Home Fires Read online

  Judge Ferndale squinted down over her reading glasses at Mike. “And you have chosen a very bad way to start off my Monday morning. You’ve got thirty minutes to come up with an attorney, any attorney. If I return and find that you are still without representation, I will render my decision. I’ll be in my chambers.” To the room, she announced, “This court stands in recess for thirty minutes.”

  Mike turned his chair around to face Joe.

  “What am I gonna do? I can’t find him anywhere. Schuster? They should have named him Shyster. I can’t believe he’s doing this to me.”

  “To us,” Cyndi said.

  “Why don’t you go try to call him again?” Joe suggested.

  Mike practically sprinted from the courtroom.

  Joe saw panic strike Cyndi’s face. She tried to follow Mike, but Joe put a steadying hand on her arm.

  “Give him a minute,” he said.

  “We only have twenty-four minutes left. We’ve got to do something.”

  “You believe in prayer. Why not try that now?” He couldn’t believe those words had come out of his mouth. Pray?

  “No, I don’t—praying is more Mike’s thing.” Cyndi looked to the doors one more time, as if salvation would appear to her there, but none did. “You can pray if you want.”

  “Me? Nah. That’s not—I don’t—”

  Their awkward exchange was interrupted by the sound of an argument in the corridor outside.

  “Oh, boy,” Cyndi said. “That’s Mike.”

  Joe raced her to the door.

  A crowd had gathered in the hallway around two men, Mike and the lawyer, Ernie Schuster. Once glance at Schuster told Joe he was either drunk or hungover. At nine o’clock on a Monday morning. He looked about like Joe usually did—unshaven, disheveled, and mean.

  “How dare you!” Mike said, not quite shouting. “You don’t even call? What do you think this is? A joke?”

  “No, I—” The lawyer slurred his speech. Definitely still drunk.

  “It’s not a joke. It’s my life!”

  “Let’s fight for your life,” Schuster said. “Time to play ball.” He took a couple of staggering steps toward where Joe stood by the courtroom door.

  Joe put his arm out and stopped him easily. “You’re not playing ball in there,” he said.

  “Says who? Move outta my way.”

  Joe stood firm. “Go on home now. They don’t need you. You’re fired.”

  “You can’t fire me.” The lawyer leaned his head back and squinted at Joe. “Who are you anyway?”

  “Joseph Talbot, attorney-at-law,” he said, amazed at his words—words he had sworn never to speak again.

  Mike and Cyndi stared at him, mouths agape.

  He took a deep breath. He was all in. “I am the Finches’ new defense counsel. Your services are no longer required.”

  Chapter 30

  Cyndi sat by Joe at the defendants’ table in the courtroom. She was still in shock.

  “You’re really a lawyer? How—? An honest-to-goodness attorney?” She couldn’t wrap her brain around it.

  Joe looked a little like he’d been hit by a truck.

  Mike was grinning ear to ear. He looked like it was Christmas morning.

  What were the chances? They had asked and immediately received. But what do they call it when you are the answer to your own prayer?

  Joe looked like he was about to be sick. “Me and my fat mouth,” he mumbled.

  “You’re really a lawyer?” Cyndi said again.

  “Yeah.”

  “A homeless lawyer?”

  “Yeah.”

  She shook her head. “In good standing?”

  “Yeah. Listen.” He stood next to her, pulling at the sleeves to his suit. “I need to go talk to the judge and get her up to speed. Can we save the storytelling for later?”

  “Go, go,” Cyndi said. She shook her head again. What in the world?

  Joe straightened his tie and smoothed his hair. The shock looked to be wearing off. Now he just looked alive.

  “Now,” he whispered to Mike, “it’s time to play ball.”

  Judge Ferndale entered and took her elevated chair behind the imposing mahogany desk. She looked over at the defense. Joe could swear she did a double take. She lowered her half glasses to the end of her nose so she could peer over them.

  “Well, Mr. Finch, it looks liked you scared up another attorney. Very impressive. Counsel, approach the bench?”

