Read Online Ed McBain_Matthew Hope 12 by Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear
remember nothing further.
I feel suddenly exhausted.
All at once, the room seems too noisy and too crowded and too active.
I want everyone to go away.
I want my pants back.
I want to go home.
I feel like crying.
I want to go to sleep again.
I have to pee.
Something is starting in this room on this bright day in April.
It is called recovery.
It is called recuperation.
Section 905.17 of the statutes plainly states that “no person shall be present at the sessions of the grand jury except the
witness under examination, the state attorney, designated assistants as provided for in Section 27.18, the court reporter
or stenographer, and the interpreter.”
This means that a grand jury hearing is a nonconfrontational thing. No defense lawyers there. No cross-examination of the
various witnesses. Just the state attorney munching on his own sweet ham sandwich. This further means that should an accused
elect to testify, his or her lawyer cannot be present in the room. Which may explain why, in most cases, any good attorney
will advise his client not to accept an invitation to go in there and face the music. I explained this to Lainie now, and
she nodded gravely and said it seemed unfair. I told her that perhaps the word she was seeking was “Draconian.”
I had picked her up at the County Jail after she’d changed back into civilian clothing, the jeans, T-shirt and sandals she’d
thrown on last night when the police came to arrest her. I was driving her home to North Apple because we needed to talk further
and also because she’d promised to show me the new stuffed animal she’d been sketching when the call from Brett Toland came
last night. I was eager to see her drawings because her frame of mind was important to the events that had subsequently transpired.
The important thing was that she’d been working on something
new,
you see. She was planning to move on, planning for the
future.
Contrary to her gloomy outlook at lunch, by the time she’d got back to her house, she’d come around to believing that Judge
Santos would find in our favor and order the preliminary injunction we were seeking. There was no reason for her to have wanted
Brett Toland dead. She hadn’t even been
thinking
of Brett when his call came later that night.
Her house on North Apple looked exactly as she’d described it to the Court yesterday morning. I parked my car under a huge
shade tree which I could not identify, and looked up to make sure there weren’t any birds in it. The car I drive is a slate-blue
Acura Legend which Patricia ran into just before our first meeting. She claims I will never forgive her for that. Maybe I
won’t. Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.” I don’t smoke, but I
love
that car. Not as much as I love Patricia, he was quick to amend. But I still didn’t want birds shitting all over its hood
and its roof.
I followed Lainie up the path to the low cinder-block structure, and then into the house itself. She showed me around briefly,
asked if I wanted a cold drink—it was only three-thirty, so I guessed she meant a soft drink—and we each went into the studio
carrying a beaded glass of lemonade afloat with ice cubes. I felt as if I’d been in this house before, this work space before.
She threw a light switch. The fluorescents came on over the long drawing table she’d described at the hearing, illuminating
her sketches for Kinky Turtle. She pointed out the date she’d penciled into the lower right-hand corner of each drawing, just
below her signature. Unless she’d altered the notations, the drawings had, in fact, been made yesterday.
“Tell me everything that happened last night,” I said.
“From when to when?”
“From when Brett called to the last time you saw him alive.”
It occurs to me as she speaks that she would make a compelling witness if ever we decide to put her on the stand. Her
I feel suddenly exhausted.
All at once, the room seems too noisy and too crowded and too active.
I want everyone to go away.
I want my pants back.
I want to go home.
I feel like crying.
I want to go to sleep again.
I have to pee.
Something is starting in this room on this bright day in April.
It is called recovery.
It is called recuperation.
Section 905.17 of the statutes plainly states that “no person shall be present at the sessions of the grand jury except the
witness under examination, the state attorney, designated assistants as provided for in Section 27.18, the court reporter
or stenographer, and the interpreter.”
This means that a grand jury hearing is a nonconfrontational thing. No defense lawyers there. No cross-examination of the
various witnesses. Just the state attorney munching on his own sweet ham sandwich. This further means that should an accused
elect to testify, his or her lawyer cannot be present in the room. Which may explain why, in most cases, any good attorney
will advise his client not to accept an invitation to go in there and face the music. I explained this to Lainie now, and
she nodded gravely and said it seemed unfair. I told her that perhaps the word she was seeking was “Draconian.”
I had picked her up at the County Jail after she’d changed back into civilian clothing, the jeans, T-shirt and sandals she’d
thrown on last night when the police came to arrest her. I was driving her home to North Apple because we needed to talk further
and also because she’d promised to show me the new stuffed animal she’d been sketching when the call from Brett Toland came
last night. I was eager to see her drawings because her frame of mind was important to the events that had subsequently transpired.
The important thing was that she’d been working on something
new,
you see. She was planning to move on, planning for the
future.
Contrary to her gloomy outlook at lunch, by the time she’d got back to her house, she’d come around to believing that Judge
Santos would find in our favor and order the preliminary injunction we were seeking. There was no reason for her to have wanted
Brett Toland dead. She hadn’t even been
thinking
of Brett when his call came later that night.
Her house on North Apple looked exactly as she’d described it to the Court yesterday morning. I parked my car under a huge
shade tree which I could not identify, and looked up to make sure there weren’t any birds in it. The car I drive is a slate-blue
Acura Legend which Patricia ran into just before our first meeting. She claims I will never forgive her for that. Maybe I
won’t. Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.” I don’t smoke, but I
love
that car. Not as much as I love Patricia, he was quick to amend. But I still didn’t want birds shitting all over its hood
and its roof.
I followed Lainie up the path to the low cinder-block structure, and then into the house itself. She showed me around briefly,
asked if I wanted a cold drink—it was only three-thirty, so I guessed she meant a soft drink—and we each went into the studio
carrying a beaded glass of lemonade afloat with ice cubes. I felt as if I’d been in this house before, this work space before.
She threw a light switch. The fluorescents came on over the long drawing table she’d described at the hearing, illuminating
her sketches for Kinky Turtle. She pointed out the date she’d penciled into the lower right-hand corner of each drawing, just
below her signature. Unless she’d altered the notations, the drawings had, in fact, been made yesterday.
“Tell me everything that happened last night,” I said.
“From when to when?”
“From when Brett called to the last time you saw him alive.”
It occurs to me as she speaks that she would make a compelling witness if ever we decide to put her on the stand. Her
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