Baby, Would I Lie? by Donald E. Westlake

Author:Donald E. Westlake
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

25

Friday was the first day of the actual trial, and Sara was there, but only through the intercession of Cal Denny. The court was being quite strict with the press, which by its very nature prefers the circus of celebrity to the bread of jurisprudence. Only three pool reporters were allowed in the courtroom itself, though the rest of the flock could preen and honk all it wanted in the hall outside and in the stairwell down to the main entrance. Remote-TV trucks now girdled the courthouse, as though they’d formed a circle there against an attack by the Atlanta Braves, but no media cameras were permitted anywhere in the building. Other cameras were present, however, small video cameras discreetly on black tripods by the side walls of the court, one placed there by the prosecution, the other by the defense.

Sara was not seated with the press contingent, three shaggy reporters and three intense sketch artists jammed together in the rear row on the prosecution side, but with the defense partisans across the aisle and down front, between Cal Denny and Ray Jones’s “secretary,” Honey Franzen, a woman so laid-back and sure of herself, she probably didn’t even bother to have a pulse. Jolie Grubbe, on the aisle, had given Sara one brisk nod upon meeting but then grimly avoided her eye ever after; so whatever good fellowship had developed between them last time, Jolie still didn’t like the idea of a reporter, any reporter, hanging out inside the tent.

Well, she was right, wasn’t she?

The Ray Jones trial was a hot ticket, but the courtroom was small, with four benches on each side of the public area that you could maybe squeeze six people onto apiece, which meant fewer than fifty spectators could be accommodated, of whom six—rear row, left—were press and six—front row, right—were with Ray Jones. How the court had decided to allocate the rest of the seating, Sara didn’t know, but the benches were jammed with civilians of every sort—except children—all of them trying to look solemn and sober and mature, but all of them actually so agog, they looked mostly like those fish with both eyes on the same side of the head.

Judge Quigley entered the court promptly at 9:30—swish, everybody rose; swish, everybody at the judge’s order became seated again—and in no time at all, reality set in. Intensity and expectation drained out of the room like crankcase oil; you could feel the deflation everywhere. And Sara’s own delight at being an insider didn’t last long; very soon, what she was mostly thinking about was how hard this bench was and how very long it still must be before lunch.

This first day of the trial being on a Friday, there would be a long two-day hiatus before they all got rolling again on Monday, so the state had chosen not to lead off with anything particularly interesting or dramatic. Since the jury could reliably be counted on to forget by the end of the trial

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