Unlawful Desires

by Sassy Sinclair

  “If I was a law firm partner screwing a judge, that would be the first thing I would’ve checked.”

  Anger crept up her neck. You asshole.

  “So was it worth it?” the judge’s pearly veneers gleamed across the desk at her.

  Sharla inhaled.

  “I asked you a question, young lady,” he said sharply.

  She remembered Reese’s admonition. Just remember to be respectful. If you gotta eat crow, swallow it with a smile.

  Just then, her cell phone buzzed. It was on vibrate, but the buzzing was as loud as the ringing. She ignored it.

  “Well?” the judge demanded.

  “No, it wasn’t worth it. My career is very important to me.”

  He snorted. “Sounds like giving up a little tail was a lot more important than your career. Were you already screwing this guy when he appeared before you in the Ivers case?”

  He was actually getting off on berating her. “No.”

  “I bet you two had sex in your chambers, didn’t you?”

  As a matter of fact, we did. You pervert.

  “No. Of course not.”

  Judge White rocked back in his chair. “As you know, I have a lot of discretion as to how this matter should be handled. I could issue a verbal reprimand. I could make it more formal and put it in writing so it remains in your personnel file. Or I could refer the case to the CJP for a full investigation.”

  Sharla met his gaze with a scowl so cold a chill swept through the room.

  “So how do you think I should handle this?”

  “I regret what happened. A verbal reprimand is more than sufficient. Nothing like this will ever happen again.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought you’d say. To be honest, young lady, I’m actually contemplating referring you to the CJP. You’re far too young to be on the bench. You barely practiced six years before your appointment. I think your lack of maturity is part of the problem here.”

  Sharla had not expected to be belittled like this. Her record on the bench was spotless. This was total bullshit.

  Her phone buzzed again. “I have my phone on vibrate,” she apologized. “I guess I need to turn it off.”

  With trembling fingers, she removed it from her purse. The screen showed two missed phone calls and a text, all from Reese. She suddenly remembered Reese telling her not to leave the meeting until she heard from her. She began reading the lengthy text.

  Sharla glanced up at the judge. “Excuse me for just a minute. This is important.”

  “More important than your fucking career?”

  She ignored his question and continued reading. As she did, a menacing smile spread across her lips.

  “Good news?” Judge White asked sarcastically.

  “Actually, it’s some extremely good news.” Sharla crossed her long legs and propped up her elbow on the back of the chair. “I’d like to change my response to your question about what disciplinary action you should give me. I’m not going to tell you what I think you should do, I’m going to tell you what you’re going to do.”

  The judge leaned forward, his eyes wide with surprise. “Who in the hell do you think you are talking to me like that, young lady.”

  “First, don’t call me young lady again. Ever. You address me as Judge Ratliff or don’t address me at all.”

  The man’s cheeks were so red it looked as if someone had slathered them with strawberry jelly. “You little—”

  “And second, there isn’t going to be any disciplinary action—verbal, written or otherwise. In fact, you’re going to forget that Checkoff even brought this matter to your attention.”

  Chapter 40

  Marcel

  Marcel was perusing the sports section of the L.A. Times when the managing partner summoned him to his office.

  This time the HR director was the only other person in the room. So he knew exactly what was up.

  “I won’t string this out,” Stein began. “The management committee met last night. You’re being expelled from the partnership.”

  Marcel showed no reaction. He knew this was coming. He’d already taken his personal items from his office and copied important research and pleadings from his computer.

  “On what grounds?”

  “Failing to disclose that you had a personal relationship with Judge Ratliff, your subpar analysis on the Goodwin strategy memo and your poor performance in court on the Ivers Corporation discovery motion.”

  Bullshit.

  “I didn’t know when we met with you before that Judge Ratliff decided that motion too. You should’ve brought that to our attention.”

  He wanted to explain that he wasn’t seeing Sharla at that time but knew it wouldn’t make a difference.

  “Fine. What about my partnership distribution for this quarter? Will I be receiving that?”

  “You’ll receive the appropriate prorated amount based on your points. But you won’t be receiving the bonus.”

  “And why not?”

  “You know why. You have to be employed on the day of the payout and your termination is effective immediately.”

  “You’re not screwing me out of my bonus two weeks shy of the payout. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

  Stein didn’t say anything.

  The HR director spoke for the first time. “Exactly what are you requesting, Mr. Dennard?”

  “I’m requesting the full bonus that you owe me.”

  “Or what?” Stein said.

  “Or I’m suing you. And you’ll pay a whole lot more than one hundred grand defending my lawsuit, not to mention the bad PR for the firm. If you want this little thing with me and the judge swept under the rug, I suggest you pay me everything you owe me.”

  Stein scratched his jaw. “If this goes public, you’ll never be hired by another law firm.”

  “Bullshit. Anyway, who said I wanted to work for another law firm? And thanks for the reminder. I’ll also need a letter of recommendation. Be sure to mention my high billable hours and my excellent strategic work. Just repeat all the great stuff you told me during our last performance discussion. And the letter should reflect that I resigned, not that I was expelled.”

