Chapter 15: The Dates

"Not in a parking lot," I said.

Mr. Lyle's cane shook against the asphalt.

"Then where?"

"There's a bail hearing Friday at ten. Your son's lawyers asked for it, and I'm allowed to speak."

"I know what they've asked."

"Then come and sit in the second row," I said. "You'll hear all of it at once, same as everyone."

He looked at Brice, then at Rhonda, then at me.

"And after?"

"After, you can come to Rhonda's kitchen. Bring your wife. Bring no lawyer."

He put his hat back on and walked to a black sedan without his cane touching the ground twice.

Rhonda shook her head.

"I'd have thrown a shoe at him."

"I know," I said. "I'm saving it."

On Friday the courtroom was kept at sixty-two degrees, and every person in it wore a jacket except Lance.

They brought him in from the jail in an orange shirt, with his wrists cuffed at his waist.

He had lost weight in five days.

His hair was damp, his lips were gray, and he walked slowly with his arms held close.

He didn't look at me.

His mother sat directly behind him with her pearls on and her back straight.

His father sat beside her with the cane across his knees.

The judge was the same woman who had bound him over, and she did not look pleased to have him back.

"Mr. Lyle's counsel," she said. "Proceed."

His lawyer stood, in the gray suit from the hospital hall.

"Your Honor, my client has been taken from the county jail to the emergency room twice in five days."

"Both times, doctors found nothing."

"That is exactly the problem. He is ill, and nobody can say why. He needs access to specialists in Phoenix, and the jail cannot supply them."

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