Standing at the back of the room and spilling into the hallways behind were all those second among equals: Vietnamese shrimpers, John Trachsel the horse man, a few of Ham’s buddies from the gas lines, Jezebel MacReady, who had made Joshua’s best pair of pants—the same pants that were now probably in a garbage can somewhere inside the courthouse building.
Another murmur rose from the pews as Ham was led in, towering over his militia escort. He was still wearing the dirty yellow shorts and short-sleeved shirt he’d had on yesterday. He had to turn sideways to fit through the little wooden wicket to get to the prisoner’s table. He settled himself in the chair next to Josh, which squeaked and complained under his weight. “Hey, buddy,” Ham murmured. “We are in a shitload of trouble.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re innocent, isn’t it?”
“Quiet,” said the bailiff.
Sheriff Denton and Deputy Lanier entered and sat down at the table across from Josh and Ham. Deacon Bose banged his gavel. In the sudden silence he stood to face the courtroom. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get started. Please rise.” The crowd stood. After a moment’s hesitation, Josh and Ham stood, too, and bowed their heads. “Heavenly Father,” Deacon Bose said, “we are met here today under your sight to inquire after one of your children, Sloane Gardner. We ask that you bless these proceedings and lead us quickly and surely to an understanding of what has befallen her. We pray that you will restore her to us if you can. But if that is not your will, we hope that you will look on her, wherever she may be, in this world or the next, with all your tender mercies. All this we ask in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
“Amen,” the crowd murmured. Josh said his amen with everybody else; and, he thought bitterly, more honestly than most.
Deacon Bose sat; the rest of the courtroom followed in a rustle of pants and dresses. “Sheriff Denton, please rise.” Jeremiah Denton stood up. “Sheriff, what is your contention?”
In a clear, steady voice, Sheriff Denton said, “We believe that Mr. Cane, in collusion with Mr. Mather, abducted Sloane Gardner, raped her, and probably killed her afterward.”
The silence was terrible. Joshua’s body betrayed him again as a burning flush spread over his face.
“Mr. Cane? How do you plead?”
“Not guilty.”
“Liar,” said a voice from the back.
“The next person who interrupts can spend a night in a cell for contempt of court,” Deacon Bose said sharply. The bailiff glowered at the back of the courthouse. “This is not a theater. Although we would all like to see justice done swiftly, and Sloane found as soon as possible, I hold no case made before it is proven. Let’s keep it clear and to the point, with no interruptions, please.” He turned the full weight of his attention on Josh. “Mr. Cane, please tell us in your own words what happened from the time Mr. Mather brought Sloane Gardner to your verandah to the time you were arrested.”
Josh told his story. His throat was still raw from retching and his stomach ached every time he breathed. He meant to stick just to his encounters with Sloane, but decided he had better make a cursory mention of his visits to the various Krewe offices, including the debacle at the Krewe of Togetherness. Sheriff Denton would doubtless bring up such a humiliating episode, and Josh didn’t want it to look as if he had been hiding anything. He left his mother’s ghost out of it. Deacon Bose took notes. Then he asked Ham for his version of events. He continued writing for some time after Ham had finished, then blotted his quill absently and put it down. “All right. Sheriff Denton, you may begin.”
THE sheriff called Raúl and Conchita Fuentes as his first witnesses. Josh was surprised. The young couple lived six or seven blocks away from him and weren’t likely to have seen any of Sloane’s comings and goings. Raúl had dressed up for the day in court in a faded serge jacket that had probably belonged to his father. He had the bandy legs of a lot of barrio kids who had grown up without enough food. Conchita must be nineteen by now. Her belly looked flat. Either his lectures on birth control had gotten through, or they had found a midwife to do their abortions.
“Mr. Fuentes, have you met the defendant?”
“Sí. Yes.”
“When?”
“When my daughter was born. Last spring.”
“Sheriff, why are you calling this witness?” Deacon Bose asked.
“It speaks to character, Judge.”
“Very well. Be quick.”
Josh was baffled. The Fuenteses’ child had been born dead, but he had done everything he could.
“Would you describe Mr. Cane as a caring man?” the sheriff asked.
