Not Guilty
The lawyer trudged through the Stockton street, heading for the sheriff's office, oblivious to the fact that everyone who had been here not five minutes ago was gone. His family had been here – they were gone now too. But he had forgotten all that. Even Jeff Bowden's body had been removed, but Jarrod never saw that.
All he saw was in his mind's eye, over and over again - Nick shooting Bowden to keep him from shooting his lawyer. The man who had stood by him every second, the man who believed he was innocent. Jarrod was shaken to the core when Bowden moved to kill him, only five minutes ago, right here in this street. That was when Jarrod knew, and talking with Bowden's wife just now, it had been confirmed.
Jeff Bowden was never innocent at all. He had murdered the priest. Jarrod had put his belief in a man who really was guilty.
Without even thinking about it, Jarrod had made his way to the sheriff's office and walked inside. It wasn't until he heard his family's voices, all of them at once, arguing with the sheriff, that Jarrod seemed to wake up.
They all stopped talking when he came in. His mother was immediately by his side, taking his arm. Jarrod didn't quite know why, but then the sheriff said, "Jarrod, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to arrest you."
Arrest me? Jarrod thought and was confused, but then it dawned on him. He had helped Jeff Bowden escape from the schoolhouse. He had helped Bowden overpower and lock up two deputies. That couldn't go unpunished. He was guilty, too.
"You won't do any such thing!" Audra yelled out loud.
Jarrod was taken aback by his little sister sounding so definite and so loud, but no one else seemed to be. He didn't know she'd been yelling about this for almost five minutes now.
Jarrod said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, Fred is right," and he took his wallet out and gave it to his brother Nick who was standing closest to him. "I've got a couple things to answer for."
"Jarrod!" Audra blurted out and came toward him.
Jarrod held his hand up. "Audra, I overpowered two deputies and locked them in a closet to help Jeff Bowden get away. I broke the law. Fred's right to arrest me."
"Well, I'm not going to stand for it!" Audra said. "You did those things to get Jeff Bowden away from the children and so he could see his baby! You had good reasons!"
"He'll have to tell it to the judge," the sheriff said.
"Fred – " Nick started.
Jarrod moved out of his mother's grasp and headed for the cell block. "Fred is right," Jarrod said again. Then he gave a wry smile. "Know a good lawyer, Fred?"
Sheriff Madden said, "I'm sorry about this, Jarrod."
"Well, I'm not going to stand for it!" Audra said again, and in a moment she was out the door.
Victoria went after her.
As Sheriff Madden opened the cell block door, Nick glared at him, but then he caught the look in Jarrod's deep blue eyes. Something was going on in there, something more than anyone was aware of, and then Nick saw it for what it was. Resignation. Jarrod actually believed he belonged in jail, and it wasn't just for locking a couple deputies up in a closet. Nick didn't understand, but he knew it was there.
"Take care of everybody," Jarrod said as Sheriff Madden guided him back to a cell.
Nick heard the cell door open and close. With a helpless frown, he went out to go look for his mother and sister.
XXXXXXXX
Audra was storming up the street, almost faster than Victoria could catch her. "Audra!" she kept crying, but Audra would not slow down. Victoria wasn't even sure where she was going.
Nick came running up after them, passing his mother until he reached his sister and took hold of her arm to stop her. "Audra, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to get Jarrod out of jail!" she said flatly.
Victoria caught up as she said it.
Nick said, "Honey, they'll set bail and we'll go get him and straighten this all out."
"No, I'm not waiting for all that," Audra said. "I'm going to get him out now."
"Audra – "
"Wait a minute," Victoria said. "Just how do you think you can get him out of jail now?"
"Jarrod did what he did to help Jeff Bowden, but he also did it to get him away from all those children!" Audra said. "Bowden could have hurt any of us in there. He might have killed any one of those children or more."
"What do have in mind now?"
"I'm going to start talking to parents."
Audra explained what she wanted to do. Victoria said, "Well, I don't know if it will work, but I think Audra is right."
"It's worth a try," Nick agreed.
Audra said, "I'll take the north part of town. Mother, you take the center, Nick, you take the south. Send as many as you can straight to the sheriff's office. It'll work."
Victoria smiled at the mental picture of all the people who might be crammed into the sheriff's office in the next hour. Nick saw the light in her eyes, and his began to twinkle, too. Audra smiled and took off on her part of the errand.
XXXXX
Audra was moving the fastest. She started with the first home she came to, and almost before the mother who answered the door could get a word out, Audra said, "The sheriff has arrested my brother Jarrod for locking those deputies up when he got Jeff Bowden out of the schoolhouse. Jarrod was just trying to get him away from the children, and he did. But the sheriff's locked Jarrod up. Please, I need you to go to the sheriff's office and tell him to let my brother out!"
