair freshly gelled. He turned to whisper something in Tynslee’s ear and Lola saw the cleft in his chin that she’d noticed in the photograph. He and Sariah must have made such a postcard couple. Lola wondered uncharitably if the inevitable next wife would also lend the image of a matched set.

Tynslee’s appearance was an improvement from the previous day, if only by virtue of having exchanged her sweats for a school-worthy skirt and blouse. But her blouse was buttoned up wrong, and her hair lay lank around her shoulders. She slumped against her father. Beside her, Kwesi, the only person of color in the courtroom, was a contrast in straight-backed, narrow-eyed attentiveness.

Lola shifted her gaze to the opposite side of the courtroom. The Shumways, naturally enough, looked as though they’d rather be anywhere else. But a first-year law student could have told them the obvious: it was important for the accused’s family to show up in force, to let the world know that someone from such a loving, supportive environment could not possibly have committed such a brutal crime. The couple’s daughters, outfitted in yards of flowered rayon that added years and pounds to their appearance, clutched babies and shushed fidgety toddlers.

Melena was absent, a regrettable lapse in courtroom etiquette. Still, the appearance of a distraught mother, one possibly prone to hysterics, was to nobody’s advantage. Melena would be forgiven this early absence. Later proceedings would be a different story. Lola had seen more than one mother swaying glassy-eyed on a courtroom bench, her necessary presence enabled by tranquilizers.

Bryce glared at his lap. At one point, he turned toward the Ballards. Galon dipped his perfect chin in acknowledgment of his best friend’s presence. Bryce’s expression softened so abruptly that Lola feared he would burst into tears.

“All rise!”

Lola bobbed in her seat, afraid that if she stood up all the way, the bench would fill in behind her when everyone sat down. It was time to take out her iPad.

The judge, with the hunched shoulders, forward-thrust head, and darting eyes of a raptor, swept into the courtroom, black robes billowing. He climbed up behind the bench and perched on his stool, banging his gavel twice. “Be seated.”

Lola wedged herself back into her keyhole, claiming a bit more space and ignoring the resentment wafting down the row. The judge waited until the room had settled itself, then nodded toward the lawyers sitting at different tables. “Mr. Kimball? Mr. Hulet? Are we ready?”

Lola scratched down an approximation of the names. The nice thing about working for a magazine instead of a newspaper, she thought, was that she could look up the spellings later. A newspaper would expect her to be tweeting and posting updates throughout the appearance, and woe to her if she got a detail wrong. The wrath of the internet would rain down upon her. Her phone dinged with an alert. Behind her, the bailiff ostentatiously cleared his throat. She silenced her phone and glanced at the text.

Give us something ASAP that we can pop online. Add a line at the end saying a full story will appear in the mag’s next issue. Munro.

Hell and damnation. Lola reminded herself to buttonhole Anne Peterson after Frank’s court appearance was over. Maybe Peterson would take pity on her and give her the lawyers’ full names. A side door creaked open. A sigh gusted through the room.

Frank shuffled in, awkward in plastic sandals and ankle chains, an armed jail guard on either side. His pants were jail-issue orange, but instead of the usual tunic, he wore a ridged Cordura vest imposed upon inmates deemed a suicide risk. But he didn’t have the hopeless, desperate look of others Lola had seen subjected to the garments, instead turning and subjecting the room to a curious scrutiny. He was smart enough not to smile, but his gaze lingered on the Shumways and stopped again on Kwesi and Tynslee. He lifted his head in a sort of salute. Kwesi nodded back. Tynslee gasped and turned her face into her father’s broad shoulder.

The judge rapped his gavel. “I know this is a difficult day for everyone, but please restrain yourselves. Further outbursts will result in removal from the courtroom.”

Frank’s glance stopped a final time, with a jolt so palpable that those watching twisted in their seats to see who’d caught his attention. Lola suppressed a gasp of her own. Without the knit watch cap, the floppy forelock was even more pronounced. She was almost certain it was the same youth who’d sold her the Vicodin. Bold move for a felon, showing up in a courthouse. Of course, buying the pills made her a felon, too. A long look passed between the two boys, their faces unreadable.

Frank’s lawyer touched his shoulder, urging his focus forward. Vicodin Boy, belatedly aware of the stares focused his way, withdrew into an oversize sweatshirt and pulled its hood up around his face. Lola was sure he hadn’t seen her. Still, she was relieved when the lawyers introduced themselves: the district attorney, Andrew Kimball—the head guy; no assistants for a crime of such magnitude, Lola noted—and Robert Hulet, a public defender. There. Now she had the names, if not the spellings.

But a more urgent question dominated. It was two days after the arrest, and the Shumways hadn’t yet obtained an attorney for Frank? It wasn’t unusual for a public defender to take the initial appearance, but surely the Shumways had the resources to hire their own attorney for their son … and just as surely, a city the size of Salt Lake had a stable of hotshot lawyers who’d jump at the chance to be involved in such a prominent case, not to mention the billable hours it would entail.

