Daughter's Keeper (21 page)

***

Olivia woke on the morning of her arraignment to the sun shining through the slats of her Venetian blinds. She hadn't bothered to twirl the shades closed—the fog generally clung to the hills of Berkeley until well into the day, and there wasn't often enough sun to disturb her sleep. But last night she hadn't fallen asleep until close to dawn, and the unusually brilliant day found her groggy and nervous, her eyes gritty with exhaustion, her stomach in the grip of the now familiar nausea. It was as if the fog that had abandoned its usual post had instead taken up residence in her brain. She lay in bed for a while, her fists balled and pressed into the pit of her stomach. She didn't stir until she heard a light tap on the door.

“Olivia?” Elaine said, through the closed door.

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

“You need to get up, honey. You have to be in court in a couple of hours.”

Elaine walked into Olivia's room and stood uncertainly in the middle of the floor, staring around her. Olivia flipped over and attempted a smile.

“Sorry about the mess,” she said, motioning at the piles of clothes and books that were tumbled haphazardly around the room.

Elaine pursed her lips, and Olivia was sure she was about to be treated to the same lecture on tidiness and order she'd received nearly every day of her childhood. Instead, her mother said, “It's your room, you can keep it however you like.”

Olivia's eyes widened, and she tried not to smile. “No, really. I'm going to clean it up. I just feel kind of awful right now.”

Elaine came over and sat down on the bed next to her. “Because of today? Because of the arraignment?”

Olivia shook her head. She hadn't even begun to worry about the arraignment. Izaya had promised her that it would be nothing more than a formality, and she was distracted with other, more pressing things. “No. I'm just really nauseated.”

Elaine inhaled sharply, as if she had forgotten about the pregnancy and Olivia had taken her by surprise. She smoothed the blanket with her hand and then tucked her hair behind her ear. “You should get up,” she said.

Olivia heaved herself up out of bed and stooped down to pick up a pair of jeans from the floor.

“You're not wearing those!” Elaine said, reaching out a hand and grabbing the jeans. “Olivia, you can't possibly go to court in jeans.” She sounded almost hysterical.

Olivia hadn't actually been planning on wearing the dirty pants—she had planned on throwing them in the laundry hamper in the hall, but her mother's voice inspired in her a familiar petulance. “Why not?” she said. “Half the people there will be in prison jumpsuits. Why shouldn't I wear jeans?”

Elaine stared at her for a moment and then shrugged. “Because you have to look nice for the judge. You
have
to, Olivia. This is not a game.”

Olivia dropped the jeans back on the floor and crossed to the desk chair. Before she had gone to bed, she had laid out a long plum-colored peasant skirt she had bought at CP Shades on sale the year before and a matching short-sleeve sweater. She tugged on the clothes and turned back to her mother. “Is this good enough?” she said, peevishly.

“Much better,” Elaine said, rising to her feet and crossing to the door. “I'd like to leave a little early if you don't mind. I want to stop by the pharmacy and make a few quick calls before we go to the courthouse.”

Olivia shook her head. “You don't have to go with me, Mom.”

“What?” Elaine asked, her hand on the doorknob. “What are you talking about? Of course I'm coming with you.”

Olivia swept back her hair with one hand and clipped a barrette into place with the other. “Honestly, I'd rather you didn't. It's, like, a two-minute hearing. It's no big deal. I'd just as soon go by myself.” She looked at herself in the mirror and tugged a few hairs into place. She glanced over and saw Elaine's reflected expression. Her mother's mouth was pulled into a frown.

“Fine,” Elaine said and walked out the door.

***

Olivia stood at the podium in the magistrate judge's courtroom pleating the fabric of her skirt in one nervous hand. Jorge huddled off to one side next to his attorney, a florid older man in a crumpled suit, and avoided Olivia's eye. The indictment charged her with three crimes: conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, actual distribution of methamphetamine, and use of a communications facility to commit a drug crime. This last offense, Izaya had explained, was legalese for using a telephone to talk about a drug deal. Olivia made certain that she pronounced the words “not guilty” loudly and forcefully, so that everyone in the courtroom would understand who and what she was—an innocent person. No one in the courtroom, however, seemed to notice, apart from Izaya, who squeezed her hand.

