Jingo Street

Inc.

The whistler did a few bars

of some of my mother’s favorites, which I imagine she still played on her spinet back home. He drifted smoothly from Old Black Magic, to Moon River, to Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered. Surprised at remembering some of the words, I hummed a little as I wrung and shook out the last mop.

I wasn’t in any hurry to take the mops outside to hang them on the line over the dock and decided to wait until the whistler had passed, so I stalled a couple of minutes longer, thinking about my mom.

The scraping sounds of trash cans being bumped and rearranged jarred me before I realized the whistler must be Rosco. I didn’t know why he might have walked around the block from the front door of the shelter to the alley, but apparently he had. Emptying cans from the kitchen into the dumpster and scrubbing them out was usually his last job of the day. That realization struck me as odd since the musical sounds reflected a sweet, sensitive side of Rosco I hadn’t imagined.

I hated to interrupt, but it was getting close to nine and I needed to leave. I always tried to clear the area before neighborhood mischief-makers got out onto the streets in full force.

I banged mop handles against the doorjamb intentionally to give the whistler fair warning that he was no longer alone. Rosco was not a man you wanted to startle. But when I stepped out the door, I was the one surprised. The man standing in the alley below the dock handling trash cans was not Rosco.

Standing there, stock still, staring up at me, was just about the best-looking man I had ever seen.

Praise for Sharon Ervin’s novels…

MEMORY

Sharon Ervin weaves an intriguing tale in this contemporary mystery. Memory Smith is almost too good to be real and I enjoyed getting to know the woman behind the town legend…a unique woman. Her bravery and her straightforwardness is refreshing and on more than one occasion humor-inducing. David McCann is a fantastic leading man and experiencing a good portion of the story through his point of view gives so much insight into the perception everyone has of Memory. It was a treat witnessing his deep feelings and his struggle with them…an interesting read if you like mysteries involving small towns and the various personalities that inhabit them.

~Night Owl Reviews

JINGO STREET

This is a marvelous book. Artfully written with a plot and characters that grip the reader from page one.

~Fleeta Cunningham

Jingo Street

by

Sharon Ervin

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Jingo Street

COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Sharon Ervin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

Cover Art by RJ Morris

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

Previously published by Oak Tree Press

First Mainstream Women’s Fiction Edition, 2017

Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1756-4

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1757-1

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To Bill

For all the usual reasons

Acknowledgments

Carolyn Hart, award-winning author, mentor, and friend, for her cover comment.

~*~

The Oklahoma Center for the Book for naming JINGO STREET a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award (2015).

~*~

Cleveland County Oklahoma District Judge Elvin Brown for explaining how he came to terms with Oklahoma’s death penalty, providing the opinions for two sage characters in this book.

~*~

Popular deputy warden, psychologist, and sociologist Lee Mann for her kindly attitude toward prison inmates—particularly those on death row—saying, We’re not in the punishment business. We’re in the incarceration business. Incarceration itself is punishment enough.

~*~

Ronda Talley and Jane Bryant, discerning friends

who share their expertise and eagle eyes

for tweaking this manuscript.

~*~

Members of McAlester’s McSherry Writers,

an affiliate of the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc., for encouraging the development of this project.

Chapter One

Standing stiffly at attention, I clenched my hands and set my eyes on the state seal mounted on the wall behind the bench so I was looking toward but not directly at the judge.

Ms. Krease, I asked if you’re paying attention? the judge said, raising his voice a third.

I lowered my gaze to his face.

Bushy eyebrows veed over his hawkish nose. I tried not to think about the two dozen other people in the courtroom, all silent and still. The eerie hush was a result of the severe tone coming from the usually docile Superior Court Judge Bryan Delmonica.

A cop’s kid, I learned to obey rules early. I didn’t get scolded often as a child and seldom required correction later. This full-blown butt-chewing was totally foreign and I didn’t know exactly how to behave, which was okay as Judge Delmonica did not seem to expect responses.

