shoe compartment of the garment bag failed to be there. I had forgotten my shoes. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Considering the state I had been in during the months since my fall from grace in Houston, it was a wonder I had remembered as much of my ensemble as I did. This lapse left me dressed in a black pin-striped Armani, a Canali tie, and flip-flops over my socks. Mortified, I walked out and got into the Lincoln.
“We have to stop at a shoe store before we go to the courthouse,” I told Molly Tunstall as I started the car. She looked at her watch.
“I’m afraid we don’t have time,” she said. “We’ve got to be there in six minutes.”
“We have to do something,” I said, pulling the Lincoln onto the street.
“At least you’ve got socks,” Molly said. “We’ll be okay.”
“Look, Ms. Tunstall, there’s no way I’m walking into a courtroom dressed—”
“We can’t be late, Mr. Parker,”
Molly said. “This is not a forgiving judge. And it’s a murder trial.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” I said, my state of mind ratcheting up from mortification to panic.
To tell the truth, my experience as a trial lawyer was a little thin. Years earlier, when I went to work in Houston, I experimented with the trial branch of my firm and found I didn’t have the knack for winning over a jury. I had the sweaty-palm problem, galloping drizzles, stage fright, call it what you will. Trial law is a performance art, like acting or playing the cello, except the stakes are a hell of a lot higher. Blow it once in front of a jury or a judge, and fortunes can be lost, lives destroyed. And it is so easy to screw up. All it might take is a nervous swallow or a scratchy throat or a joke that doesn’t quite come off. During the few trials I actually worked, I became an insomniac, a zombie-eyed burden to my then-wife and my friends and, I feared, to my clients as well. Thank God I was good with figures, and my firm let me transfer to tax law.
When Hardwick Chandler called to offer me the job in Jenks, I remember a doubt floating momentarily before my eyes. I thought of asking him about the amount of trial work I might be expected to undertake. But I didn’t. I needed a change, after all. I wanted to get out in the country, and I figured I could handle anything that Jenks, Texas, threw at me.
And now here I was, walking into my first murder trial. In flip-flops.
Molly filled me in on the case that, in a few minutes, Gilliam Stroud would have to be woken up to try. To make things even crazier than they had already been that morning, it was hell’s own case. One spring afternoon three months earlier, on the poor side of Mule Springs, what they call “the acre,” Jolene Biggs had watched as her husband, Lanier Biggs, was shot to death in his own yard by a man named Clifton Hardesty, Stroud’s client. Hardesty had driven his pickup into Biggs’s driveway, called Biggs out of the house, and then emptied both barrels of a shotgun into Biggs at point-blank range. Biggs had been unarmed and, for that matter, mostly undressed, wearing only a pair of shorts. Jolene had seen the whole thing from the front porch, not ten feet away. Biggs had bled to death on his own sidewalk.
After shooting Biggs, Clifton Hardesty had driven immediately to the police station and confessed. The district attorney was going for first-degree murder, premeditated, cold-blooded evil. Clifton Hardesty was guilty
in fact
of shooting Lanier Biggs.
Nevertheless, as was his right, Clifton Hardesty had pleaded not guilty.
The trial had started yesterday, and today Jolene Biggs, wife of the murdered man, was scheduled to testify.
Mule Springs looked a lot like Jenks, except there was a town square with one of those ornate, castellated redbrick courthouses in the center. I pulled the Lincoln into the courthouse parking lot and switched off the ignition.
“Molly, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can be of much help in this case. I haven’t read it, I
“We have to stop at a shoe store before we go to the courthouse,” I told Molly Tunstall as I started the car. She looked at her watch.
“I’m afraid we don’t have time,” she said. “We’ve got to be there in six minutes.”
“We have to do something,” I said, pulling the Lincoln onto the street.
“At least you’ve got socks,” Molly said. “We’ll be okay.”
“Look, Ms. Tunstall, there’s no way I’m walking into a courtroom dressed—”
“We can’t be late, Mr. Parker,”
Molly said. “This is not a forgiving judge. And it’s a murder trial.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” I said, my state of mind ratcheting up from mortification to panic.
To tell the truth, my experience as a trial lawyer was a little thin. Years earlier, when I went to work in Houston, I experimented with the trial branch of my firm and found I didn’t have the knack for winning over a jury. I had the sweaty-palm problem, galloping drizzles, stage fright, call it what you will. Trial law is a performance art, like acting or playing the cello, except the stakes are a hell of a lot higher. Blow it once in front of a jury or a judge, and fortunes can be lost, lives destroyed. And it is so easy to screw up. All it might take is a nervous swallow or a scratchy throat or a joke that doesn’t quite come off. During the few trials I actually worked, I became an insomniac, a zombie-eyed burden to my then-wife and my friends and, I feared, to my clients as well. Thank God I was good with figures, and my firm let me transfer to tax law.
When Hardwick Chandler called to offer me the job in Jenks, I remember a doubt floating momentarily before my eyes. I thought of asking him about the amount of trial work I might be expected to undertake. But I didn’t. I needed a change, after all. I wanted to get out in the country, and I figured I could handle anything that Jenks, Texas, threw at me.
And now here I was, walking into my first murder trial. In flip-flops.
Molly filled me in on the case that, in a few minutes, Gilliam Stroud would have to be woken up to try. To make things even crazier than they had already been that morning, it was hell’s own case. One spring afternoon three months earlier, on the poor side of Mule Springs, what they call “the acre,” Jolene Biggs had watched as her husband, Lanier Biggs, was shot to death in his own yard by a man named Clifton Hardesty, Stroud’s client. Hardesty had driven his pickup into Biggs’s driveway, called Biggs out of the house, and then emptied both barrels of a shotgun into Biggs at point-blank range. Biggs had been unarmed and, for that matter, mostly undressed, wearing only a pair of shorts. Jolene had seen the whole thing from the front porch, not ten feet away. Biggs had bled to death on his own sidewalk.
After shooting Biggs, Clifton Hardesty had driven immediately to the police station and confessed. The district attorney was going for first-degree murder, premeditated, cold-blooded evil. Clifton Hardesty was guilty
in fact
of shooting Lanier Biggs.
Nevertheless, as was his right, Clifton Hardesty had pleaded not guilty.
The trial had started yesterday, and today Jolene Biggs, wife of the murdered man, was scheduled to testify.
Mule Springs looked a lot like Jenks, except there was a town square with one of those ornate, castellated redbrick courthouses in the center. I pulled the Lincoln into the courthouse parking lot and switched off the ignition.
“Molly, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can be of much help in this case. I haven’t read it, I
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