Accused

SEVEN

The Galveston County Jail stands at 54th and Ball Street, one block off Broadway, the main drag on the Island. The sand-colored, 1,250-bed structure is framed by palm trees and gives the impression of a retirement community. For some of the inmates, it might be.

Scott steered the Jetta into the parking lot and saw that Renee Ramirez and her cameraman remained camped out on the front sidewalk. But she was expecting a Dallas lawyer-a guy wearing a suit and driving a luxury automobile, not a guy wearing shorts and sneakers and driving a Volkswagen-so Scott walked right past her without attracting more than a coy smile and a whiff of her sweet perfume. He entered the lobby and went over to the bail window but turned at the sound of chains dragging across concrete: a line of tattooed men wearing white GALVESTON COUNTY INMATE jumpsuits and shackles shuffled past and through a secure door under the close supervision of two guards packing pump shotguns, but not before one inmate said something in Spanish to a female guard and grabbed his crotch, which earned him a rifle butt rammed into his ribs.

"Help you?"

Scott turned back to the window. A chubby young man who looked more like a mall cop than a certified Texas peace officer addressed him. He wore a khaki Galveston County Sheriff's Department uniform and sat at a desk on the other side of the open window. Behind him, more uniformed officers sat at desks scattered about the room.

"I'm Scott Fenney from Dallas." He handed his business card to the officer, who looked at it and frowned as if it were written in French. "I'm representing Rebecca Fenney. I'm here to pick her up."

The officer looked up from the card. "Pick her up? What, like a prom date?" He shook his head. "Sorry, buddy, you don't just pick up someone accused of murder. She's staying right there in that cell till the grand jury indicts her."

"Oh. Okay. Then please give me a copy of the magistrate's written finding of probable cause."

"Do what?"

"My client was arrested at eight Friday morning without a warrant and charged with a felony, to-wit, murder under section nineteen of the Texas Penal Code. Section seventeen of the Code of Criminal Procedure requires that she be released within seventy-two hours after her arrest unless a magistrate determines that probable cause exists to believe she committed the crime. That time period expired at eight this morning. So you must either show me the magistrate's determination of probable cause or release my client."

The officer stared slack-jawed at Scott.

"To- what? " He held up a finger as if gauging the wind. "Uhh… hold on a sec." He swiveled around in his chair and called out. "Sarge-we got a lawyer up here quoting the Penis Code. He's from Dallas. "

A weary-looking older cop eating a donut at a desk along the back wall glanced up from his newspaper. He finished off the donut, removed his reading glasses, and pushed himself out of his chair. He hitched up his uniform trousers then walked up to the window. When he arrived, the officer manning the window held up Scott's business card. Sarge took it and held it at arm's length trying to find a focus point without his reading glasses. He finally gave up and instead gave Scott a once-over.

"You a lawyer?"

Scott nodded. "Scott Fenney from Dallas. I represent Rebecca Fenney."

Sarge jabbed his head at the officer manning the window.

"Junior here, he thinks he's some kind of comedian, been saying 'Penis Code' since he hired on a year ago. Problem is, he's a one-joke comedian and it ain't even a funny joke." Sarge sighed. "But then, you don't get Phi Beta Kappas for jailers, do you, Junior?"

"Nope, sure don't, Sarge."

Sarge eyed Junior a moment, then shook his head and turned back to Scott.

"So what can I do you for?"

"Release Rebecca Fenney."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because the law requires you to."

"The law? "

As if Scott had said "the Pope."

"My client was arrested without a warrant… " Scott repeated his recitation of the law for Sarge then added, "And since my client has no assets, she must be released on her personal recognizance."

"Is that so?"

"That is so, Sarge. So please give me either the magistrate's written determination of probable cause or my client."

Sarge grunted and scratched himself then pivoted and went back to his desk. He put on his reading glasses, picked up his phone, and dialed. He didn't lower his voice.

"Yeah, Rex, we got a lawyer over here, says he represents the Fenney woman… No, he's from Dallas"-Sarge focused on Scott's card through his reading glasses-"name's A. Scott Fenney… Hold on, I'll ask." Sarge turned to Scott. "You the A. Scott Fenney?"

"I'm the only one I know."

Back to the phone. "He don't know… What?… Hold on." Back to Scott. "You related to her?"

"She's my ex-wife."

