Death, Taxes, and Hot Pink Leg Warmers (20 page)

“If there’s anything we don’t have enough of around here,” Trumbull said, “it’s time. Motion denied.”

Plimpton’s eyes flashed with fire. “You realize that decision gives me grounds for appeal.”

Trumbull leaned forward across the bench. “Are you threatening me?”

“Of course not.” Plimpton offered a smug smile. “I’m simply stating a fact. Another fact is that I graduated third in my class from Harvard Law.”

The court reporter typed “Harvard Law” with an exaggerated flourish, casting a sidelong glance at the attorney.

“Third, huh?” The judge tilted her chair back and lifted her feet, clad in the ugliest pair of earth shoes imaginable, to her bench. “Well, let me throw a fact back at you, sweetie. I graduated first in my class from the school of hard knocks and I take no guff in my courtroom. You will stop acting like a snot-nosed brat or I’ll toss you out on your skinny Ivy League ass.”

Cowed, the woman took her seat. I fought a
neener-neener
.

Needham requested the jury be sequestered during the trial.

Trumbull chewed on the end of her pen as she mulled over the request. “Sequestering is expensive. How long do you expect this trial to take, Mr. O’Donnell?”

Ross glanced down at Ackerman, Eddie, and me, and we put our heads together to come up with an estimate of three days, give or take.

“I suppose I can send the jurors over to the Hilton for a few nights.” The judge made a note in her file. “Ready to pick a jury?”

When the lawyers murmured their agreement, the bailiff walked to the courtroom door and held it open while three dozen people of various shapes, sizes, and colors entered the room and took seats in the gallery.

Eddie pointed to an elderly woman wearing a sweater jacket over a faded floral housedress, her gray hair rolled up in pink sponge curlers. “Isn’t that what’s-her-name from the Mendoza case? The mean old lady with all the cats?”

Sure enough, Ernestine Griggs sat in the front row, a scowl on her face. She was none too happy that jury duty had taken her away from daytime television. Next to Ernestine sat a diminutive Asian man in wire-framed glasses. His face contorted like a reflection in a funhouse mirror and he sneezed in rapid succession like a machine gun.
Ah-choo-choo-choo! Ah-choo-choo-choo!
No doubt he was allergic to the pet hair that had hitched a ride on Ernestine’s housedress. He pulled a tissue from his pocket and blew his nose.

Ernestine waved a hand at the man. “Move. I don’t need to catch the bird flu from you.”

“It’s allergies,” the man replied.

She waved him away again. “I don’t need to catch your allergies, neither.”

Rather than explain that allergies were not contagious, the man stood, squeezed past several other people, and took a seat at the end of the row.

Once the pool was seated, Trumbull explained the jury interrogation process. The procedure was called voir dire in French and, though pronounced
vwahr dear
in most places, in Texas we went all-out redneck and pronounced it
voy dar
. When Trumbull finished, she gestured to Ross. “Let’s roll, Mr. Prosecutor.”

Ross stood at the top of the aisle and introduced himself to the jury. He then introduced Ackerman, Eddie, and me, explaining that we had performed the investigation and thus would be key witnesses in the case. We stood and gave the jurors a raised hand in acknowledgment.

Ross asked the jurors whether any of them knew the defendants, whether any felt they could not be impartial, whether any worked in the banking, mortgage, or construction industries.

Ernestine crooked a finger at me and Eddie. “I know them two. Does that count?”

Eddie and I explained our previous interactions with Ernestine for the court.

Ross stepped toward the gallery, resting a hand on the half wall that separated the benches from the counsel tables as he addressed Ernestine. “Will your earlier fraud case affect your ability to be unbiased in this trial?”

“Not at all,” Ernestine spat. “So long as we can string the bastards up by their balls.”

The judge didn’t wait for the defense attorneys’ inevitable reaction before indicating the door with her gavel. “You’re dismissed, Ms. Griggs.”

