by Tal Bauer
Nine AM, time for Tom to stride into the courtroom and call the proceedings to order.
But Mike wasn’t there.
Tom, already wearing his voluminous black robes, frowned at the clock. In the history of time, since he’d started as a federal judge at the DC federal court, Mike had never been so much as a second late, not for anything. He was as punctual as he was friendly, as professional as he was warm and kind. All of Tom’s fellow judges, others who worked with Mike, had nothing but the best words of praise for the man. Dedicated, diligent, unflappable. Considerate. Professional.
Fifteen different reasons for Mike’s tardiness flew through Tom’s mind, each more terrible than the last. Should he call the police first, or the hospitals? Did his coworker, Deputy Marshal Villegas, or his boss, Marshal Winters, know Mike was late? Did they have any information?
The bailiff assigned to Tom poked his head into Tom’s chambers, knocking as he opened the door. “Your Honor, the court is assembled and everyone is ready for you.”
Tom swallowed. Did he blow Mike’s tardiness off? Ignore the security procedures, built by Mike by hand after studying this trial and the potential risks?
He gave his bailiff a small smile and stayed sitting at his desk. “Thanks. There’s been a delay. Please let both parties know to expect a… ten-minute delay.”
Ten minutes. Was that enough time to produce a missing man from the ether, a man who was as reliable as gravity? Tom didn’t know Mike all that well, but he’d worked with him for a year, and—before today—would have set his watch by the sound of Mike’s footfalls down the secured hallway, just outside his chambers.
He reached for his desk phone, chewing on his bottom lip. He had the speed dial programmed for Mike’s office, but he didn’t have Marshal Winters’s, Mike’s boss. There was phone chart on his laptop, somewhere—
Bang. A door slammed at the end of the fourth-floor secured hallway, the corridor behind all the courtrooms that connected their private areas—a handful of judge’s chambers, their law clerks’ offices, a tiny law library and small break room, and Mike’s personal office, the size of a closet—away from the public. The weighted doors securing the corridor were as heavy as a small car. Bulletproof, blast proof, people proof. More than one unsuspecting law clerk had been mowed down by those doors, and most of the other judges, significantly older, significantly grayer, used the slow-as-drying-paint private elevator to the private lobby, instead of the main center stairs.
But Mike always took the stairs. So did Tom, and he’d run into Mike most days, each of them balancing their shoulder-slung briefcases and their cellphones and their coffees. Mike would chide him for being on the public staircase, shaking his head and laughing at him. Tom always quipped back that it was good he ran into Mike most mornings, a judicial knight in dark-suited armor.
Was that Mike, now?
Tom crossed his chambers in three quick strides. Baby judge that he was, he’d been given the smallest chambers. His robes, billowing like bat wings behind him, nearly touched both walls as he hurried to the door.
Leaning into the hallway, Tom spotted Mike rushing toward him. Hair disheveled, standing straight up, suit wrinkled, and what looked like stains on his jacket and spraying over one side of his shirt. Coffee, maybe. But he didn’t have a coffee cup in his hand.
He didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more concerned. Mike never, but never, looked less than professionally perfect. It was disgusting, in a way. He had that effortless masculine chic that Tom had always envied. Sandy hair combed into a pompadour and styled like he’d stepped from a magazine, cockeyed grin like he knew the punchline to every joke ever told. A body made for suits, filling out the shoulders to perfection, and a trim stomach and narrow hips that some fashion designer, decades and decades ago, must have dreamed about when first creating the enduring fashion craze of a man in a perfectly tailored business suit.
Rumpled, stained with coffee, and late? Had to be something terrible. A car accident? Something worse?
Mike spotted Tom, waiting in the doorway in his robes, and Tom saw his face—scrunched up like he was trying to control himself, hold back some kind of twisted anger or frustration—fall. He jogged the rest of the long way to Tom’s chambers, shaking his head. As he came near, Tom saw Mike’s cell phone clenched in one fist, squeezing so hard his knuckles were white.
Mike closed his eyes, exhaling. The stench of coffee wafted off him. “Judge Brewer, I am so sorry. There’s no excuse for me being late.”
Up close, Tom could see dark bags beneath Mike’s eyes, purple stains that marred his tanned skin. The corners of his eyes were pinched, tiny crows’ feet that were just starting to form, looking deeper than they had yesterday. His lawyer’s brain started stacking up the evidence, putting together pieces of the puzzle that was Mike and this morning. “It’s all right. Something crazy must have happened. Car accident?”
Swallowing, Mike looked down, glaring at the polished tile floor. Tom kept watching him. A muddy stain, dried coffee with cream, marred one toe of Mike’s otherwise perfectly polished black wingtips.