Ms. Krease, you need to hear me and hear me well, Delmonica’s deep baritone boomed, echoing ominously in the silence of the courtroom. They probably heard him three floors below in the election board. You can get yourself kicked out of the lawyering business pulling stunts like this. He paused as his words ricocheted around the hall. I twitched, which, if I read his expression right, appeased him slightly before he continued.

I’m going to do you a big favor here at the beginning of what should be a long and illustrious career, he said, reducing the volume. Maybe his throat hurt. I know mine did. I’m going to see that you are exposed to an element of society and living conditions that will enlighten and give you breadth.

Bystanders, who apparently knew what he meant, gasped. From the corner of my eye, I saw movement and glanced toward spectators in the jury box to look directly into the eyes of J. Oakley Tankersly, my aged associate and mentor. Dean of the local lawyers, the man affectionately known as Joke, winked. I stared, unable to interpret the wink. Whatever was the old rascal thinking? Could his wink possibly mean my situation wasn’t as dire as it appeared? The gnawing in the pit of my stomach eased. With determined effort, I relaxed my clenched fists and stretched my hands but kept my arms rigidly at my sides.

A licensed lawyer for three months, I was still learning the nuts and bolts of the trade, the little tricks they don’t teach you in law school. I was sure older practitioners overstepped from time to time. Mistakes probably weren’t limited to novices. I kept those mutinous thoughts to myself, however, and concentrated on looking contrite. I didn’t risk another glance at Joke. Just knowing he was there and not particularly alarmed helped.

Normally, outside his courtroom, Judge Delmonica spoke to me with a twinkle in his eye, like Santa in the off season. On that sizzling September afternoon, however, a squinting glint replaced the twinkle after he learned I had circumvented one of his edicts. No one had bothered to mention his earlier ruling. They might even have set me up, law enforcement’s playful way of hazing the new guy.

When I realized the judge had gone silent, I raised my eyes to his. That seemed to give him leave to continue his harangue.

I didn’t intend to defy anyone, certainly not his honor. I was green but even I knew judges view disregarding their orders as contempt of them personally and/or the system.

As waves of a heated blush continued sweeping to the roots of my hair, he grumbled on. The only responses I could come up with right then were an occasional, Yes, sir, or Yes, I do understand, Your Honor. Finally, Delmonica drew a deep breath, winding down.

As a foretaste of what any future defiance of my orders will get you, I hereby sentence you, Anne Krease, to eight weeks of community service, two evenings a week in the homeless shelter and soup kitchen on Jingo Street.

My mouth dropped open. I was working seventy hours a week already. I absolutely could not spare two evenings in any seven-day period. I barely had time to do laundry or slap together the occasional bologna sandwich as it was.

Trying to come up with a tactful way to object, I glanced toward Joke. Other lawyers, a clerk and a bailiff shook their heads in unison. Joke gave me a cautioning scowl. Accepting his mute advisory, I bleated another, Yes, sir.

You will report to Quinton Trent at that facility on Tuesday at three o’clock. Delmonica pursed his lips as if he might say something more, then clamped them tightly, began nodding, and lowered his eyes to a file in front of him. You are dismissed.

By the time people began rustling behind me and I turned around, Joke had disappeared. For a seventy-year-old man, he could be pretty quick on his feet. He was probably right. We could thrash this out later in the privacy of our own offices.

Joke Tankersly wasn’t a great lawyer, but he owned the respect of his peers. They trusted him, a rare compliment in our profession. In spite of his reputation as a skinflint, Joke was openhanded with me, generously provided me office space downtown, practically rent free. He passed me his less significant cases. I did the work and we split the fees, seventy percent his way, thirty percent mine. He, of course, fronted all necessary court costs and expenses.

My sometimes friend, Assistant District Attorney Todd Harbison, waited for me in the hallway just outside the courtroom. Our rather tentative friendship was based mostly on mutual convenience. Todd was a reliable escort when I needed a date for required functions, and I performed the same service for him.

In the congested corridor, Todd consoled me, as much as Todd is capable of consoling anyone. Peering into my face, he said, Be glad it wasn’t jail time. I spent a three-day weekend once in the county lockup for crossing an old judge and I’m here to tell you, it was a lesson I’ll never forget.

