Chapter 17

Fifty: More Than a Birthday

MY BIRTHDAY, FRIDAY, the 12th of April, was a beautiful day. The weather was perfect, with no sign of rain. I was not going to accept the long-held belief that attaining the age of fifty for a woman meant you were old. I didn’t feel that way. I felt ebullient.

It was a new beginning of a new chapter in my life.

My career plan had previously been to seek a higher bench and to move up through the judiciary. By taking this position as district attorney, that path had changed. I didn’t know if I would ever sit as a judge again in a courtroom. But I would always have the experience of being a judge. The moniker of Judge was an honor I would always carry with me, even into retirement.

That Friday, however, I wasn’t thinking about judging or prosecuting. I was thinking about celebrating. After all, it was my birthday, and a big one at that.

While Texas is known for its unbearable heat during the summer months, Texan springs are often lovely. I loved spring weather, particularly if we could avoid a thunderstorm or a tornado threatening the horizon. The humidity was below 50 percent and the day was warm, but not hot. The kind of day when bluebonnets, the legendary state flower, speckle the green spaces along the state highways.

Some of my friends had decided to leave work early and a celebration on a patio in Dallas was the first order of business to kick off the birthday festivities.

“LUCRETIA, I WASN’T sure you were going to make it!” I squealed.

I had regressed back to college, when Lucretia Shaw Scarth my college roommate arrived. Now she lived in Fort Worth and had made the drive over to Dallas for drinks on the patio at one of the city’s many eateries.

“I wouldn’t miss it!” she squealed in return, grinning. “I love you being a whole month older. I’m forty-nine. You’re fifty,” she reminded me. Her birthday was in May.

I was surrounded by a group of women that had been friends with me through the years. Lucretia was probably the oldest friend, going back to the ’80s to our undergraduate days at Texas Tech.

Then there was Katherine. I grinned at her over my glass of wine. Our eyes locked. Katherine and I had known each other since law school at the University of Texas. The classes were so large that we did not meet at the law school campus, but at our mutual job. We both clerked for the Austin City Attorney’s office and shared a desk while we researched legal issues. We later worked together at the Dallas County Criminal District Attorney’s office and had remained friends over the years.

Katherine had shared in my losses and shared in the triumphs, too. Today was a triumph.

The group was rounded out with Sandra, Michelle, Mary, and Andrea, who were all successful businesswomen or judges in their own right.

“So, how is this going to work?” Andrea asked. “You really going to accept this appointment? You know we need to talk.” She was emphatic. “Don’t take it.”

Andrea was concerned about my safety. She had expressed it before. I hadn’t had a chance to explain Aaron’s and my shared logic about being even safer. To her, I was an African American woman and I was making myself a target. She hadn’t even thought I should apply and certainly shouldn’t consider accepting the appointment.

“Seriously, you need to consider the risks,” she said, her eyes narrowing, her face composed in a no-nonsense expression. I heard her, but I didn’t want to discuss the negative aspects of being district attorney. I couldn’t tell her that I had said yes and I was going to be the next district attorney in Kaufman, pending a senate confirmation hearing.

The conversation moved on to different topics: our work, the kids, and the security detail. No matter how macabre the reasons were to have a security detail, it was still pretty cool to have your own ensconced bodyguards.

The agents seemed to enjoy being outside, despite the small spectacle we were beginning to make. They had dressed for the occasion. Instead of wearing their normal slacks and loose shirts, tonight they had on suits, which dressed up their appearance and still concealed their weapons. I’m sure the patrons of the restaurant wondered who we were—was one of our entourage a famous entertainer, celebrity, or high-ranking political official?

“I want that one,” Michelle said, grinning and pointing to one of the agents in hushed tones.

She had used her index finger to indicate one of the Homeland Security agents who looked exceptionally handsome in his dark suit. He was tall with dark hair, mirrored glasses, and a patient smile.

“I’m sure he heard you,” I said. “That was a pretty loud whisper.”

“Umm, that’s okay,” Michelle said, flashing another smile his way.

She was a beautiful woman and also one of my few unmarried friends. She was the type of woman that always got a second look from men. She could probably always have a boyfriend if she wanted to, but sometimes with her independence and work schedule, she would rather go it alone. She was a fierce competitor in the gas pipeline safety business, working for a small nonprofit company in our county. Her focus was primarily on school buses and children’s safety, where the school buses cross path with gas pipelines throughout the country.

