Hornet`s Nest

Chapter Twenty-one

Hammer and West signed in at the Court Liaison Office and punched time cards. On the second floor, they followed a long corridor crowded with people looking for a pay phone or the bathroom. Some were sleeping on maple benches, or reading the Observer to see if their cases might be mentioned. When West opened the door to 2107, her anxiety increased.

The courtroom was packed with defendants waiting for punishment, and with cops whose fault it was. Hammer led the way to the very front, sitting on the side for lawyers and police. Assistant District Attorney Melvin Pond spotted the two powerful women instantly and got excited. He had been waiting for them. This was his chance.

Fourth Circuit Judge Tyler Bovine, of the Twenty-fifth Prosecutorial District, had been waiting, too, as had the media from far and near.

Batman and Robin, she. Judge Bovine, thought with intense pleasure as she departed from her chambers. She'd see about that when she reigned on high in the long black robe that covered her massive body of law.

West felt increasingly troubled for a number of reasons. She was worried about Brazil and afraid she'd never get out of here to check on him. Tyler Bovine, as was true of the rest of the judicial herd, was a traveling judge. She resided on the other side of the Catawba River, and despised Charlotte and all that was good about it, including its citizens. The judge was confident that it was only a matter of time before Charlotte annexed her home town of Gastonia, and all else Cornwallis had failed to seize.

"All rise for the judge."

All got around to it, and Judge Bovine smiled to herself as she entered the courtroom and spotted Hammer and West. The judge knew that the press had been tipped not to waste their time hanging around here this day. Batman and Robin would be back on Monday. Oh yes they would.

The judge sat and put on her glasses, looking important and godlike.

ADA Pond stared at the docket as if he had never seen one before this morning. He knew he had a battle on his hands, but was determined he would prevail.

"The court calls the case of the State of North Carolina versus Johnny Martino," he said with confidence he did not feel.

"I'm not ready to hear that now." Judge Bovine sounded bored.

West nudged Hammer, who was thinking about Seth and not sure what she would do if he died. It did not matter how much they fought or drove each other crazy or proved irrefutably that men and women could not be soulmates or friends. Hammer had a tragic look on her face, and ADA Pond took it as a slight to his knighthood and professional future. He had failed this wonderful, heroic woman whose husband was shot and in the hospital. Chief Hammer did not need to be sitting here with all these cretins. Judge Bovine saw the look on Hammer's face, too, and also misinterpreted, and was further aroused. Hammer had not supported Bovine in the last election. Bovine would see how big and important Hammer was now.

"When I call out your name, please stand. Maury Anthony," announced ADA Pond.

Pond scanned despondent faces. He searched people slumped back, pissed off and sleeping. Maury Anthony and his public defender rose near the rear. They came forward and stood before the ada's table.

"Mr. Anthony, how do you plead to possession with the intent to sell cocaine?" the ADA asked.

"Guilty," Mr. Anthony spoke.

Judge Bovine stared out at the defendant who was no different than all others.

"Mr. Anthony. You realize that by pleading guilty you have no right to appeal," she stated rather than asked.

Mr. Anthony looked at his public defender, who nodded. Mr. Anthony returned his attention to the judge.

"Yes, sir," he said.

Laughter was scattered among those awake and alert. Mr. Anthony realized his egregious error and grinned sheepishly.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. My eyes ain't what they once was."

More laughter.

Judge Bovine's big flat face turned to concrete.

"What says the state," she ordered as she sipped from a two-liter bottle of Evian.

ADA Pond looked over his notes. He glanced at Hammer and West, hoping they were attentive and impressed. This was his opportunity to be eloquent, no matter what a dog of a case it was.

"Your Honor," the ADA began as he always did, 'on the night of July twenty-second, at approximately eleven- thirty, Mr. Anthony was drinking and socializing in an establishment on Fourth Street near Graham. "

"The court requires the exact address," Judge Bovine interrupted.

"Well, Your Honor, the problem is, there's not one."

"There has to be one," said the judge.

"This is an area where a building was razed in nineteen- ninety-five, Your Honor. The defendant and his associates were back in weeds…"

"What was the address of the building that was razed?"

"I don't know," said the ADA, after a pause.

Mr. Anthony smiled. His public defender looked smug. West was getting a headache. Hammer had drifted farther off. The judge drank from her bottle of water.

"You will provide that for the court," the judge said, screwing on the cap.

