RG2 - Twenty-Nine and a Half Reasons (18 page)

He sighed and gripped my elbow. “It’s gonna be okay. I promise. Judge McClary can’t really sentence you to thirty days. The most you’ll be there is five.”

I sobbed even harder. Five days? Locked in a tiny room? I fell to the floor, hyperventilating.

The bailiff’s eyes bugged out and he swung his head around looking for help. Dealing with a hysterical woman who had flopped on the floor was most likely not part of a bailiff’s training. He was clearly out of his element.

I sat on my bottom, snot and tears flowing when Neely Kate rounded the corner.

“
Rose
?”

“Neely…Kate…” I squeezed through my closed off throat.

She knelt beside me while poor Bailiff Spencer looked more dismayed. “What happened?”

“I’m going…to…jail.”

“
Why
?”

“Contempt of court,” the bailiff said. “She was investigating the case.”

Neely Kate put her hand on my arm and rubbed. “Why would you do that?”

“Because…he’s…innocent.”

“Oh,” she sighed and pulled me into a hug, my head on her shoulder, and she rubbed my back. “There, there. Judge McClary is a hothead. Everyone knows that. He’ll change his mind. How long did he give you?”

“Thirty…days.”

“Oh.”

“But he can’t do that,” the bailiff said. “The most he can give her is five.”

Neely Kate leaned back and gave me a bright smile. “See? Things are lookin’ better already!”

I nodded, trying to calm down. I’d brought this on myself. While I understood that fact, it didn’t make it easier.

Neely Kate handed me a tissue from her pocket, which thankfully was unused. I wiped my face, sucking in big gulps of air. Bailiff Spencer gave me an impatient look.

Neely Kate whispered in my ear, “You have to go, Rose. Are you ready?”

I nodded, my body shaking. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

She helped me up while the bailiff watched, his face drawn tight with anxiety. He must’ve been worried I’d freak out in the tunnel.

Thinking the same thing, Neely Kate clasped my hand in hers and looked at Spencer, her jaw set in determination. “I’m comin’ with her to the county jail.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”

We took small steps as we eased into the tunnel. Thankfully, it wasn’t very long and I could see the end within twenty feet. I kept my eyes on the other side and willed myself to put one foot in front of the other, squeezing Neely Kate’s hand so tight I was sure I’d cut off her circulation.

Once we emerged, it was a short walk to the county jail, which I supposed came in handy when transferring prisoners to court. But I wasn’t ready to be locked up yet. How was I going to survive days and days of confinement?

The rest of the process was a blur. Neely Kate had to leave me at the front desk. After handing over my purse and my ring, the only jewelry I wore, they took my picture against the height chart. I’m sure I looked quite the mess with my red nose and tear-streaked face, although it might have been better than some of my hideous elementary school photos. Next they took my fingerprints and let me use the phone.

I wasn’t sure who to call. I would have called the attorney Violet hired when I was suspected of murdering Momma, but I couldn’t remember Deanna’s phone number. I briefly considered calling Joe, but he was up in Little Rock and I didn’t want him to take off work.

Fresh tears welled in my eyes and my throat closed up when I realized I wasn’t going to go to Little Rock for the weekend. What would Joe think when I didn’t show up?

In the end, there was only one person to call.

She answered on the second ring, hesitation in her voice. I could only imagine what she expected based on Fenton County Jail showing up on caller ID. “Hello?”

“Violet.” My voice was muffled with my tears.

“
Rose
?” Panic laced her words. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“No, Violet.” I was crying harder and I forced myself to calm down so Violet could understand me. “I’m going…to jail.”

“Jail?
What on Earth for
?”

“For contempt…of court.”

“What? How is that possible? Did you have a vision and blurt it out?”

“No. That’s not it.” I gulped back the sobs about to break free. “I was investigating the case.”

“You
what
?”

“I was invest—”

“Oh, I heard what you said. I’m just not believing it.”

“Violet, it’s true. Can you call Deanna?”

I heard her sharp intake of breath. “This is all his fault.”

“Bruce Wayne Decker’s?”