  Marcel stood up. “I’ll assume you can cut me a check in forty-eight hours.”

  Stein turned to the HR director.

  “We’ll need a little more time,” she said. “We can have a check messengered to your home in three or four days.”

  “Including my bonus?”

  The HR director turned back to Stein. His nose twitched and he grudgingly nodded.

  “Thank you very much.”

  Marcel strutted down the hallway feeling twenty pounds lighter. When he reached his office, a security guard was standing at his door and followed him inside.

  Sidney, the only black guy on the building’s security team, had greeted him every morning for the last three years.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Dennard. You can take your cell phone and other personal items but nothing from the computer.” His eyes remained on the floor. “I hate having to—”

  Marcel slapped him on the back. “Dude, don’t take it so hard. You’re just doing your job.”

  Sidney scratched his head. “You certainly look happy for somebody who just got fired.”

  “That’s because I am happy.”

  Marcel’s phone rang and he picked it up.

  “Dude, do I have the 4-1-1 for you,” Grimes said.

  “Already? It’s only been a few hours.”

  “I told you, I’m The Man. I can drop by your office right now.”

  “No,” Marcel said, excited. “I’ll come to yours.”

  Chapter 41

  Sharla

  Sharla ignored Judge White’s sputtering lips.

  “Where I come from, yo
u don’t throw rocks when you live in a glass house,” she continued, lecturing him now. “How in the hell can you discipline me when you’ve been screwing your summer law clerks for over a decade?”

  That got his attention. His sputtering abruptly stopped as if someone had ripped his vocal chords from his throat. “I—I, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I hear you’re quite the sexual harasser. Or maybe sexual predator is more like it.”

  The judge indignantly puffed out his chest. His bluster didn’t hide the fear in his sea blue eyes.

  “I just received a text from a friend of mine. She’s head of the summer associate program at her law firm. If you’re going to screw your law clerks, you should teach them to keep their big mouths shut.”

  Judge White regained control of his emotions and resumed his game face. “What is this? Some kind of blackmail?”

  “Not at all. I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “You have no proof of anything.”

  “Kaylee Rabinowitz. A second-year at Hastings Law School. Twenty-four years old. Does that name ring a bell?”

  His crestfallen expression confirmed that it did.

  “She’s my law clerk. So what? You have no evidence whatsoever that I’ve engaged in any inappropriate conduct with her or anybody else.”

  “I don’t need any evidence. Don’t you watch the news? All I have to do is make an allegation and you’re toast.”

  His lower lip began to quiver. “This is obscene. You don’t deserve to be on the bench.”

  “And neither do you,” Sharla fired back. “Kaylee happens to be roommates with a summer associate at my friend’s law firm. Kaylee told her roommate all about your little fetish. Says you pay her top dollar to let you suck her toes and fondle her tits. A few summer associates were having a good laugh at your expense at a law firm party last weekend.”

  Sharla folded her arms. “I wonder how this would sound on the front page of the L.A. Times: Presiding Judge Has Filthy Foot Fetish. The story would probably get picked up by CNN, MSNBC, and even Fox.”

  The judge fiddled with a paperclip. “That’s a lie. It’s her word against mine.”

  “Really? Shall I remind you of some of the perverts who tried that defense? Let’s see, Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, Charlie Rose, Roy Moore, Bill Cosby, just to name a few. Shall I continue?”

  Judge White jutted his chin forward and reasserted himself, as if suddenly remembering that he was the veteran judge and Sharla was the lowly newbie. “Like I said, you have no evidence to support your lies.”

  “Oh, yes I do. According to Kaylee’s roommate, your buxom little law clerk recorded her last toe fest with you on her iPhone. Yes, sirree. That little device even got some video of you masturbating and jerking off on her feet.”

  His chubby face flashed bright red, then ash white. She hoped he wasn’t about to have a heart attack. Still, Sharla didn’t let up.

  “Kaylee apparently has plans for you to be paying her for quite some time. How stupid of you. And how embarrassing it would be for your wife and kids if your sick fetish became public.”

  Sharla slowly got to her feet. “So, this is how it’s going down. I’m going to be far more careful in the future and never let my personal relationships impact my work as a judge. So there’s no need for any disciplinary action. If this situation happens to come to anyone else’s attention in the future, you’re going to tell them that we had a talk and you were so impressed with me, you didn’t think any disciplinary action was warranted. Do we have an understanding?”

  Judge White’s nose wrinkled up like he had just smelled something foul.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. Do we have an understanding?”

  “Yes,” he spat.

  Sharla had made it to the door but paused and turned back to face him.

  “And another thing, you better not touch another law clerk, court clerk, court reporter or even a female janitor, ever again. If I hear that you have, I’m going straight to the media with what I know. I wonder how many of your former law clerks would come out of the woodwork then. It would be a media frenzy. What an awful way for you to end such a stellar career on the bench.”

  The man looked deflated.