“Today we’re going to outline the very serious charges against you,” the judge began.

“I didn’t do anything,” Frank interrupted. “So you don’t need to charge me.”

Slam. The gavel hit the bench so hard it nearly bounced back into the judge’s face.

“We will have no more of that! Mr. Hulet, please instruct your client as to decorum.”

The public defender leaned over and spoke urgently into Frank’s ear. “But I didn’t—” Frank began.

“Not now.” The public defender made a slicing motion with his hand.

The charges of murder, felony assault, and breaking and entering were read, along with the potential penalties they carried. At the words “life in prison, or death,” the room stirred as one. The judge raised his gavel. The room resumed its hush.

The prosecutor stood and adjusted a three-piece suit. Lola braced herself for some grandstanding. It was not uncommon for a big-city prosecutor to position himself as a state’s next attorney general, and from there, governor. Or maybe a state Supreme Court seat. Politicians rarely went wrong by proclaiming themselves to be tough on crime. A murder trial was a gift wrapped in shiny paper and a big opportunistic bow.

Kimball outlined the crime scene in brief but pointed detail. The slash across the throat. “Almost surgical, your honor. Nearly decapitated.” Lola no longer had to worry about finding a source for that particular detail. The knife that had inflicted the fatal wound was missing, however. Unlike the hockey stick: “Sunk an inch into the skull. Unimaginable force. Clearly the work of a very strong person.” He stared at Frank, letting his gaze linger on the well-defined biceps revealed by the vest.

Frank sat, impassive, following the proceeding as though all of the suits were talking about someone else.

“Also very much to the point, Your Honor, Le Cong Trang Shumway is foreign-born—”

The public defender rose. “With all due respect, Frank Shumway is a US citizen.”

“—and, until this vicious crime, was hoping to travel in just a few weeks to his home country for his mission,” Kimball continued, unperturbed. No mention of the pending wedding that had canceled the mission. And Tynslee had said it was unlikely Frank would be assigned to Vietnam, anyway.

The public defender seemed unaware of that particular detail, also. “On a mission! A church mission! And there was no guarantee he’d go out of the country. There are plenty of missions within the United States. As you know.”

The gavel banged, followed by a lecture about interruptions.

The prosecutor let the silence that followed the lecture linger, milking the moment before intoning, “I’d respectfully request that no bail be imposed. Or, if you must, bail of one million dollars.”

Crack. This time, the gavel anticipated the shocked gasps.

The public defender rose for his own predictable arguments: no previous record, good grades in school, outstanding athlete, supportive family. At that last, the judge looked toward Bryce, who managed a wan nod.

“Under the circumstances, Your Honor, there’s no reason not to release him on his own recognizance,” Hulet finished.

Bryce blanched.

Lola tried to imagine how she’d feel if Margaret had been accused of such a crime, then sent back home to await trial. Would she fiercely defend her child against such an outrageous charge, damn the evidence? Or would she bring her home but sleep with door locked and dresser shoved against it? A silly exercise. Margaret would never do such a thing. Lola reminded herself that nearly every parent whose child stood accused of anything from shoplifting to outright terrorism had likely felt the same way.

A final bounce of the gavel. “No bail. This proceeding is concluded.”

Frank shuffled to his feet and turned toward the spectators, searching the space where Tynslee and Kwesi had been. But their father was already hustling them toward the door, a protective arm around them, shielding them from the television cameras swinging their way. He didn’t give them a chance to look back.

Outside the courtroom, reporters mobbed the district attorney.

Lola dodged from one side of the horde to the other, looking for someone she didn’t see. Finally, she spotted the public defender heading alone down a side hallway, ignored by reporters seeking the DA’s quotable bombast.

He turned a corner. Lola didn’t dare call attention to herself. She forced her legs into what she hoped resembled a leisurely stride, breaking into a run the minute she rounded the corner. “Mister … Mister … ?” What the hell was his name? Whatever it was, he turned.

“I’m Lola Wicks. With Families of Faith.” She mumbled that part. “I just have a few questions. Starting with the spelling of your name.”

“J-o-h-n S-m-i-t-h.”

Lola leaned back on her heels. “Cute. But seriously.”

“Sorry. It’s been a long couple of days. Bob H-u-l-e-t.” Lola scratched a line across some scrawls in her notebook. She’d written it as Hewlett. Which is why you always, always asked.

Hulet removed the kind of round wire-frame glasses that everyone else had abandoned years ago in favor of faux tortoiseshell in retro shapes. Although Lola guessed the wire frames were retro now. He held the glasses up to the light. Even she could see the smudges.