There are some details a person doesn’t feel the need to know. Steering us back to the subject at hand, I tried to explain my actions and avail myself of Todd’s dependably pragmatic reaction.

I thought I was helping a kid get back on the straight and narrow. I stepped around Todd, heading for the water fountain. Excessive blushing always makes me thirsty. Water dribbled down my chin, but I caught it on my fingers before it reached my blouse and was thankful for the natural coordination that sometimes compensated for my inherent messiness.

My client was a court-appointed fifteen-year-old. When I tried my idea out on the sheriff, he didn’t say a mumbling word against it.

Todd, a natural neat freak, followed me at the fountain. He did not dribble. The sheriff considers you an officer of the court. Todd’s tone indicated he was about to mount his holier-than-thou soapbox. He assumed you had the judge’s okay before you suggested doing whatever you did that got him in such a snit. He asked in a less haughty voice. What did you do?

The kid, Leon Pannell, has a long sheet for joy riding, I said. He steals cars and takes them for a spin, but he always returns them.

Wrecked?

Not as much anymore. He’s fifteen now and his driving has improved quite a bit in the two years he’s been boosting cars.

Todd gave me a pained look.

Leon’s girlfriend just had their first baby. In honor of the occasion, Leon took a celebratory ride, and the cops bagged him. I drew the court-appointment and went to see him in the county lockup. He told me about his new daughter. Leon is a smart, charming, good-looking kid and he was tickled pink about the baby.

And you fished right in on the guy’s wholesome looks and his sweet circumstance.

Todd, he was peering out from behind prison bars looking all wide-eyed and innocent. He said he would do anything, if I could figure out a way to get him back to the hospital to see his girlfriend and their baby.

Todd just stood there shaking his head, passing judgment.

I turned and started toward the stairs. With limited recreational time, I took exercise where and when I could. Todd followed without complaining, which was a first. Apparently he wanted to hear more as we jogged from the third floor down.

Leon has been incorrigible, I said. "I thought the visit to the hospital might help him realize he has responsibilities, now that he’s a dad. Nothing’s worked before. He’s a sharp kid. I thought he was worth trying to keep out of the system.

No one told me Delmonica had denied a similar request from your office not fifteen minutes earlier. A deputy took Leon to the hospital for the visit on my say-so. Later, the deputy mentioned it to a bailiff who passed it along to the judge’s secretary.

Todd interrupted as we reached the landing between the second and first floors. Anne, Delmonica’s famous for his even disposition.

Yeah, well not this time. Gloria said he went ballistic.

Todd and I trotted on down to the main floor where I grabbed his sleeve to hold him there a minute. I need your help. I’ve never even driven on Jingo Street. Will you go with me to the soup kitchen at three o’clock Tuesday?

He was silent so long I thought he might be giving the request serious consideration. Todd is tall, fair and intense. His fine features are minimized by a splash of pale freckles. My hopes for help from him were dashed as he began shaking his head.

I wouldn’t go down to Jingo Street…in broad daylight…with my bowling team, he said, and those guys are brutes.

I glared at him. Just what I need, pal: moral support.

Todd and I separated at the courthouse door.

Trying to think of alternatives to going alone to Jingo Street, I don’t remember walking the two blocks from the courthouse back to the office.

Joke was struggling with a trash can, trying to empty it into a large, uncooperative, plastic garbage bag. I tossed my briefcase and purse into a client’s chair and grabbed the bag to hold it open for him.

Are you okay? Joke had a whiskey voice, which I found soothing. I was always comforted by the authority in its gruffness and volume.

J. Oakley Tankersly had been practicing for fifty-three years and knew more law than my three best law school professors combined. He graduated from a country school at fifteen, finished the university at eighteen, read for the law, then aced what passed for a bar exam in those days, before his twentieth birthday.

When I was going from office to office looking for a job, Joke was one of only three lawyers who offered me anything at all. The other two wanted a girl Friday with a law degree to make coffee and do legal research and grunt work in a back office. Joke offered to make me an associate. I wanted to cry with gratitude, but stuck out my hand instead to shake on it before he changed his mind. He told me to draw up a contract and he’d look it over. There I was, drawing my first actual contract on my first day, and it covered my own employment. How great was that?