"Yes, Your Honor. Only, where this transaction occurred isn't precisely at the old address, but rather farther back, approximately eighty feet, and then another fifty feet, I'd say, at a sixty-degree angle, northeast, from the Independence Welfare building that was there, that was razed, in a thicket where Mr. Anthony had set up a hobo camp, of sorts, for the purposes of buying and selling and smoking crack cocaine and eating crabs with associates on that night. Of July twenty-second."

ADA Pond had the attention, however briefly, of Hammer, and West, plus Johnny Martino's mother, and the conscious courtroom, in addition to two bailiffs and a probation officer. All stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and lack of comprehension.

"The court requires an address," the judge repeated.

She took another gulp of water and felt contempt for her psychiatrist, and for manic-depressive people everywhere.

Not only did lithium necessitate drinking a tub of water daily, but it caused frequent urination, which by Judge Bovine's definition, was double jeopardy. Her bladder and kidneys were a drip coffee maker that she could feel and measure as she drove back and forth from Gaston County, and sat on the bench, and went to the movies, and flew on crowded airplanes, or walked on the track and found the field house locked.

Because she was a superior court judge, she could adjourn every fifteen, twenty, or thirty minutes, or until after lunch, if her need was great and she so chose. She could wheel in a damn Porta-John, do whatever she liked, ipso facto. But what she would never do, not once during this life and on this planet, was to interrupt a case after it was started, because above all else, the judge was a well-bred lady who had grown up in an antebellum house and gone to Queens College.

Judge Bovine was tough, but never rude. She did not tolerate fools or classless people, and no one could accuse her of anything less than impeccable manners. There was nothing more important than manners, really.

ADA Pond hesitated. Hammer had faded away again;

West could not get comfortable. The bench seat was wood, and it pressed her police belt and the small of her back. She was perspiring and waiting for her pager to vibrate. Brazil was decompensating. It was something West sensed, yet she wasn't certain why, or what to do about it.

"Mr. Pond," the judge said, 'please continue. "

"Thank you. Your Honor. On this particular night of July twenty-second, Mr. Anthony did sell crack cocaine to an undercover Charlotte police officer."

"Is this officer in the courtroom?" The judge squinted at the sea of wretches below her.

Mungo stood. West turned around, dismayed when she saw who had caused such creaking and shuffling and whispering. Oh God, not again. West's sense of foreboding darkened. Hammer remembered Seth bringing her breakfast in bed and dropping keys on the tray. The new Triumph Spitfire was green with burl wood, and she had been a sergeant with free time, and he was the rich son of a rich land developer. Back then, they went on long drives and had picnics. She would come home from work, and music filled the house. When did Seth stop listening to Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, and Bach, and start turning on the TV? When did Seth decide he wanted to die?

"The subject, Mr. Anthony," Mungo was saying, 'was sitting on a blanket in the thicket Mr. Pond has just described. He was with two other subjects, drinking Magnum Forty-four and Colt Forty-five. Between them they had a dozen steamed crabs in a brown paper bag. "

"A dozen?" Judge Bovine queried.

"You counted them, Detective Mungo?"

"Most were gone. Your Honor. I was told there had been a dozen originally. When I looked there were three left, I believe."

"Go on, go on." What patience the judge had for this drivel from the dregs of humanity was inversely proportional to her filling bladder as she took another slug of water and thought of what she would eat for lunch.

"The subject, Mr. Anthony, offered to sell me a rock of cocaine, in a vial, for fifteen dollars," Mungo continued.

"Bullshit," was Mr. Anthony's comment.

"I offered you a fucking crab, man."

"Mr. Anthony, if you aren't quiet, I will hold you in contempt of court," Judge Bovine warned.

"It was a crab. Only time I used the word crack was when I told him to crack it himself."

Mungo said, "Your Honor, I asked the subject what was in the bag, and he distinctly replied, " crack. "

"Did not." Mr. Anthony was about to approach the bench, his public defender restraining him by a sleeve that still had the label sewed on it.

"Did too," Mungo said.

"Did not!"

"Too."

"Uh uh."

"Order!" the judge declared.

"Mr. Anthony, one more outburst and…"

"Let me tell my side for once!" Mr. Anthony went on.

"That is what you have a lawyer for," the judge said severely, and was beginning to feel the pressure of water and a loss of composure.

