Custody of the State Read online

  “But Your Honor,” Will added, “the county’s entire case rests on expert-opinion evidence. But there is no evidence of the qualifications of the experts in these affidavits.”

  Putnam was preparing to jump in, but the judge responded first. “I’m taking judicial notice that each of the folks in these affidavits is an expert. What else you got?”

  That is when Harriet Bender rose to her feet.

  “We want Mr. Chambers to be ordered to either produce the child or inform this court—as well as my office—where Ms. Fellows is hiding my client Joshua Fellows.”

  “I have serious objections to that—” Will began to counter.

  “I’m sure you do, Mr. Chambers. Now, here is what I am going to do,” the judge continued. “Mr. Chambers, you will have a period of time to either produce the child or find out from your client where the child is located.” Then the judge looked to Putnam.

  “How long do you want, Harry?”

  “Well, maybe seventy-two hours,” Putnam replied.

  Bender stood up and rapped out, “Twenty-four hours, Your Honor. No longer than that. This little boy is fighting for his life.”

  Before Will could respond the judge leaned forward and ruled.

  “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m a fair man. Mr. Chambers, you’ve got five days. Five days. Either the boy, or his exact whereabouts—so our law enforcement folks can pick him up and place him in the safety of a good foster home.”

  Will clenched his jaw and nodded silently.

  “I want your verbal acknowledgment to that—on the record, Mr. Chambers,” the judge demanded.

  The purpose of that was clear to Will. The court was preparing the way to find him in contempt if he failed to comply.

  “Do you fully understand each of the things I have ordered you to do today?”

  “Yes,” Will said.

  “Do you have any questions for the court at this time?” the judge added in a formal tone.

  “Yes,” Will said. “I do have one. But I think I’ll save it—I’ll save that question for the trial on the merits, Your Honor.”

  The judge gave him a quizzical look. Then he gaveled the court hearing to adjournment.

  Harry Putnam scooted over to Will and held out his hand.

  After Will shook it, Harry gave him a parting shot.

  “Welcome to the fine city of Delphi, Mr. Chambers.”

  12

  AFTER JUDGE MASON HAD ADJOURNED the court for a short recess, Will grabbed his briefcase and turned around, surprised that the courtroom had filled up during his brief hearing on Mary Sue’s case. Reporters flocked to Harry Putnam for comments. Two of them asked for Will’s card while dashing toward the prosecutor for a quote.

  In the back of the room, Crystal Banes and Spike, her cameraman, hung back. Banes quickly approached Will and introduced herself.

  “Mr. Chambers, I’m Crystal Banes, host of Inside Source. I’m letting these local reporters have a crack at the prosecution. Frankly, Mr. Putnam does not interest me. I know where the real news is, and that’s why I’m talking to you.”

  “And what news is that?” Will asked.

  “You are in touch with Mary Sue Fellows on a continual basis, I would imagine,” Banes said.

  Will did not respond. He studied Banes intently.

  “Mary Sue Fellows has got to be in a really tough situation. This poor mother and her sick child, scared to death, on the run—what a tragedy,” Banes pointed out.

  But Will did not take the bait. The TV host tried another approach.

  “You mentioned in court the possibility of Harry Putnam dismissing the charges or…what was the phrase you used?”

  “You mean ‘nolle prosequi’?”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “That is when the prosecution voluntarily withdraws the charges before the criminal case has really begun.”

  “Well, let’s assume Putnam should change his mind and decide to withdraw the charges—at least temporarily. How quickly could you really get Mary Fellows back here to Delphi?”

  “In other words,” Will responded, “you want to know how close, or how far away, Mary Sue is from Delphi right now?”

  Crystal Banes eased into a crooked little smile and tilted her head in anticipation.

  “As I said before the judge, I do not know where Mary Fellows is. But even if I did, my client would probably not authorize me to release that information.”

  Banes straightened up, her expression changing quickly.