I watched the jurors as Ross asked his questions. One of them, a middle-aged woman with reading glasses, pulled two knitting needles and a skein of yarn from a bag at her feet and began to knit one, purl two. A twentyish man in a Quickie Slickie Oil Change uniform fidgeted in his seat, rolling his head and cracking his neck, using his car keys to pick gum off the bottom of his steel-toed work shoe. A gender-indeterminate hipster in skinny jeans and a hoodie hid under long brown bangs lying at an angle across the top half of his or her face. An Indian American woman wearing a red dot on her forehead and an orange sari over her curvy frame sneaked jelly beans out of her purse and into her mouth, despite the sign on the wall that read
NO FOOD OR DRINKS IN THE COURTROOM.

A man in a scraggly beard and frayed flannel shirt raised his hand. “Did you say sumpin’ ’bout tax invasion? ’Cause I hate the stinkin’ IRS. They’re dockin’ my paychecks. It ain’t fair.”

Ain’t fair?
What wasn’t fair was that millions of people paid their taxes while deadbeats like this guy and the Tennis Racketeers sat back and let others foot the bill for national defense, highways, and Social Security. Heck, the courthouse we were sitting in had been paid for with federal tax dollars. The air-conditioning bill would also be paid with tax funds. Of course, some of those funds could be saved if it weren’t so damn cold in here. I could no longer feel my toes.

Judge Trumbull let the bearded boor go. None of the other jurors seemed sad to see him leave. The fact that he’d been digging his pinkie in his ear since he’d arrived hadn’t endeared him to the rest of the pool.

Ross spent several minutes questioning a woman in a blue dress. She worked at a title company, knew many of the real estate agents in town, and could potentially have a bias. Ross took a step closer to the woman. “Are you familiar with—”

The Commodores’ classic “Brick House” blared from the gallery.

Trumbull waved her gavel at the jurors. “Who forgot to turn off their cell phone?”

The Indian woman shrank in her seat, surreptitiously turning her cell phone to silent.

Ross wrapped up his questions without dismissing the potential juror.

“Your turn, defense counsel,” Trumbull said. “One at a time.”

Plimpton demanded the woman who worked for the title company be dismissed for cause. She knew the juror would see the botched paperwork for what it was, complete and utter nonsense designed to trick desperate homeowners into handing over their houses for next to nothing.

Despite Ross’s objections, Judge Trumbull went with the defense. “You’re free to go,” she told the woman.

A smile broke out on the woman’s face. No doubt she’d take the rest of the day off but tell her employer she’d been tied up in court all day. Who could blame her?

The attorney asked the jurors whether anyone had ever been defrauded.

A middle-aged man with a clip-on tie raised his hand. “I gave five hundred dollars to those Nigerians. Never did get the millions they were supposed to send me.”

The Quickie Slickie oil tech snorted. “That was stupid.”

Clip-On rose to his feet. “You want to take this outside, oil jockey?”

Judge Trumbull banged her gavel.
Bam!
“Sit down!”

Clip-On took his seat, but when Trumbull’s attention turned elsewhere he pointed at his eyes then turned his fingers on the oil tech. The oil jockey offered one particular finger in return.

The defense attorneys spent all morning and a good part of the afternoon interviewing the jurors. Some of their questions made sense.
Have you ever lost a home to foreclosure? Have you ever sought assistance from a debt-relief company?
Others, in my opinion, didn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Are you married, single, or divorced? What neighborhood do you live in?
They might as well ask,
Who put the bop-in-the-bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop?
Or,
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Or,
How many nuns does it take to change a lightbulb?
And, of course, all of us were still waiting to learn
Who let the dogs out?

Judge Trumbull gave us a half-hour lunch break, barely enough time to grab a greasy slice of pizza in the courthouse snack bar. After lunch, the attorneys questioned the jury pool regarding their knowledge of the case. Though the arrest of the defendants had been front-page news and a featured story in television newscasts, it hadn’t personally affected any in the pool so none had paid it much attention. For once, self-interest played in our favor.

When the group had been narrowed down to twenty presumably impartial and unbiased potential jurors, the judge asked whether any objected to being sequestered.

“I’m divorced with three teenagers,” replied the knitter. “This trial will be a vacation.”

On hearing his fellow juror was single, Clip-On craned his neck from the second row to take a better look at her.

“Will the hotel have down bedding?” asked the Asian man. “I’m allergic to feathers.”

“Do we get room service?” asked the Indian brick house.

