"Yeah," Merrion said, 'and I got to tell you, where this one's concerned, the camping's not all of it either. This Shepard matter, it's more complicated'n you might think. From what little I could get outta her there, other night up at the station, she may be tied up with our little friend Janet LeClerc'
The defendants and their families and the witnesses and cops stood and sat and talked and sighed and shrugged. Some of them made faces of disgust. They asked each other questions and ignored those who asked them, and when they were jabbed or poked and asked again, looked annoyed and said that they did not know either. Information about what time it was was popularly sought and repeatedly given. The people moved around with their shoulders hunched as though there might be snipers watching the room. They went from row to row and bench to bench and crowded in, getting angry looks from those they displaced to sit beside people they wanted to talk to; they talked urgently in low voices, glancing furtively every so often up toward the judge's bench, as though plotting against him and Merrion and making sure they would recognize them when the time came to harm them. They took careful note of everyone inside the bar enclosure. People came and went constantly outside the rail. They got up abruptly as though they had just remembered something that they should have done before they entered the courtroom and went out hurriedly through the swinging doors into the main foyer. Right away, as though they had been waiting for the chance, people came from the main foyer through the swinging doors into the courtroom and looked around at the seats vacated by the people who had just gone out. Finding none they liked, the new arrivals leaned against the wall and put their hands in their pockets and sighed.
Inside the bar enclosure were the prosecutors, cops and lawyers both, and probation officers, two of them plus a third one who came and went with papers. Two lawyers from the Mass. Defenders huddled together, riffling absently through their files. They talked about the Red Sox and how erratically they'd been playing, considering what a bunch of overpaid rich bums they were.
"For Christ sake, how?" Cavanaugh said. "How the hell can that all be connected with her? Didn't you have her in? Tell her to stay away from undesirable companions? Didn't you talk to her like we agreed and you were going to there?"
"I had her in," Merrion whispered urgently. "I had her in Saturday morning. I gave her a good talking-to. I told her she hadda, well, you know what I told her. I told her what we said I hadda tell her and make sure she understood. I told her to stop doing what she was doing.
I told her to cut it the hell out."
"Well, what did she tell you she'd do then?" Cavanaugh whispered.
"Tell me what she said to you. Did she tell you she'd do it or not?"
"I'm trying to," Merrion said. "That's what I'm trying to do here, for Christ sake. If you'd just let me, here, damnit, let me get the words out of my mouth."
"Well then, do it," Cavanaugh said. "Tell me what she said to you."
"Look," Merrion said, 'what I did here, I think the best way that we go about this's just let this case of trespassing here that we've got, let it come forward, it's eleventh on the list, and appoint the Mass.
Defenders on this, and continue it a week. Because this Shepard woman doesn't know and neither does her boyfriend, this Bennett character either; neither one of them has any inkling about the connection that I think we've got here with Janet. Because I don't think Janet's talked to them since I had her in here Saturday. They wouldn't've had any way of knowin' what I said to her then, unless she did. They didn't have no phone or anything, livin' up at the campground. In the State Forest's what I'm saying.
"And then, what I already did this morning was, I called Sammy Paradise and I asked him, is he free for lunch today. And he said yes, he is, he could do that if we wanted, and so what I thought the best thing we all could do here is if we just get together here, you know, and see if we can get something worked out. Have some sandwiches sent in and we just have them in your office after we recess at One today. Put our heads together here and think about this thing, talk the whole thing over and see what we have got here. What we ought to do. That sound good to you?"
"If I tell you there are times when I wish I had never been born,"
Cavanaugh said, 'and you believe that I'm sincere, I really truly mean it, is there any way you know of they can make it retroactive? Anyway you ever heard of it?"