Sarge blinked hard. "You're kidding?" Sarge returned to the phone, a bit amused. "Says she's his ex… Yeah, I'd let mine rot in jail, too, that no-good… Anywho, he says we gotta release her on PR 'cause she was arrested without a warrant and no one took her before a magistrate for a PC hearing and… Really?… I'll be damned… Okay, you're the boss."

Sarge hung up and walked back to the window. To Junior he said, "Cut her loose." To Scott he said, "The D.A., he said you're absolutely right… and he said to come see him tomorrow morning." Sarge nodded at the front door behind Scott. "Down the street, in the courthouse."

"I'll do that."

Scott handed Junior the bag of clothes Karen had given him for Rebecca then he stepped away from the window. One side of the large lobby was filled with rows of chairs occupied by family and friends of the residents, the other side with rows of closed-circuit TV monitors mounted on small cubicles occupied by a half-dozen people. On the monitors were the faces of inmates, white, black, and brown, some of whom looked sad, others lost, and a few like they belonged in a maximum security prison instead of a county jail. In front of the monitors sat a lower-rung lawyer counseling his client-"Now, Ernesto

…"-and a minister praying with a crying soul-"Dear Lord in Heaven"-and weary women and young children paying a daily visit-"Hi, Daddy!" a little girl shrieked when her father's face appeared on the screen. Scott found a vacant chair among other women and children waiting for daddy to be bailed out of jail as if it were just part of their normal Monday routine and waited for his wife to be processed out of jail.

Ex-wife.

He never had closure, as they say on TV. Never had a chance to say goodbye. Twenty-two months and eleven days ago she had left him. He hadn't spoken to her or seen her since, except once on television. One Sunday, a few months after she had left, Scott had watched the final round of a golf tournament Trey Rawlins had won; after he had putted out for the victory, the camera caught her jumping into his arms and kissing him-on national TV. Scott had never watched another golf tournament.

How should he greet her now? Should he shake hands with her? Should he kiss her on the cheek like Leno greeting a female guest? Should he hug her? How is a man supposed to greet his ex-wife who's accused of murdering the man she cheated with? How is a lawyer supposed to greet his new client who used to be his wife? What are the rules for this sort of thing?

He hadn't come up with any answers when the secure door opened, and she was suddenly standing there. She was dressed in a knit shirt, shorts, and sandals. She wore no makeup. Her red hair was ratty and cut shorter than before, but she seemed not to have aged a day in the two years. Her skin was still creamy with a hint of sunburn, and her body still remarkably lean and fit. Even at thirty-five-even after spending three days in jail-Rebecca Fenney's beauty still stunned him.

Scott stood.

Her eyes darted around the crowded lobby like a lost child looking for her parents. She spotted him and almost ran to him. She was crying before she threw her arms around him.

"Oh, Scott. Thank God you came."

She clutched him tightly for a long moment, then he felt her slim body sag in his arms. She sobbed into his chest. After all that time, she was back in his arms. She felt good even if she didn't smell good. She finally wiped her face on his shirt and looked up at him.

"I'm sorry, I must smell awful after three days."

"You didn't shower?"

"With those women? You wouldn't believe how many prostitutes are in Galveston. I was so afraid."

He released her. "Did they hurt you?"

"The women?"

"The police."

"They brought me here in handcuffs, they took my clothes, hosed me down… Scott, they sprayed me for lice."

"Why didn't you hire a lawyer to get you out of here?"

"I don't have any money."

"On TV, they said Trey earned millions."

"None of it's mine."

"You could've put your house up to secure bond."

"It's not mine either. Nothing is. The house, the cars, the yacht-everything belongs to… Why would someone kill Trey? This is all like a bad dream."

"It's real. But I'm here now, Rebecca. I'll take care of you."

She glanced around as if worried they had made a mistake and would throw her back in jail. "Can we leave now?"

"Not out the front door. Reporter."

Scott went back to the bail window, signed for her personal effects, and asked Sarge if Rebecca could leave out a back door. Sarge obliged. While he took her around back, Scott walked outside and past Renee Ramirez just as her cell phone rang. She answered and said, " What? He's here? I didn't see a lawyer go in." She hung up and hurried inside, trailed by her cameraman. Scott got into the Jetta and drove around back where he found Sarge with Rebecca. He opened the door for her like a hotel doorman.

"Hope you enjoyed your stay, ma'am."