“No,” Raúl said emphatically. For the first time he looked at Josh, a defiant glare. He was like so many of the young Tex-Mex guys, a scrawny little fighting cock. “He was a col’ son of a bitch. He could have saved our baby. He just didn’t want to.”
The judge looked at Josh. “Mr. Cane?”
Josh was almost grateful to Sheriff Denton for starting with a case that was so clearly not his fault. “Mrs. Fuentes went into labor two months before term. Her nutrition was inadequate, and she admitted she had been drinking during her pregnancy. The baby was not breathing when it was born. I tried to provoke respiration for some time after delivery, but it just wasn’t strong enough to survive.”
“Did you ever tell Mrs. Fuentes about the dangers of drinking while pregnant?” Sheriff Denton asked.
Conchita was staring hard at the floor. “Once during pregnancy,” Josh said, “and once after the delivery.”
The sheriff nodded thoughtfully. He turned toward the pews. “Mr. Cane, is it your habit to blame a mother for the death of her child?”
“I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did. Just now, Mr. Cane. You expressed no remorse and not the faintest hint of your own responsibility. Not only did you do it here, in public—you also did it in Mrs. Fuentes’s house, with her child’s body not yet cold.”
A cold shock spread through Joshua’s chest, as if someone had touched an ice cube to his heart. The people of Galveston stared at him. “I’m sorry if I caused Mrs. Fuentes any distress,” he said. “Raúl, Conchita, is that all you remember? Don’t you remember that it was after midnight when you came for me? That I stayed with you past ten the next morning? Do you remember that I only billed you one chicken for my night’s work and you haven’t paid it and I haven’t bothered you for it?”
As soon as he said it, Josh realized that had been a mistake. Nobody in the audience was going to understand how he could have the audacity to bill for a night’s work when a poor couple had lost a child.
“A chicken and a pot of jam,” Conchita whispered. “I brought the jam. It’s all we got right now.” To Joshua’s horror she produced a small glass jar and placed it on the table.
“Do you remember what you said?” Raúl went on belligerently. “After little Maria died? You said, ‘It’s just as well.’ To my wife you said this, after she was in labor for a day. ‘It’s just as well.’”
“The child never breathed!” Josh said. “Even if I could have revived her, there would have been massive brain damage—” Josh stopped. He was only making himself look worse.
“‘It’s your fault your baby died, but it’s just as well,’” Sheriff Denton repeated thoughtfully. The audience in the pews looked at Josh with loathing. The sheriff glanced back at Deacon Bose. “It speaks to character,” he said. “Mr. Cane, is it true that a shot of adrenaline is often administered to children who die during labor to aid in their resuscitation?”
“Sometimes,” Josh said grimly. It wasn’t hard to see where this was going.
“And did you have any adrenaline the night you attended the Fuenteses’ delivery?”
“Yes.”
“But you elected not to use it.”
“That is correct.”
“Why did you make that decision, Mr. Cane?”
“The medical term is triage,” Josh said flatly. There was no way to get out of this w
ithout looking like a monster. “To divide patients into three categories. Those who will survive without treatment, those who will probably die even if they get it, and those for whom treatment is likely to make the difference between living and dying. When you have limited time or resources, you can only treat the last group. I only have a very little adrenaline left. In cases of asthma or anaphylactic shock it is going to make the difference between life and death.”
“So you chose not to use it,” the sheriff said. “Even though you had it right there. Even with the baby in front of you.”
“In my judgment, there wasn’t enough of a chance the child would survive and grow up to be an intelligent adult,” Josh said. Conchita was staring at him helplessly. Her face had crumpled. Tears were crawling down her cheeks. “The right choice is not always easy. Sometimes you have to play bad cards well. I felt that preserving the adrenaline—”
“Perhaps for a client with more money?”
“Sheriff,” the judge said. Sheriff Denton raised one hand in apology.
Conchita was crying on the stand, hand in front of her mouth, trying not to make noise. Tears wrung out of her. Raúl put his hand on her shoulder and glared at Josh with pure hatred. Josh closed his eyes to keep from seeing them. “It’s not about fairness,” he said. “It’s about what’s best for everybody.”
