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Chapter 3

3

The time discrepancy bugged me, although I couldn’t imagine it made a difference when Isaac Thomas had committed suicide. The next morning in the shower I went through all my hot water trying to figure it out, and trying to flush the fuzzy remnants of nightmares from my mind. I emerged no wiser with wrinkled fingers, simultaneously flushed pink and shivering cold. No big deal. You can’t stay cold for long if it’s June in Tallahassee. The humidity would have my hair a frizzy red mass by afternoon, so I didn’t bother with it. By ten a.m. I was in my office, comfortably attired in jeans and a men’s button-down shirt, but I could tell I’d be dragging by the time Noel arrived at four o’clock.

The day slipped by quickly with me catching up on paperwork, wrapping up old cases and accounts and getting started on the new. I called to set up an appointment at the prison for the next day, then prepared a contract and releases for Isaac’s records. Ready ahead of time and feeling virtuous with my accomplishments, I wandered outside to face the gorgeous if slightly muggy day. My office is downtown, but on the outskirts of total respectability, which suits me.

Downtown has some lovely older buildings, and some concrete government monstrosities, but nothing to rival the “new” capitol building. Erected in the late 1970s (pun intended), apparently the architect wanted to leave no doubt of its function as the source of power in a large and influential state. A tall, ugly tower of a building, the new capitol rises behind the more traditional columned and cupolaed old capitol, and is flanked by two rounded domes. I’ve seen Mad magazine folding covers that look less like a p***s. It sits atop a hill, the hub in a hub and spoke traffic pattern, and entering the city by way of Apalachee Parkway it looms ever larger, like political porn.

Fortunately I didn’t have that kind of office view, nor did anyone else in my neighborhood. My feet led me around the corner to my favorite coffee shop for some afternoon sustenance—carbs and caffeine. Most of the people sitting out front in the shade were familiar to me.

“Afternoon, Syd. Working hard or hardly working?” a grizzled older man asked me over the top of his cup of coffee. He wore his usual Veterans of Foreign Wars baseball cap, but I couldn’t remember his name. Though he used the same tired line every time he saw me, he still seemed to think it witty.

“I aspire to do both,” I replied with a slight bow. I reached for the door, but he wasn’t finished yet.

“I’m surprised you have time to mix with the likes of us now. The riffraff!” A laugh exploded from his hoarse throat, and he turned to share it with the two pierced and jangling young men sitting at the table to the right of him. They made no move to join in, but stopped their own conversation and eyed him tolerantly.

“Why is that, Jerry?” I asked, having recalled his name.

He directed his answer to the young men. “Betcha didn’t know our Syd here is a regular celebrity. TV, newspapers…”

He’d caught their interest now, and was enjoying the attention.

“Yeah, Jerry, I’m expecting the call from Hollywood any day.”

The stringy blonde jangler broke his silence. “What for?”

Jerry’s eyes flashed, and his bottom left the chair when he spoke, nearly jumping up in excitement. “You didn’t hear? She’s the one that told the world our governor is nothing but a dumbass cracker looking out for his own.”

“I did not! What, are you trying to get me killed?” Jerry tried to look chastened, as I tried to look outraged. “It was the Attorney General, and I didn’t say he was a cracker. I said he shouldn’t rely solely on the word of elected officials whose daddies wore white hoods to say who was being racist.”

Stringy Blonde’s jangling friend, Brown Buzz-cut, forgot his nonchalant slump, grabbed the arms of his chair and raised himself to his full sitting height. “Oh yeah, I heard about that a few months back. The case over there near Destin with the Spring Breakers.”

He turned to Stringy Blonde. “Remember, that kegger got a little crazy, and they arrested everybody. The white guys got released the next morning, but the black guys got charged.”

Now he turned to me. Hopefully not on me. “That was you, bitching about it?”

It had been more complicated than that, and I wasn’t the only one “bitching,” but he was asking for a yes or no. “Yep, that was me.”

Brown Buzz-cut sucked his cheeks in, tested his face, and sucked in his cheeks some more until he looked sufficiently badass. He stared me down for a few seconds, then ruined his handiwork with a child-like grin. Well, it was child-like if you ignored the glint of metal in his tongue.

“Good. f*****g brats.” He nodded his approval, and his grin faded. “f*****g cops.”