Sarge shut the door and gave them a little salute. Scott drove around front just as Renee Ramirez and her cameraman came running back out.

"Duck down."

Rebecca ducked her head until they had exited the parking lot. When she came back up, she said, "What happened to the Ferrari?"

"Repoed. I lost everything. Sold the house to avoid foreclosure when the bank called the note."

Scott drove past the bail bonds and low-rent law offices that lined 54th Street, bit players in the tragedy that was the American criminal justice system. He stopped at a red light at Broadway. They sat in silence until the light turned green. He stepped on the gas pedal, and she spoke in a soft voice.

"Scott, they think I killed Trey. Why? "

"I don't know. But I'll find out."

Scott parked on Seawall Boulevard fronting the Gulf of Mexico.

"Let's walk."

They got out. Rebecca lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes, inhaling the fresh sea air like a lifer pardoned after thirty years behind bars.

"I'm free. Thank God. I thought I was going to die in there."

Three days in county jail-she'd never make life in prison. They walked down the wide sidewalk. Across the boulevard to their left were bars, restaurants, hotels, condos, and swim shops; to their right was the beach, seventeen feet below. The air was warm and the sky blue. The breeze blew strong and brought the smell of the sea to shore. Above them, white seagulls floated on the wind currents then suddenly dove down to the water and swooped back up with fish in their beaks. Down below on the beach, colorful umbrellas lined the narrow strip of sand. Sunbathers lay on towels, surfers rode the low waves, and tourists tiptoed through the tide. Waves crashed against the jetties or died out in the sand. Girls in bikinis and boys in swim trunks rolled past on rollerblades and skateboards. Parents pedaled children in surreys. To anyone who observed them, they were just another couple strolling the seawall on a fine summer day, not a lawyer and his ex-wife who stood accused of murdering her lover. A police cruiser with lights flashing and siren wailing sped past. Rebecca froze until it was out of sight then turned to him.

"Scott, I can't go back to that jail."

"Don't worry. You won't."

That assurance and the fresh air seemed to relax her. A block further down, she pointed at a structure being built atop pilings embedded in the beach.

"Ike took down the Hooters and Murdoch's Pier. They're rebuilding Murdoch's."

A few more steps and she gestured at two rows of vacant pilings extending into the Gulf.

"And that's all that's left of the Balinese."

For almost four decades after the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting the manufacture, sale, transportation, and importation of intoxicating liquors in America took effect in 1920, sinners flocked to Galveston Island for booze, prostitution, and gambling. Galveston became known as "Sin City." And no venue on the Island offered more sin than the Balinese Room, a swanky South Sea-themed speakeasy situated at the end of a wooden pier extending six hundred feet into the Gulf of Mexico. Two Sicilian-born barbers who became bootleggers named Salvatore and Rosario Maceo brought sin and stars to Galveston, Texas. Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and Groucho Marx played the Balinese, where a bartender concocted the first margarita. Proud locals dubbed their lawless island the "Free State of Galveston" where sin reigned supreme until 1957 when the Texas Rangers raided the Balinese Room and shut down vice on the Island. The Balinese's glory days came to an end, but the red building on the 21st Street pier had remained a Galveston landmark until Hurricane Ike washed it out to sea.

"Remember that spring break?" Rebecca asked.

He did. They had come to Galveston with a group from SMU, he the former football star and she the reigning Miss SMU. They had partied at the Balinese Room and had sex on the beach. Every night.

"I could never drive past the Balinese without thinking of that week," she said.

"Why, Rebecca?"

"Those nights on the beach-"

"No. Why'd you leave me?"

Twenty-two months and eleven days he had waited to ask her that question.

"Scott, I…"

"I kept your letter. You said-"

"Don't, Scott. I'm not that person anymore."

"Rebecca, what did you need from me that I didn't give you?"

"It wasn't you, Scott. It was me."

"Was it because I lost everything?"

"It was because I was lost. I didn't know who I was. I was playing a role. All my life I had played a role. Little Miss Texas. Miss Dallas. Miss SMU. Miss Cheerleader. Mrs. A. Scott Fenney, the most beautiful woman in Highland Park. I felt like I was always onstage… or in a cage. Like an animal in the zoo, everyone staring at me. When the cage door opened, I ran." She faced him. "I'm sorry, Scott. I know I hurt you… both of you."

They walked another block before Rebecca spoke again.

"Can I see her? Boo."