  Joe’s feet felt like they were embedded in cement as he took the several long steps to face the judge. His cheeks and hands burned with agitation and excitement he hoped was hidden by two days’ stubble. He wished he had his beard back to hide behind.

  “Are you the new counsel for the defense?” Judge Ferndale asked.

  “I am, Your Honor,” Joe croaked. “Joseph Talbot.”

  “Joe Talbot. Well, I’ll be. It’s been years. Where have you been?” The judge kept her voice professional, but a certain level of interest came through in her tone.

  “I’ve been . . . on the road a lot.” In the strictest sense, it was the truth.

  “Welcome back.” She leaned forward a little. “Please tell me you plan to redeem this case.”

  “Yes, Your Honor, I do. Since I’ve just been retained, though, I’d like to request a continuance to allow me to get up to speed.”

  “How much time would you need?”

  Joe quickly calculated in his head what would be involved in reading up on case law related to this case. He didn’t want to ask for too much.

  “Three weeks, Your Honor.”

  “Granted,” the judge said to Joe. Then, in a louder voice, “I’m ordering a continuance of one month to give the defense time to prepare. We will reconvene on the nineteenth of December.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Joe said. He turned back to the defense table in time to see Mike mouth Yes! and pull a fist down to his side.

  Across the room, Mr. Ridley shuffled papers brusquely into his briefcase. He stomped down the aisle, his attorneys and wife clipping along behind him.

  Joe walked back to the defense table. Cyndi practically tackled him with a bear hug before he was halfway there.

  Time stopped when her soft, scented hair brushed against his cheek. He drew in a deep breath and held it. When was he last hugged? You could count the time in years, if not decades.

  Mike laid a hand on his shoulder.

  Joe snapped a mental picture at that instant. Needed and wanted by two people—he would cherish the moment and tuck it away to pull out on cold, lonely nights. His other happy memories had worn so thin.

  Cyndi loosened her embrace. Mike removed his hand from Joe’s back to grab his overcoat.

  And just like that, the moment was a memory.

  “Let’s get some coffee,” Mike suggested. He took Cyndi’s hand and escorted her into the corridor.

  Joe walked behind them, watching Mike match his steps to Cyndi’s. It said a lot, this give and take. They shared their small victory.

  Joe, even though he’d delivered a miracle, was outside their circle. Had he ever loved anyone like that? It was hard to remember.

  Outside, the frigid air slapped Joe’s bare face.

  Wolf met him halfway on the courthouse steps. Joe patted the old dog’s head.

  Cyndi knelt to Wolf’s level and scratched him below both ears with gloved hands. “I remember you, yes, I do,” she said in a good boy voice. Still petting the dog, she spoke to Joe. “He’s thinner than he looks. Is he a husky?”

  “Part husky, I think, or malamute. But I’m pretty sure there’s some wolf in there, too. That’s what I call him—Wolf.”

  “Where did you get him?”

  “We just found each other. He’s not really my dog. We just run together. He fends for himself.”

  Wolf tried to make a liar out of Joe by trotting behind him to a nearby coffee shop. No commitment on Joe’s part, maybe, but the dog was devoted. Wolf parked himself under a wrought-iro
n table outside the restaurant. Joe let him stay there. No one was eating outside on a cold day like today anyway.

  Joe yanked the door open.

  Cyndi and Mike walked through ahead of him.

  “Order anything you like,” Mike said. “My treat.”

  Joe looked at the menu overhead. All the words were in foreign languages. His head reeled with the number of choices. Unable to focus or decide, he turned his attention instead to the glass-encased pastry selection. Everything looked so inviting, bathed in a warm yellow light. How could he possibly choose?

  Cyndi recognized his bewilderment. “I’ll order for everyone if you two want to find a table,” she said.

  Joe settled into a cushioned wicker chair. A few minutes later, Cyndi brought over the drinks.

  “One grande caramel macchiato, extra hot, extra cream,” she said, placing a drink in front of Mike.

  “One grande mochaccino, whipped.” This cup went in front of Joe.