Returning his nod, I took the opportunity to slip inside for my coffee and bagel before Jerry started up again. I thought I’d heard the last of that little fiasco, but leave it to Jerry to resurrect it three weeks after my phone finally stopped ringing. Buzz-cut had the basic facts right, but not the context. Once word of the unequal treatment got out, charges against the black students were dropped. The State Attorney tried to bury the story, blaming it all on a computer glitch akin to Rose Mary Woods’s 1973 postural twitch for Nixon, but it was too late. An FSU professor had been compiling statistics on racial disparities in the justice system from neighborhood surveillance to charging, trials to sentencing, and the preliminary results were troubling. Civil rights groups had been waiting for the appropriate moment to release the data, a time when the public was ready to listen, and they rightly recognized it was now or never.

Unfortunately, the latest celebrity criminal trial occupied the national stage and refused to budge. However, at the state level, liberals called for a statewide investigation, a task force on race in the criminal justice system, and the generally apathetic citizenry began to agree. The governor refused, but knew he couldn’t totally ignore the public outcry. Instead, he invited fifty community activists, criminal justice advocates, and “assorted screwballs” to a token “Day of Dialogue” with the Attorney General. “Day of Dialogue” was the governor’s turn of phrase. “Assorted screwballs” was my friend Ralph’s, being one of the chosen screwballs. He’d been unable to attend (he said he couldn’t trust his temper; his wife said he was too sick), and sent me in his stead.

Ralph’s turn of phrase turned out to hold more truth than the governor’s. If the participants thought their presence would mean anything, they were screwballs. Idealistically naïve screwballs, the kind we need more of, but screwballs nonetheless. As for the day of dialogue, it wasn’t a day, and there was no dialogue. It lasted less than two hours, beginning with a self-congratulatory statement on the import of the occasion and a lengthy ass-kissing introduction of the Attorney General by one of the governor’s aides. The AG gave a prepared speech, then took three softball questions from the audience (obvious plants) before exiting the stage to make a statement to the press. I remember looking around at forty-nine other open-mouthed, speechless screwballs, all of us momentarily unable or unwilling to move from our seats. Everyone who worked for the AG or the governor had slipped out unnoticed when the AG had, so we had to find our own way out. By the time I’d navigated outside to the mocking sunshine, I’d found my voice again. And a reporter found me.

After that first reporter, I tried to be more diplomatic in my statements to the press, but I soon discovered that diplomacy wasn’t in me, at least not in this case, and tried to keep my mouth shut. The Tallahassee paper is a horrid mishmash of AP articles and state office propaganda, but a few central and southern Florida newspapers went beyond the flashy Klan accusations to the substance—the current racial iniquities in our criminal justice system. If the government wouldn’t have a dialogue with the public, at least the public was having one with each other. I can’t say I was a media darling, but for once most of my phone calls didn’t come from telemarketers.

Of course, Ralph found it all hilarious, at least in the beginning. (“Better you than me, Syd, better you than me.”) Then the fall-out got serious. I often do contract work for court-appointed attorneys and even under-staffed Public Defender offices. Suddenly my bills were routinely audited and even challenged by prosecuting attorneys in court. Attorneys, civil and criminal, became leery of hiring me for anything that might require my testimony.

The final straw, for me and for Ralph, was a letter from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) informing me that I was being investigated for my conduct in connection with an eight-year-old case. I’d been a lowly apprentice at the PD’s office at the time, and the witness I’d allegedly coerced was now dead. When I showed Ralph the letter, he ranted and raved until his wife Diane admonished him for the sake of his blood pressure. Then he marshaled his resources and a devilish grin, ordering me to go home and get some rest.

I don’t know what was said, but Diane told me that before my headlights were out of sight, he’d called one of partners of the biggest law firm in Tallahassee. At home. Within a week, I had a letter from FDLE saying the investigation had been closed for insufficient evidence, and I was back to getting my bills paid on time (by government standards, that is). Now I could support my coffee habit.

Shaking Jerry took longer than I realized, and I had to chat with the barista and some of the other regulars while I ate my bagel. By the time I brushed the sesame and poppy seeds from my shirt, any chance of punctuality for my 4 p.m. appointment with Noel had slipped away. At 4:03, I did what any professional investigator would have done in the same circumstances—I slipped off my sandals and ran.

When I got to my office, Noel was already sitting on the front steps. Her expression was unreadable. “Sorry, Noel. I—anh!”

Pain shot through my foot. Better than any sweet mantra, the thought of my still technically “potential client” watching helped to suppress the expletives dancing on my tongue. Instead I settled for a squealing grunt through clenched teeth and hopped the remaining few feet to the front steps with as much dignity as I could muster. I’d stepped on the detritus of an overhanging sweet gum tree, one of those barbed seedpods shaped like a medieval torture device. Sitting down next to Noel, I used the cuff of my sleeve to gingerly tug the barbs from my arch while not embedding them in my fingers.

