"Good morning, Mark," Karen the beautiful called out as they hurried by. But she said this without a smile.
"Hi, Karen," he answered without slowing.
Dianne was sitting in a folding chair in the hall with a Memphis cop kneeling before her. She was crying, and had been for some time. The two security guards were standing together twenty feet away. Mark saw the cop and the tears and ran for his mother. She grabbed him and they hugged.
"What's the matter, Mom?" he asked, and she cried harder.
"Mark, your trailer burned last night," the cop said. "Just a few hours ago." Mark glared at him in disbelief, then squeezed his mother around the neck. She was wiping tears and trying to compose herself.
"How bad?" Mark asked.
"Real bad," the cop said sadly as he stood and held his cap with both hands. "Everything's gone." "What started the fire?" Reggie asked.
"Don't know right now. The fire inspector will be on the scene this morning. Could be electrical." "I need to talk to the fire inspector, okay," Reggie insisted, and the cop looked her over.
"And who are you?" he asked.
"Reggie Love, attorney for the family." "Ah, yes. I saw the paper this morning." She handed him a card. "Please ask the fire inspector to call me." "Sure, lady." The cop carefully placed the hat on his head and looked down again at Dianne. He was sad again. "Ms. Sway, I'm very sorry about this." "Thank you," she said, wiping her face. He nodded at Reggie and Glint, backed away, and left in a hurry. A nurse appeared and stood by just in case.
Dianne suddenly had an audience. She stood and stopped crying, even managed a smile at Reggie.
"This is Glint Van Hooser. He works for me," Reggie said.
Dianne smiled at Glint. "I'm very sorry," he said.
"Thank you," Dianne said softly. A few seconds of awkward silence followed as she finished wiping her face. Her arm was around Mark, who was still dazed.
"Did he behave?" Dianne asked.
"He was wonderful. He ate enough for a small army." "That's good. Thanks for having him over." "How's Ricky?" Reggie asked.
"He had a good night. Dr. Greenway stopped by this morning, and Ricky was awake and talking. Looks much better." "Does he know about the fire?" Mark asked.
"No. And we're not telling him, okay?" "Okay, Mom. Could we go inside and talk, just me and you?" Dianne smiled at Reggie and Glint, and led Mark into the room. The door was closed, and the tiny Sway family was all alone with all its worldly possessions.
THE HONORABLE HARRY ROOSEVELT HAD PRESIDED OVER the Shelby County Juvenile Court for twenty-two years now, and despite the dismal and depressing nature of the court's business he had conducted its affairs with a great deal of dignity. He was the first black Juvenile Court judge in Tennessee, and when he'd been appointed by the governor in the early seventies, his future was brilliant and there were glowing predictions of higher courts for him to conquer.
The higher courts were still there, and Harry Roosevelt was still here, in the deteriorating building known simply as Juvenile Court. There were much nicer courthouses in Memphis. On Main Street the Federal Building, always the newest in town, housed the elegant and stately courtrooms. The federal boys always had the best-rich carpet, thick leather chairs, heavy oak tables, plenty of lights, dependable air-conditioning, lots of well-paid clerks and assistants. A few blocks away, the Jmelby County Courthouse was a beehive of judicial activity as thousands of lawyers roamed its tiled and marbled corridors and worked their way through well-preserved and well-scrubbed courtrooms. It was an older building, but a beautiful one with paintings on the walls and a few statues scattered about. Harry could have had a courtroom over there, but he said no. And not far away was the Shelby County Justice Center with a maze of fancy new modern courtrooms with bright fluorescent lights and sound systems and padded seats. Harry could have had one of those too, but he turned it down.
He remained here, in the Juvenile Court Building, a converted high school blocks away from downtown with little parking and few janitors and more cases per judge than any other docket in the world. His court was the unwanted stepchild of the judicial system. Most lawyers shunned it. Most law students dreamed of plush offices in tall buildings and wealthy clients with thick wallets. Never did they dream of slugging their way through the roach-infested corridors of Juvenile Court.
Harry had turned down four appointments, all to courts where the heating systems worked in the winter. He had been considered for these appointments because he was smart and black, and he turned them down because he was poor and black. They paid him sixty thousand a year, lowest of any court in town, so he could feed his wife and four teenagers and live in a nice home. But he'd known hunger as a child, and those memories were vivid. He would always think of himself as a poor black kid.
