Sweetest Kisses: A Single Kiss Part 26

Hannah waited for a heavy metal door to slide open beside her. She stepped through it, and the door slid shut. When the first door clanged closed, a second equally heavy door before her slowly slid open.

A symbolic airlock, so none of the jailed air mixed with the free air. How did Mac Knightley not only endure the criminal defense business, but thrive on it?

She proceeded down a hallway painted some incontinent color between gray and yellow. The corridor should have been cold, except it wasn't. Higher temperatures made the inmates more sluggish, according the Hannah's Criminal Procedure professor, and so jails were usually toasty places.

Hannah found room number seven, which contained a pair of folding chairs and a battered table, nothing else. She was deciding which chair to take when a sandy-haired man dressed in jail-orange overalls rapped on the doorjamb.

"Ms. Stark? I'm Gard Davis." His modest height did nothing to mask a powerful build-working out was one of the pastimes inmates were permitted. His eyes were light blue, and his face had an appealing masculinity.

Rapists were supposed to be as ugly on the outside as they were on the inside, but this man wasn't ugly, and when he spoke, his voice was as quietly attractive as the rest of him. He was also young, just barely into adulthood.

He held out his hand, and Hannah's nerves leaped as she forced herself to shake hands with him.

He smiled then, a mischievous, charming grin, confirming that Hannah had pa.s.sed some sort of test. The smile was rife with humor, something else rapists weren't supposed to have.

"How do, ma'am. I'm Beauregard Jefferson Davis the Fourth, but my friends call me Gard. I am mighty glad to see you."

Hannah replied, exchanging civilities that seemed incongruous with the surroundings. "You're my only client here today. We can take our time. Shall we sit?" Good G.o.d, was she supposed to let him hold her chair?

Gard got them through the moment by waiting until Hannah took a seat, then taking the other chair. She busied herself fishing out his file and setting it on the table between them, all the while thinking he'd forced some woman to have intimacies she did not want, probably hurting her both physically and psychologically, possibly leaving her pregnant, diseased, and screwed up for life.

Davis regarded her patiently while she glanced over the notes in the file.

"I got an appeal pending," he said eventually. "It won't go anywhere."

Hannah took out her legal pad and pen, paltry weapons against the chaos inside her.

"Your wife paid the firm a good chunk of money to get you an abatement of child support, Mr. Davis. I don't need to know any more about the criminal matter than you want to tell me."

She wanted to know less than nothing about it, in fact.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. "You know I was convicted of second-degree rape," he said. "I'll be sent to the Division of Corrections after Friday, and serve five years, flat time. What you don't know is that my victim was thirteen years old."

Hannah involuntarily shut her eyes. His voice was slow, even, the measured recitation of a Southern Gentleman, but in her mind Hannah pictured Grace at thirteen, Merle...herself.

"s.h.i.t." Mr. Davis stood up, his chair sc.r.a.ping back. "Will you help me or not?"

Foster care had been a sort of prison. Some of the group homes were locked facilities, and Hannah had hated those the worst.

"I will do the very best I can to get you an abatement of your child support."

He sat. She'd pa.s.sed yet another test.

"My victim was thirteen years old, but she told me she was seventeen, and believe me, ma'am, she looked seventeen and she dressed seventeen. She also drove a car, because her daddy thought it was cute to let her play grown-up. We dated for a few months and screwed around some-she wasn't any virgin, and it wasn't anything exclusive.

"She knew I was separated from my wife and kids, and knew I'd rather be back with them. The day I told her my wife was letting me come home was the day she told her daddy I'd raped her. I was arrested that night, and I haven't seen my kids since, because now I am a pedophile. A G.o.dd.a.m.ned child molester, whose picture will go on the Internet, and who will have to register with the police wherever I live-if I make it through my sentence."

Hannah was too stunned to write anything.

She knew the kind of thirteen-year-old he'd run into. Too tall and too pretty much too soon and way too s.e.xually, they ran riot through the foster care system, ending up pregnant even in locked facilities.

I wanted to practice corporate law. Corporate law.

