Juror #3(8)

I almost dropped my fork. “How did you know?”

“Oh, come on, now. We get the courthouse crowd at lunch and dinner. You were the main topic of conversation yesterday.”

“Oh, Jesus,” I said under my breath.

“Hey, you’re famous now. So how’s it going?”

“No comment. Attorney-client privilege.” I gave him a wink. Because he was really pretty cute. I dug into my wallet and pulled out some bills to pay the check. As he rang it up on the cash register, Shorty said, “You going over to the jail today?”

I nodded. My counter companion, Jeb, shook his head. “Sure better hope it goes better for you than yesterday.”

Oh, my God. Rosedale was a goldfish bowl. Even the man with the port-wine mark was staring at me; his scrutiny made me uncomfortable. I kept my mouth shut, but I must not have been wearing a poker face, because Shorty called to me as I walked away. “Come back for lunch. Bet you’ll have a whole new attitude by noon.”

“That right?” I said over my shoulder.

“I can feel it. And I have great gut instincts.”

I laughed at that. It sounded like something I used to say, before I was tripped up by my own misguided instincts. As the bell on the door jingled over my head, Shorty called out.

“Lunch is on the house, Ruby. You’re good for business. See you at noon.”

“See you at noon,” Jeb echoed.

I looked over my shoulder to reply. The port-wine man was smiling. But not in what you’d call a friendly way.





Chapter 6



BACK IN THE interview room at the county jail, an overhead vent blasted hot air at me. I pushed the sleeves of my sweater up past my elbows.

The door on the other side of the cubicle opened. I tensed, waiting to see Darrien Summers’s reaction to my reappearance. I withheld the toothy grin I had displayed on my first visit.

They repeated the procedures from the day before. The jailer unlocked Darrien’s cuffs. Darrien sat down in the chair. I picked up the phone receiver.

As he stared through the glass, I wished I could see what was going on in his head. Though I itched to break the silence, I was determined to make him speak first.

He picked up and said, “Yesterday, we had fourteen days to do this. Now we’re down to thirteen.”

In a guarded tone, I said, “That’s right.”

“How can a woman who doesn’t know what she’s doing handle my defense?”

I bristled, though the question was justified. “How do you know I don’t know what I’m doing?”

Darrien smiled—a beautiful smile, though there was no humor in it. “You know what the inmates are calling you in lockup? Jailtime Ruby. Some of them are calling you Execution Ruby. Have you heard that?”

The revelation made me want to wince, but I kept a dogged face. “Why’d you try to punch out your last lawyer?”

His cynical expression slipped away, replaced by anger. “They brought me into court to see that dude—the public defender. I’d met him, what? Like, twice before? He says he’s got a deal for me, I’m going to plead guilty to capital murder, get life without parole.”

I listened. Kept my mouth shut.

Darrien gripped the receiver and edged closer to the glass panel. “I told him—like I’d told him before—I didn’t do it. He said he was trying to save my life.”

At that, he paused.

“Then what?” I asked.

“He said it was a done deal. I’d plead or they’d convict me, give me the death penalty. Because of the pictures. The fucking pictures.” His voice cracked, and I was struck by how young he looked at that moment. Barely old enough to buy a six-pack of beer.

“I lost it. I swung at him. I didn’t hurt him. If I’d wanted to hurt him, I could’ve. But I’m not like that.”

I locked eyes with him as I spoke into the phone. “I don’t know what they call me at the jail, and I don’t give a shit. But here’s one thing I promise: I’d never advise a client of mine to plead to a crime he didn’t commit.”

He breathed out. It sounded like a sigh.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. That’s a start.”

I uncapped my pen. “I’ve got the prosecutor’s file; I know their point of view on the case. I need to hear from you. What happened that night?”

He started at the beginning: the Mardi Gras ball, the masked country club members, the party that lingered on into the night. Jewel Shaw was there, wearing a glittery green mask with purple feathers. Though she ignored him in the early part of the evening, she started giving him the eye and flirting as the party dragged on.

“You had a relationship with Jewel; I’m aware of that. I saw the pictures. How long had it been going on?”

They had kept it secret, he told me. He would have been fired for certain, might have faced worse consequences. “Things haven’t changed all that much in Mississippi. You know that.”

I nodded.

“Me and Jewel, we got together whenever she felt like it. Almost always at the club. The first time, we were in the women’s restroom.”

“When was that?”

He stared off to the side as he tried to remember. “Six months ago, maybe? I’d been working at the club for a while, couple of months.”