Emma’s visit with Sue Ellen hadn’t gone any better than her meal with Ford. Sue Ellen was growing increasingly depressed. Not only didn’t she believe Emma could win her case, she clearly didn’t care one way or the other about it. She believed she deserved to spend the rest of her life in jail. Emma left her cell feeling more discouraged about a case and a client than she’d ever felt before. She felt doubly awful because Sue Ellen was a friend, as well as a client.
“See what I mean?” Ryan asked when Emma went into his office after the visit. “She’s scaring me.”
“I’ll get the psychologist back in to see her,” Emma said, relieved that Ford hadn’t stuck around during the visit. She’d had about as much of his disconcerting company as she could handle for one day.
“I thought of that,” Ryan said. “She turned me down flat. She said she didn’t like the woman.”
“Then we’ll find another one.”
He shook his head, looking almost as miserable and discouraged as Sue Ellen had. “I don’t think that’s the answer. I’m guessing she’ll find fault with a new one, too. In fact, I’m certain she’ll disapprove of anyone who thinks she deserves another chance at life. She’s as much as told me I’m crazy to give a damn what happens to her. The last few times I’ve tried to talk to her, she’s just curled up on the cot and ignored me. She won’t even look me in the eye anymore.”
“Has she been this way ever since I left town?” Emma asked.
His expression turned thoughtful. “No, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it started last week. Up until then, she was sad, but not utterly despondent. In fact, she seemed more hopeful than she had in years. I spent a couple of evenings in her cell playing cards with her and she even laughed a few times.”
“Any idea what triggered the change? Did something happen? Did she have a visitor?”
“People have been coming and going ever since she was arrested. As far as I know, all of them have been well-wishers who wanted her to know they were standing behind her,” Ryan said, then hesitated. “Let me check the sign-in sheet. Maybe it will give us a clue.”
He brought the book in from the front desk, flipped back two weeks and began to run his finger down the column of signatures. “Sweet heaven,” he murmured after a minute, looking stricken. “Here, take a look.”
Emma went to peer over his shoulder. There, halfway down the page, was the signature of Kate Carter. “You let Donny’s mother in to see her?” she asked incredulously.
“Not me. Look at the time. It happened on the night shift. I had a town council meeting that night—I wasn’t around. What the hell was Frankie thinking?”
“Don’t blame him entirely,” Emma said, knowing the procedures for visits. “Apparently Sue Ellen agreed to the visit.”
“True, but why would she do that?” Ryan asked. “She had to know that Kate wouldn’t have anything good to say to her.”
“Maybe she was hoping for forgiveness, or at least understanding,” Emma suggested.
“From Kate?” Ryan said incredulously. “She spent her entire life being beaten by her father and then her husband. She was bound to think that’s just the way marriage works, that Sue Ellen should have sucked it up and taken it.” He muttered a curse. “I’d heard Kate was saying a lot of stuff around town. I should have warned Frankie to keep her out, no matter what Sue Ellen said.”
“What stuff?” Emma asked worriedly. The last thing she needed was to have Donny’s mother poisoning the minds of potential jurors. Public sentiment had been firmly on Sue Ellen’s side up until now. She didn’t need a shift just as the trial date neared.
“Just what you’d expect, that Sue Ellen murdered her precious son, that she was going to have to pay for it. There was a lot of hellfire and damnation thrown in for good measure.”
“If she said the same thing to Sue Ellen, it’s little wonder she’s so depressed,” Emma said. “I’m getting that psychologist in here whether she likes it or not.”
She reached for the phone, but Ryan stilled her hand. “Call a minister, instead.”
Emma considered the suggestion, then nodded. “Good idea. Reverend Foster is kind and compassionate.”
“More important, so is the God he believes in,” Ryan said quietly. He fixed his gaze on Emma. “What if this doesn’t work? It won’t be good for her to go into court acting guilty, will it?”
“Don’t even think about that,” Emma scolded. “This is going to work. It has to.”
* * *
Ford was sitting in his office, savoring his progress with Emma earlier that evening, when a woman came staggering in, her face flushed, her pupils dilated. If she wasn’t drunk, she was well on her way.
“You the editor of the paper?” she demanded.
He lowered the front legs of his chair carefully to the floor. “I am. Who are you?”
“Kate Carter. It’s my son who was killed by that she-devil over at the jail.”
His stomach rolled over. “I see.”
“I want you to print a story about what a fine man my son was. Anybody will tell you that,” she said, weaving on her feet. “Donny Carter was a fine man.”
“As his mother, I’m sure you feel that way,” he said cautiously. “Why don’t you have a seat and tell me about him.”
Kate Carter sank heavily onto the chair he pulled out, then glanced around. “You got anything to drink in here?”
He shook his head. “Sorry.”
“If I talk to you, how much will you pay me?”
“I don’t pay for interviews.”
She seemed taken aback by that. “I heard them big tabloids pay millions for stories.”
“I don’t,” he said flatly. “Not even five dollars, much less millions. But if you want to talk about your son, I’ll listen.”
“And print what I say? Word for word?”
