Black Water Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

new dance step in time for the prom. This is her moment in the spotlight after all, her chance to tell it the way she wants it heard. Her story: a friend set her up with a Mr. J. T. Cummings (“No, sir, he is not present in the court room”; Jay wants that on record). She agreed to meet him in the parking lot of a Long John Silver on the north side of town. They negotiated a price and drove off in his car. She then asked her “date” to take her to Gilley’s, out 225, in Pasadena. She’d seen Urban Cowboy
    at least ten times and wanted to dance at the place where John Travolta and Debra Winger got married. For a couple of line dances and a b.j., J.T. was happy to oblige. (“A ‘b.j.’?” Jay asks, ’cause he has to. She leans forward on the stand, into the microphone, as if she’s going to demonstrate right then and there. “A blow job,” she explains.) Her “date” drove her some twenty, thirty miles outside the city limits (“no small thing, gas being as high as a dollar thirty-five a gallon in some parts”). They were having such a good time at the club that Mr. Cum mings lost himself and drank one or two (“maybe it was three”) Long Islands past his limit, and on the way home, he was weav ing and driving erratically. She asked him several times to please pull over. But he refused, and she was, after all, in his employ. Somewhere along the way home, Jay’s client reports, Mr. Cum mings got into a one-car accident: he hit a telephone pole.
    “And where were you at the time of the accident?”
    “In his lap.”
    The court reporter looks up. The bailiff cracks a smile.
    “Well, really... just my head.”
    The judge lets out a little cough.
    They’re all laughing at him, Jay thinks, with his JCPenney suit and his shitty case. He’s heard this story a dozen times, and it has never sounded more ridiculous than it does right now, with her on the stand. He frankly never expected the case to get this far. He was sure just the mention of Ms. Moreland’s name and profession to the defendant’s lawyer, the fact that she claimed any association with Mr. Cummings, would be enough for an instant settlement. He actually imagined the whole thing would be handled in a single phone call. But he grossly underestimated Charlie Luckman’s propensity for bluff calling.
    Jay looks down at his notes. “An Officer Erikson arrived on the scene?”
    “A state trooper, yes.”
    “And when he discovered Mr. Cummings behind the wheel, drunk, with your head wedged between his legs... what did Officer Erikson do?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing?”
    “He was practically apologizing to the guy.”
    “And what did you make of that?”
    “That he recognized J.T., and he didn’t want to get him in any trouble.”
    Jay is waiting on the objection: “calls for speculation,” “lack of foundation,” “irrelevance”... something. But when he catches Luckman out of the corner of his eye, Charlie is leaned way back in his chair watching the whole thing like a sporting event he is only mildly interested in.
    “He offered you no medical attention?”
    “No, sir.”
    “So, the extent of your injuries that night may never be fully known, since you did not get immediate medical attention?”
    Again, he waits for it: “witness is not a medical expert.”
    But Charlie says nothing.
    He just watches as Jay guides this train wreck, walking his cli ent through the rest of her testimony—a description of her inju ries, aches and pains, and seemingly a million reasons why she never made it to a doctor. His final question: It was Mr. Cum mings who put your head in his lap, was it not?
    “I definitely wasn’t down there for my health.”
    By now, she’s lost the rhythm of the whole routine. The vul nerability is gone and a huskiness has crept back into her voice. Jay can suddenly imagine all the laps she’s ever had her head in, can see her whole career in full color.
    “Nothing further, Your Honor.”
    Charlie passes on a