"Oh yeah? This piece of shit?" Mr. Anthony glowered at his free-lunch defense.

The courtroom was awake and interested, more so than ADA Pond had ever witnessed before this morning. Something was going to happen, and no one was about to miss it, people nudging each other and making silent bets. Jake on the third row, defendant's side, was putting his money on Mr. Anthony ending up with his butt in jail. Shontay two rows over was betting on the undercover detective who reminded her of a haystack wearing a wrinkled pinstripe suit. Cops always won, no matter how wrong they might be, it was her belief, based on hearsay. Quik, way in the back, didn't give a fuck as he practiced flicking his thumb out like a switchblade. As soon as he could, the asshole responsible for Quik's show cause warrant was gonna pay. Ratting on him like that.

Man.

"Detective Mungo." Judge Bovine had had enough.

"What probable cause did you have to search Mr. Anthony's brown paper bag?"

"Your Honor, it's like I said." Mungo was unmoved.

"I asked him what was in the bag. He told me."

"He told you crabs, and suggested you crack these crabs yourself," said the judge, who really had to go now.

"Gee. I don't know. I thought he said crack." Mungo tried to be fair.

This sort of thing happened to Mungo more times than not. He'd always found it easier to hear whatever he wanted, and when one was as big as him, one could. The case was dismissed, and before the judge could adjourn to her chambers, the agitated ADA called the next, and the next, and the next, and the judge did not interrupt, because it was one thing she would not do. Citizens arrested for burglaries, car thefts, rape, murder, and more drug dealers and those who patronized them stood with their public defenders. ADA Pond was mindful of the judge's constricted body language and miserable demeanor. Pond was accustomed to the judge's frequent visits to her chambers, and knew that capitalizing on her disability was his only hope.

Each time Her Honor started to rise from her bench, ADA Pond was off and running on the next case. As fast as he could, he announced the Johnny Martino once again, in hopes Pond would break the judge, wear her down, and subject her to the water treatment until she could take no more. Her Honor would hear the state of North Carolina versus Johnny Martino so Hammer and West could return to life's highways, and the hospital. ADA Pond prayed Hammer would think kindly of him when he ran for DA in three years.

"Johnny Martino," ADA Pond said as fast as he could, again, moments later.

"I'm not ready to hear that case yet." The judge could barely talk.

"Alex Brown," the ADA blurted out.

"Yeah." Mr. Brown stood, as did his counsel.

"How do you plead to malicious wounding?"

"He started it," Mr. Brown stated for the record.

"What I'm supposed to do, huh? In Church's getting a quart of chicken livers and he decides he wants the same thing, only he's going to get mine and not pay."

Hammer had tuned back in long enough to make an assessment of her surroundings and those in it. This was much more disheartening than she had imagined. No wonder her beat officers and investigators got so discouraged, so jaded and cynical. There had been a time when she'd had no sympathy or use for people like this. They were lazy, no-account, self-destructive, self-absorbed wastrels who added nothing to society and took from everyone around them. She thought of Seth, of his money, privilege, and opportunity. She thought of the love she and others had given him. Chief Hammer thought of many people she knew who were no better than anybody in this courtroom, really.

West wanted to kill Judge Bovine. It was outrageous making a chief and deputy chief sit through all this. West's attention wandered back to Brazil about every other minute. She wondered if he had returned to the newspaper, and her ominous foreshadowing got denser and more chilling. If she didn't get out of this court room soon, she might cause a scene. Her boss, oddly, had returned to the present and seemed fascinated by everything around her, as if Hammer could sit here all day and think those private thoughts that had made her who and what she was.

"Johnny Martino," ADA Pond struck again.

"I'm not going to hear that case now," the judge snapped as she carefully got to her feet.

That would be the end of it for at least half an hour, West thought with fury. So she and Hammer would get to sit in the hallway and wait.

Oh great. This would have been exactly right had Johnny Martino's mother permitted it. Like West, Mrs. Martino had been pushed too far.

Mrs. Martino knew exactly what was going on. She knew that those two ladies in front were Batman and Robin, and that the judge had to pee.

Mrs. Martino rose before the judge could climb down from her throne.

"Now hold on one minute," Mrs. Martino loudly said as she made her way over people and up to the bench, in her nice dress and loafers.

"I been sitting here this whole time seeing exactly what's going on. "

"Ma'am… I' Her Honor protested, by now standing and in crisis, as a reporter for New Country WTDR radio slipped into the back of the courtroom.

