Chapter 14
Head of State
FOLLOWING A FAMILY weekend that was filled with outings—baseball, volunteer work, and dining out—the work week still rolled around and I had to get back to work. A phone call the following week from Lance Gooden, our State’s Representative, who represents our county at the Texas House of Representatives, called to encourage me. Lance, a young statesman and consummate politician, was also interested in me putting my name in for the appointment for the DA position with the governor’s office. He thought it would be good for Kaufman County. I appreciated his support.
Elected at age twenty-eight, Lance was a young prodigy in the field of Texas politics. As he aged, his heart was catching up with his political head. That said, no one could outmaneuver him on making the right political moves for his constituents; as a sophomore legislator, he was already on important committees in Austin. He had served on three committees: Appropriations, County Affairs, and House Administration.
He was still explaining. “Well, I want you to meet the governor and be at the press conference—” he said.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, interrupting.
The governor is coming to Kaufman County,” he said. “This is huge!”
He was going full-steam ahead at this point, barely pausing for breath.
“You’re right,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do know,” he said. “Have you got the appointment app done?” He was referring to the application for the appointment of DA.
“I’m doing it.”
“You need to get it done.”
“Okay, quit badgering me,” I replied, annoyed.
“You do want this?” Lance asked, imploring softly.
At least some humanity had crept into his voice.
“Yes, I do,” I said, confidently.
I said it, and I felt it. I had weighed the decision over and over again, and knew that I was the right person for the job. Now I just hoped the governor would think so too. It didn’t matter what Judge Tygrett’s motives may have been—from the moment he suggested it, the seed had begun to take hold.
I had been an Assistant District Attorney in Dallas County ten years prior, and I would be a DA again, this time in Kaufman County.
This time, I would be the DA—if I received the appointment.
“Well, you need to meet the governor,” Lance said. “Are you coming to the press conference?” He was back at the beginning of our conversation.
“No,” I said.
“No?” he questioned. “Why?”
“Brandi Fernandez is the interim DA. It’s her moment and I’m not going to be a hanger-on at a press conference.”
“What?” he said, sounding puzzled. “You’re an elected official.”
“I know,” I said. “I have a docket at nine. I will do my docket, take care of the cases, and then come upstairs and meet the governor, if he’s still there, but I won’t be at the press conference.”
“Whatever,” he said, exasperated. “Fine. Knowing the governor, after the press conference he will probably want to meet with the local elected officials. Will you be there depending on the time?”
“Sure,” I said, but reiterated, “I’m an elected official, but I’m not the DA. I won’t butt in at her press conference with the governor.”
“Okay, I got it,” Lance said. “Get the app done. Judge, I’ll see you at lunch with the governor.”
I heard the grin in his voice.
Brandi Fernandez had stepped up to take the job as the acting District Attorney and for that, the county should be forever grateful. At the time she took the position her own safety was uncertain, and I respected her for ignoring that and for stepping up.
But much as I respected her actions, Brandi was still a hard person to figure out. We had swapped girl talk from time to time, talking about diets, kids, and how our weekends went. We also shared a Lubbock, Texas, connection: I went to undergraduate business school there, while she attended Texas Tech Law School. But over time, whatever goodwill our relationship had, she had distanced herself personally and professionally.
She could go from cordially speaking and making firm eye contact to averting her eyes in the hallway if we passed. Only when she had to come to my court would she be professionally courteous, then immediately leave at the earliest opportunity.
Her behavior puzzled me, but I never bothered to ask her why she acted that way. I was a judge and I certainly didn’t want to make her any more uncomfortable around me. And frankly, our personal relationship didn’t matter for us to do our jobs well—it was probably best to just be professional.
Even though her actions toward me were inconsistent, I never regretted my confidence in her ability to do the job, an opinion that I shared with Mike. Shortly after taking office in 2011, Mike had come to ask me about his staff and my perspective from the bench. He sat in my office and we discussed the assistant DAs who had appeared before me in my court. Then he asked specifically about Brandi. I told him I thought she was bright, a solid prosecutor, and might have gotten passed over during the former administration.
He replied that Judge Chitty had said similarly good things. He also shared that she had been in contact with him during the campaign and he personally felt good about her, even though several attorneys had advised him to get rid of her because she was not trustworthy.