“Who in the world is that?
No
. Joe McAllister. Joe Simmons. Whatever his name happens to be this week. Who can trust a man whose name’s always changing?”

My mouth dropped open. She was choosing
now
to go into this? “Violet, you’ve got it all wrong. Joe had nothing to do with this.”

“Of course, you’re defendin’ him. You take his side over mine even after this.”

“Violet, I have no earthly idea what you’re sayin’. Can we please talk about this later? I don’t have much time.”

“What do you mean you don’t have much
time
?” Her breath came in short gasps. “Oh, my Lord! They’re executing you for investigating a case?”

“No! Violet, please! I need you to call Deanna.”

“Surely they won’t execute you today!”

“No one’s getting executed!” I shouted in exasperation. “I’m runnin’ out of time on my phone call. Violet, listen to me! I need you to call Deanna.”

“Oh.” She seemed to have regained her wits. “I’ll call her right away.”

“And then I need you to call Joe. Otherwise, he won’t know what happened, and he’ll worry himself sick when I don’t show up or answer my cell phone.”

“You expect me to call that man after what he’s done to you?”

“Violet! He hasn’t done
anything
to me. He wasn’t part of this at all. Please, Violet. I need you to do this for me.”

The guard pointed to his watch. “Time’s up.”

“I have to go. Please take care of Muffy. I’m gonna be in here for thirty days.”

“
What
?
Thirty days
? I’m calling Deanna right way. She’ll get you out.”

“And call Joe.”

“No, that man deserves—”

The phone went dead and I looked up at the guard in horror.

He shrugged. “I warned you.”

As he marched me to my cell, my dismay that Joe wouldn’t know what happened to me almost overwhelmed my fear of getting locked up. What would he do?

The guard stopped in front of a room with bars across the front and slid the door open. “Here’s where you’ll be staying.”

I stood in the entrance, my feet to be glued to the floor. Thankfully, the jail cell wasn’t as dingy as I expected. It held a cot and a toilet. But there weren’t any windows and three of the walls were a light gray concrete. I wasn’t sure how’d I survive five days in there, let alone thirty.

“How am I supposed to go to the bathroom?” I pointed to the toilet. “There’s no doors.”

The guard laughed. “You’ll figure it out.” He put his hand on my back and gave me a small push.

My feet dug in and I resisted. “There’s been a terrible mistake.”

“The only mistake I heard about was you deciding to play detective when your job was supposed to be juror.”

I couldn’t argue with that, and I also couldn’t resist his firm push. I stumbled into the cell. The door slammed shut behind me. Spinning around, I sucked in a deep breath as panic swamped my head.

It’s just a room. Just an ugly room.

A room with a locked door. You’re trapped in here
.

I sat on the cot, taking deep breaths to stave off my brewing anxiety attack.

About an hour later, the guard brought me a metal tray with sandwich and a bottle of water. “Lunch time.”

“Already?”

He chuckled and handed the tray though a slot on the door. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

I glared. There really was nothing funny about incarceration. “I’m not hungry.”

“You better eat anyway. Dinner time’s not for another six hours and there ain’t any snacks.”

I stood and pulled the tray through the slot. “Has my attorney shown up yet?”

“Nope. The only person who’s been asking about you is a blonde-headed woman who won’t stop talking. She’s asked to see you about ten times and we keep telling her no, but she’s a persistent thing.”

I couldn’t resist my smile. “Neely Kate.”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“Just tell her I’m okay and I’ll call her later. She might leave then.”

“I think Scott was about to cave and let her back.”

That didn’t surprise me. Neely Kate was a force to be reckoned with.

“No one else?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, thanks.” I sat down on the cot with my tray and lifted a slice of bread. Bologna. And nothing else. I hadn’t eaten a bologna sandwich since I was a kid. Wrinkling my nose, I set the tray on the mattress and leaned my head back against the wall. I decided to look on the bright side. Maybe I’d lose weight.

“I hear some inmates are repeat offenders just to come back for the bologna sandwiches.”

My head jerked up in surprise. Mason Van de Camp Deveraux III stood in front of my cell, one hand gripping a metal bar. His usually neat hair looked a little ruffled. His jacket was missing and his tie hung loose, the top button of his shirt undone.