  “And one decaf grande chai latte, no fat for me,” she said, placing her cup at an empty spot. “I’ll be right back.” She returned with three monstrous marionberry muffins, one for each, and some kind of egg-and-meat-filled pastry, which she slid in front of Joe.

  “Wow,” he said. He glanced down at the receipt: $29.06. Wow again. Just for a snack?

  Mike snatched the receipt and stuffed it in his pocket. “Let’s pray before we eat,” he said.

  Joe bowed his head and listened to Mike’s conversation with God. He seemed sincere enough in his belief. He’d noticed that about Mike in the short time he’d known him, that he believed what he believed, whether right or wrong. Anyway, Joe admired the fact that Mike wasn’t embarrassed by his faith like so many were . . . like his wife seemed to be.

  As soon as Mike said “Amen,” Joe pounced on his pastry. The muffin looked good, too, but the protein of the eggs and meat would carry him further. He crammed a third of the savory treat in his mouth and tried to chew it down into manageable mush that would fit down his throat.

  Cyndi and Mike both stared at him.

  Embarrassed, he put the pastry down and dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

  Mike waited until he’d polished off the pastry and the muffin before launching questions at him.

  “How are you a lawyer? Why do you live on the street? How is your license still good?”

  Too many questions, too fast. Joe didn’t know where to start or how much he wanted to say.

  Cyndi placed her hand on Mike’s arm. “Slow down, dear. Let him breathe.” She cocked her head to the side a little and looked at Joe. “When you’re ready, Joe, why don’t you tell us your story?”

  Where to begin? How much did they really need to know?

  “Start wherever you want to. We’re all ears.” She gave him a little smile, the kind you would use to comfort a frightened child on the first day of preschool.

  Joe sucked marionberry seeds out of his teeth while he thought about what to say. “Okay,” he said. “My name is Joseph Talbot. You heard that already. Joseph Alexander Talbot III, to be exact. I graduated from law school a long time ago, like a thousand years ago.”

  “Did you ever practice law?” Mike asked.

  “Oh, yeah. For years. I was good, too. I worked for a pretty big firm here in town, the one down on Broad and Fifth. Worked my way up to junior partner and then full partner in record time. I earned millions of dollars a year for my firm. Crazy hours . . . I used to work eighty, ninety billable hours a week.”

  “So you never had a family?” Cyndi wanted to know.

  “Oh, no. I had a family. Don’t know where I managed to find the time to get married. They’d be grown and gone by now. I don’t know where they are. I think about them all the time, wonder if they’re happy . . wonder if they still remember me, if they’ve told their kids about me.”

  “What happened?” Mike asked. He didn’t ask the question that begged to be asked—What did you do to fall so far?

  “I wasn’t around enough for my wife’s tastes. But I think it was a trade-off for her. I mean, I kept her in a nice house, with nice clothes, a great car, a country club membership . . . anything she wanted.”

  Cyndi asked, “Did she leave you because you worked too much?”

  “Nah.” Joe pursed his lips and tried to find a way to soften the truth. But there was no good way. “She left me because I lost my job. I started double billing hours. Sometimes triple billing. It padded the firm’s pocketbooks and it didn’t hurt mine either. They never came right out and said to do it, but they sure never discouraged me. Anyway, those numbers came out in an audit. Lots of guys in the firm were double billing, but I was the only one they pinpointed. The firm needed a scapegoat and I was it. Big red target on my back, they gave me a choice—an ultimatum, really. I could either step down or they would turn me over for prosecution.”

  “So what did you do?” Mike leaned toward Joe, elbows on the table. “Did you go to jail?”

  “Nah. I was too chicken. I took the deal. I stepped down from the firm and decided to lie low for a while until the whole thing blew over. Only it didn’t blow over. At least, not at home. As soon as she heard I was jobless, my wife was out the door. Packed the kids along with her and moved in with some rich boyfriend she’d been seeing on the side. She had more than a few choice words to say before the door slammed shut, too. Words I’d best not say in mixed company, if you know what I mean.” Joe winked at Cyndi. He tried telling the story as if it didn’t matter, as if it were all water under the bridge, but the pain of the memory seared his heart.