Further, Mike reported that he had heard rumors that she was a “win at all costs.” I told him I had heard snippets about her character, but that I had never experienced any of it firsthand and I did not think it was a mistake to keep her.
As it turned out, Mike not only kept Brandi as an Assistant District Attorney, he later promoted her to be his First Assistant to manage the office. She proved to be more than a competent ADA, but behind the scenes with defense attorneys, she was known to toe the line—was it over the line? I don’t know.
Leading up to the appointment, DA staff sent supporting letters on their temporary boss’s behalf. There were conflicting rumors circulating around the courthouse about the support she enjoyed among the DA employees.
I didn’t know for sure. I had only been inside the DA’s office once in my ten years as judge. But the rumors from that office had made it downstairs to the first floor of my office. A rumor started that Brandi requested her staff of attorneys to write letters on her behalf to the governor’s office and that they were frightened of retaliation if they didn’t comply, but who knew if any of those rumors were true; I certainly didn’t. It was just as likely that she wouldn’t have wanted them to send letters. The position she accepted as interim District Attorney was persuasive in and of itself. I chalked it up to pure courthouse gossip, which always seems to run rampant in times of uncertainty.
THE MORNING OF the governor’s press conference in Kaufman County, my security detail had a hard time finding a parking place or a place to drop me off safely in front of the courthouse. The courthouse was packed with cars and the media trucks were everywhere.
My thoughts raced back to the last time the courthouse square looked like this. Thank God it was the just the governor in town this time. The last time it looked like this around the courthouse, Mike and Cynthia had been murdered.
The security detail had no choice but to double-park. They got me out of the car and escorted me to my office. I assured them I would be here all day and had no lunch plans outside the office.
I knew Katie wasn’t going to be happy about me ditching her for lunch again. I had forgotten to tell her that the elected officials were having lunch with Governor Perry, but I reasoned his schedule was really tight. I doubted if he would actually have time for a real lunch.
Lance would certainly be ticked off if Governor Perry didn’t have time to meet with the elected officials after the press conference. I realized I might be disappointed too. Meeting the governor was no small deal. I smiled, thinking about how upset Lance would be if his plans didn’t go perfectly.
“Sorry I’m running late,” I said, breezing into my office. “Everyone ready in the courtroom?”
“Yes, everybody—including a lot of the defendants who are upstairs in the hallway—is waiting on the governor,” Katie replied. “Is it okay if I go up to the press conference?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Get the bailiff, Richard, in here. Or is he helping with security?”
“No they have enough detail guys,” Katie said, slyly smiling. “Good-looking, dark suits, yummy.”
I love that girl.
“Okay, you definitely go up,” I said. “You can fill me in on the press conference later. I’m doing the docket.”
I paused and thought for a minute.
“On second thought, I will go on in,” I said, zipping up my voluminous black robe. “I don’t need Richard. I’ll talk to him in court and send him upstairs to get the defendants.”
I smiled as I walked through my door leading to the courtroom. I heard Richard announce me.
That man has eyes and ears everywhere. He always seemed to know when I was about to walk in and the courtroom was filling up with litigants that were set on my docket. He had already gotten them from upstairs and had them filing into their seats on the courtroom benches.
As I sat in my judge’s chair on the bench, I took in my courtroom. I had one of the larger rooms as it was one of the original courtrooms built in the 1950s, not part of an addition or a remodel. At more than fifty years old, it was considered a historical landmark.
Because of its age, it had none of the security that newer courthouses enjoyed. Though I had been told it wasn’t secure, I did love the windows facing the street in my office and a window in my courtroom, allowing a glimpse to the outside. From the window, you could also hear the quiet buzz of the area—birds chirping, muted conversations, cars passing.
I went through the relatively small docket: calling cases, resetting some, taking pleas on others. But I could hear the whirl of activity outside. From my courtroom windows, I could tell when the governor arrived, as you could hear the entourage that surrounded him. Even though most of the media were already upstairs, I heard a few questions thrown his way.
I looked at Scott Smith, my court reporter. As usual, he was seated below the Judge’s bench, but within eye and earshot of the activity of the courtroom, the witness stand, and the Judge.