The indictment was read to Jorge and Oreste as it had been read to Olivia, and they were asked for their pleas. The ­proceedings were translated for them by an interpreter, a small, pretty woman in a peach-colored suit and a helmet of blow-dried hair.

“Not guilty,” Oreste said, in a thick, Mexican accent.

His voice so soft that Olivia could not hear him, Jorge muttered directly into the interpreter's ear. The interpreter's back was turned to Olivia, and when she bent over to listen to Jorge, Olivia saw the lines of her underwear straining against her tight skirt.

“Not guilty,” the interpreter said, translating Jorge's whispered words into a loud and certain declamation of innocence that had something false about it, as if she were acting a part.

The judge motioned to the court clerk, who pulled a small wooden stick out of a pile. Olivia felt Izaya holding his breath.

“This case is assigned to the honorable Myron Horowitz, courtroom two.”

Only Olivia could hear Izaya's muttered, “Fuck.” She blanched and looked at him, but he was busily scrawling down the dates the clerk announced for motions and trial. Once they were dismissed, they walked quickly to the rear of the courtroom.

“Is that a bad judge?” Olivia whispered, wishing now that she'd let her mother come with her this morning.

Izaya pushed his fingers through his hair, disarranging his dreadlocks. “No, no. Not really. He's fine.”

“But you said, ‘Fuck.'”

“I was just hoping for one of the Carter appointees. They're the most liberal judges in the Northern district, but they're both on senior status and not taking too many cases.”

“Who appointed Horowitz?”

“Reagan.”

“Fuck,” Olivia said.

“No, really, he's okay. He's not one of the most liberal guys, but he's not a conservative demagogue, either. It's really okay.”

“You said that we'd only get a downward departure if the judge was on our side. Is
he
going to be on our side?”

“Maybe. Horowitz likes to say that he's tough but fair. That's true, for the most part. He's not some unpredictable wild card like some of the other judges. And it's not like he
never
gives any downward departures. He follows the rules, and that means he gives them when he thinks the law warrants it.”

“Fuck,” Olivia said again.

“Not so much. Maybe just a little bit fuck,” said Izaya. “Come on outside so we can talk for a minute.” He took her arm and started to lead her out of the courtroom.

“I thought you said you had another client entering a plea this morning.”

Izaya paused. “Right, shit. Hold on a second.” He hustled up the aisle and motioned discreetly at the court clerk. Olivia watched him whisper a few words to the woman, who nodded and waved him away. He then came back down the aisle, stopping to shake the hand of a young black man wearing a puffy down jacket, sitting next to an elderly woman in a felt hat with a flower on it.

“Okay, I pushed my other arraignment back to the end of the calendar,” Izaya said when he returned to Olivia's side. “Let's go.”

They walked out into the hallway and stood against a wall opposite the courtroom. Olivia stared at the marble floor and paneled walls. For the first time, she noticed the elegant appointments, only slightly marred by the panels of fluorescent lighting flickering ­overhead.

“This is a nice building,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“It's nice. I mean, it's not horrible and dingy like the ones you see on Court TV.”

Izaya nodded. “Well, it's brand new. And it's federal court. More money to spend, I guess. Anyway, how are you? Are you okay?”

Olivia placed a hand on her belly. “I'm okay,” she said.

“He's really not a bad judge.”

“It could be worse.”

“Right.”

A door across the hall burst open, and two men in almost identical navy-blue suits walked out, arguing vociferously about the A's chances of winning a pennant any time in the next few years. Izaya and Olivia stood silently as the men made their boisterous way to the elevator bank.

Once they were gone, Izaya said, “Now's when we've really got to get cracking. I've already filed a discovery request with the government, and I'm going to ride them to get me the evidence sooner rather than later. I'm also going to get everything I can on the informant. We may need to go to court for that, but trust me, I'll get it.”

