Snake Eater Read Online Free

case,” I said.
    “He’s interested in me,” said Daniel.
    The clerk read the charges. Possession of Class D marijuana, possession with intent to distribute, and trafficking.
    The judge arched his eyebrows, then looked toward the prosecution table. “Trafficking, Ms. Redlich?”
    Joan Redlich stood up and stepped toward the prosecutor’s table. Her black hair was twisted up into a bun. I guessed it would fall halfway down her back when it was unpinned. She wore dark-rimmed tinted glasses low on her nose, a gray suit that disguised her figure, and low heels. She was slim and young and, in spite of her best efforts, pretty.
    Female lawyers have told me that they dress for the judge. They have different wardrobes, different hairstyles, different cosmetics, which they adapt to the situation. Some judges—His Dirty Old Honors, the lawyers call them—like to see a little leg, a hint of cleavage, eye makeup. It disposes them favorably to the client’s case. Others—especially female judges—resent it if the lawyers don’t look as shapeless and sexless as they do in their black gowns.
    Female lawyers resent the hell out of this kind of patent sexism. But they don’t ignore it. It’s an edge, if you read it right, they tell me.
    Redlich tucked a stray strand of hair over her ear. She leaned toward the microphone that was wired to the tape recorder that preserved the proceedings and rendered obsolete the court stenographer. “Cultivation, Your Honor,” she said. “He was growing it in his garden. The estimate is seventy pounds.”
    Ropek frowned, then nodded. I didn’t like the looks of that frown. “Recommendation?”
    She asked for a half-million-dollar surety bond. Not unexpected. Since Reagan, all the courts have been trying to convert the drug cases that come before them into moral lessons.
    “Mr. McCloud?” said the judge, looking from Daniel to me.
    “Brady Coyne, Your Honor,” I said into my microphone.
    “Welcome, Mr. Coyne. Go ahead.”
    “I ask the court to release Mr. McCloud on personal recognizance, Your Honor. He has roots deep in the community. He’s resided in Wilson Falls for the past twenty years. He owns property and runs a business there. He’s a Vietnam veteran, Special Forces, and he’s in poor health.”
    The judge peered at me for a moment, then nodded. He looked to the probation table. “Probation?” he said.
    “One prior, Judge,” said one of the officers. He stood and went to the bench, where he handed a folder to the judge. Judge Ropek glanced at it, then handed it back.
    Then he looked at Daniel. “Two hundred thousand dollars surety bond,” he said.
    Daniel grabbed my arm. “I don’t have that kind of money,” he whispered.
    “You need twenty thousand cash,” I told him. “Can you raise it?”
    He nodded. “Twenty grand. Okay. Yes.”
    We then argued about the date for the probable-cause hearing. Redlich asked for a month to give them time to process all the evidence. I asked for a week, citing the stress of waiting on Daniel’s health. Judge Ropek set it for ten days hence, a small victory for the good guys.
    Before the court officer took Daniel away, he gave me a phone number and told me to talk to Cammie Russell. She’d get the money.
    And as I turned to head out of the courtroom, Joan Redlich handed me a copy of the search warrant. I thanked her and stuffed it into my attaché case along with the police report.
    I called Cammie Russell from one of the pay phones in the courthouse lobby. She had a soft voice with a hint of the Smoky Mountains in it. She said she’d be there in an hour. I told her I’d meet her outside the front door.
    She actually arrived in about forty minutes. She was tall and slim in her white jeans and orange blouse. She had cocoa butter skin and black eyes. Her hair hung in a long, loose braid down the middle of her back. Her high cheekbones and small nose reminded me of a young Lena Home. There was a Cherokee Indian somewhere in her