As Joke and I and our office relationship evolved, I realized I had never had a friend I felt closer to than this man more than three times my age. The first lesson he taught me was being forthright—to the point of brutally blunt—saved time and energy. He didn’t beat around the bush and encouraged me to give up tact for candor.

Joke was a widower. He and his wife never had children. He kept practicing after the time when a lot of lawyers retire, because, according to him, he knew too much to let it go to waste. He was right, of course. He had centuries of law crammed inside that grizzled head, plus the man had a huge store of common sense.

So, I not only discussed my professional problems with him, I also confided my personal concerns. And I thanked God for putting him in my life. Every unmarried, unattached career woman needs a confidant who combines old world manners and charm with a spirit tested in the fires.

Did you hear Judge Delmonica say I might just fool around and get disbarred? I didn’t need to mince words with Joke.

He shot me an admiring look. Whatever you did must have been a lollapalooza to get Monty fired up like that.

I didn’t think it was really all that bad.

Can’t be, if you did it. He slanted me a look out of the corner of his eye. Can it?

I guess it was. Two evenings a week in a soup kitchen down on Jingo Street. I could get mugged or murdered or worse just coming and going.

Joke shrugged and went for another trash can. I followed with the bag as he said, It won’t be that bad, not as soon as word gets around you’re working for Trent.

Oh, yeah? When’s the last time you were down on Jingo Street?

He rocked his head back to study the ceiling. Nineteen fifty-eight.

Why haven’t you been back in over fifty years if it wasn’t so bad?

No reason to go. Nothing’s left down there anymore but pawn shops, prostitutes, bars, and a few bleeding hearts trying to keep folks fed.

So, I guess you wouldn’t mind going down there with me next Tuesday?

I don’t imagine I’d mind it, but I’m not going.

Why not?

I don’t like to meddle in other people’s business.

I shouted an unladylike guffaw, not about to let a straight line that good go by. Since when?

He gave me his devilish grin.

You’re going to let me go down there nights, alone, without a big, strong, able-bodied man to protect me?

His grin broadened, slicing his face from one ear to the other and his rheumy blue eyes glistened. That might be a good reason to cultivate yourself an honest-to-goodness boyfriend, Krease. I figure you already asked Harbison, right?

Right.

Thought so. Joke didn’t care much for Todd, although he kept most of his derogatory remarks to himself. He knew Todd was not important to me, and I suspected he wanted to keep it that way.

You know how I feel about most of the men of my acquaintance, I said.

He grinned as he picked up a third trash can and motioned for me to open the collection bag again.

They’re self-absorbed, I said, repeating my usual lament, broke from supporting children who live with former wives or from paying for high-dollar vehicles purchased to enhance their images. Plus, they are perpetually horny. None of those things appeals to me.

Joke’s irksome grin freshened. You may be looking for the right man in all the wrong places.

What, now you’re citing country and western songs?

Look who you’ve gone out with the last month or two.

Professionals—doctors or lawyers or accountants or somebodies.

My point exactly.

I go to church. I go to book stores and the grocery. I haven’t met a guy yet that…well…stimulates me.

You will. The point I’m making is: don’t settle. You’re special, Krease. It may take a lot of looking to find the man that’s good enough for you.

****

I dreaded it, but Tuesday rolled around anyway and I set my mind on facing the harsh realities of Jingo Street.

I arrived for orientation precisely at three, as per the judge’s order. Luckily, I was able to park on the street directly in front of the place. I looked every direction before I unlocked the car door. There weren’t any people around, at least none visible, though there were several shadowy doorways in shuttered buildings where someone easily might lurk. I hurried into the shelter then jumped nearly out of my skin when the wind slammed the door shut behind me.

My nose actually provided my first conscious impression of the place, the mixed aroma of meat loaf and onions and maybe cornbread. The smells reminded me of my maternal grandmother, who made great meat loaf.

