Free Just Mercy: A Novel by Dorothy Van Soest Page B

honor of his favorite artist, Frida Kahlo—suited Fin to a T.
    She pulled into his unpaved driveway and parked alongside his front yard, which was filled with blooming red and pink bougainvillea and Hill Country penstemon. The two pink flamingos watching over his xeriscaped garden oasis looked as out of place next to the neighbor’s rusty cars and parched crabgrass as did her BMW and pale yellow linen shorts suit. Every time she came here, she marveled at how it could be just a ten-minute drive from this little bungalow to the Victorian house in the historic Enfield neighborhood where they grew up, when the two places were worlds apart.
    Fin waved to her from his front porch swing, shirtless and handsome in faded cutoff jean shorts and looking very much like he belonged right where he was. Ordinarily, his warm smile and those blue eyes of his melted her heart, at least initially. But today they served only to make Annamaria pause and wonder, and then only for a minute, if last night’s development had helped him to understand what she’d been trying to tell him all along. He was, after all, more complex than most people realized. Yes, he was the kind, down-to-earth social worker who didn’t own a car, loved working with kids in the Communities in Schools program even though God knew it paid next to nothing, and walked the two blocks to his job at East Austin Middle School at the same time every morning in his worn and patched (though impeccably pressed) jeans and political tee shirts.
    But there was another Fin, a man of refined tastes with a diverse collection of white, black, and Hispanic male friends who were connoisseurs of fine art and wine, who listened to classical music and had season tickets to the opera. All his friends were gay and—to Annamaria’s great amusement—seemed to fit every stereotype. When it came down to it, she loved her brother to death. His political proclivities were the opposite of hers, that was true, but he wasn’t one of those strident, self-righteous leftists. At his core, Fin was more compassionate than ideological, for which she thanked her lucky stars.
    “I just knew something was going to screw it up again,” she said as she breezed past him into the living room, waving the morning newspaper in the air. “What the hell was O’Gradythinking, to mess around with a judge? I thought he knew better. Geez!”
    “I knew you’d be pissed,” Fin said.
    “And that damn Groundtree!” Annamaria poked her finger at the face of the judge in the photograph. “I’ve been in her court a few times, and anyone can see she’s not the brightest light on the porch. I never would have guessed that old hag had a sexy bone left in her body. She’s a grandmother, for Christ sake! Shit, she’s old enough to be a great- grandmother. Old enough to have a little bit of sense, anyway.”
    “Want some coffee, Sis? Better yet, how about some Calming Yogi tea?” Fin’s grin expanded into a smile.
    “Don’t be funny. You got something stronger?” She followed him into the kitchen and headed for the sink to wash the newsprint from her hands.
    “Never in a million years would I have expected Governor Kopecky to do the right thing,” Fin said as he opened the refrigerator. “People can sure fool you sometimes.”
    Annamaria stared at her brother. He was so naïve, as bad as their mom. “Can’t you see Kopecky’s just covering her ass?” she said. “You know she’s as solid a Republican as they come. Hell, that’s why I voted for her.”
    “So you don’t think there’ll be an investigation?”
    ”Oh, there will be an investigation, all right. Many investigations. Every case that O’Grady brought to Groundtree’s court will be called into question now. Wait until you see how many appeals there will be. Believe me, attorneys all over Austin are going nuts right now, poring through the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedures like vultures in search of anything they can find in the carcasses