“Anything I print will be accurate,” he assured her. “But it will be balanced.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means other people might express other opinions in the same article.”
She considered that for a long time, then eventually nodded. “Get out your pen,” she ordered.
“I’d rather use a tape recorder, so there won’t be any question of accuracy later.”
“Whatever,” she said, then leaned forward to talk directly into the microphone as if she didn’t trust it to pick up her words.
Ford began his questioning carefully. It was obvious that Kate Carter had an agenda—getting her former daughter-in-law convicted. It was going to be tricky getting her to present any sort of unbiased view about what had happened in her son’s household to bring about the shooting. So far, though, this was the best chance he’d had to get an inside view of that marriage, even if it was bound to be shaded in Donny’s favor.
“Did you spend a lot of time with your son and his wife?” he asked.
“I had my own husband at home to tend to,” Kate Carter said with a self-righteous expression. “I couldn’t be gallivanting off to visit them every time I turned around, but I was there often enough to know what was what.”
“When you were there, did you ever hear Donny and Sue Ellen argue?”
“Never,” she declared. “He was a sweet boy. He doted on her. Had ever since high school. He never said a cross word to her.”
“That’s not what the neighbors have said,” Ford pointed out. “They said there were loud arguments almost every night.”
“They were lying,” she said flatly.
“Why would they do that?”
“Who knows why people do what they do?”
“What about your own marriage, Mrs. Carter? Did you and your husband get along?”
She seemed taken aback by the question. “My husband’s been dead for six months now, God rest his soul. Besides, what does that have to do with anything?”
“I just wondered what sort of example might have been set for Donny?”
“My husband had a temper, if that’s what you mean. Some men do. It’s natural.”
“He ever hit you?”
Her gaze narrowed. “Not unless I deserved it.”
Ford resisted the temptation to tell her that no husband had a right to hit his wife, nor did the wife ever deserve it. “So, Donny grew up thinking this was acceptable? You never told him it wasn’t?”
She frowned at the question. “Are you trying to trick me?”
“Trick you how?”
“Make me say my husband and I set a bad example for our boy.”
“Is that possible?”
“No, it’s not possible. Donny was a good husband. A good provider. Sue Ellen should have been grateful.”
“And if he hit her occasionally, that was just part of the package?” Ford suggested dryly.
“Exactly,” she said, then caught herself. “He never hit her. If you write that I said that, I’ll call you a liar.”
“Your words are on the tape.”
She grabbed the recorder and hurled it across the room. The tape sprang free and unraveled as it fell to the floor. “You find those words on there now.”
“I will,” he said quietly. It would be easier than she imagined to recover the tape. “I believe the interview is over, Mrs. Carter. If I’m going to use you as a source, I have to know you’re being honest with me.”
To his dismay, tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Don’t you make my boy look bad,” she whispered. “He was a good son.”
Ford took pity on her. Clearly she believed that. And maybe he had been. That didn’t mean he’d been a good husband.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said quietly.
“Nobody understands that it was a loss,” she whispered. “For me, it was a loss. When his father came after me, that boy tried to protect me, even when he was an itty-bitty little thing. More than once he was the one who wound up taking a beating. Can’t you see, the least I can do is protect his memory.”
“I’m sorry,” Ford said again.
After she’d gone, he sighed. Kate Carter wasn’t isolating her remarks to him. He knew better than that. She was going to tell anyone who’d listen exactly what she’d told him. She was going to try to convince people that Donny deserved their pity, maybe even their respect. It might play well before a jury, too.
Emma needed to know about this. She also needed to know that some of those words were going to wind up in print, which made it more critical than ever that she let her client talk to the media.
He envisioned her reaction to that, then heaved another sigh. The dinner she’d finally agreed to have with him tomorrow night was no doubt going to leave them both with indigestion.
* * *
Emma glared at Ford. “You interviewed Kate Carter?” she asked, her voice climbing until it carried throughout Stella’s. Silence fell from one end of the diner to the other as everyone turned to hang on every word of their exchange.
“She came to me,” he responded quietly. “I thought you should know.”
“Are you going to print what she said?”
“Some of it.”
“Well, if that isn’t the most irresponsible, one-sided excuse for journalism I’ve ever heard,” Emma said.
“It doesn’t have to be one-sided,” he reminded her. “Let me talk to Sue Ellen.”
She saw what he was trying to do. Once more he was trying to manipulate her. “I’ve already told you that there’s not a chance in hell I’ll let you do that,” Emma said. Especially now. With Sue Ellen’s state of mind so unpredictable, she couldn’t allow it. Sue Ellen was entirely likely to say that she deserved to be convicted for her crime.
“Even if it means that Kate Carter’s side of the story is the only one people will read about?” He reached across the table and covered her hand. “I’ll be fair, Emma. You know that. But I can’t do it without your help. You know that, too.”
Emma sighed, not liking any of the options available to her. If she let Kate’s words go unchallenged, it would be bad for Sue Ellen. If she allowed Sue Ellen to speak up for herself, there was a chance she would condemn her own actions out of her deep-rooted sense of guilt.
“I’ll think about it,” she promised eventually.