“Here.” He thrust an armload of files at her. Lola took them as he polished the glasses on his tie. “I don’t talk to the press. So, as long as you spell my name right, we’re good.” He put the glasses back on and reached for the files.

Lola took a step back. “I don’t need to quote you on this. I just want to know something. Why you?”

“Give me those.” He reached for the files.

Lola took another step back. “It’s off the record.” She had a long-standing rule of never offering an off-the-record conversation in advance. But in this case, it didn’t seem to matter. Hulet wasn’t going to give her anything anyway.

His arms dropped to his side. “Why me? You mean because without a private attorney this kid doesn’t have a prayer of a chance? I’ve got news for you. He doesn’t have a prayer of a chance anyway. Even though he didn’t do it. Remember, you said you wouldn’t quote me. So don’t.”

“How do you know he didn’t do it?”

“I’ve been at this awhile. Just like you, apparently. Do you think he did it?”

People were always trying to get reporters to take sides, and reacted badly to any protestations that it was unethical. Lola told the truth. “Every time I’ve tried to guess which way a case would go, I’ve been wrong. Same with elections. I just wait for the outcome.”

Hulet muttered something. Lola handed him the files, pretending she hadn’t heard the word coward. He started to walk away, then turned back. “That business about the mission. I don’t know where Kimball got that information—and it bothers me, it bothers me greatly, that the prosecution had it and I didn’t—but you’re obviously not from here, so you probably don’t know this. He might have wanted to go to Vietnam, but it was extremely unlikely he’d have been posted there. People don’t get a choice about things like that.”

Exactly what Tynslee had said. Questions, so many, ricocheted around Lola’s brain.

She took a shot with one of them. “Just one more thing. Have his parents been to see him? Either of them? Both? Anyone from the family? Or anyone else?”

“That’s more than one thing.” Hulet reached for a door. “No. Nobody.” The door closed just short of a slam.

Lola pecked at the iPad’s keyboard, typing up a quick summary of the court proceedings—with Hulet’s name correctly spelled—and emailed it to Munro.

No response. But a few minutes later, when she checked Families of Faith’s website, the story was there. She drove slowly back to the hotel, mentally compiling a list of questions that, no matter her reluctance for the initial topic, she attributed to her own hardwired instinct for story.

How could Bryce and Melena let a terrified teenager sit in jail for more than twenty-four hours without visiting him? Or trying to get him a lawyer?

“Easy.” She answered her own question out of habit. “He’s accused of killing one of their best friends. And seducing her daughter.” Although, as Lola knew from personal experience, daughters were quite capable of doing the seducing.

What had Bryce Shumway been doing outside in the middle of the night when he caught Tynslee sneaking home from his son’s bedroom?

“Again, easy. Anything. Maybe he’s a secret smoker. An insomniac. Had a bad dream. A fight with his wife.” Lola thought of all the reasons she’d gotten up in the middle of the night. She’d never gone outside, though. The Montana prairie—alive with rattlesnakes in the summer, subjected to Arctic blasts in the winter—didn’t invite nighttime meanderings. But she couldn’t rule out the possibility of an affair with Sariah—lovely in a way poor Melena had never been, and with the added attraction of proximity—lending a plausible explanation for Bryce’s “You, too?” comment to Tynslee.

Why did Tynslee seem so sure about Frank’s innocence, yet reluctant to share more information?

“Also easy. She’s in shock. And she’s a teenage girl, which means everything that happens in the world is about her. Maybe she’s still fixated on being caught having sex. She can only process one big thing at a time. And her boyfriend being accused of killing her mother—that’s more than an adult could handle, let alone a teenager. Also, being a teenage girl, she was probably locked in some kind of combat with her mother even before the sex thing came up. Maybe even wished her dead. Now this. No wonder she’s in shock.”

Lola’s car idled at a traffic light. She glanced over at the next car. The driver peered at her, watching her animated conversation with herself. She grabbed her cellphone and held it to her ear, pretending.

The light changed and she hit the gas, propelled by another thought. Tynslee had said their impending marriage would interfere Frank’s mission; that the thought made him “desperate.” Again, the obvious questions, especially given that he’d hoped, no matter how improbably, to go to the country of his birth. Desperate enough to kill? And might Tynslee, out of some misguided loyalty, have helped him?

Lola’s imagination plunged deeper, darker still. Tynslee had seemed so sure that Frank hadn’t killed her mother. Was it possible that the girl herself had? She wouldn’t be the first child to kill a parent over thwarted love. But then, why the hockey stick that so clearly implicated her boyfriend?

Even if Frank hadn’t killed Sariah, whoever did kill her wanted Frank to take the blame. Lola’s next job would be to come up with a list of possibilities. To give to Munro, so that he could hand it over to the reporter who replaced her, of course. But first, there was the unpleasant prospect of dinner with Munro.