A man stood at attention just inside the sprawling dining hall. Sixtyish, he had on a well-worn, stiffly starched olive drab shirt, and matching trousers with a knifelike crease. He didn’t smile, nor did he invite me to sit.

An old marine from the Vietnam era, Quinton Trent had the haircut, bearing, and attitude of a movie drill instructor. Jutting his jaw, his appraisal made it clear he wouldn’t be cutting me any slack.

We stood in that shabby mess hall eyeballing each other suspiciously, enveloped in the smells of food and the body odor of years of past occupants.

Long institutional-looking tables and at least a hundred folding chairs mirrored Mr. Trent’s military bearing, standing silently in their perfectly spaced rows as if ready for inspection.

I’m Anne Krease. I offered to shake hands. He hesitated a moment, studying my offered hand as if he didn’t quite know what to do, then he exhaled and caught it in a firm grip. His hands were thick, his palms calloused.

How long’s your sentence? The abrupt question took us straight to the heart of the matter without the awkward amenities. Obviously he had done this before, but he shifted his weight and his jaws tightened as he peered into my face. Sensing his discomfort, I suspected maybe I was the first female sent for his supervision.

Eight weeks. I’ll try to be here Tuesdays and Thursdays by five-thirty.

Not good enough.

I squirmed under his unrelenting glare. Surely he knew the terms Delmonica had set. The judge sentenced me to two evenings a week.

I meant the ‘try to be here’ part. He’ll ask and I won’t lie for you.

I stiffened. I had every bit as much integrity as he had. I wouldn’t expect you to.

Then you be here every Tuesday and Thursday, promptly at seventeen-thirty.

Aye aye. Obviously Trent was a by-the-book kind of man. I could live with that. I might be a little slow at first picking up on things like translating military time to civilian time, but that, too, was doable. Seventeen-thirty, indeed.

Nodding as if satisfied I got his point, Trent relaxed his belligerent jaw and walked to a swinging door which, I supposed, led to the kitchen. He pushed it open and shouted at someone inside. She starts Thursday. Keep her in there. If this one’s out in the population, she’s gonna cause trouble.

I didn’t know what he meant. I intended to be on my best behavior, serve my time as quickly and as painlessly as possible and, as my mentor Joke would say, vamoose.

At the shelter, however, trouble dogged me from the first night, no matter where I worked.

Chapter Two

My car provided the initial outrage. I only had the one, of course. It was the small Lexus, not a high-dollar, gold-pack deal, but a Lexus nevertheless, a law-school graduation gift from my parents. My wheels immediately caused a stir on Jingo Street, which was only six blocks long in the heart of the inner city.

I felt lucky that first evening when I pulled into the same parking space I’d used earlier in the day, not five steps from the front door of the place. Peculiar looking people in a hodgepodge of clothing standing around the front door of the shelter stared at me as I scurried from my car to and through the front door. I marveled at first that there should be that many customers but no vehicles. That was until I figured out not many people show up for free meals at a soup kitchen in cars. Parking on the street near the shelter probably was never going to be a problem.

Rosco Marcowitz, one of three paid staff people at the place, was my first acquaintance and my initial mixed blessing.

Burned out on booze or drugs, or maybe somehow brain damaged, Rosco nearly suffocated me. Big and lumbering and bashful, Rosco didn’t make any lecherous moves on me himself, and he didn’t let anyone else hustle me either. My self-appointed body guard served as the facility’s unofficial, undisputed bouncer. He never cracked a smile and no one with good sense crossed him. In spite of his size and attitude, he had a sweet look about him, and the most startling cobalt blue eyes I’d ever seen. Every time I spoke to him—asked him about our routine, or even looked at him—he blushed and answered by speaking to the floor.

Mr. Trent didn’t talk to Rosco much. He and the rest of the staff—paid and unpaid—just sort of worked around the big oaf and let him do as he pleased. He was a hard worker and obviously didn’t need instruction. I tried to be courteous to Rosco and to everyone else, too, but I limited my exchanges, uncertain about what any of these people might be thinking. Also, following their example, I didn’t smile at anyone either, in a valiant effort not to cause the trouble Mr. Trent had predicted I