  “Mr. Chambers, would you like to step out into the hall? I would love to get a statement from you on camera.”

  Out in the hallway, Spike slung his shoulder-mounted camera quickly into position, and with a click, the floodlight washed Will’s face. Banes jumped in.

  “Will Chambers, defense attorney for Mary Sue Fellows—a fugitive from justice—you suffered a series of setbacks in court today. Judge Wilbur Mason overruled your objections to his order transferring custody of the little child, Joshua Fellows. He appeared persuaded by the evidence the prosecution had presented in the closed hearing—and he flatly overruled your objections based on attorney–client confidentiality by ordering you to either produce Mary Sue Fellows or tell the court where she is. Are you discouraged by so many defeats in such a short period of time?”

  “I am wondering if you or I could imagine, Ms. Banes,” Will said calmly, “what it would be like for a mother to be wrongfully accused of poisoning her own child, a child she loves, protects, and for whom she would lay down her life. I wonder what that would feel like. You and I probably have no idea what turmoil that would create for a loving mother.”

  “And are you going to obey the court order issued by Judge Mason today?” Banes interjected. “Are you going to tell the court where Mary Sue Fellows is? Are you going to produce her to the authorities?”

  “I’m going to do my job, which is to zealously defend my client against these unjust charges. I plan on doing my job—just like you will undoubtedly do yours.”

  “Oh yes,” Banes responded, “You can bet I’ll do my job, Mr. Chambers. You can take that to the bank.”

  By the time Banes had made her last statement the floodlight had clicked off, and Spike was already packing up his camera equipment. Banes quickly scurried into the courtroom and elbowed her way to the front, through the reporters, where she introduced herself to Harry Putnam.

  Will took a seat in the back of the courtroom and waited for court to convene.

  A few minutes later, Judge Mason entered and called Joe Fellows’ case. Joe was led in from a side door. He was in his jail suit, handcuffed and manacled with ankle chains. Next to him was attorney Stanley Kennelworth, a diminutive man in an orange plaid sport coat that clashed with his red golf pants, which he was wearing though golfing season, even in Georgia, had long since passed. He had slightly receding hair and wore black horn-rimmed glasses.

  Joe Fellows shuffled up to the front of the courtroom in front of Judge Mason. Next to Joe, Stanley Kennelworth was struggling to pull his file out of his briefcase.

  “Appearing on behalf of defendant Joseph Fellows, Your Honor,” Kennelworth stated.

  “We’re here on a bail motion by defendant for release from custody pending trial—and also on the motion of the prosecution to withhold bail release until defendant meets certain conditions,” Judge Mason said.

  “That’s right.” Harry Putnam popped up to his feet. “But the prosecution and defense counsel have conferred, and we think we’ve got the bail issue resolved.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said Judge Mason with a wide smile.

  Putnam glanced at his legal pad for a few seconds, and then he spoke. “Your Honor, defense counsel, Stanley Kennelworth, has agreed that the defendant can be released as soon as Mary Sue Fellows is presented, along with little Joshua, to the authorities—or as soon as defendant advises us of her whereabouts, whichever comes sooner,” Putnam explained.

  Joe Fellows whirled around
to face Kennelworth, who was by then nervously peering down at some papers in his hand. Joe had a look of utter amazement.

  “Your Honor,” Joe blurted out, “I’m not going along with this deal. I do not know what Mr. Putnam is talking about…or my own lawyer, for that matter.”

  “Mr. Fellows,” the judge said sternly, “as long as you’ve got counsel with you, you will not address this court—unless it is to answer a question that I pose to you. Your lawyer is going to do the talking, not you.”

  The judge then turned to address Kennelworth.

  “Stanley, I’ll count on you to make sure your client understands that release on bail is being denied until such time as he reveals everything he knows about the whereabouts of Mary Sue Fellows, his wife, and his child, little Joshua.”

  Kennelworth nodded somberly. Next to him, Joe shook his head in bewilderment.

