Read Online The calamity Janes by Sherryl Woods - Free Book Online Page B

might want to get his understanding of that in writing.”
    This time Ford scowled at the sarcasm. “I know what off the record means.”
    Emma gave him a frosty smile. “Glad to hear it,” she said as she walked away to talk to Sue Ellen. Shecould feel the man’s gaze on her as she crossed the room and sat down. The effect was vaguely disconcerting, especially in light of her recent conclusion that her first impression of him had been the accurate one. The sensitivity he’d displayed that morning when she’d been feeling a bit down had obviously been an aberration.
    Then all thoughts of Ford fled as she sat across from Sue Ellen and watched her old classmate dissolve into tears.
    “I’m sorry,” Sue Ellen whispered brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”
    “For what? Not for killing a man who repeatedly beat you, I hope.”
    Sue Ellen gasped. “Donny was my husband.”
    “He was an abuser,” Emma corrected. “You were a victim, sweetie. I’m not saying that shooting him was a good thing, but it was understandable. Now tell me what happened tonight. I can’t defend you if you hold anything back.”
    “You’re going to represent me?”
    “If that’s what you want.”
    “But why?”
    “Because you need me. Now, start at the beginning and tell me everything.”
    Sue Ellen nodded. “He…Donny found that card you had left for me,” Sue Ellen told her, choking back another sob. She clenched her hands together and steadied her voice. “It was in my purse. I thought he’d never find it, but he was looking for money. He’d run out of beer and wanted to go out and buy some more. He dumped everything on the floor, and when he didn’t even find any loose change, he began to rip open all the compartments inside the purse.”
    Emma shuddered, suddenly feeling responsible for everything that had happened. She had known what Donny might do if he learned that she’d interfered, but she had gone over there anyway. She’d wanted to be the avenging angel who dragged Sue Ellen out of there. Instead, she had just made matters worse, triggering tonight’s attack and ultimately the tragedy that would scar Sue Ellen forever, even if Emma got her acquitted.
    “What did he do then?” she asked Sue Ellen.
    “He asked me what it meant, who had given it to me.”
    “Did you tell him?”
    She shook her head. “I didn’t want him to come after you. He would have, too. He threatened my mom once, and all she did was take me to the doctor after he’d told me not to go.”
    “So, there’s a record of your injuries on file with your doctor?” Emma asked.
    Sue Ellen nodded. “But I told him I was attacked coming out of the bank, that someone had tried to steal my purse.”
    Emma doubted that the doctor had bought it, not with everyone in town aware of Donny’s mistreatment of Sue Ellen.
    “That’s okay. It’ll still help,” she reassured her client. “I’d like to get your doctor in here tonight to see you. Is that okay?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Sue Ellen said despondently. “Nothing matters.”
    “Of course it matters,” Emma said fiercely. “We’re going to win this. You were defending yourself against a man who had brutalized you time and again.”
    “But I haven’t even told you how it happened, how the gun went off.”
    “And I want to hear that, but it’s the history of abuse that will really matter to a jury. That’s the heart of your defense. Remember that, Sue Ellen. I heard you went to the hospital a couple of times, too. Is that right?”
    “Those were accidents,” Sue Ellen insisted.
    Emma sighed, though she wasn’t all that amazed that Sue Ellen was still lying to the world, if not herself, about what had happened. “Let’s concentrate on tonight then. Finish telling me what he did. Did you argue about the card he found?”
    The details weren’t surprising. Donny had been infuriated by the hot line number that Emma had left. He had begun brandishing a gun, but he was drunk. He had fallen