Rufus noted her staring. Chains on a man usually had that effect on people, he had found.
“What’d you do anyway? To be in prison for.”
“What’s your name?”
“Why?”
“Just like to know. My name’s Rufus. Rufus Harms.”
“I knew that. It’s on your chart.”
“Well, I ain’t got no chart to look up your name.”
She hesitated for a moment, looked around at the door and then back at him. “My name’s Cassandra,” she said.
“Real pretty name.” His eyes passed over her figure. “It fits you.”
“Thank you. So you’re not going to tell me what you did?”
“Why you want to know?”
“Just curious.”
“I killed somebody. A long time ago.”
“Why’d you do it? Were they trying to hurt you?”
“Didn’t do nothing to me.”
“So why’d you do it?”
“Didn’t know what I was doing. Was out of my mind.”
“Is that right?” She drew back a little farther as he said this. “Isn’t that what they all say?”
“Just happens to be the truth with me. You gonna call my brother?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Tell you what, I’ll give you the number. If you don’t, you don’t. If you do, then I thank you very much.”
She looked at him curiously. “You don’t act like a murderer.”
“You ought to be careful about that. It’s the sweet-talking ones end up hurting you. I seen enough of that kind.”
“So I shouldn’t trust you, then?”
His eyes seized on hers. “You got to make up your own mind on that.”
She considered this for a moment. “So what’s your brother’s number?”
She took down the telephone number, slipped it in her pocket and turned to leave.
“Hey, Ms. Cassandra?” She turned back around. “You’re right. I ain’t no killer. You come back and talk to me some more . . . if you want to, that is.” He managed a weak smile and rattled the shackles. “I ain’t going nowhere.”
She eyed him from across the room and he thought he saw a smile flicker across her mouth. Then she turned and went out the door. Rufus craned his neck to see if she spoke to the guard, but she walked right past him. Rufus lay back and stared at the ceiling. He inhaled deeply, letting the remnants of her scent soak into him. A few moments later a smile spread across his face. As did, finally, the tears.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
It was an unusual gathering of all of the clerks and the justices. Marshal of the Court Richard Perkins and Supreme Court Police Chief Leo Dellasandro were there too, looking stonily around the table in the large room. Elizabeth Knight’s eyes were moist and she dabbed continually at them with a handkerchief.
As Sara Evans looked at the grim-faced justices, her eyes stopped on Thomas Murphy. Murphy was short and flabby, with white hair and tufted eyebrows. His face held cheekbones the shape of almonds. He still favored three-piece suits and wore large, showy cuff links. His dress, however, did not attract Sara’s attention; rather it was his expression of complete mourning. She quickly finished checking the occupants of the room: Michael Fiske was not there. She felt the blood rush to her head. When Harold Ramsey rose from the head of the table, his deep voice was oddly subdued; she could not really hear him that well, but she knew exactly what he was saying, as though reading his lips.
“This is terrible, terrible news. In fact, I can’t remember anything like it.” Ramsey surveyed the room, his hands making fists in his anxiety, his tall frame shaking.
He took a heavy breath. “Michael Fiske is dead.” The justices obviously already knew. All the clerks, however, collectively missed a breath.
Ramsey started to say something else but then stopped. He motioned to Leo Dellasandro, who nodded and stepped forward while the chief justice collapsed into his chair.
Dellasandro was about five-ten, face wide, with flat cheeks and a pug nose, and a layer of fat over a muscular physique. He had an olive complexion, with wiry black and gray hair. Arising from his pores was the smell of cigar. He wore his uniform with a proud air, his thick fingers tucked inside the gun belt. The other man in uniform standing immediately behind him was Ron Klaus, his second-in-command. Klaus was trim and professional in appearance, the darting activity of his blue eyes suggesting a nimble mind. He and Dellasandro were the watchdogs of this place. They seemed to move about in tandem. Most people who worked at the Court could not think of one man without the other.