  Then the judge added, “Stanley, the court is expecting you to advise your client accordingly. And we are anticipating that he is going to play ball and abide by the court’s decision in this case—and help us locate little Joshua so that his life can be protected.”

  “I certainly will,” Kennelworth responded. “I will be continuing to discuss this matter with Mr. Fellows. He certainly doesn’t want to jeopardize the health or welfare of his child.”

  Two deputies escorted Joe Fellows away from the bench. But before departing the courtroom, Joe turned and gave one last furtive and desperate look to Will. And then the side door was opened, and Joe, along with the two deputies, disappeared into the jail corridor beyond.

  Will was stunned. He had probably seen a more lackluster defense of a client at some other time in his career, but no examples came to mind.

  Stanley Kennelworth had been recommended by a farmer who, along with Joe was a member of the local agricultural coop. Kennelworth had handled a traffic ticket for him. When he’d heard that Joe might be retaining him, Will had followed up with a short phone call from his motel room and talked to Kennelworth personally.

  Kennelworth had seemed friendly, cooperative, and enthusiastic about defending Joe. But Will had no way, on such short notice, of verifying his competence to handle such an unusual case. Now, after the court hearing, Will was feeling somehow responsible for Joe’s substandard defense.

  One thing was very clear to Will—Stanley Kennelworth was offering no resistance on behalf of his client to the prosecution steamroller. And Kennelworth himself was lying down like a road happily preparing to get tarred.

  Most of the reporters were quickly exiting the courtroom as Will pressed his way up to the front. When Kennelworth finished packing up his briefcase and turned, his eyes widened at the look on Will’s face.

  Will stared him in the eye. “Stanley, I’ve got some case law I could send over to your office on this bail issue. I would strongly suggest that you take a look at it, consider asking the court to allow you to withdraw your stipulation, and get the court to vacate its bail condition that requires Joe to divulge the whereabouts of his wife and child.”

  “Oh, thanks anyway,” Kennelworth replied meekly. “But I’ve got my own strategy that I’m pursuing here.”

  “And what strategy would that be?” Will pressed. “Changing Joe Fellows’ permanent address to the Juda County jail?”

  Kennelworth adjusted his glasses nervously and groped in vain for a response.

  “Look,” Will continued, “I didn’t mean to come at you like that—but I do believe that you have some strong arguments that you can use, constitutional and otherwise, to get his release on bail without requiring him to locate his missing wife and child. In fact, I think I remember a Supreme Court case a few years ago—”

  “I think I’d better handle my case myself, “Kennelworth said, summoning his fortitude, “and you’d better handle yours.”

  With that, Kennelworth grabbed his briefcase and sprinted over to a local newspaper reporter who was about to leave the courtroom. He smiled and handed the reporter one of his cards, then quickly exited into the hallway.

  It was clear to Will that Kennelworth’s performance in the case would be a problem not only for Joe, but for Mary Sue’s case as well. Will had hoped to forge a strong defense alliance with Joe’s counsel. But that possibility was evaporating. It appeared that Joe would have to overcome not only Judge Mason, prosecutor Harry Putnam, and guardian ad litem Harriet “mother bear” Bender—but now, Stanley Kennelworth as well.

  13

  WHEN WILL RETURNED to his motel room, it was late afternoon. Before he headed out for some dinner, he wanted to make a few calls.

  The first telephone call, of course, was to Fiona. She picked up her cell phone on the second ring.

  “Hey, beautiful!” Will said, greeting her with an optimism that was designed to ignore how their last, dismal dinner had ended.

  “Hi, Will,” Fiona replied, a little too cool for his comfort.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. How are you?”

  “Wait a minute,” Will pressed in. “Something’s bothering you.”

  “Will, look at your watch.”

  “It’s five-thirty in the afternoon.”

  “Remember I left a message on your voice mail—telling you the only time we would have a break, all day, was at two o’clock? And you called me back as you were heading down to Georgia, agreeing on that.”