“You here to gloat?”

His mouth pursed and he leaned his forehead against the bars. “Nope. No gloating here.”

“Then what are you doin’ here?” Why was I always so hateful to this man?

His other hand wrapped around a metal bar. “Something’s been bothering me all morning.”

I swallowed an ugly retort and raised my eyebrows instead. “And?”

He sighed and looked down at the floor before leveling his gaze on me. “You came to see me yesterday, but then we had our little
run-in
.” He paused, swallowing. “I can’t help but wonder why you were there. Especially in light of this morning’s revelations.”

Mercy sakes alive
. Mr. Deveraux was not only being civil, but he was trying to be nice.

I shook my head, twisting my mouth. “That’s okay. You wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”

His eyes burned into mine. “Try me.”

I stood and moved in front of him, barely two feet away. “I probably would have chickened out, even if we hadn’t had our
run-in
.”

“Why? Am I really that scary?”

I laughed in spite of my irritation. “Yes, you
are
that scary. Just about everyone in the courthouse thinks you are.”

He smirked, one side of his mouth lifting into a grin. “Which explains the applause after you told me off in the hall yesterday.”

“They thought you had it coming.”

Tilting his head, he smiled. A genuine smile that made him appear ten years younger. When he relaxed his perpetual scowl, he was a handsome man, especially with his blond hair ruffled like it was. “I suppose I did.” He paused and his smile fell, but his guard was still down. “So why did you come see me before I interrupted you with my rudeness?”

I leaned my side against the bars and sighed. “I wanted to tell you that Mr. Decker is innocent.”

He turned his head to study me. “But you said you didn’t know anything about the case in
voir dire
. Did you lie?”

As nice as he was at the moment, I couldn’t tell him about the vision. He’d think I was crazy and they might send me to the county mental hospital instead. “No. I promise I didn’t lie. But I discovered something right before the trial started. I just didn’t know what it was at the time. But that’s why I ran into you that first morning. It scared me enough to make me not look where I was going and I ended up running into you.”

Mr. Deveraux stood up straighter, a hard look filling his eyes, and his voice lowered. “Did someone threaten you, Rose?”

“What?” I shook my head. “No. Nothing like that. But…it’s kind of like I overheard something.” Which technically was true.

“Help me understand and maybe I can get you out of here.”

I narrowed my gaze. “Why would you do that?”

His forehead wrinkled and he looked forlorn. “Maybe I want to prove I’m not such a bad guy, in spite of my previous behavior.”

“People might believe it if you were actually nice.”

A smile brightened his face as he laughed. “You know how to cut to the heart of it, don’t you?”

With a shrug, I leaned my head into the bars. “My sister would disagree. Look where I am now.”

“You’re in here because of me.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not true.”

“If I had let you tell me what you came to say, maybe I could have talked some sense into you instead of sending you off.”

“And I’m tellin’ you I would have probably chickened out and things would have turned out the exact same way.”

“So tell me this: why were you snooping around Frank Mitchell’s house?”

“I was hoping to find out more about him and why someone would kill him.”

His eyes hardened, his worldliness returning. “We know exactly who killed him.”

“You’ve got the wrong man.”

“Then tell me what you know, Rose.”

What could I tell him? Joe said everything I knew was hearsay. Besides, Mason Deveraux wouldn’t believe me. Not that I blamed him.

Still, an innocent man’s life hung in the balance and I might be able to tip the scales in his favor. “Here’s what I know: Frank Mitchell owed people money. Bookies, from what I hear. I also know someone wanted Frank Mitchell to sell his house to them. Desperately enough to upset him. I also know, from you in the trial, that hardly any money was stolen. That doesn’t sound like much of a robbery to me.”

“Maybe the robber panicked. He didn’t plan to run into the victim and after he killed him, he was too scared and upset to think about it. So he grabbed a small out of cash and left most of it behind.”

“Mr. Decker’s right-handed.”

He frowned in confusion. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“The murderer is left-handed.”

He leaned closer to the bars. “What do you know that you’re not telling me? You said right before you ran into me Monday morning that you overheard something. Where were you?”