  “My final piece of advice is stay away from women one-third your age. You have a wife. Go home and suck on her toes.”

  Chapter 42

  Marcel

  Marcel was psyched. He couldn’t wait until he got to Grimes’ office to learn what he’d dug up on Camille. If he could scare her into never resurfacing in his life again, maybe he and Sharla could actually make a go of things.

  “What you got for me?” Marcel asked, not even sitting down.

  “Hold on.” The investigator was a mammoth, bouncer type with colorful tats running up and down his hairy arms. “It’s not what you think. Have a seat.”

  Marcel didn’t move. “Please tell me you can help me get this chick out of my life.”

  “Just have a seat.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Grimes took Marcel step-by-step through what he had learned.

  After getting a description of the messenger from Sharla’s court clerk, Grimes spoke to clerks in three more courtrooms. They all remembered the messenger because of his curly red hair. One clerk was pretty sure he worked for a company called Ace Messenger Services, which made regular deliveries to the courthouse.

  Grimes parked outside the company’s office on Figueroa and waited. It had only taken thirty-two minutes before he spotted a gruff-looking white kid with unkempt red hair rolling his ten-speed into the building. Grimes approached him on the way to another delivery.

  For twenty bucks, the messenger explained that Robert Robinson, an accountant at Deloitte’s Los Angeles office, hired him for the job. The messenger didn’t know what was inside the envelope. He described Robinson as “a good-looking black dude with a dope office.” Robinson had given him strict instructions to hand the envelope to the judge’s clerk or the judge herself and no one else.

  “Robinson must have a connection to Camille,” Marcel said. “I bet he’s screwing her.”

  “Maybe,” Grimes replied. “I had a cop friend look him up to see if he has a record. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

  Marcel scratched his chin. “She probably tricked him into using his firm’s messenger service to deliver the picture.”

  “Naw, man, I don’t think he was tricked at all. The dude knew what was in that envelope. Otherwise he wouldn’t have told the messenger to only give it to the judge or her clerk.”

  “They might be in it together. You think they’re trying to blackmail Sharla?”

  “Or you,” Grimes replied. “But there’s been no note or demand for money.”

  Marcel nodded absently, baffled by this whole ordeal. “I think I can take it from here.”

  Grimes squinted. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to pay Mr. Robinson a visit.”

  “You don’t have any idea how this guy is involved. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I’ll find out when I talk to him.”

  “How about if I come along with you?” Grimes said. “If you try to strangle the guy like you did Camille, you could end up in jail.”

  Marcel hunched his shoulders. “Sure. A big guy like you will help me scare the hell out of him.”

  Pulling out his phone, Marcel made an appointment with Robinson under the ruse of needing an accountant for his new law firm. Grimes would be posing as his contractor.

  An hour later, Robinson greeted them in the lobby of the accounting firm’s swanky building. Once they were inside Robinson’s office, he handed them firm brochures. Based on his eagerness, Marcel figured this was the guy’s first shot at reeling in a client of his own. He was going to love busting his bubble.<
br />
  After listening to Robinson go on and on about the firm’s virtues, Marcel asked, “Do you know Camille Taylor?”

  Robinson paused to mull over the name, then shook his head. “Can’t say I do.”

  Marcel frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you do know her,” Marcel challenged.

  Robinson tugged at his tie. “What’s going on here?”

  “We don’t need an accountant,” Grimes conceded. “I’m a private investigator. Mr. Dennard here actually is a lawyer, but he’s not opening a law firm.”

  Robinson straightened in his high-back leather chair. “So what’s this really about?”

  “It’s about a long list of criminal activity.”

  Robinson folded his hands and set them on the desk. “I don’t understand how any of this involves me.”

  “You’re involved because you let Camille Taylor help you with her dirty work. That means you’re guilty of conspiracy.”

  “But I don’t know anybody named Camille Taylor.”

  “Stop playing us.” Marcel didn’t raise his voice, but his anger was apparent. “I know she gives a great blowjob, but is that worth your career?”

  “Or jail time?” Grimes added.

  Robinson’s lips quivered. “I don’t know how many ways I can say that I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Look, man, you’re in a lot of trouble,” Grimes said. “We’ll put all our cards on the table if you do the same. We know for a fact that you hired a messenger at Ace Messenger Services to deliver an envelope to Judge Sharla Ratliff’s chambers. Does that name ring a bell?”

  Robinson’s teeth chattered. “I—I don’t know anything about that.”

  “You look like you’re about to piss your pants,” Grimes teased. “Let’s cut the bull. Did you know what was in that envelope when you hired that messenger to deliver it to the judge?”

  Robinson sprang to his feet. “I—I don’t think I should be talking to you guys. I may need a lawyer. You should leave.”

  “Oh, you’re definitely going to need a lawyer,” Marcel said. “At a minimum, you’re looking at charges of trespass, vandalism, destruction of private property, invasion of privacy, harassment, being a peeping Tom and probably stalking too. That’s at least ten years in prison.”