"Don't you ma'am me!" Mrs. Martino wagged her finger.

"The boy who robbed all those innocent folks is my son. So I got a right to say whatever the hell I want. And I also know who these women are." She gave them a deep nod.

"Risking themselves to help all those poor folk when that rotten-ass boy of mine climbed on that bus with the gun he got from some drug dealer out there. Well, I tell you what."

West, Hammer, ADA Pond, and the courtroom, listened to Mrs. Martino with keen interest. The judge deemed it best to reseat herself and hold tight. Mrs. Martino had been waiting all her life for her day in court, and she began to pace like an experienced trial lawyer. Radio reporter Tim Nicks was writing down everything, his blood singing and playing drums in his ears. This was too good to be true.

"Let me tell you something, judge," Mrs. Martino went on.

"I know a game when I see one. And every time you could let those poor busy ladies out of here, you pass on it, say move on, no way, not now, ummm ummm." She shook her head, striding, swinging arms wide, "Now why you want to be doing that to people who help, to people trying to make a difference out there? It's a disgrace, that's exactly what it is."

"Ma'am, please be seated…" Her Honor tried again.

Johnny Martino was in Mecklenburg orange and flip- flops when he was brought in from the jail. He raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth one more time in his life. Hammer was sitting up straight, filled with shining admiration for Mrs. Martino, who had no intention of being silenced, and in fact, now that her son had appeared, was only getting started. West was fascinated by how Judge Cow was going to get herself out of an udder disaster, ha! West stifled laughter, suddenly on the verge of hysteria and another hot flash. ADA Pond smiled, and Reporter Nicks wrote furiously in his notepad.

"You want roe to sit down, judge?" Mrs. Martino walked up closer to the bench, and put her hands on her sturdy hips.

"Then I tell you what.

You do the right thing. You hear Johnny's case this minute, listen to his guilty, lying, stealing ass. Then let these fine crusading ladies be on their way, out there saving more lives, helping more folks who can't help themselves, delivering us from evil. "

"Ma'am, I am hearing the case," Judge Bovine tried to explain.

"That's what we're doing…"

But Mrs. Martino had her mind made up about the way things were. She turned around and gave Johnny the eye.

"Tell me now." She swept her arms over the courtroom, touching all.

"Anybody here who insists on stepping ahead of these Christian ladies?" She looked around, taking in the silence, not finding a raised hand to count.

"Speak now," she called out.

"All right then! Do we want to set these ladies free?"

The courtroom cheered and roared, people doing high- fives for Batman and Robin, who could do nothing but watch, enchanted.

"Johnny Martino, how do you plead to ten counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon?" the ADA called out.

Judge Bovine's teeth were clamped, and a sleeve of her robe flapped empty and useless as she held in her objections, her legs crossed.

"Guilty," Johnny Martino mumbled.

"What says the state," the judge whispered, in pain.

"Mr. Martino boarded a Greyhound bus on July eleventh at one-eleven p.m.," ADA Pond summarized.

"He robbed ten passengers at gunpoint before being apprehended and restrained by Chief Judy Hammer and Deputy Chief Virginia West…"

"Yo Batman," someone yelled.

"Robin!"

The cheering began again. Judge Bovine could endure no more. She might have called the sheriff for intervention, but she had more pressing concerns. She had been polite, well mannered, well bred, and had lost control of her courtroom. This was a first. Someone had to pay. It might as well be the son of a bitch who caused all this when he climbed on that damn bus.

"The state agrees to consolidate sentencing under ten counts," the judge announced rapidly and with no attempt at drama.

"Defendant is a prior record level two and will receive in each of the ten counts a sentence of seventy months minimum or ninety-three months maximum, for a total of seven hundred months minimum and nine hundred and thirty months maximum. The court is recessed until one." She gathered her robe in one hand and fled as Mr. Martino checked the judge's math.

Reporter Nicks fled back to South McDowell Street, where Today's Hot New Country and "Your All Time Favorites could be heard on 96.9. It was rare his station got breaking news, scoops, tips, or leaks, as if to imply that a country music audience didn't vote or care about crime or want crack dealers in jail. The point was, no city official or Deep Throat had ever bothered to think of Nicks when something went down.

This was his day, and he was out of his '67 Chevelle with such urgency that he had to run back twice to get his notepad and lock the doors.