Chapter 14: Callie's Turn

Callie Frost pleaded guilty two days after the ledger, in a courtroom with the air turned down to sixty-two.

Nobody had turned it down for her.

It was cold because the judge was keeping it that way for the next man on the docket.

I sat in the second row with Rhonda on my left and Brice on my right.

His knee was against mine, and he had not moved it once.

Callie came in from the side door in a gray jail cardigan with her blonde hair pulled into a rubber band.

No sundress.

No bandaged heel.

She walked on both feet and did not limp.

Her lawyer was a tired man from the public defender's office, because her private one had quit the day she called me a witch.

"Ms. Frost," the judge said, "you are charged with reckless endangerment and with making a false report to a rescue officer. How do you plead?"

"Guilty," Callie said.

Her voice was small, but the room was so quiet that it carried.

"Do you understand that you are giving up your right to a trial?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Are you pleading because you are in fact guilty?"

Callie looked at the table.

Then she did something I did not expect.

She turned her head and looked straight at me.

"I took the water," she said. "There was one bottle left, and I drank it because I wanted Lance to see me suffering."

A murmur ran through the gallery.

"I turned my radio off when Lorena called," Callie said. "I did it because Lance told me to, and I would have done it if he hadn't."

"Ms. Frost," her lawyer said quietly.

"I want it on the record," she said.

The judge folded her hands.

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