NEXT up was Josh’s neighbor from across the street, Letitia Daschle, a fat German-Texan widow with skin the color of bread dough. She was a big nosy hen of a woman, all clucks and bosoms. She liked to complain about her trick knee and her arthritis, her allergies and her lumbago at every possible opportunity, hoping Josh might let some bit of wisdom drop for free, but she had always refused to have an actual billable visit.
“Mrs. Daschle, you saw Sloane Gardner enter Mr. Cane’s house, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But you didn’t see her leave?”
“No, sir.”
“How long were you watching his door?”
“I wasn’t watching it,” she said huffily. “I just happened to be sitting near the front window.”
Josh gritted his teeth. The prison-issue shirt was sticking to his sweaty back, and there were big wet patches under his arms. The courtroom was full of the smell of hot people.
The sheriff nodded sympathetically at his witness. “I understand, Mrs. Daschle. How long?”
“Maybe two hours.”
“Thank you, that’s very helpful. Mrs. Daschle, how would you describe Mr. Cane?”
“Standoffish. Not neighborly at all. Always kep’ to himself.”
“A loner.”
“Loner,” she said with satisfaction. “That’s the very word.”
“Thank you.”
THEN came the winos to testify that Sloane Gardner had not left out the back door either. Josh smiled coldly at the sheriff throughout that testimony. Then came a succession of sailors and workmen with the Gas Authority, testifying that Ham had been boasting along the waterfront about how his pal Josh was getting his biscuit buttered by the Grand Duchess’s daughter.
Josh wiped his sweaty forehead with the cuff of his grey prison shirt. “With friends like you, who needs enemies?”
“Sorry, bud,” Ham mumbled. The big man was brick red past the ears.
The next witness was Aaron Barker, the black sailor who had refused to carry Joshua across to the Selma. He was in Thalassar dress whites, shorts and a shirt, and a pair of white canvas shoes with rubber soles.
“Would you tell the judge what you saw in the water behind your boat?”
“A ghost.” The crowd moved and murmured. “A woman, under the water. Staring up at him,” he said, pointing at Josh.
“Did you say anything about this ghost to Mr. Cane?”
“Oh, yeah. He saw it.”
Sheriff Denton let a long silence stretch out. “Mr. Cane, you did not mention this ghost in your earlier testimony.”
“It wasn’t relevant,” Josh said.
“Not relevant?”
“No, sir.”
“I think it is. I suspect everybody in this courtroom is very interested to hear there was a ghost following you yesterday, Mr. Cane. Did you recognize this ghost?”
“Yes,” Joshua said.
Six oak-bladed fans hung from the ceiling, all spinning. Sunlight from the windows glinted from the lacquered wooden blades. Like stars, Joshua thought. One of the six had some kind of problem, turning much more slowly, as if wounded or sick. He couldn’t feel the breeze from the fans at all.
Deacon Bose had never been involved in the medical wing of the Krewe of Togetherness. It hadn’t been his office Joshua had waited in, cramping his heartbeat down into something small enough to fit inside his chest, his mouth going dry as a Krewe bureaucrat explained how of course his mother couldn’t expect to jump the line ahead of others whose need for insulin was just as great, but she would be put on the waiting list…
“Mr. Cane, we are waiting.”
“It was my mother,” Joshua said.
“Mr. Barker, could you see the woman clearly enough to make out her face?”
“Not really,” said the young sailor. “There was seaweed floating in front of her. I could tell she was white, with dark hair.”
“Mr. Barker, from what you saw, could it have been the ghost of the defendant’s mother?”
“Sure. I suppose.”
“Could it have been the ghost of Sloane Gardner?”
A gasp went through the crowd.
The witness’s eyes widened. “I…yeah, I suppose.” He nodded, slowly at first, then more strongly as he met the sheriff’s eyes. “Yeah.”
“But it wasn’t,” Joshua said. “It was my mother.”
Sheriff Denton called the man who had interviewed Joshua for the Krewe of Harlequins. He testified that he had also seen the ghost of a dark-haired woman. Once again, she had been too far away for him to recognize. “It was my mother,” Joshua said.
