Accused

FIVE

They would spend their summer vacation on Galveston Island.

It was the following Monday morning, and Scott wasn't thinking about Ford Fenney or Judge Fenney. He was thinking about Rebecca Fenney. His ex-wife was sitting in the Galveston County Jail, charged with the murder of Trey Rawlins. The man his wife had left him for was now dead.

Scott was driving the Jetta south on Interstate 45 through East Texas. Consuela was sitting in the passenger's seat and quietly saying the rosary-she was deathly afraid of Texas highways-and Boo and Pajamae were watching a Hannah Montana DVD on their portable player in the back seat while little Maria sucked on a pink pacifier and slept peacefully in her car seat between them. In the rearview Scott saw Bobby and Karen in their blue Prius, and behind them, Carlos and Louis in the black Dodge Charger.

"Good God Almighty, Mr. Fenney, what the heck is that?"

Pajamae was pointing out the left side of the car at a six-story-tall white statue overlooking the interstate like a giant observing his toy cars speeding past.

"Sam Houston. The first president of the Republic of Texas."

"Mr. Fenney, did you know that Sam Houston and a bunch of white boys just stole Texas from the Mexicans?"

Fifth grade had studied Sam Houston and sex.

"I heard something about that."

"Our teacher said now the Mexicans are taking the place back, all of them moving here."

"What's that?" Boo asked.

"Mexicans?"

"No-that."

They were now in Huntsville, located seventy miles due north of Houston and notable for two structures: the Sam Houston statue and the state penitentiary. In the rearview, Scott saw Boo looking out the side window. He glanced that way and saw what she saw: bleak brick buildings behind tall chain-link fences topped with concertina wire and secured by armed guards in towers at each corner of the perimeter. The State of Texas incarcerated 155,000 inmates in those buildings behind those fences.

"A prison," he said.

In the rearview, he saw Boo twist in her seat to stare at the prison until it was out of sight. She turned back. Her face was pale. Scott knew her thoughts had returned to her mother. The murder had made the network news Friday and Saturday evenings, and no doubt the cable coverage was nonstop; fortunately, the Fenney household did not have cable. He had told Boo about her mother, but he was able to shield her from the worst of the news.

"Mother's in a place like that?"

"No. That's a prison. She's in jail."

"What's the difference?"

"I can get her out of jail."

She had left him for another man, a younger man who had given her what she had needed because her husband had not. Scott Fenney had failed her. Now, two years later, she needed what only Scott Fenney could give her: a defense to a murder charge. This time, he wouldn't fail her.

"I didn't kill him," she had pleaded on the phone. "I swear to God, I'm innocent."

Rebecca Fenney was not a murderer. Or his wife. But she was still the mother of his child. What does a man owe the mother of his child?

She said she had no money to hire a criminal defense lawyer. If Scott didn't defend her, a public defender would be appointed to represent her. Which was another way of saying, Rebecca Fenney would become Texas Inmate Number 155,001. She would spend the rest of her life in those bleak buildings behind those tall fences. Boo would visit her mother in prison.

She had left him, but she had not taken Boo from him. "You need her more than she needs me," she had said back then. That one act of kindness had saved Scott's life and had indebted him to her for life. He owed her.

A. Scott Fenney would defend the mother of his child.