Juror #3(2)

He saw Jewel lying on the chaise lounge near the far wall of the small space. Her left arm dangled off the side, and it looked like her purple dress had stains all over it.

He hesitated. Maybe he ought to turn around and head back to the kitchen. If Jewel was passed out—and that had happened before—he was in no position to deal with it.

But he reconsidered. It wouldn’t be right to leave her like that. He’d best check on her, make sure she was okay. He approached carefully in the dim lamplight.

“Jewel?” he whispered. “What you doing, baby?”

When he got to the lounge, Darrien muffled a groan.

Blood was seeping through slits in the fabric of her purple dress, where she had been slashed in her chest, abdomen, and side. The green and gold Mardi Gras beads at her neck were wet, and blood matted her blond hair where it fell past her shoulders.

Her eyes were open and her chest heaved.

Darrien squatted on the floor beside her, barely noting the pain that knifed through his knee. “Oh, Jesus.” He picked up her limp wrist and, not feeling a pulse, pressed his ear to her chest to try to listen to her heart, smelling the coppery odor of Jewel’s blood.

Nothing. Her chest didn’t move again. Leaning over her, he lifted her head and spoke her name. “Jewel.” Then louder: “Jewel?”

Dropping her head back onto the chaise, Darrien squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think what he should do. He pressed his hands onto her chest, trying to revive her with CPR. It didn’t help. He reached into his pocket for his phone, registering with panic that his hands were bloody, and his white jacket was smeared with blood.

He would dial 911. But his hands shook so violently, he couldn’t enter the passcode.

Footsteps sounded on the cement outside the cabana and he heard men’s voices. Darrien tried to shout “Hey!” but it came out like a squawk.

As he held the phone, a flashlight beam cut into the dim room. Darrien dropped the phone and said, “Oh, my God.”





Three



THE CLUB SECURITY guard, a reserve deputy for Williams County, tackled him to the floor. Bert Owens trained the flashlight on Jewel, then turned the light into Darrien’s face. “What have you done?”

Darrien shook his head, pinned beneath the deputy, trying to frame the words: I tried to help her. Owens said to the deputy, “Stand him up.”

The man pulled Darrien to his feet and with the help of another security guard pinned his arms behind him. Owens swung the flashlight and smashed it into the side of Darrien’s head. “Boy, what have you done to Miss Shaw?”

“I didn’t—”

Owens punched him. Darrien felt his lip split over his teeth and tasted blood.

The reserve deputy said in a doubtful tone, “Read him his rights, you reckon?”

Owens said, “Fuck that.” He swung the flashlight again, hitting Darrien’s scalp near his left eye. His knees sagged, but the security guards held him upright.

Owens held the flashlight so that the beam shone straight into Darrien’s eyes. “What did you do? Talk, boy.”

Darrien struggled to catch his breath, then said in a hoarse whisper, “I want a lawyer.”





Part One





Four Weeks Later





Chapter 1



I TOLD MY client not to bring her kids to court.

It wasn’t that I was unsympathetic to her situation. My mom was a single mother, too. But Darla Lamar should have been sitting next to me at the counsel table, to present a united front while I made the case to the judge about her gripes against her slumlord. Instead, she was seated in the back row of the Williams County courtroom, wrestling four-year-old JimBob and his little sister Lily.

The judge said, “Miss Bozarth, are you ready to give your closing argument?”

When I rose from my seat, I heard an ear-splitting whine coming from the back of the courtroom. The judge peered at me over his eyeglasses.

Turning around, I gave Darla a pleading look. She slapped a hand over Lily’s mouth.

As I walked around the counsel table to address the judge, I tried to look supremely confident, like a woman who’d been practicing law for decades. In fact, I’d been at it for eight short months, since I graduated from Ole Miss and passed the Mississippi Bar Exam, and I held my yellow legal pad in a sweaty grip. But in this case I knew I had the facts and the law on my side.

Standing up straight, I fastened the jacket of my suit, purchased the week before at Goodwill. The button popped off into my hand.

Shit.

I slipped the button in my pocket, trying to look like having my buttons pop was totally cool.

“Your Honor, we’ve established by a preponderance of the evidence that my client’s landlord has violated the implied warranty of habitability.” I scooped up photos from the counsel table. “Defendant’s Exhibit One proves that, despite repeated requests from my client, Darla Lamar, her landlord has failed and refused to exterminate the vermin that inhabit the apartment: cockroach infestations throughout the property, as well as rats. Rats, Your Honor.”

I placed the photographs on the bench, so the judge would be sure to give them a second look. One showed roaches crawling from a kitchen cabinet; the other caught the image of a rat peeking into a crib. A picture really is worth a thousand words.