  “I couldn’t call. I was tied up in court.”

  “Then you should have called me and just left a message saying you couldn’t touch base. As it was, I was sitting here for half an hour with my cell phone in my hand, waiting for your call.

  “We made a point of agreeing to connect with each other at two. Will, are we ever going to start getting serious about putting the other person first?”

  “Being two relatively intelligent people,” Will said, groping for a balm for the hurtful moment, “I think we just can sit down and work out a way to stay in touch. Fiona, I’m sorry. Maybe I should have left you a message saying I couldn’t call when I thought I could.”

  He heard someone in the background yelling Fiona’s name.

  “Things are not going very well here,” Fiona said with a sigh. “New producer. That’s him shouting for me, right now. Folks are not being cooperative. One of our regular backup singers has the flu—and the other got in a car accident. We’re trying to finish the recording session with pickup singers.”

  The voice in the background grew louder.

  “I’ll pray for you,” Fiona said sounding rushed.

  “And I will do the same for you,” Will said.

  There was a pause, and he wanted to say something else. Something tender. And intimate.

  The voice shouted out Fiona’s name again, louder.

  “Got to go, ’bye,” she said quickly. Then she hung up.

  Will paused and sat on the motel-room bed, staring at the telephone on the nightstand where he’d just hung it up.

  If love is so grand, he thought to himself, then why isn’t it easier?

  He then called his office and was able to catch Todd before he left. He gave him an urgent project on Mary Sue’s case, asking him to prepare a research memo on the legality of Judge Mason’s order imposing on Will the duty to divulge information on the whereabouts of his client—in a situation in which he didn’t possess that information, and even if he did, in which his client would undoubtedly order him not to do so.

  For good measure, he also asked Todd to research the validity of the court’s order holding Joe Fellows’ bail release hostage until he disclosed the location of his wife.

  “The judge has really got me in a corner on this one,” Will said. “I need this as quickly as you can get it, Todd. You know, really put the pedal to the metal.”

  Todd agreed to dive right in and e-mail the results to Will’s laptop.

  Before leaving the motel, Will had one other piece of business. He had been thinking back to Stanley Kennelworth and his performance in court. Will kept returning to
Stanley’s cheerful willingness to cooperate with the prosecution’s request that he squeeze information about Mary Sue’s whereabouts from Joe Fellows as a condition of his release on bail.

  What if that was something other than simply bad lawyering?

  Was there a possibility that Kennelworth was being improperly influenced in his representation of Joe Fellows? And if so, who was doing the influencing?

  With the local lawyer now representing Joe, Will was prohibited from contacting him directly without Kennelworth’s consent. Though Will needed to get more information on Kennelworth’s background, it appeared that Joe was not going to be a source of information for him.

  But Joe’s mother had come up with Kennelworth’s name as a possible defense attorney, so Will called her. She picked up immediately.

  How much did she know about Kennelworth, and what did she know about his law practice?

  Madeline, Joe’s mother, said she knew Kennelworth because he’d represented another member of the farmer’s co-op on a traffic charge. She had heard a little bit about the cases that he did: traffic and drunk driving mostly. From what she knew, the only criminal cases he handled were strictly misdemeanor—no serious felony charges. She had also heard that he did collections work for local professionals in Delphi—a few doctors, dentists, and accountants. And the farmers liked him because he came cheap.

  Before Will said goodbye, Mrs. Fellows changed the subject. She asked Will where he would be staying while working on Mary Sue’s case. Will told her that he would probably be staying at the local motel in Delphi where he was now.

  Madeline kindly suggested somewhere else. There was a woman from church who owned a houseboat on Eden Lake. It was comfortable and well kept-up, and her friend was looking for someone trustworthy to house-sit for the next month or two while she and her husband were traveling. Why didn’t Will just use the houseboat while he was in town, rather than having to pay for a motel room? After all, she added, the pier where the houseboat was moored was only about fifteen minutes from downtown Delphi.