The Blues & Billie Armstrong 67
MERE MOMENTS
Previously in The Blues & Billie Armstrong…
Tell em your heart. That’s all it means.
In the morning, I cooked chorizo and eggs and ate out of the skillet, standing by the bay window and watching the traffic lurch by on Lincoln Way.
I enjoyed the second-story view of hands clenched around the tops of steering wheels, restless fingers drumming, anxious to achieve the next car length. I showered and shaved and dressed in a gray suit and tie—not in a hurry, but in the relaxed rhythm of someone who’s already made a difficult decision and now has only to go through with it and live with the result.
Down in the garage, I felt around behind the driver’s seat and finally found my phone. I turned it on and deleted every message from Monihan and Lockhart. Irrelevant. I read the latest message from Valentine. She wanted to meet at the front entrance to the courthouse at 10:30, a half-hour before the grand jury would convene. I used the phone to deposit the severance check to my bank. No way I would give that prick Lockhart the chance to stop payment. I took the yellowed, wrinkled lipstick-kissed envelope addressed to J.R. Cole out of my inside breast pocket, scratched out the address and wrote the Weeping Willow address off to the side, then slipped the envelope back into my jacket.
Valentine wore a knit gray skirt suit over a creme chiffon blouse.
I spotted her from the side as I came toward the courthouse entrance. She was unmistakeable in her upright, on-guard bearing, with her dark hair falling in long loose curls to the middle of her resolute back. She was beautiful in a way that drew you toward her right up until she turned her eyes on you. Then, if you were paying attention, you might see the danger signs around her heart. If she was in fact my daughter, I hoped that knowledge wouldn’t always be a disappointment to her.
She saw me and when I got close enough, she offered a perfunctory, straight-lipped nod. She didn’t exactly apologize for her reaction at the prison, but she pushed my chin to one side with a brush of her fingers and checked to see if she’d left a mark on my cheek. Satisfied that she hadn’t, she grimaced a sheepish smile and gave me the my-bad shrug.
“I had it coming,” I said.
She nodded in full agreement.
I took a deep breath. “So, what’s likely to happen?” I said. “You’re going to ask me questions, I’m going to say what I say, then what?”
“First off, I won’t be asking the questions. Defense attorneys aren’t allowed in the room. And there’s no judge. There’s the prosecuting attorney, he’s there to make the case that Billie should be indicted. But he didn’t subpoena you, the grand jury subpoenaed you—because in preliminary discussions I argued you had relevant information. So, the grand jury foreperson will ask the questions, then you’ll get your chance.”
So, is old Rusty the bailiff going to handcuff me on the spot and drag me away to solitary confinement?”
She laughed a little. “No, this isn’t TV” she said. Even if the prosecutor wants to press charges, You’re not getting handcuffed on the spot. I think.”
“You think?”
She threw up her hands. “I’m a small-town defense attorney. Like I said, they don’t even let us in the room.”
“You might’ve shared that detail a little earlier,” I said.
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m the one who needs to be sorry around here,” I said.
“I’ll get to see Billie for a few minutes before she goes in,” she said. “She’s nervous. She’s not sure what to expect.”
“Tell her not to worry.”
“You’ll tell them the truth?”
I showed her a grin. “I’ll give em what they need.”
She gave me a head tilt that said she just hadn’t figured me out yet.
“What will happen to her?” I said.
“I expect she’ll go free.” Valentine said.
I think that’s when I stopped clenching my jaw.
She checked her watch. “You should go upstairs and check in,” she said, and motioned me to follow her into the main lobby, where we stopped in front of a bank of elevators.
I pulled my key ring out of my pants pocket. “Just in case I don’t come out of there—”
“Stop,” she said, “that’s not necessary.”
“These are the keys to my car and my house. The Cadillac is parked in the garage on Turk Street, level B.” I reached into my jacket and pulled out the envelope. “And please, get a new stamp on this, and put it in the mail as soon as you can.”
She looked at the worn old envelope with J.R. Cole’s name and the changed address.
“It’s already forty-one years late,” I said, and she still looked puzzled. “Show it to Billie, she’ll understand.”
Valentine nodded, leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck. And thank you.”
“Luck, hell. I’m definitely gonna need a lawyer.”
“Yeah? Do you know any good ones?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Might be one in the family.”
The bell dinged and the elevator doors opened, and Valentine nudged me forward with a hand against the small of my back. “I’ll be up later,” she said.
I walked in and pushed the button for the third floor.
I found the designated courtroom, where a bailiff was stationed at the coffered double doors, checking credentials and identification. It wasn’t Rusty. It was a teacherly Black woman with short white hair and a doubting smile. Dark blue uniform with gold trim, and a peaked cap with a black shiny visor. Her brass name-tag said Washington, but she introduced herself as Marietta, and when I told her who I was she checked her list and told me to sit down on one of the wooden benches that lined the hallway. “When the jury is ready for you, I will come out and call your name,” she said.
The bench was polished oak, long enough for a dugout bench or a church pew, and the thought of church reminded me of Reverend Jameson, and my mother lying dead in the coffin at Jones & Jones Funeral Home. “We shall all be changed,” the reverend recited, and that rang my heart now like a moment of truth.
When we speak of the truth, why do we speak of mere moments?
Because that’s all we get.
Bloop. A text came through from Valentine. “Coming up in the elevator now.” Ding! The elevator doors opened and Officer Gonzales clomped out like a wall dressed in black, with his grim on-duty frown. Behind him came Valentine, straightbacked and battle-ready in her tweedy gray lawyer suit.
Next to her, Billie, somehow looking like a brash teenager on a sunny day by the lake. Sky blue wraparound skirt, a white blouse with embroidered lace, silver curls jostling on her shoulders. She saw me and stopped in the hallway and smiled like summer, with a hand on one hip and a brave flame in her eyes.
The one and only Billie Armstrong. A woman like a trick candle.
The big double doors rattled and clunked, and Marietta Washington appeared. She held the door open wide. “Mr. King, it’s time.”
The Blues & Billie Armstrong is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance of the fictional characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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