"You know what the worst part is?" Davis asked, sitting forward and staring at his hands. "The worst part is having to sit in all these s.e.x-offender group therapy sessions, and listen to a bunch of sicko perverts talk about what they've done and what they want to do when they get out. I think the group leader is the sickest of them all, but he keeps telling the guys if they want a decent discharge summary, they have to disclose."

Numbness descended on Hannah, a blessed numbness that protected her from imagining what Davis had to hear if he was to be "rehabilitated" for a crime he hadn't known he was committing.

"I have a daughter, you know," Davis finished quietly.

"How old? You mentioned you have more than one child."

This man was a parent, a dad.

"I had a son when I was sixteen, my little girl is just two. Names are Beauregard Jefferson Davis the Fifth, and Annalisa Evangelina Davis. They're the best kids."

Hannah picked up her pen. "How old are you, Mr. Davis?"

"I have reached the ripe old age of nineteen, Ms. Stark, which means my son is three. I will likely be twenty-four years old when I get out, and by then the baby will be in school."

"Who has the children now?"

She clicked into interview-the-client mode, establishing that Mrs. Davis had the children and was living with her parents while her husband served out his sentence. She hadn't intended to sue him for child support, but the wheels had been put in motion by the State when she'd applied for medical a.s.sistance for her children.

And the arrearages were piling up.

Hannah could do nothing about the arrearages, except make the abatement retroactive to the day it was filed.

Her interview was concluded, but she wasn't satisfied. "Does your wife visit you?"

"Her parents would make her life h.e.l.l if she tried. It's probably better she doesn't."

"If you wrote to your children, would she share that with them?"

"That dog won't hunt. The group leader, who does not deserve to be called a mental health professional, would just say I was in denial and failing to take responsibility for my addiction."

"Your addiction?"

"I'm a pedophile, remember? I've never laid an inappropriate hand on a child before or since, but I'm a pedophile."

"What if your wife agreed to write to you twice a year, send you pictures and update you on how the children were doing? You still get mail, don't you?"

"We do," he said, looking thoughtful. "They look through it for contraband, but we do get mail. Pictures of my own kids would likely get through."

"OK, so if you agree not to seek visitation while incarcerated, then maybe she'll send you pictures and updates on a regular basis."

He picked up Hannah's pen and scratched something on her yellow pad.

"That's my wife's work number. You probably have her home phone number, if her mom came with her when she hired you. They keep a close eye on her, but I think this number is still good."

Hannah sat back, when she knew she should be marching down the hallway toward the freedom side of that air lock. "Did you plead guilty to this rape?"

For the first time, he didn't meet her eyes.

"I sure did, and it is the sorriest mistake I ever made. My lawyer told me how pathetic Melissa would look on the witness stand, and how little chance I had of winning. He got me five years flat time, second degree, and I went for it."

"Didn't anybody testify they'd seen her driving a car?"

"My lawyer didn't produce witnesses, Ms. Stark. He didn't even interview any witnesses, and I am post-convicting the son of a b.i.t.c.h, and maybe I'll get me a new trial. That's what the appeal is about."

Mr. Davis was claiming he hadn't had the effective a.s.sistance of counsel at his trial, which wasn't likely to get him anywhere. Before he plead guilty, the judge would have asked him under oath and on the record if he was pleading guilty because he was guilty. The same judge would have asked if Davis had known he was giving up his right to subpoena and question witnesses-giving up all his trial rights by taking the plea bargain.

The same judge would have asked Davis if he were satisfied with the efforts of his attorney. Davis would have said yes all around, and that would be the end of his chances for appeal.

"Mr. Davis, who was your victim?" Hannah put the question neutrally. Please, G.o.d, don't let it be someone I know. Don't let it be a young girl I shared a room with in some foster home when I was a teenager. Don't let it be a person.

Just a name.

"Melissa Lewis," he said, matching her neutral tone.

Hannah didn't recognize the name. "What if she recanted her testimony?"

"She did not testify. She made a statement to a very sympathetic cop. If she recanted, she'd be charged with making false statements, which her daddy would not permit. He's some wheel at the Department of Defense, and he'd lose his security clearances, at least that's what Melissa told my wife. Besides, statutory rape is a matter of age, not a matter of consent."