“Go on up,” I said. “We’re done here.”
I knew everyone wanted to hear the press conference. Who wouldn’t? This was big news for Kaufman. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, was upstairs in the 86th District Courtroom. He was here to comfort the local townspeople. It meant that the state had rallied around us.
It was powerful.
I finished up what I was doing. I took the last court file and stacked it in a metal bucket, alongside the other files that my staff would pick up later. There was no one left in my courtroom and I realized I wanted to see the show firsthand too. My plan was to sneak into the back of the 86th Courtroom to catch a glimpse of the end of the press conference.
I walked upstairs. The back entry to the hallway of the court was blocked off, where court staff entered. Security was really tight.
I walked around to the front courtroom door entrance, where the public accessed the court. It was packed. People were lined up outside the courtroom doors, which were open due to the overflow from the inside, all the way up to the front of the courtroom where the governor was standing.
As I approached, I could hear the questions and answers. Governor Perry was assuring the reporters and citizens that Kaufman County had the full support of the state in the wake of this horrible tragedy.
As I stood at the back of the throng, I got a few crooked fingers encouraging me to move forward and stand in the courtroom to listen. By the time I eased around a few people and into the courtroom, the governor was flanked by the other local judges, the sheriff, Lance, our state’s representative, our state senator, Brandi Fernandez, a few other local dignitaries, and his own detail. There were cameras, lights, and microphones everywhere.
“The State of Texas will support this community,” Governor Perry said. “We will lend whatever resources we have at our disposal to assist Kaufman County in this time of tragedy.”
Governor Perry had the ability to make it seem like he personally knew each and every one of those within the sound of his voice. It was reassuring. If the governor’s detail got Katie warm and fuzzy, the governor still had the ability to do the same to me. It felt reassuring to know that he was in charge.
I WAS WALKING back downstairs to my office after the press conference ended. Before I got there, however, the other Judges, the sheriff, the state’s representative, and state senator waved me over. There was lunch with Governor Perry in the law library with some of the county and state officials. Lance gave me a hard look that said it all: Stop the false modesty and get your butt upstairs.
I scurried back up the stairs. Governor Perry’s security detail stopped me until I was waved in by the other elected officials in the law library.
“She’s fine,” Governor Perry said.
Someone must have told him who I was.
“She’s one of the judges,” he explained to them further, turning his eyes on me briefly and then continuing to work the rest of the room. I glanced around the room and saw it was filled with other officials, some members of staff, and security detail. Along one wall of books a makeshift lunch line had formed. Heading over, I told the server, “I’ll have the turkey, thank you,” I said. Smiling, I took a sandwich box and looked around. Seeing a familiar face, I leaned up to Judge Chitty and whispered in his ear.
“Judge, this is pretty impressive,” I said. “Whoever gets this close to the governor?”
Judge Chitty smiled back, his blue eyes twinkling.
“And not pay for it,” he added, smiling.
We both chuckled.
Governor Perry had been the governor of Texas for the last fourteen years. He had filled the unexpired term of former President, and then Governor George W. Bush, who vacated the office when he won the White House. Perry then won three consecutive elections. I could barely remember a time when he wasn’t the governor.
Over that fourteen-year span, the governor had become a strict conservative. Few people remembered that when Perry started his political career in 1984, he was a Democrat. Over the last thirty years, he had become one of the most powerful Republican officials in the country. Governor Perry had made more appointments throughout the state than any other Texas governor in modern Texas history. He wielded his political power effortlessly. For me, getting this close to a man of Governor Perry’s stature would have only happened at a political fundraising event; that would have been too pricey for my judge’s salary.
Fundraisers and politics were not in play today and it certainly didn’t seem that way for anyone observing the governor. He was the most engaged and sincere person in the room. Even though I smiled back at Judge Chitty, knowing what he meant, I watched the governor mingle and schmooze with admiration. He was definitely at home in our small county law library. Some of the press had been allowed in and was finishing up some of their questions when he turned back toward us.
“Anywhere we can sit down and eat this lunch?” he asked.
We had been awkwardly holding our lunch boxes. No one was certain if we were supposed to sit down and start eating at the big conference table in the law library. No one seemed to want to start until the governor started eating.