“You’ve been thinking about it for weeks now,” Ford pointed out. “The trial date is just around the corner. There’s not a lot of time left.”
“Dammit, don’t pressure me. I hate being pressured.”
Ford held up his hands. “Fine. You think it over and let me know what you decide. I’m running my story in next week’s paper, with or without Sue Ellen’s side of things.”
Emma felt as if the walls of the diner were closing in on her. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“We haven’t even ordered dinner yet.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Okay, then, what would you rather do?” he asked, tossing a couple of bills on the table to pay for their iced tea.
“You stay. I’ll go for a walk.”
“I’m coming with you.” He stood up and followed her outside.
Once they were on the sidewalk, Emma leaned against the building and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I caused a scene in there.”
“I don’t give a damn about that,” he said. He touched her cheek, then gently brushed a stray curl away from her face. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “Can I be honest with you about something?”
“Of course.”
“Off the record?”
He smiled. “We’re on a date, darlin’. Everything that happens tonight is off the record.”
She nodded, and because she was feeling so completely lost and alone, she decided to trust him. “I’m scared.”
“Of?”
“Losing this case. I don’t think I’ve ever had one with the stakes so high. Oh, I’ve had cases with more money on the line, but never one where my client could spend the rest of her life in jail if I mess up.”
“You’re a good lawyer. You’re not going to mess up.”
“What if I’m wrong about how strong Sue Ellen’s case is? Or how well she’s likely to perform on the witness stand? What if she breaks under the pressure? What if I should have told her to accept a plea bargain?”
“Do you believe that she would have been better off if she had?”
“No,” she said honestly. “She doesn’t deserve to spend one single minute in prison for this.”
“Then you’re giving her the best legal advice you can, right? No client can expect more.” His gaze met hers. “Why the doubts, Emma?”
She sighed heavily. “A whole lot of things, I suppose. Sue Ellen’s discouraged. Kate got in there the other night and began badgering her about being guilty, so now she doesn’t even want to fight. Ryan’s scared for her. Then you tell me that Kate’s gotten your ear and you intend to print what she said.”
“But you haven’t really changed your mind about what happened that night, have you? You still believe that Sue Ellen merely defended herself.”
“With all my heart,” she said firmly.
“Then I don’t see that you have any choice. You have to handle things exactly as you are.”
She studied his face, tried to read exactly what he was thinking, but his expression was neutral. “You disagree with me, though, don’t you?”
“It’s not about what I think.”
“Isn’t it? If I can’t convince you, how I can I convince a jury?”
Ford sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “Emma, I only know part of the story, at least first-hand. You know all of it.”
“We’re back to the interview again.”
He nodded. “It’s the only way. Do you intend to put Sue Ellen on the stand?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll have to.”
“Do you doubt for a second that the prosecutor will be harder on her than I could ever be?”
“No,” she admitted.
In fact, one of the things that terrified her was that Sue Ellen would crack under the pressure of cross-examination. Worse, Emma feared that Sue Ellen would retreat into a passive, accepting behavior that allowed the prosecutor’s verbal assaults to go uncontested. Emma’s objections would only protect her so much.
And no matter how well Emma tried to prepare Sue Ellen for being questioned, Emma couldn’t guarantee that Sue Ellen would fight on her own behalf. There had been too many years of battering, too many years of thinking that she deserved to be mistreated. The pattern might be too ingrained to change before the trial. If the prosecutor started to badger her, she might simply consider it her due.
“Talking to me could help prepare her for court,” Ford said.
But allowing Sue Ellen to be interviewed would require a huge leap of faith on Emma’s part. She wasn’t sure she was ready to take such a leap just yet. She looked into Ford’s eyes and saw only the thoughtfulness and compassion she had come to expect from him.
“There would have to be ground rules,” she said slowly, coming to a decision she prayed she wouldn’t regret.
“Whatever you say.”
“I’d need to see what you intend to print.”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that. You’re going to have to trust me.”
“But—”
“That’s the way it has to be, Emma. I don’t send stories out for approval. No respectable journalist does. If there is any question at all in my mind about accuracy, I will go over it with you, but that’s the best I can promise.”
It wasn’t so much the accuracy that worried her, it was the slant he might put on the piece. And once it was in print, if it was devastating to Sue Ellen’s case, it would be too late to fix things.
He tucked a finger under her chin and met her gaze. “I am not out to get Sue Ellen,” he assured her. “I only want to get to the truth. The whole truth.”
Emma felt her heart lodge in her throat. She was fairly certain—no, she knew—that Ford wouldn’t deliberately try to sabotage her case. Because he cared about her, because he had something to prove to her, he was probably the most sympathetic journalist she could ever find. He would be fair to Sue Ellen, at least as fair as he knew how to be.
“I’ll make the arrangements,” she said finally, knowing that there was a lot more on the line than Sue Ellen’s future. Their fate—hers and Ford’s—was hanging in the balance as well.
Glancing into his eyes, she could see that he understood that as clearly as she did. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“I won’t let you down,” he said solemnly.
For all their sakes, Emma prayed he was right.