"Your sentence can be modified. If Melissa's parents are raising her to be a lying, promiscuous little tramp and providing her wheels illegally, they are contributing to the condition of a minor, and for Melissa's sake, something needs to be done."

"You going into criminal law, Ms. Stark?" He eased back in his chair, a rebel boy grin on his face.

"No, I am not, but I know a very good criminal attorney, and I will discuss your appeal with him. If you don't hear from me before next Friday, a.s.sume your case is still scheduled for the morning docket. I'm on your call list, so give me a ring if you have any questions."

"I will see you Friday," he said, getting to his feet. "a.s.suming they remember to transport me."

Hannah stood and snapped her briefcase shut. "I have a question."

"Ask."

"How do I get out of here?"

His grin softened to a genuine smile. "You just go back the way you came and knock on the window. They let you out. One of the first stories you hear when you're locked up is about some lawyer who had to wait around at the door for hours for the duty officer to let him out. He sued the place for false imprisonment, so they man the door now. Thank you for coming, and thanks for taking my case."

He shook her hand again, and Hannah felt his eyes on her as she made her way back to the sliding doors that led to freedom.

She made it as far as her car before she began to cry.

"Hannah?" Trent shot his older brother a look of consternation, then carefully wrapped his arms around a very upset lady. "Honey, what's wrong?"

"He can't see his own ch-children," Hannah got out. "She lied to him, and now he's a pedophile, and I can't... I hate this."

The last was said in such low, miserable tones, even Mac's eyebrows rose. He pa.s.sed Trent a monogrammed handkerchief, which Trent tucked into Hannah's hand.

"Just catch your breath. Take your time, and we'll sort it out."

"Don't use your daddy voice on me," she said, pulling away. She swiped at her cheeks, then balled up the hankie. "What are you two doing in the parking lot of the county jail?"

"My conference got cut short. I gave Mac a ride because his truck is in the shop. What has you so upset?"

"My client." She stared at the wrinkled hankie with the embroidered initials. "I shouldn't let it get to me, but he's serving a five-year sentence, in essence, for being too trusting."

"What are the facts?" Mac asked. "And leave your maternal instincts out of it." As Trent watched, under careful, dispa.s.sionate questioning, Hannah gradually regained her composure.

"And it's rape," she said. "I wasn't prepared to deal with rape, and then he's not even a rapist, except in the technical sense, and he never stood a chance. Do you know what the incidence of AIDS is in the incarcerated population?"

"What did you say the vic's name was?" Mac asked.

"Melissa Lewis. You know her?"

"She's somewhat infamous in the juvenile system and was picked up last month for soliciting an undercover cop. Her dad tried to bribe the cop, and the whole thing is awaiting trial."

"Can you do anything for Gard Davis?"

"You're asking me to?"

"I am. The system hasn't done right by him."

Mac frowned at her, and Mac's frowns were revered throughout the criminal community for their ability to loosen a perp's bowels. Then the corners of his lips turned up.

"The system surely has not done right by him. I will see what I can do, but for now, I have clients to interview and promises to keep. If you'll take Trent back to the office, it will save him having to read in the car until my boys are done with me."

"I don't fit in her car."

"So put your ego in the trunk," Mac said, turning to go. "That should leave you plenty of room."

A silence extended between Trent and his favorite a.s.sociate counsel. He hated to see Hannah cry; he loved that she put that much heart into the job.

"I went for years without crying until I took this job," Hannah muttered. "Let's have our argument in the car with the heater going. You want me to drive?"

She gave him a look that suggested he'd just offered to dance on his head and spit nickels, then she pa.s.sed him the keys. He got in, sliding the driver's seat back as far as it would go.

They tooled along in silence for a few minutes while the car heated up.

"What are we supposed to argue about?" Hannah asked.

"You'll tell me you never agreed to involve yourself with a criminal population, and family law is bad enough, but you draw the line at convicted rapists."

"He's not a rapist." She sounded tired and defeated and so sad.

"I'm sorry you're upset. Every job has the equivalent of rotten cases, bad decisions, aggravating opposing counsel. That isn't unique to the practice of law." Though a rotten day as a ditch digger probably never brought anybody to tears.