While our friendship had not been a long one, I appreciated her know-how and no-nonsense personality. For instance, when she learned that I was donating a kidney to my husband, she contacted the local media. In her business, she had contacts in the media and she didn’t mind making calls. I was surprised that The Dallas Morning News wanted to do a story about the unlikely circumstance of a husband-and-wife match, and that the gift was given on Valentine’s Day in 2008.

Returning to the present, I was starting to relax. The wine, conversation, my girlfriends, and a patio … that had the desired effect. My smiled widened.

“It isn’t so bad being fifty,” I mused to myself.

I looked up, and caught the eye of one of the men in the detail. He smiled at me briefly, then continued to cautiously scan the area surrounding the restaurant.

My thoughts traveled again to how much gratitude I had for these men and women who were here for us. I had begun to know and like the people on the detail, but I knew they had been pulled off other assignments to protect me and my family and the other officials in our county. I knew there was other law enforcement work to be done and I knew that in another week, we would have to reassess the threat level.

Would they be allowed to stay or would they go? If they stayed, it was more interruption to my life, but my family and I would be safer. However, the security detail’s other assignments would continue to get pushed to the back.

These men and women were well-trained Homeland Security agents. When they left Kaufman County, how much danger would we all be in?

My smile faded. I felt the tension creep into my shoulders and the unanswered concerns return to the forefront of my mind. That was the problem with this case: we didn’t have a suspect in custody, yet we all thought we knew who the suspect was.

We knew it was Eric Williams.

“There’s something posted on Facebook about the case,” Michelle said, interrupting my thoughts. Her phone, like the rest of ours, was laid on the tabletop, within easy reach.

We all knew what she meant when she said “the case.” There was only one case on our minds.

“Judge, I just got a text too,” Katie said, looking up from her phone.

And then, like on a television show, the TV over the bar across the patio interrupted regular broadcasting with a live news report.

“Kaufman County officials are executing a search warrant at the home of former Justice of the Peace Eric Williams at his residence in Kaufman. Sources have confirmed that the search is related to the recent murders in Kaufman County at the home of the Criminal District Attorney and his wife,” the voice said from the broadcast.

The reporter continued, but for me the rest was white noise. I looked around at my friends gathered for my birthday celebration and snapped back to life.

“Oh my God!” I said. “This may be ending. I don’t know what is going on, but they’ve got something.”

No one knew what was going to happen next in the investigation, but the women surrounding me knew as I did that the threat was suddenly reducing before our eyes. There was a mental sigh. Was it too soon to express relief? I glanced at the agents. Their phones were getting texts, which meant that law enforcement was receiving credible information, not just news reports.

I figured they had more information about the new turn of events than I did, but I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to compromise anything by asking them what they knew. Did they seem more relaxed too, or was it my imagination? Was that ease from the news accounts or some other information they had learned from their contacts?

Either way, the party began in earnest. My friends, with security in tow, made another stop in Dallas. The evening was capped off with dinner at the famous Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. With the fine weather and a beautiful view, the patio’s offering was too much to resist. We shared dinner and when the evening ended, the detail returned us safely back home. My friends enjoyed the VIP treatment and the agents enjoyed the fact that probably for the first time since their assignment started, the actionable threat level had decreased.

The suspect would be in custody soon.

Later, I learned that the search of Eric Williams’s home tied the anonymous email tip back to him. The previous week when Sheriff Byrnes had shared the tip with the judges, we all had a hunch it came from Eric Williams, but now they had evidence found in the search that tied him conclusively to the threat in the email—the number from the tip scrawled on a piece of paper next to Williams’s computer.

The evidence still did not rise to the level of capital murder charges, but the email from Williams did meet the legal criteria of a terrorist threat. It wasn’t much, but it did amount to something officials could hold him for while the investigation continued.

That weekend, the case against Williams built quickly. A friend of his came forward the following day and told police that he had rented a storage unit for Williams in Seagoville, Texas, a suburban city between Kaufman County and Dallas. Based on that information, another search warrant was executed. Law enforcement officials found a cache of weapons, a getaway car in the storage unit, and a single, unspent bullet that would ultimately tie him to Mark’s murder too.

The net was closing in on Eric Williams.