States of Grace by Mandy Miller (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

She palms her forehead and takes a slurp of a swimming-pool-sized soda, stands, wipes her hands on her pants, and croaks into a microphone. “Attorney visit for Slim, Women’s North Unit B, bed twelve?” It sounds like more like question than a statement. I look around to see if maybe I’d dozed off and missed the arrival of some other visitor. But, no, I’m alone.

“Tower B. One floor up,” she says, pointing at a ceiling-to-floor gate constructed of thick iron bars. It opens as I walk toward it. When it clangs shut behind me, I cringe.

Tower B is stenciled in red paint on a door at the top of the stairwell, behind which are two rows of visiting rooms on either side of a security post. A black-and-white photocopied sign hangs on the door of each room, ATTORNEYS ONLY, which strikes me as a statement of the obvious, given my ilk are the only people allowed up here. Friends and family are permitted to visit once a week in cubicles on the first floor where they communicate via filthy wall phones, no physical contact. Inmates, however, can meet face to face here with attorneys twenty-four seven. Cops too, any time of the day or night, up here or downstairs, lawyer or no lawyer present—the jail’s frequent fliers know better than to say anything to law enforcement.

“Room three. Hit the panic box if there’s a problem,” the guard says, focus trained on a console of video monitors.

The panic box is an alarm rigged up under the table. One swift kick is supposed to alert the guard to trouble, but on my first visit to the jail as defense counsel, I booted a panic box just to be sure. Nothing happened. Just the hollow sound of shoe hitting wood, and a sneer from the man with a face covered in tattoos on the other side of the table. I’m not cowed, though. Way I see it, if you’re sitting across from me in here, I’m the last friend you’ve got, which is exactly how I need Zoe Slim to feel about me.

I step into the cave-like space to find Zoe seated at a metal table, not one inch of which is free from graffiti, her scrawny body dwarfed by a baggy orange jumpsuit, feet restrained by leg chains bolted to an iron bail cemented into the floor. Rubber shower sandals peek out from beneath her pant legs, the type worn by old men who sit in ancient recliners when style is no longer of concern. Her long, dark brown hair is matted and draped around her pale face like a curtain—no hair ties allowed in jail.

Before I have the chance to say a word, she attempts to spring from the chair, which results in her being ratcheted back by the leg irons. “Who the hell are you?” She juts her chin out. “Hey! I asked you a question. Who the hell are you?”

Resisting the urge to flee, I pull a once-white plastic chair back from the table, but as soon as my rear hits the seat, the uneven legs tip me to the left, shifting my weight onto Oscar and sending me face down onto the filthy table top.

I right myself as she continues to yell at me, her top lip curled back to reveal a row of metal braces.

She emits a mocking grunt. “Hey, don’t ignore me! Who—”

There’s one thing war and the law have in common—the best defense is a strong offense. I bellow back, “Shut the hell up!”

Her head snaps back.

I count to ten. “Let’s start again, shall we?”

I extend my right hand, but she continues glaring, hands locked under armpits.

“My name is Grace Locke. I am an attorney. Your mother asked me to come.”

She sucks her neck into her shirt at the mention of Gretchen.

When I retract my hand, she launches another attack, the words rushing out in a manic torrent. “Why would I talk to you? Guard! Get me out of here!”

Through the observation window, I see the guard reclined in his chair, feet on the desk, smiling. He makes a circular motion with his index finger by his ear and mouths the word “crazy.”

I lean back and wait her out.

“What you lookin’ at?” she says in a tone I assume she thinks sounds fierce, but comes out whiny, her energy spent on the first two outbursts.

I point the pencil at her. “You are definitely not cut out for prison.”

She grunts, “I’m not going to prison!”

I motion the guard to let me out, pretending I’m on the verge of leaving. “I’d agree if you were my client, but since you don’t want my help—” I stop mid-sentence, but the reality of her situation hits her like a brick to the head, fear taking the place of rage in her eyes, which are now clouded by tears.

The guard cranes his neck around the door. “You ready to go, Miss Locke?”

“Please stay,” she whispers. “I didn’t—”

I clamp my hand onto her shoulder. “Not another word.”

Her shoulders tense up under my grip.

I wave the guard off. “Sorry, false alarm. I’ll be staying.”

He shrugs and rebolts the door.

I slide back into the chair, making sure not to lose my balance again. “Zoe, right now, I don’t want to know if you did or didn’t do what they say you did.” I say this, because if I know for a fact that she shot Brandon Sinclair, I won’t be able to put her on the stand to say she didn’t, if it comes to that. Suborning perjury is a big no-no, and I don’t need any more problems with the Bar.

“But I didn’t kill him! I wasn’t there. You have to believe me!” she yells, spittle spraying.

“Calm down. We’ve got plenty of time. Today, I just want to—”

She grabs my hands with her cuffed hands and squeezes it so hard I can’t pull away, her ragged fingernails digging in. “I need to tell you what happened. How can they do