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

and when and where they can take a leak. Three o’ clock on the nose it’s off for eighteen holes and two cold ones before the sun sets. How sweet it is.” With finger and thumb, he rolls an imaginary cigar, his impression of Jackie Gleason right on the money.

“Go on over and talk to your client, Ms. Locke,” he says, standing aside. “And, Ms. Locke, it’s good to have you back.” He motions to the still empty bench. “And best to keep your voice down, way down. The judge is about to come out and he can be a real prick, if you know what I mean?” He gives me an exaggerated wink, turns on his heel and proclaims, “All rise. The Honorable Michael C. Garrison, presiding.”

The restless, scared, hopeful, and hopeless seeded throughout the crowd and the jury box stand in unison, although none knows which word will describe them by the end of the day.

Judge Garrison bursts through a door behind the bench, black robe flapping. “Please be seated,” he says as the door sucks shut behind him, sealing us in for the duration.

During his explanation of the morning’s proceedings, I take note of his use of the word “individual” as opposed to “inmate,” a rare concession of respect to the accused I must have heard a thousand times from him, but which strikes me now as more patronizing than sincere, given how few of them are anything other than guilty.

I tune Garrison out, silently rehearsing my arguments about how Zoe’s a kid and hasn’t been in trouble before, has parents and a home, and is not a flight risk—oh, and just forget that she’s madder than a bag of cats. A voice keeps overwriting my thoughts, however, the voice of a prosecutor holding forth on the vicious nature of Sinclair’s execution.

I suck in a deep breath and tiptoe over to the jury box. Shoulder to shoulder, shackled hands and feet, the defendants are packed in like rats on what looks more and more like a sinking ship with every “Bail denied” pronouncement from Garrison. A couple of the defendants are asleep, others are as agitated as bed bugs, their eyes shifting back and forth from the bench to their counsel to the ASA like spectators at a tennis match.

I squeeze into Zoe’s row. She’s between two women, one skinny as a reed, the other obese with several chins and a shaved head. Both look uninterested, as if whatever is going to happen is a foregone conclusion. Zoe is one of only three whites. The rest are African American or Hispanic, evidence of the racial inequity in the system alleged by defense counsel I used to dismiss as specious.

Wrists cuffed together, Zoe yanks on my sleeve. “You gotta get me out of here!”

“I’ll do everything I can,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at Garrison to make sure he can’t hear us.

Her wrists strain against the cuffs. “I can’t take it. I’m all alone in there, except for meals and showers, but that’s even worse. Everyone stares at me like I’m some kind of freak.”

“Shh, Zoe, lower your voice.”

She yanks on my sleeve yet again. “I need to tell you what happened, Ms. Locke.”

I shush her again.

She blinks hard to stem the torrent of tears threatening to breach their banks. “I’m afraid in there, Ms. Locke. It’s really scary.”

I squeeze her bony forearm. “I know. And please call me Grace.”

I scan the gallery for the Slims, my ace in the hole to persuade Garrison that Zoe comes from a stable home, but, more importantly, to make it clear she’s from a wealthy family, one that might be inclined to dig far into its deep pockets when reelection time rolls around.

Floating above the mass of unremarkable faces, I spot Gretchen’s corona of blonde hair. But no Anton.

“Shoot. The least he could do is show up for his only kid.”

“What?” Zoe says.

Garrison’s head pops up from behind a file. I thought I was saying the words to myself. Apparently not. He lowers his reading glasses and pins me with the same hollow stare with which he’s sent many a hard man away to prison, never to return, other than in a pine box. Garrison’s small and wiry, but his hyper-kinetic presence galvanizes everyone to look at me, the object of his irritation.

I hold my breath. After a seemingly endless pause, Garrison pushes his glasses back up his nose, and resumes asking a defense attorney why he thinks his client, who has skipped bail on three separate occasions, deserves another chance at the “freedom enjoyed by the good citizens of Broward County.”

Garrison gallops through the docket in alphabetical order, announcing a defendant’s name and charge, his words ricocheting off the walls. Defendants pop up like jack-in-the-boxes, and sit down just as fast, heads bowed by the realization that they won’t be seeing the sky without the benefit of chicken wire for a long time. He cautions those who have the ill-advised notion of saying anything in their own defense that everything is being recorded and, he narrows an eye, he can guarantee that it will be used against them. Ignorance of his warning merits a banged gavel and a hard shove from the bailiff.

Garrison had presided over bond court back when I took the ASA job Manny helped me get after I moved to Florida from New York. Garrison scared the bejesus out of me the first time I appeared in front of him. His rapid-fire dispensation of his version of justice is legendary, earning him the title, King of the Rocket Docket. As a rookie, I once watched him rule on two hundred and fifteen motions for bail in three hours. It was as if the State, the defense, and the accused weren’t even in the room. Rapists, murderers, drunks, and thieves, they all got the same fifteen seconds of His Honor’s time.

After an hour, Garrison reaches surnames starting with the letter S.

“State versus Zoya AKA “Zoe” Slim.”

“Yes, Your