As if on cue, his detail opened the door of the law library to a hallway which leads to a jury room, down the hall from the law library.
“Sir, there is a conference room in this area,” one of the men from the detail said. No one bothered to correct him that it was a jury room, not a conference room.
“Thank you,” Governor Perry said, walking out of the library and into the hallway.
We followed behind him with our lunch boxes.
We sat around a table in the jury room, which was small and cramped. That was one problem with working in a courthouse that had been designated as a historical building: it was hard to alter, even if necessary due to the county’s growth.
The group sitting with the governor was some of the same group that had sat around Judge Wood’s conference table that fateful Monday, the weekend after the McLellands were killed.
Was that just a week ago? It seemed like a lifetime. So much had happened in such a short time. Our lives had been forever changed.
Governor Perry began speaking.
“A dirt farmer … do you know what a dirt farmer is?” he asked, looking at me.
I was sitting to his immediate left. He sat at the head of the table, like a patriarch at a family gathering. The other judges were scattered around the table, as well as the sheriff and state officials.
Lance and I were the youngest at the table: he, by more than twenty years, at only thirty years old; me, by more than ten, at fifty. Everyone else was sixty or over, including the governor. He just didn’t look like it. And of course, I was the only woman at the table.
There was no doubt who was in charge in the room.
Governor Perry had opened his lunchbox. It was more of a signal that we could eat because he didn’t seem to want to eat. He wanted to talk, and right then, his focus was placed squarely on me.
And I was going to place the sandwich in my mouth. Glad I waited.
“Well, sir, not really sure,” I said, smiling. “Sounds like some type of farming practice.”
That was lame, but a lawyer could always come up with some type of answer out of the context of the question.
“Dirt farming is farming with no irrigation,” he said, smiling patiently. “It’s hard. It’s brutal and it will make you want to do something else. It did me. I was born in West Texas, in Paint Creek. My dad was a dirt farmer and after I finished college—”
He stopped, seeming to lose his train of thought.
“Any Aggies?” he asked.
We all shook our heads no. I had gone to Texas Tech and Texas Law. The other lawyers were Southern Methodist University graduates. The state officeholders didn’t respond; I think they had heard this before.
He kept going, as if he hadn’t interrupted himself.
“I went back home to work the family farm,” he said. “That’s hard work. It makes you start figuring out a few things.”
As he spoke, I conjured up an image of young Governor Perry with a hoe in the middle of a vast field.
This is what made this man tough.
I knew this was a story he must have told often because it was what shaped him. Even though there was just a little bit more than a decade between us, he and I were from different generations in Texas. His had been a much harder life in some ways.
As he spoke about dirt farming, and his early years on the farm, we all respectfully listened, but my mind turned to the even harder stories of my mother’s youth. My mother was born in 1929. She was raised in a large, poor black family that was rich in love and not much else. Her father had farmed much the same way, even though I had never thought about the term dirt farming until today. My granddad was a sharecropper, where Perry’s father owned his land. My mother told stories about picking cotton, walking miles to school, and the segregated South. Those stories stuck with me. They formed her character and influenced mine.
I shook off those distant memories.
The governor is sitting six inches away from me. I need to be in the moment.
As his farming story started to wane, the other men in the room made polite conversation about farming and how times had changed to commercial farming.
I’ve got to save this conversation: “So, is that where you met the First Lady of Texas?” I asked.
I had remembered that he and Anita Perry were high school sweethearts. I think the governor appreciated the conversation shift, because he smiled at me.
“Yes, I have known Anita since we were in grade school,” he said.
He then began another familiar story for him. I could tell he loved his wife. I liked that about a man. I liked that about my husband. I smiled, thinking about Aaron. I’m sure the governor thought it was for him, since he smiled back.
We then began to talk family—kids, grandkids, the colleges that they attended. I had a graduating high school senior that year who would love to go to Vanderbilt University. He had a son who had already gone there and graduated.
The atmosphere was no doubt collegial. We weren’t uncomfortable anymore and began to swap some college stories of our own college days. He even laughed at a familiar Aggie joke. You would have thought the governor had all day and that he sat in the Kaufman County jury room all the time.
Styrofoam was rattling, a clear sign that lunch was finishing up. I glanced at my watch; we had had about fifteen minutes uninterrupted with the governor.