And that's exactly the reason the once-promising Harry Roosevelt remained a simple Juvenile Court judge. To him, it was the most important job in the world. By statute, he had exclusive jurisdiction over delinquent, unruly, dependent, and neglected children. He determined paternity of children born out of wedlock and enforced his own orders for their support and education, and in a county where half the babies were born to single mothers, this accounted for most of his docket. He terminated parental rights and placed abused children in new homes. Harry carried heavy burdens.
He weighed somewhere between three and four hundred pounds, and wore the same outfit every dayblack suit, white cotton shirt, and a bow tie which he tied himself and did so poorly. No one knew if Harry owned one black suit or fifty. He always looked the same. He was an imposing figure on the bench, glaring down over his reading glasses at deadbeat fathers who refused to support their children. Deadbeat fathers, black and white alike, lived in fear of Judge Roosevelt. He would track them down and throw them in jail. He found their employers and tapped their paychecks. If you messed with Harry's subjects, or Harry's Kids, as they were known, you could find yourself handcuffed and standing pitifully before him with a bailiff on each side.
Harry Roosevelt was a legend in Memphis. The county fathers had seen fit to give him two more judges to help with the caseload, but he maintained a brutal work schedule. He usually arrived before seven and made his own coffee. He started court promptly at nine and God help the lawyer who was late for court. He'd thrown several of them in jail over the years.
At eight - thirty, his secretary hauled in a box of mail and informed Harry that there was a group of men waiting outside who desperately needed to speak with him.
"What else is new?" he asked, eating the last bite of an apple danish.
"You might want to meet with these gentlemen." "Oh really. Who are they?" "One is George Ord, our distinguished U. S. attorney." "I taught George in law school." "Right. That's what he said, twice. There's also an assistant U. S. attorney from New Orleans, a Mr. Thomas Fink. And a Mr. K. O. Lewis, Deputy Director of the FJ3I. And a couple of FBI agents." Harry looked up from a file and thought about this. "A rather distinguished group. What do they want?" "They wouldn't say." "Well, show them in." She left, and seconds later Ord, Fink, Lewis, and McThune filed into the crowded and cluttered office and introduced themselves to his honor. Harry and the secretary moved files from the chairs and everyone looked for a seat. They exchanged brief pleasantries, and after a few minutes of this Harry looked at his watch and said, "Gentlemen, I am scheduled to hear seventeen cases today. What can I do for you?" Ord cleared his throat first. "Well, Judge, I'm sure you've seen the papers the last two mornings, especially the front-page stories about a boy by the name of Mark Sway." "Very intriguing." "Mr. Fink here is prosecuting the man accused of killing Senator Boyette, and the case is scheduled for trial in New Orleans in a few weeks." "I'm aware of this. I've read the stories." "We are almost certain that Mark Sway knows more than he is telling. He's lied to the Memphis police on several occasions. We think he talked at length with Jerome Clifford before the suicide. We know without a doubt he was in the car. We've tried to talk to the kid, but he has been very uncooperative. Now he's hired a lawyer and she's stonewalling." "Reggie Love is a regular in my court. A very competent attorney. Sometimes a bit overprotective of her clients, but there's nothing wrong with that." "Yes sir. We're very suspicious of the boy, and we feel quite strongly that he is withholding valuable information." "Such as?" "Such as the location of the senator's body." "How can you assume this?" "There's a lot to the story, Your Honor. And it would take a while to explain it." Harry played with his bow tie and gave Ord one of his patented scowls. He was thinking. "So you want me to bring the kid in and ask him questions." "Sort of. Mr. Fink has brought with him a petition alleging the child to be a delinquent." This did not sit well with Harry. His shiny forehead was suddenly wrinkled. "A rather serious allegation. What type of offense has the child committed?" "Obstruction of justice." "You got any law?" Fink had a file open, and he was on his feet handing a thin brief across the desk. Harry took it, and began reading slowly. The room was silent. K. O. Lewis had yet to say anything, and this bothered him because he was, after all, the number-two man at the FBI. And this judge seemed not to care.