Shoveling Smoke Read Free Page A

don’t know any of the testimony.”
    “Mr. Parker,” Molly said, “I’m not sure what Mr. Stroud will want you to do, but whatever it is, you don’t have to worry about it.
He’s
trying the case.” She turned to the backseat and said, “We’re here, Mr. Stroud. It’s time to go to court.”
    Gilliam Stroud sat up, smiled at Molly Tunstall, and winked a red-rimmed eye at me. “Let’s get ’em,” he said, and climbed out of the car.

CHAPTER 4
    The courtroom was one of those old-fashioned, high-ceilinged outfits with a balcony and whitewashed walls and a giant Texas flag hanging above the judge’s bench. There were maybe twenty-five onlookers, dwarfed in the wide, high emptiness of the room. As I followed Stroud and Molly down the center aisle, I noticed that Stroud walked with a slight limp but had lost all trace of the unbalanced swagger that had made getting him into his car difficult earlier that morning.
    Stroud noticed my shoes. “Mr. Parker,” he said, “you’re not a member of any sort of sect, are you? Some outfit with its own dress code?”
    Before I could answer we reached the defense table, where the defendant was already sitting. Clifton Hardesty was a scrawny, middle-aged man with a blond ducktail and deep pockmarks on his face. He was wearing what I assumed were his best clothes, a deeply wrinkled plaid sport coat, an orange pullover shirt, and jeans.
    Molly Tunstall had brought the briefcase with her and now began to lay out stacks of papers and files on the table.
    “Where’ve you been, Mr. Stroud?” Hardesty whispered.
    “I have been rounding up experts to aid in your defense,” Stroud replied in a loud voice, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Mr. Hardesty, allow me to introduce Dr. Clayton Parker. Please don’t be alarmed by his choice of shoes. He is afflicted with a ter-rible case of athlete’s foot and has to air his toes.”
    “Pleased to meet you, Dr. Parker,” said Hardesty, who stood and offered me his hand, which was cold and limp. “Sorry about your toes.”
    “Wait a minute,” I said. At that moment the jury filed in, followed by the judge, and everyone in the courtroom stood. I tried to back away from the defense table and take a seat next to Molly in the first row of the audience, but Stroud clutched my arm and, as the judge seated himself, guided me into the chair between himself and Hardesty.
    “I’m not a doctor, and I don’t have athlete’s foot,” I whispered to the old man.
    “My mistake,” he whispered back. “We’ll sort it out later.”
    I noticed that a slender, hunched man sitting at the prosecutor’s table in a Western-cut suit and bolo tie was staring at me. Stroud nodded at the man, who acknowledged the nod with one of his own. “Our prosecutor,” Stroud whispered to me. “Nasty little prick.”
    As soon as the clerk had called the court to session, the prosecutor stood, pointed at me, and said to the judge in a reedy whine, “Your Honor, I wonder if we could have this gentleman identified. He may be a potential witness, and the State has invoked the Rule.”
    “Mr. Stroud,” said the judge, “the State has invoked the Rule of Witnesses, so potential witnesses have to remain outside, out of the presence and hearing of the other witnesses.”
    Stroud rose, smiling. “Surely the Court will exempt an expert who must listen to the State’s witness in order to rebut that testimony? He can’t talk about what he hasn’t heard, Your Honor.”
    I felt my throat going dry. Stroud was implying to the Court and the jury that I was a medical expert, a doctor of some kind. We were defrauding the Court! We were going to be disbarred! The judge, an elderly, rumpled man who seemed to be trying to shake off the effects of a nap, looked me over. When his gaze reached my feet, he woke up all at once.
    “Mr. Stroud,” he said, “can you explain to me why your expert is not wearing proper shoes in my courtroom?”
    “Bromohydrosis, Your Honor,”