  “She served me with divorce papers before I even had a chance to think. She threatened to turn me in if I challenged her demands in the divorce. I just gave in. She got it all—the house, the kids, the cars, the money in the bank. Wiped me clean. She didn’t leave me anything, especially not any dignity.”

  “So, is that how you ended up homeless?” Mike asked.

  “Yes and no. I found a cheap apartment and looked for a job, but my name was worse than worthless around here. I couldn’t find a job anywhere on the West Coast. Probably not anywhere else, either, but I never tried. I just lost heart.”

  “Why didn’t you look elsewhere?” Cyndi asked.

  Joe felt a tear well up in the corner of his eye and then escape, rolling over hills and through the crags of his cheek. He brushed it away with the back of his hand.

  “It was your children, wasn’t it?” Cyndi answered her own question. She fished for a tissue in her purse, but gave up and handed Joe a napkin.

  “Yeah,” Joe said with some difficulty. “I wanted to be close by so they could visit me, but they never did.”

  “Never?” Mike sounded as incredulous as Joe felt.

  “Not once. Sometimes I wonder if they live in the city. I wonder if either of them has ever dropped a coin in my can. If they walked by, I’m sure I wouldn’t recognize them. They’re old enough to have careers, to have kids of their own.”

  “You could be a grandpa,” Cyndi said.

  “Yeah, I could. Actually, I am.” He pulled the printed birth announcement from his pocket. “That’s my grandson.”

  Cyndi squinted at the paper. “Hard to see,” she said. “I’m sure he’s a cutie.”

  “So, I’ve got a question,” Mike said, “not to change the subject.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Are you legal? I mean, are you allowed to practice law?”

  “Am I disbarred? Is that what you mean?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Nah, I’m legal. Like I said, it never went through channels.”

  “But, don’t you need a license or something?”

  “Yeah—I’ve got one. It’s all up to date, too. That’s been a pain, but I’ve managed to pay the fee every year. It was important. Helped me hang on to a little dignity, I guess. Made me feel like I was still somebody.”

  “How did you pay—?” Mike started, but Joe stopped him.

  “Don’t ask
. You really don’t want to know.”

  Joe had shared as much as he could. He drew the line at admitting that he’d paid for his lawyer’s license with coins fished from public fountains.

  Chapter 31

  Cyndi had a lot to think about. She really wanted to talk to Clark, but she couldn’t burden the girl with her legal woes. And she certainly wasn’t ready to share her spiritual ones. Nance was out for the day, and Mike was too close to the situation.

  She needed a break from Home Fires anyway and decided to take a stroll around the block to clear her head. She walked the main road down the entrance of her neighborhood. Cars sped by, too close for her to feel safe. As soon as she could, she turned onto a smaller road, away from aggressive drivers and people in a hurry to get to places they probably didn’t even want to go.

  The fresh air did wonders in clearing her head. With a little quiet time to revive her, she felt more ready to face the day. She didn’t want to ruin her mood by going back out on that crazy main drag, though, so she decided to see if there was a way to cut through the greenbelt between the neighborhood and the mall.

  From a distance, she looked for a place to cut through the trees. There wasn’t an obvious path, so she walked closer. In a couple of places, the underbrush had been trampled down, forming paths into the trees.

  Cyndi had a bad feeling about this. She should probably walk around. But she’d come this far. She was probably spooking herself for no reason.

  “Hello?” she called. “Anyone there?”

  No one answered.

  She tromped down one of the makeshift paths. A blanket of leaves crinkled under her leather boots. She ducked under a low limb and came into a small cleared area under a canopy of branches. A tattered tarp and two filthy, crumpled blankets told the story of the people who had slept here. So did the legless plastic lounge chair, three mismatched shoes, and a molded black purse, probably stolen from someone’s car.

  Cyndi felt the sudden urge to scrub her hands. She couldn’t believe there were homeless people living right here, not one hundred yards from the mall. Had they been here before, or did they move in because of Home Fires?