The oil tech chimed in, too. “What about a fitness room?”

“You’ll get a basic room without TV and a small expense account for the hotel restaurant,” Trumbull said. “No turndown service, no mint on the pillow. You are not to leave the hotel, read any newspapers, surf the Web, or talk to anyone about this case while the trial is going on. Got it?”

The Asian man raised a timid hand. “The bedding?”

The judge returned her gavel to its stand. “Talk to the hotel manager.”

Jury selection wrapped up at three o’clock. By then the knitter had completed a pair of mittens and what appeared to be either a toaster cozy or a pair of underpants. Twelve jurors had been chosen, along with three alternates. The yarn enthusiast, the oil jockey, Clip-On, the hipster, and the Indian brick house had survived the culling.

Judge Trumbull called it a day. “Everyone be back at nine in the morning. No stragglers.”

chapter twenty-four

Bye-bye Birdie

As we left the courthouse, I turned to Eddie. “Want to work out with me and Lu? It’s Pilates again.”

“You gonna wear those ridiculous leg warmers?”

“Yeah.” They’d grown on me. Besides, they were a gift from the Lobo. The old broad was overbearing and demanding, but I liked her nonetheless. “You got something to say about it?”

Eddie raised his palms in surrender. “Who am I to question you about your wardrobe?”

Nick joined Eddie, me, and Lu at the Y for the Pilates class. I enjoyed working out with the balls and stretchy bands. They were much easier than the Zumba moves.

As I stopped at the water fountain afterward, Nick twirled his towel into a tight, twisted weapon and snapped it at me, popping me on the butt with it. “You’re looking mighty fine these days.”

“It’s these workouts with Lu.” I wiped water from my mouth with the back of my hand. “She’s really pushing herself. It’s forced me to step up my game.”

“Keep it up,” Nick said, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Because I’m going to give you the workout of your life.”

I could hardly wait.

*   *   *

Tuesday evening, a cold fall drizzle moved into the metroplex. While the moisture would normally turn my hair into an unmanageable ball of frizz, with my new curly perm my hair became curlier and springier. There’s a lot to be said for such a carefree style.

It was another relatively slow night at Guys & Dolls. Neither Nick nor Aaron Menger were working, so Christina and I were on our own. Both of the men had told us to text them if Wesley Prescott showed his face at the club.
If he’s there, I’m there,
Nick’s text said.
Don’t take any chances.

I knew Nick only meant to express concern, but a part of me couldn’t help but feel annoyed at the implication that we might take a stupid risk. Then again, I had been stupid before, not realized a risk existed, and ended up with a fractured skull. My confidence was still shaky, which annoyed me even more. If we could take Geils down, though, my self-esteem would be restored.

As I headed to the bar for a soda, I noticed a couple of men in the audience had taken advantage of the small crowd to flash a lot of cash. In a short time, both were surrounded by young women clamoring to earn a big tip. I had to wonder if the men might be undercover cops from the Dallas PD sex crimes unit trying to buy their way into the VIP room.

One of the regular but less generous customers, a burly, beer-bellied guy, didn’t like being ignored. He stood at his table and hollered, “What’s a guy gotta do to see some tits around here?”

Maybe tip more than three bucks for a lap dance? Heck, even I knew that.

The dancers on the club floor glanced briefly his way and began arguing among themselves. One of them eventually acquiesced and walked less than enthusiastically to beer belly’s table.

“That’s more like it!” he called, sitting down again and holding his arms out to his sides, wiggling his fingers. “Come to papa.”

Urk.

The girl turned her back to him and performed a halfhearted lap dance, all the while making eyes at Theo across the bar. Would I ever get used to a world where it was normal to flirt with one guy while bumping your ass against the crotch of another? It was like working in some alternate, sexually charged universe.

“Thanks, Theo.” I signed the card slip, took my soda, and returned to the cash office.

Payroll taxes were due tomorrow, and Merle was working his way through the records, adding up the wages and tips paid, computing the Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes due.

I finished counting a dancer’s tips and found myself totally caught up with no envelopes waiting to be counted.

“Good job, Sara,” Merle said. “You work fast.”

“I aim to please.” I performed a sitting curtsy in my rolling chair.