“Not exactly.”
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Wincing, Mike’s whole body clenched, and the hand holding his cell phone, his arm, all the way up to his neck, started to shake.
New evidence. Tom’s eyes narrowed, turning the frame on its side. There wasn’t a giant patch of coffee on Mike, like he’d expect if Mike had spilled it on himself. It was more of a splatter, almost like—
“Come in. Sit down.”
Mike’s cell phone kept buzzing, a constant drone and whine. Each vibration, each mechanical trill, made Mike flinch. Made his jaw clench and his eyes squeeze closed.
Tom leaned back against his desk, standing in front of Mike. Mike held his phone in both hands, suspended in front of him as he slumped in Tom’s leather chair.
The bailiff poked his head into Tom’s office again. “Your Honor, it’s been ten minutes.” His gaze flitted to Mike, and the bailiff’s eyebrows shot straight up.
“Thank you. Give us another ten minutes, and give the court my deepest apologies.”
Nodding, the bailiff shut the door. Mike groaned, pinching his nose with one hand. “Shit,” he cursed. “Judge Brewer, I’m—”
Tom waved him off. “Don’t even bother with apologizing, Mike.”
Mike sat up straight like a cord had been yanked along his spine, rocketing to professional in a half-second. He stared straight ahead, jaw clenched.
Tom softened his tone. “You don’t have to apologize. This isn’t you. You’ve been absolutely perfect for every single day I’ve been here. I was starting to think you were actually a robot, some state-of-the-art android being tested by the marshals.”
Mike chuckled. His shoulders relaxed, fractionally.
“You’re allowed to be human.” Tom winked. “Once.”
Mike sat back, going boneless as he sighed. His phone kept buzzing constantly, like a beehive lived in his hand.
“Something you need to take care of?” Tom nodded to the phone. Was there a family situation? Something Mike needed to be focusing on, instead of being at the office?
“No.” Mike shook his head, his voice hard. “I’ve already taken care of it. This is just…” He swallowed. “This is someone wanting it to hurt.”
Oh. Tom’s gaze swept over Mike again. The clenched shoulders, the tight eyes, the bags. The flinch with every buzz—every incoming text, if he had to guess—and the coffee stains. “Bad breakup?”
Mike smiled, his gaze fixed on the edge of Tom’s desk, just to the right of Tom’s hip. He nodded, slowly. “The worst.”
“That coffee isn’t yours, huh?”
Groaning, Mike smoothed his hand down his spattered shirt and jacket. “No. I haven’t even had any this morning.” He took a deep breath. “Morning came way too quickly, in fact.”
Tom nodded. He dragged his phone close and paged his secretary. “Peggy, could you get me a cup of c
offee, please?” He turned back to Mike. “How do you take yours?”
Mike’s jaw dropped. “Heavy on the cream, no sugar. Uh, Your Honor.” He tacked the honorific on at the end quickly.
Peggy chirped that she’d be right there. She was always bubbly, no matter the hour. Morning people were amazing.
Tom turned back to Mike. “I’m willing to bet that you have a spare suit in your office.”
Mike flushed, but nodded. “Spare suit, gym clothes, and tactical uniform.”
“Knew it.” Tom smiled. “Go change. Take a deep breath. And then come get your coffee.”
Rising, Mike bobbled for a moment, seemingly not sure whether he should scramble out of Tom’s chambers or stay and self-flagellate himself, apologize and apologize some more. His phone kept buzzing in his palm.
“Want me to take that off your hands?” Tom held out his hand. Mike hadn’t once read the incoming texts, but he hadn’t let go of his death grip on the phone either.
Tom knew, God he knew, the fastest way to get away from something was to pretend it never existed.
Mike swallowed, his Adam’s apple rising and falling. Stubble darkened his face and neck, like he hadn’t had time to shave that morning. He took a deep breath, held it, and then passed his phone over.
Tom dumped it in his top desk drawer. “See you in a few minutes.”
Mike was back in record time, impeccably dressed in another dark suit, a bold lime-green tie cutting a striking path down his starched white shirt. He’d run wet fingers through his hair, smoothing windblown strands and finger-combing them into a perfectly suave style. In minutes, he’d gone from frazzled to fantastic.
Tom was jealous of that ability. It was practically a superpower.
He held back from taking Mike in from head to toe and forced himself not to linger over his broad shoulders, his strong hands. Instead, he passed him a mug of coffee, perfectly made by Peggy, and waited while Mike chugged half of it.