It was almost miraculous to see. Mothers came out of every door Audra knocked on. A few of them brought their children with them. In midtown and on the south side of town, the same thing was happening when Victoria and Nick knocked on the door.
Audra saw it happening and was urged on even faster. She began to go up to people walking in the street, telling them the same thing, and urging them to go to the jail to insist Jarrod be released.
She was so buoyed by what she saw happening – what she was making happen – she couldn't stop.
XXXX
In the jail, Jarrod sat on the cot in his cell, his back against the wall, one leg bent in front of him and the other stretched out. He wasn't thinking much. He was only trying not to feel sorry for himself or berate himself for misjudging Jeff Bowden.
But it was hard. He was so certain the man was innocent of killing the priest. Jeff had been around for a long time and never, never done anything like this. "Oh, you idiot," Jarrod said out loud to himself. And he was an idiot. He should have dug deeper. He should have looked more closely before he took the case. He should have talked to Jeff's wife more insistently. He should have seen the signs.
So now he was in jail, and part of him thought he ought to be. They ought to lock a lawyer up when he makes a mistake like this. Why shouldn't there be punishment for a lawyer who gets a guilty man off free?
Then Jarrod remembered. He didn't get Jeff Bowden off. Bowden was found guilty of murdering the priest. The jury had gotten it right, despite all his pleading, despite his brilliant cross-examination, despite all the testimony of his client that turned out to be lies. The jury had gotten it right.
Jarrod chuckled. Twelve heads really are better than one, he supposed. The system had worked just the way it was supposed to.
It wasn't until he realized that and quit beating himself up that he began to hear the voices out in the sheriff's office. One or two at first, women's voices, and then there seemed to be more, and more. Then he heard the sheriff trying to quiet people down. Jarrod got up. It sounded like a mob out there – my God, a lynch mob? Were all those people he heard after him?
Jarrod's heart began to pound like crazy. It couldn't be a lynch mob. He hadn't killed anyone, and neither had Jeff Bowden, at least not today. Why in God's name would anyone want to hang him for anything, much less for Jeff Bowden?
The cell block door opened and Sheriff Madden came in, shouting, "All right! All right!"
And the next thing Jarrod knew, his good friend Fred Madden was letting him out – to face the mob! "What – " Jarrod blubbered. "Fred, what in the world are you doing?"
Sheriff Madden reached in and pulled him out by the arm.
"Fred!" Jarrod blurted.
"I'm letting you go, Jarrod," Sheriff Madden said.
It wasn't until Jarrod got to the office that he saw what was really happening. His family was there, along with half a dozen women and a couple children. The door to the outside was open, and there were other women with children out there, more than he could even see.
A big cheer went up from the crowd. Jarrod was flabberghasted. "What - ?" he blurted. "What's going on?"
"You're free," Sheriff Madden said. "I'm dropping the charges."
Jarrod finally caught sight of Audra just before she flew into his arms. "What - ?" he mumbled again.
"I got a street full of parents giving me the dickens because I had the nerve to arrest you for saving their children from Jeff Bowden," Sheriff Madden said. "This sister of yours has riled up the whole town, and unless I want a riot outside my door, I have to let you go."
Jarrod caught sight of the two deputies he had locked in the closet in the schoolhouse. They didn't look happy about this, but one of them shrugged and the other one just uncomfortably looked somewhere else.
Jarrod looked into his sister's smiling face, as his mother came toward him and touched his arm. Even Nick was wearing a big grin. "What did you do?" Jarrod asked Audra.
"Just what she usually does – she talked a lot," Nick said.
"Oh, Nick, give your sister some credit," Victoria said. "Audra simply wasn't going to let you stay in jail for any length of time at all. She had Nick and me out there talking to every parent we could buttonhole, and then she was grabbing everyone she could, and we got almost every one we ran into to come over here and demand Fred release you."
Jarrod looked at Sheriff Madden almost apologetically. "Fred – "
"They didn't leave me any choice," the sheriff said. "This sister of yours was going to have them parked out there until the cows came home."
Jarrod finally laughed, free now of any self-pity or guilt he felt about what he'd done to help Jeff Bowden. He hugged his sister to him. "Thank you, my dear sister," he said quietly. "You're the best."
"You better believe it," Nick said and handed Jarrod his wallet.
"Get out of here," Sheriff Madden said with a laugh.
Jarrod kept hold of Audra as they went outside, Victoria and Nick following along. The crowd of women – now joined by everyone who was in the street for any reason – cheered out loud. Jarrod tipped his hat so often he finally just left it off.
"You're the best, Audra," Jarrod said again and gave her a squeeze.
The crowd let the Barkleys through, and they headed for their transportation home.
The End