“Ouch!” Noel said, watching the operation.

“You’ve been given a rare gift today. I generally try not to make a fool of myself in front of a client until after we’ve signed the contract, but for you…”

The left corner of her mouth turned up in what I was growing to recognize as her smile. “If that’s the best you’ve got, why wait? I can’t imagine you’ll scare anyone away that easily.”

We went inside, and while I tended to my foot she walked around my office, glancing at the books and limited tchotchkes on my shelves. She had just roamed to my desk when I emerged from the bathroom with a fresh bandage.

“You don’t have any family pictures,” she said. It sounded more like an accusation than an observation. At least it did to me.

I sat down behind my desk and handed the folder with the article to her. “Your father died eighteen months ago.” Actually, it was twenty, but who’s counting?

Noel looked at the paper. “I didn’t know that’s when this was,” she mumbled. She didn’t take the time to read the article before closing the folder and meeting my gaze, her own face expressionless.

For me, math is one of those things like cleaning. I try to avoid it like—well, cleaning—but once I get into the groove it’s hard to stop. “When were you born?”

“October 6, 1972.” Her response was automatic.

“So you were eight years old when your mother was killed, not six.” I gave her a moment to catch up with my lightning calculations. When her eyes narrowed at me I moved on. “Noel, I’m going on the road tomorrow, to the Panhandle. Visiting your relatives, the prison where your father died. Is there anything else you want to tell me before then?”

Noel leaned over to reach in her bag, this time simple black leather the size of a briefcase, but soft and with no lock. She pulled out a manila folder and placed it on my desk. “Here’s a copy of my birth certificate. I thought you might need it to go with the releases. Shall we sign those now?”

I considered staring her down, refusing to answer, but I was beginning to think she was nearly as stubborn as me and it would get me nowhere. Instead I pulled out my own folder and my notary stamp, slid the papers across the desk, and indicated where to sign. I may have pressed my stamp with a bit more force than was necessary when she handed the signed papers back. Antsy with agitation, as well as the adrenaline of being late and foot-pierced, I went to the mini-fridge and rummaged among the sodas to give myself more time to breathe. I held up one, and Noel nodded her approval. My hands were steady when I handed her the can, then pried up my own tab, the gases releasing a satisfying ffssshhh.

Noel didn’t open hers immediately. She set it in front of her and traced patterns in the quickly appearing condensation. She picked up the can, transferring it from one hand to the other, then set it back on my desk. “My family isn’t exactly on board with this. In fact, they may not be very happy to see you.” This confessed, she opened her soda and took a quick gulp.

“How not happy to see me? Not offering lemon for my tea not happy, or turn out the dogs as soon as I open the car door not happy?”

She pursed her lips together and tilted her head back. “I’m honestly not sure.” Then she smiled. “But don’t worry—grandmother wouldn’t think of owning such a filthy creature as a dog.”

“I’m sure that’s meant to be reassuring.”

“No, not really,” she admitted. “More prophylactic, I suppose. Grandmother can be a hard woman, but she may be less painful to deal with if you know what you’re up against going in.”

“And just what am I up against?”

“A woman of iron will, with little tolerance for the shortcomings of others. She loves her family fiercely, and protects them at all costs.”

“Will she see me as a threat to her family?”

“She may. Grandmother doesn’t understand this, why I want to do it, why I can’t leave the past alone. She tried to talk me out of it. Well, that’s a kind way of putting it. She doesn’t talk anyone out of anything. She just forbids you from doing it.”

“Do most people listen?”

“Oh, yes. She’s the matriarch. She determines what’s best—she always has—and everyone else falls in line. Even now, with her health failing, no one questions her right or her ability to govern our lives.” Noel said this without the slightest trace of bitterness or irony.

Gee, so much to look forward to. Noel was going to speak to her family again this evening, to prepare them for my arrival. I doubt she was eager to perform such a task, but she certainly didn’t spend any time in my office procrastinating. Maybe she just wanted to be away from me. Within a few minutes, we had finished with our paperwork, and she gathered her things and headed toward the door.

Noel paused with her hand on the screen door latch and turned back to face me. “You know, Sydney, I don’t know why, but my family acts as if they’re afraid of the past.”

Were they now? Somehow I didn’t think her family was alone.