The sick ceiling fan limped overhead. Josh could feel the sweat at the waistband of the plain cotton pants they had given him. “Why?” Sheriff Denton asked after another long silence. “Why would your mother appear to you? Was she in the habit of doing this?”
“No.”
“Then why yesterday? Why that day of all days?”
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “Probably to warn me that a lynch mob was going to arrest and try me for a crime I didn’t commit.”
Sheriff Denton turned away, addressing the courtroom. “I submit to the judge that the appearance of a ghost is a mark of omen.” He paused. “Personally, I don’t think it was your mother’s ghost, Mr. Cane. I think it was the ghost of Sloane Gardner. And I think she was pursuing her killer.”
The crowd murmured and nodded, staring at Josh. Under the blank haze of humiliation it occurred to him that he had not heard Sheriff Denton cough since the trial began.
“Mr. Barker, you may step down.”
Josh jumped to his feet. “Deacon Bose, may I call a witness to the stand?”
“You may, Mr. Cane.”
“Then how about one of my other patients?” Josh rasped. He turned to the courtroom. “They’re in the back, of course. They don’t get front row seats like Mr. Denton here. How about Daisy Thornton? I set her leg when a horse kick broke it. Or you, Mrs. Phipps,” he said, catching sight of the neighborhood washerwoman. “How many times have I crawled into your shack and examined the shit in one of your kids’ diapers?” She flinched and looked down. Easy, Josh told himself. Don’t let anger get the best of you. You can’t play drunk, scared, or mad. “How about Jezebel MacReady?” he called, his voice hoarse and ragged. “Mrs. MacReady, haven’t you got a good word to say for me? Haven’t I given you pills and lotions and what all for your arthritis for years, and all for a few jars of jam? I don’t even like mustang grape jam. I got a crate of it at home now, all I do is trade it to the neighbors.”
The black woman stared back at him. “That was the price we said. I paid it.”
“Easy, Josh,” Ham rumbled.
“I’ve lived with y’all for years,” Josh said. “Come on now. I’ve done my duty. I’ve put in my time. Won’t anybody stand up for me?” The silence was deafening. Row after row of faces stared back at him or turned away. Nobody stood to speak. “It’s not fair,” Josh yelled.
Sheriff Denton stirred. “They don’t like you, Mr. Cane.”
Joshua’s anger began to cave in, collapsing into a ruin of shame. He had known, of course, that he didn’t fit in. That was no shock. But for the first time he understood that his patients in the barrio only came to him because they had no other choice. He had never managed to conceal from them, not for an instant, how much he resented being trapped among them.
Ham rubbed his eyes with his fat fingers. “Oh, Josh.”
Ham must have spent hours and hours defending him. Josh’s face burned as if he were just now overhearing a hundred conversations. Ham patiently making excuses for him to the longshoremen and the milkmaids, the shrimpers and the house servants he met in bars after Josh was in bed. For all Josh knew, maybe not even the other Mathers liked him. Maybe Ham’s sister, Rachel, thought he was a stuck-up prig who tried to show off by using big words. Ham’s mother had always been quick to defer to Josh. Maybe what he had assumed was respect was actually tact, Mrs. Mather trying not to offend his pathetic vanity. He was a charity project, is what he was, tolerated because he had a few useful skills, protected by the shield of Ham’s goodwill.
He felt his friend’s giant paw on his shoulder, gently pulling him back to his seat. “Sit down,” Ham rumbled. “Give the sheriff time to recover, you silver-tongued devil.”
“I’m sorry,” Josh said.
Ham lumbered slowly to his feet. He scratched at his neck. “You know, one thing about us Texans, we sure are neighborly.” He looked around the crowded courtroom. “Hey, Tex!” he called. “You got that leak on number three fixed yet? And howdy, Miz MacReady!” He gave a big old wave. “Yep. We sure like to be polite. And us Mathers, we’re good at it. My mom gets to feeling hurt if her guests don’t have three helpings of everything. My mom, she’s been teaching Sunday school from time out of mind. Her manners got manners. We’re just good ol’ salt-of-the-earth friendly howdy-do neighbors.”