“I trust you,” Olivia said.

He nodded. “Good. We're going to need to work together on this. I'm counting on you to help me prepare the case.”

“Okay.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small hammered-silver card case. “I'm going to give you my cell phone number. If I'm not in the office, I'm generally reachable on my cell. Call me if you think of something important, or if you just need to talk. Or anything. And my email address is on the card, too. You can always email me, although I'm a little leery of that. I know I'm probably being paranoid, but I try not to put anything in an email that I wouldn't want to hear read out in court.”

He scrawled a telephone number on the card and handed it to her. As she took it, she ran her fingers across the silver case.

“This is nice,” she said.

“Yeah, it was a present from my dad. When I won my first trial.” He flipped it open and showed her the inscription engraved under the top.
To a Chip Off the Old Block
.

“Pretty fucking corny,” he said.

“Is your father a lawyer, too?”

Izaya nodded. “My dad is Ervin T. Upchurch.”

“Who?”

Izaya laughed. “I'll have to tell him you said that. He's a private criminal-defense lawyer. He's kind of famous. He's a commentator for CNN. He pretty much does only high-profile cases. You know, if the vice president's kid gets busted or if some rap star kills his girlfriend. That kind of thing.”

“I think I've heard of him,” Olivia said. “How come you don't work for him?”

“Because
this
is what I want to be doing. I'd rather be representing somebody like you than the types my dad defends.”

“What type am I?”

“The type that's getting screwed by the system. The type that deserves a lot better.”

“Do I deserve you?” she asked.

“You deserve the best.”

“And are you the best?”

Izaya blushed and looked down at his shoes. Olivia put her hand on his sleeve, and he raised his eyes to hers.

“Are you the best?” she asked again, not breaking her gaze.

He looked back and then smiled. “I'm pretty good. Listen, I'd better get inside or my other client will think
he
deserves someone else. I'll call you soon, okay?”

He patted her hand with his and gently returned it to her. Then he slipped inside the courtroom, leaving Olivia alone in the hall. For a moment or two she thought about their conversation. She was embarrassed at the thought that Izaya might think she had been flirting with him, and at the knowledge that she had been. The last thing she had time to think about now was a man, and her lawyer was the last man she should fixate on. Except, of course, that he wasn't the least obvious choice, by any means. He was young, and he was handsome. He was taking care of her. That was not something she was accustomed to. He was the only person in the calamity that her life had become who both knew what he was doing and was on her side. But, Olivia reminded herself, if he was standing by her, it was only because that was his job; he was paid to be on her team. She determined to dismiss anything she felt toward him as a kind of attorney-client transference, like when you fell in love with your shrink—only more dangerous.

Olivia pushed thoughts of Izaya out of her mind and concentrated on Jorge. She didn't want to leave before she'd had a chance to talk to him. It was a long wait; the U.S. Marshals only took the line of inmates out after the judge had worked his way through the entire calendar. She stood there in the empty hallway, chewing on the fingernails of one hand, the other pressed into her belly to quiet the nausea that had overcome her again as soon as Izaya had gone. The air was redolent of a musty, not unpleasant odor, like wood chips or sawdust. In the silent, empty hallway, Olivia slowly became aware of a humming noise, a throbbing, as if the building were breathing along with her. At first the sound bothered her, but the longer she waited the more she began to find it comforting. She leaned back against the wall, and by the time the doors opened and Jorge and the other inmates filed out past her, it had lulled her almost to sleep. Olivia jerked her eyes open and grabbed Jorge's arm.

“Jorge, I went to visit you but you didn't put me on your visitors list. I need to talk to you.” Her voice came out in a rush of angry Spanish.

Jorge's brown eyes looked wet, as if he were trying not to cry. He wrenched his arm out of her hand and kept walking. Olivia ran after him.

“Jorge! Stop! I need to talk to you!” she shouted.

“Move away from the inmate!”