F Is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton Page A

straight back from her face and held with a clip on top. She turned her hot, dark eyes on me and I looked away. She knew I was with Royce. When I glanced back, I could see her gaze lingering on him with a blunt appraisal of his physical condition.
    One other woman caught my attention as she came down the aisle. She was in her early thirties, sallow, thin, wearing an apricot knit dress with a big stain across the hem. She had on a white sweater and white heels with short white cotton socks. Her hair was a dishwater blond, held back with a wide, tatty-looking headband. She was accompanied by a man I assumed was her husband. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with curly blond hair and the sort of pouty good looks I've never liked. Pearl was with them, and I wondered if this was the son he'd referred to who had seen Bailey with Jean Timberlake the night she was killed.
    There was a faint escalation of murmurs at the rear of the courtroom and I turned my head. The crowd's attention focused in the way it does at a wedding when the bride appears, ready to begin her walk down the aisle. The prisoners were being brought in and the sight was oddly disturbing: nine men, handcuffed, shackled together, shuffling forward with their leg chains. They wore jail garb: unconstructed cotton shirts in orange, light gray, or charcoal, and gray or pale blue cotton pants with JAIL stenciled across the butt, white cotton socks, the type of plastic sandals known as "jellies." Most of them were young: five Latinos and three black guys. Bailey was the only white. He seemed acutely self-conscious, high color in his cheeks, his eyes downcast, the modest star of this chorus line of thugs. His fellow prisoners seemed to take the proceedings for granted, nodding to the scattering of friends and relatives. Most of the spectators had come to see Bailey Fowler, but nobody seemed to begrudge him his status. A uniformed deputy escorted the men into the jury box up front, where their leg chains were removed in case one of them had to approach the bench. The prisoners settled in, like the rest of us, to enjoy the show.
    The bailiff went through his "all rise" recital, and we dutifully rose as the judge appeared and took his seat. Judge McMahon was in his forties and bristled with efficiency. Trim and fair-haired, he looked like the kind of man who played handball and squash, and risked dropping dead of a heart attack despite his prior history of perfect health. Bailey's case was being called next to last, so we were treated to a number of minor procedural dramas. A translator had to be summoned from somewhere in the building to aid in the arraignments of two of the accused who spoke no English. Papers had been misfiled. Two cases were kicked over to another date. Another set of papers had been sent but never received, and the judge was irked about that because the attorney had no proof of service and the other side wasn't ready. Two additional defendants, out on OR, were seated in the audience and each stepped forward in turn as his case was called.
    At one point, one of the deputies pulled out a set of keys and unlocked an accused's handcuffs so that he could talk to his attorney at the back of the room. While that conference was going on, another prisoner engaged the judge in a lengthy discussion, insistent on representing himself. Judge McMahon was very opposed to the idea and spent ten minutes warning and admonishing, advising and scolding. The defendant refused to budge. The judge was finally forced to concede to the fellow's wishes since it was his right, but he was clearly cross about the matter. Through all of this, an undercurrent of restlessness was agitating the spectators into side-conversations and titters of laughter. They were primed for the lead act, and here they were, having to suffer through this second-rate series of burglaries and sexual assault cases. I half expected them to start clapping in unison, like a movie audience when the film is