Mark Gimenez - Accused

"Sam Houston. The first president of the Republic of Texas."

"Mr. Fenney, did you know that Sam Houston and a bunch of white boys just stole Texas from the Mexicans?"

Fifth grade had studied Sam Houston and sex.

"I heard something about that."

"Our teacher said now the Mexicans are taking the place back, all of them moving here."

"What's that?" Boo asked.

"Mexicans?"

"No-that."

They were now in Huntsville, located seventy miles due north of Houston and notable for two structures: the Sam Houston statue and the state penitentiary. In the rearview, Scott saw Boo looking out the side window. He glanced that way and saw what she saw: bleak brick buildings behind tall chain-link fences topped with concertina wire and secured by armed guards in towers at each corner of the perimeter. The State of Texas incarcerated 155,000 inmates in those buildings behind those fences.

"A prison," he said.

In the rearview, he saw Boo twist in her seat to stare at the prison until it was out of sight. She turned back. Her face was pale. Scott knew her thoughts had returned to her mother. The murder had made the network news Friday and Saturday evenings, and no doubt the cable coverage was nonstop; fortunately, the Fenney household did not have cable. He had told Boo about her mother, but he was able to shield her from the worst of the news.

"Mother's in a place like that?"

"No. That's a prison. She's in jail."

"What's the difference?"

"I can get her out of jail."

She had left him for another man, a younger man who had given her what she had needed because her husband had not. Scott Fenney had failed her. Now, two years later, she needed what only Scott Fenney could give her: a defense to a murder charge. This time, he wouldn't fail her.

"I didn't kill him," she had pleaded on the phone. "I swear to God, I'm innocent."

Rebecca Fenney was not a murderer. Or his wife. But she was still the mother of his child. What does a man owe the mother of his child?

She said she had no money to hire a criminal defense lawyer. If Scott didn't defend her, a public defender would be appointed to represent her. Which was another way of saying, Rebecca Fenney would become Texas Inmate Number 155,001. She would spend the rest of her life in those bleak buildings behind those tall fences. Boo would visit her mother in prison.

She had left him, but she had not taken Boo from him. "You need her more than she needs me," she had said back then. That one act of kindness had saved Scott's life and had indebted him to her for life. He owed her.

A. Scott Fenney would defend the mother of his child.

Galveston is a sand barrier island situated fifty miles south of Houston and two miles off the Texas coast, a narrow spit of sand thirty miles long and less than three miles wide. The city sits at the east end of the island, protected by a ten-mile-long, seventeen-foot-tall concrete seawall constructed after the Great Storm of 1900. West of the seawall the island lies at the mercy of the sea. So, naturally, that is exactly where developers-flush with cash during the great credit boom of the early twenty-first century-built hotels, high-rise condos, and luxury beach homes. The homes sat atop ten-foot-tall stilts, but they weren't tall enough to withstand a hurricane pushing a seventeen-foot storm surge. On September 13, 2008, Hurricane Ike washed away the West End of Galveston Island. Exclusive beach-front subdivisions became streets of homeless stilts, as if God had dropped a box of giant toothpicks that had fallen to earth and embedded in the sand. The surviving houses held a lonely vigil on the desolate beach. In 1528, the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca shipwrecked on Galveston Island and soon dubbed his new home the Isla de Malhado — the Island of Misfortune.

The title still fit.

Scott had rented one of those survivors for $2,000 a month, half the going price before Ike. It was out past the condos and hotels and fishing piers off San Luis Pass Road, a two-story house on stilts with six bedrooms and four baths right on the beach. He parked the Jetta in the shade of the house. It was just after three.

"Look-the beach!" Boo said.

Galveston Beach was not white sand and blue water with sleek cigarette boats cutting through the waves like in Florida. The sand was tan, the water brown, and the boats oil and cargo tankers heading to the Ship Channel and the Port of Houston. But it was still a beach, something not found in Dallas.

The girls bailed out and ran to the sand.

Bobby parked the Prius behind the Jetta. He had followed Scott Fenney since ninth grade, like a young boy follows an older brother. Even during the eleven-year gap when Scotty had left him for Ford Stevens and a Highland Park mansion, Bobby had followed him in the society pages and business section of the newspaper. Now he had followed him to Galveston to defend his ex-wife charged with murdering the man she had run off with. He had tried to get Scotty to think it through, but he had said he had no choice: she needed him. He was going to Galveston. Bobby couldn't let him go alone. Bobby Herrin was either loyal to a fault or he had a serious worship thing going.

Scott shielded his eyes from the sun and watched the girls on the beach. He turned back when Bobby got out of the Prius and said, "Forty-seven miles to the gallon, Scotty-doing seventy."

A born-again hybrid driver. Bobby helped Karen out of the car. Her belly seemed bigger than when they had left Dallas. She had a funny expression on her face.

"Another accident?" Bobby said.

She nodded. Bobby turned to Scott.

"Every time she laughs or cries, she pees her pants. She wears adult diapers now."

Karen was now the girls' de facto mother. They-and Scott-relied on her for the motherly touch, even though she was still two months away from being a mother.

"They're really not that bad," she said. "Although they do crawl up-"

The roar of a massive engine drowned out her voice and the image of her diaper crawling up from Scott's mind. The black Dodge Charger screeched to a stop, windows down and music blaring. Louis was singing along like a rock band's groupie, and Carlos was playing the drums with two pencils on the dashboard. Bobby shook his head.

"Five hours in a car without air-conditioning-the heat got to them."

Scott checked again on the girls. They were splashing through the surf. He cupped his mouth and yelled, "Stay where I can see you!"

The concert abruptly ended. Louis climbed out of the Charger and headed to the beach with a book in hand. Duty called.

"I got 'em," he said.

Next to the house was a concrete basketball court, apparently the neighborhood playground when there was still a neighborhood. Under the house was an open garage. Scott counted four stilts in, then reached up and found the house key right where the rental service had said it would be. They climbed stairs to a deck overlooking the beach with chairs and a table with an umbrella. A digital thermometer mounted on the frame of a sliding glass door read "88" but the sea breeze made the air seem cooler. Scott unlocked the door and entered the house. Inside was a spacious room with a kitchen at one end and a living area with a big-screen television at the other. Two bedrooms with private baths were on that floor, and four bedrooms that shared two baths were on the top floor. Karen and Consuela checked out the kitchen, Carlos the refrigerator, and Bobby the television. He pointed the remote at the TV like a gunman holding up a convenience store and commenced channel-surfing.

"CNN, CMT, TNT, MTV, HBO… We must have a hundred cable channels."

The girls' wish had come true, at least for the summer.

"Consuela and I'll go get groceries," Karen said. "After Maria and I change our diapers."