Smooth-Talking Texan

The next morning she awoke heavy-lidded and tired, but she pushed through the day determinedly. She drove to her office in a plain brick building a few blocks from the center of Hammond. It was there that the Texas Hispanic League maintained its legal aid office. Her office was a small one tucked into one corner of the second floor. It was provided by the League and she shared the services of a secretary with one of the other lawyers. She was required to handle a certain proportion of the work of the legal aid office, but it was not really enough to fill her time, and the stipend she received from them was barely enough to get by, so she was also free to take on other legal work that might come in. Most of that extra work, like Benny’s case, was in the area of criminal law, and it generally involved acting as a court-appointed attorney, paid for by the state. A customer who paid out of his pocket, like Mr. Garza had done for Benny, was something of a rarity.

Her thoughts, having gone to Enrique Garza, stayed there. Given the reaction of Benny’s grandmother when she had told her who had hired her to represent Benny, she was inclined to think that Sutton was right: Benny was involved in something, and Garza was involved in it as well. He obviously was not a relative or friend; Señora Fuentes would have recognized his name if he had been. The odds were he was not even someone from Angel Eye, a town small enough that surely Benny’s grandmother or someone in the sheriff’s office would have heard of him. Just as obviously, Benny had recognized the name, for his look of puzzlement had changed immediately to a carefully blank expression. And there was little reason to suppose that someone who was not a relative or friend would have gone to the trouble and expense of hiring an attorney to get Benny out of jail. But if Benny were involved in something illegal and Garza was involved in it, too, he very well might pay in order to make sure that Benny didn’t tell the sheriff all about it.

She frowned, remembering the contempt in the sheriff’s voice as he had told her that she ought to help her client rather than merely represent him in court. That was what she would do, she argued mentally. She would help Benny, but the scope of her help was professional, after all, devoted only to legal problems. It did not include seeing that her client stuck to the straight and narrow or stayed away from bad influences. To expect a lawyer to do that would be like expecting one’s doctor to hang around supervising one’s diet or exercise program or reminding them to take their pills. She was there to represent Benny, that was all. And the fact that Mr. Garza might have pretended to be someone he was not did not change her duty to her client.

Lisa stood up and walked out to the small open area where her secretary sat at a desk, busily typing on a word processor. “Kiki…?”

The secretary turned toward her inquiringly, her fingers pausing on the keys. “Yes?”

“You know that man who came in here yesterday afternoon…Mr. Garza? Had you ever seen him before? Did you recognize him?”

“No.” Kiki frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t know him. I just remember thinking that he was dressed awfully nice to be coming here.”

Lisa thought back, trying to remember what the man had had on. It had been a suit, fashionable and rather expensive looking, as she recalled. Kiki was right; their clients were generally far too poor to be able to afford a suit like that.

“My guess is he wasn’t from around here,” Kiki went on. “Nobody in Hammond dresses like that.”

“True.” Hammond, like Angel Eye, ran more to jeans and boots and work shirts, and when a man wore a suit here it was definitely not as stylish or as well-made as that Enrique Garza had worn yesterday. “He looked like he was from the city, didn’t he?”

Kiki nodded in agreement. “Why? Who is this guy? What did he want?”

“He wanted me to get someone out of jail. And the kid shouldn’t have been in there. But Mr. Garza told me he was the kid’s cousin and he isn’t. Just wondering why he’s lying to me.”

“Sounds fishy.”

“Yeah.” Lisa turned away, hesitated, then turned back. “Do you, ah, do you know Sheriff Sutton?”

“Quinn?” The other woman’s face smiled, her eyes warming. “Sure. Everybody knows Quinn Sutton. Is that the jail your client was in?”

Lisa nodded.

“Did you meet Quinn?” Kiki continued enthusiastically. “Isn’t he gorgeous? Well, I mean, maybe not gorgeous exactly. But there’s something about him.”

“His smile?” Lisa suggested a little sourly.

“Oh, yeah, definitely that. And there’s that little twinkle in his eye, like he knows all kinds of wicked things….” Kiki sighed a little ruefully.

“I take it he’s a ladies’ man,” Lisa added with great casualness.

“Yeah. He’s dated lots of women. He’s a terrible flirt. But charm!—that man’s got it coming out of every pore.”

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