States of Grace by Mandy Miller (great novels of all time .TXT) 📗

catches sight of the metal ankle and drops into her chair. “You did it. You finally got the operation.”

“It was time. It was never going to be right. And I was never going to be right if I had to keep taking those damn pills,” I say, smoothing down my pant leg.

As I am about to leave, she puts an arm around my shoulder. “Grace, what’s past is past. It’s time to move on. Now go show them they can never take away what you got.”

“And what is it I’ve got?”

“Fight, my friend. You’re a fighter from way back.”

Chapter 22

The waiting area outside the Office of the Public Defender resembles a casting call for The Wire. On one side of the room are the cops, some in uniform, others in plain clothes, faces pinched, as if they’ve just eaten something that doesn’t agree with them. Going to the Public Defender’s Office is a trip to the place cases go to die because of what law enforcement calls “technicalities” and it isn’t exactly a cop’s idea of a good time.

On the other side sit the PD’s clients. Some wearing saggy pants and flat-brimmed hats, legs splayed. Others have chosen Walmart church clothes in hopes of making a good impression. One young woman, holding a wailing infant wrapped in a dirty blanket, chews on her nicotine-stained fingernails. Lines of people wait in front of three windows behind which sit attendants, all with eyes which say, “I’ve heard it all before.”

I lean against the wall by the entrance and fidget with my phone to avoid eye contact. I had called ahead to Joshua Jacobs, the Broward County Public Defender, to avoid waiting too long face-to-face with defendants I may have prosecuted, or cops I may have ripped a new one for blowing a case with an illegal search or a confession extracted without Miranda warnings.

After a few minutes, the security door buzzes and a short man in cowboy boots and a string tie appears. He rushes me, hands outstretched. “Ms. Locke, how the hell are you?”

All heads swivel in Joshua Jacobs’s direction. Cops shake their heads. Defendants chuckle. One guy with a gold medallion the size of a pizza hanging around his neck lets fly with, “Hey, bro. I saw you on TV.”

Jacobs has a weekly spot on the local news called Jacobs’s Justice, in which he rights legal wrongs suffered by Average Joes. Price-gouging roofers, home-health-care aides stealing old ladies’ Social Security checks, contractors absconding with deposits, they’re all up Jacobs’s alley. My favorite episode was his straight-faced analysis of whether it was unconstitutional for Toys “R” Us to sell only white, and not black or Hispanic, Barbie dolls. Laugh as I might, Jacobs’s Justice has made him a darling of the underdog, not to mention a household name when election day rolls around.

I let myself be hugged, a prop in his performance. Maybe it’s my puritanical upbringing, but I’ve always found his “man of the people” theatrics a bit over the top. Still, I owe him big time, and have to admit he isn’t without a certain charm.

Showmanship aside, it was Jacobs who stepped up to help me when everyone else, including my own husband, had written me off as a self-inflicted train wreck. Manny had cut off my access to our bank accounts. With no money for a lawyer, Jacobs was my lifesaver, representing me himself, something he rarely did. He had little to work with, but he managed to engineer what he did have into a plea agreement that spared me a felony on my record and disbarment—two things State’s Attorney Britt wanted.

Not that Jacobs went to bat for me out of the goodness of his heart, however. An old hippie from way back, he stepped in because he hates cops, and never misses an opportunity to go to war with authority, a quality which made me despise him when I was a prosecutor, but which saved my ass when I was looking down the barrel of a long prison sentence.

“Josh, good to see you.”

“Back at you, my friend,” he says, his stubby legs taking two steps to every one of mine as we head toward his office, his curlicue ponytail bouncing side to side.

He points me to an upholstered client chair opposite his desk.

“Your face is on TV as much as my own these days,” he says, propping his feet on a wide mahogany desk. “Things seem to be looking up for you. So, what brings you to my humble abode?” he asks, motioning at the view of the New River from his corner office. It’s a location that would go for thousands a month if it weren’t paid for by the taxpayers.

I puff out my cheeks.

Jacobs tents his fingers in front of his face, a maze of tanned wrinkles punctuated by probing blue eyes. “Start at the part where you tell me what you want.”

I take a deep breath. “You’re familiar with the Slim case?”

“Of course. Who isn’t? Like I said, it’s all over the news.”

“Maybe the victim wasn’t quite the angel the media is making him out to be.”

He drops his feet to the floor and paddles his chair to the desk. “Do tell. You know me, I always like a little tattle and a little tale.”

I can’t help but smile right along with him. A bit of a caricature he may be, but he is amusing, not to mention an effective advocate for the powerless and the just plain crazy.

“It appears that Sinclair, the guy my client is accused of killing, was involved somehow in a criminal case.”

“Your client, by the way, is a shit show.”

I laugh along with him, but only for a second, more of a reflex than an expression of agreement.

“A shit show she may be, but she’s a profoundly mentally ill young woman in a fight for her life.”

“That, she is.”

“You enjoy being a champion for the underdog, don’t you?”

He gives me a time-out sign. “Enough flattery, for