There was a knock on the door. It was one of his aides with a security detail standing behind him.
“Five minutes, Governor,” he said respectfully, but firmly.
Rick Perry may have changed his gubernatorial calendar to fit Kaufman County into it, but he was still the governor of a very big and busy state.
Before the door shut, the others in attendance had gotten up and were heading toward the door, following Lance’s lead. The men were walking to the head of the table, where the governor had been seated, expressing their thanks and shaking hands with each other.
The governor was standing. I was, too. I thought it was time to leave. The governor turned toward me, presumably to shake my hand. Instead, he had a question for me.
“Do you know Wallace Jefferson?” he asked.
Well, sure. He is the flipping Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Texas … first black guy to have the job, I thought.
“Yes, sir,” I said, out loud. “I know Chief Justice Jefferson.”
Then the governor sat, so I sat again, too. There was no one left in the room, as the other officials filed out.
“I went to law school with Wallace Jefferson,” I said. “I mean, Chief Jefferson. He was a much better student than I was.”
I smiled.
The governor wasn’t smiling and seemed to be weighing his words. He finally spoke.
“It’s hard being a conservative African American,” he said. “I admire Chief Jefferson so much.”
He looked at me, as if to include me in that admiration, but he was playing it honest. He didn’t know me, so he didn’t want to be condescending and verbally include me too, just because I was a black Republican as well. But he did know Chief Jefferson and his family’s story.
“Jefferson’s ancestors were slaves that was brought to Texas through Beaumont,” The governor said. “And now, his great-great-grandson is the Chief Justice of the State of Texas.”
The governor smiled with pride at his colleague.
“I don’t know why no one understands what a compelling story that is,” he said, musingly. “It’s tough, isn’t it?”
He was now looking at me, talking to me, about me.
In that moment, I knew why this man was Governor of one of the most powerful states in our country.
His last presidential run did not convey it through the medium of television, but he had it, that inexplicable, mystical thing that draws people in: charisma.
“Yes, sir,” I said, then paused.
He was the governor. I didn’t want to rush in, if he was going to continue to talk, but he didn’t. He was listening.
“It’s tough,” I said. “I’m a conservative because it makes sense to me. I don’t believe that just giving people the things they want will ever work. I mean, people need to earn the things they need and want.”
We both knew there were exceptions: the poor and disadvantaged, the elderly, the mentally and physically disabled. But we didn’t have to express it. This was not a “gotcha moment” with media types trying to twist our words. This was a moment shared by two people with shared philosophies.
“It’s hard at family gatherings,” I said. “Most of my family don’t feel that way, or many of my friends for that matter. But my husband does. We truly believe that the government needs to create the right environment for business and growth, but after that, really get out of the way.”
I was starting to warm to my topic, but I was a novice talking to a seasoned politico. So I finished quickly.
“But Governor, I’m sure these are things you already know and feel and can express better than me,” I said.
“I do, but—” He paused, changing topics midstream. “How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’m forty-nine,” I said. “I will be fifty in a little over a week.
He smiled genuinely.
“Forty-nine,” he said. “You are a baby.”
He looked me squarely in the eyes.
“I’m more than ten years older than you,” he said. “It was a different time when I grew up. Texas was segregated when I went to school, but not for you, and not for the younger ones coming behind you.”
He stood up. I did too. I knew the moment had passed.
He extended his hand. I took it.
“Judge, I appreciate your service to this state,” he said. “We are fortunate to have you.”
I was humbled. It was political rhetoric, but with my hand in his, it didn’t feel like it.
The governor was thinking something. He hesitated only briefly.
“I know these are serious times,” he said. “This community has lost three of its own. This is a striking blow to law enforcement. Whatever decisions are made later, know that I will do everything in my power to protect this community.” He hesitated and then finished, “… and to protect you. To keep you safe.”
He finished with a brotherly pat on my shoulders and opened the door. It was the briefest of conservations, it couldn’t have been three minutes, but he had an uncanny ability of connecting with people, even in a short period of time.
His aide was right there. With the governor back in hand, the aide started to brief him on the next event. They jostled him away from the law library and down the stairs, where his convoy of SUVs waited.
And then, he was gone. I’ve never seen him again.