Guilt By Degrees

6

Paperwork in hand, I headed to the clerk’s office and got lucky to find Rosario, one of the more efficient filers, on duty. She let me in behind the counter, where I’d be able to avoid the usual obnoxiously long lines. Then I got even luckier and ran into Toni LaCollier-fellow denizen of the Special Trials Unit and one of my two “besties.”

I gave her the lowdown on my eventful morning.

“Girl, trouble and you are like white girls and Justin Bieber-one always chasing the other,” Toni said, shaking her head.

“Kind of like black girls and Usher?”

“We don’t have to chase,” Toni sniffed. “We just have to slow down.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “But, seriously, you need to watch out for that little tool, Brandon.”

“You know him?”

“I know of him.” The clerk passed Toni the complaint for her case-the initial charging document-and she signed it.

“From?” I asked.

“J.D.”

Judge J. D. Morgan was Toni’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. Perfectly suited for each other, they had all the bad and the good things in common. Since both were commitment-phobic, this meant that one or the other would inevitably back away after they’d been together for any length of time. And once they’d been apart for a while, one would eventually sidle up to the other. They were currently in one of their “on” phases.

“He tried a case in front of J.D.,” Toni said. “According to him, the guy was a showboat-without the boat.”

“That fits,” I replied. “And he’s got a big hard-on for Special Trials.”

“Want to know why?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

Toni ignored me. “Guess who’s his boss and big angel in the office?”

“No clue,” I said, shaking my head.

“Phil Hemet,” Toni replied.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, stricken. “The idiot who lost the only case he ever tried?” I fished through my memory. “A caught-inside-the-car joyriding case.”

“A genius he ain’t,” Toni agreed. “But he’s a world-class brownnoser.”

“Right. Got promoted to director of central operations at one point, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Toni snorted. “And on his way up, he headed Special Trials for about five minutes.”

“Thank God we weren’t around for that. But how did they let a fool like that run a unit like Special Trials?”

“How do they do anything around here?”

The clerk pushed the complaint for my case over to me, and I stopped to sign it.

“I will tell you this, though,” Toni said. “I heard that the deputies in the unit gave him endless shit. Refused to talk to him about their cases, never listened to a word he said, and if he called a meeting, no one would show. They’d all say they had to be in court.” Toni recounted the story with relish.

“Sounds like good, responsible lawyering on their part,” I replied.

“Most definitely,” Toni agreed. “But you know who demoted his ass?”

I shook my head.

“Your buddy, District Attorney Vanderhorn,” she said.

“Nooo!” I replied, truly shocked.

Toni held up her hand. “If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”

Vanderhorn and I were like oil and water. He thought I was insubordinate and unpredictable. I thought he was a boneheaded politico with no legal skills whatsoever. On any given day, we could both be right. But apparently he’d had a rare fit of good judgment where Hemet was concerned.

“Well, you know what they say…”

“Yeah, I do, so spare me,” Toni said, knowing what was coming.

I continued, undaunted. “Even a clock that’s broken is right twice a day.”

Toni walked out ahead of me, muttering to herself-something about gagging.