He checked the clock. Nine-eighteen AM. “Are you ready, Inspector Lucciano?” Once, during his first week, he’d stumbled with how to address Mike, fumbling through the bewildering double titles of deputy marshal and judicial security inspector. Mike saved him, telling him “Inspector” was the proper, official term, but he could just call him Mike.
Mike smiled, finally, a real, honest smile, and nodded. “I am, Judge Brewer.”
“Well then.” Tom winked. “The time for justice is at hand.”
Mike laughed as he held the door for Tom and escorted him down the private hallway to the courtroom. The bailiff spotted their approach and ducked into the courtroom a minute before they arrived. Tom and Mike waited, and then entered when they heard the booming call of the bailiff. “All rise!”
Tom gave Mike one last smile before climbing up to the bench and settling in.
The trial started smoothly. Tom spent the first few minutes apologizing to the court, and to the jurors in particular, for the delay. He took the blame, spinning a story about his terrible choice of dinner the night before and his urgent detour before the start of opening arguments. He made more than one juror laugh and the AUSA, Solórzano, shake her head, so he counted that as a win.
Mike stood silently by the bench, watching him. He could practically feel the gratitude pouring from the man.
He won more points from the jury with his opening instructions. Tom had a friendly, informal style, which rankled Chief Judge Fink to no end. Chief Judge Clarence T. Fink, judicial leader of the DC federal courthouse, papa bear to all the judges, and one of the oldest serving federal judges in the entire judiciary. He’d lived through history Tom had read about in school books as a child. He was a legend on the bench.
Chief Judge Fink preferred a statelier approach, with the judge keeping his distance from the proceedings and only interacting with the courtroom when absolutely required. His poker face was the best in DC. More than one attorney had argued before him in sidebar, utterly convinced that they were making a pitch-perfect argument to their point and one that Judge Fink would most certainly agree to, only to be shredded a moment later.
Tom, many decades younger than Judge Fink, had a different style.
He came down from the bench and instructed the jury from the courtroom floor, facing the juror box. He was, he said, their partner in the trial. The trial could only be successful with all partners doing their very best. He was responsible for keeping the law correct. Keep the attorneys on track, and everything above board. Prevent any trick shots and keep the proceedings fair for all parties. The jury, in contrast, was responsible for judging the evidence. There to listen to the facts presented to them by both sides, and to then judge those facts against the law. Theirs was a solemn duty, with no small amount of significance. This trial, or any trial, couldn’t happen without them and their dedication to the proceedings.
He got about three or four jurors to smile at him, nodding along, another two to sit up straighter in their seats, and—always—another one or two to roll their eyes. Tom wished them well and climbed back up to the bench.
As he passed Mike, Mike sent him a warm smile and a shake of his head. Tom shrugged and grinned back.
Opening arguments were as expected, Solórzano delivering the government’s position and the charges against Lincoln with brisk efficiency. She detailed the evidence to be presented like the opening of a thesis, lining up the paint-by-numbers canvas for the jurors to follow. Lincoln’s defense counsel, a younger attorney from the public defender’s office and still wet behind the ears, struggled to throw doubt like black paint against the prosecution’s picture. Lincoln had been caught dealing drugs to an undercover officer, and forensic evidence put his specific weapon—which witnesses said he treated better than his own child and never let anyone borrow—as the weapon used to murder several individuals over the past two years in DC’s ongoing drug and gang wars ravaging the poorest neighborhoods.
They broke for lunch promptly at twelve-thirty. Tom could have pushed back twenty minutes, making up for the delay in the morning, but there was no faster way to piss off a jury than to delay lunch. They were already glassy-eyed, and several looked like they needed a hit from their cell phones, stat, before they expired from lack of social media infusion. He called for a lunch recess and climbed down from the bench.
Mike, of course, was waiting for him, and held open the door to the private corridor. “Should be a quick trial.”
“Should be.” Tom rolled his neck. Pops sounded.
“I was keeping an eye on the back row. Looks like Lincoln’s buddies have shown up.”
“Do we need to make arrangements for the witness testimony?”
“We’re checking them out. Lincoln’s gang hasn’t ever threatened a witness or tried to hurt anyone who went to trial. It’s been a lot of bluster in the past.” Mike held open the door to Tom’s chambers. “We’re still looking at them all individually. But I doubt that the gang will risk the federal government coming down on them to take out a witness against Wayne Lincoln.”
In the grand scheme of things, Lincoln was a small fish in the very large, very violent sea of DC’s gangland. Tom shrugged out of his robe and hung it on the hook behind his door.
Mike stood in the center of Tom’s office, fidgeting. His eyes darted to Tom’s top desk drawer.
“Do you have plans for lunch?” Tom grabbed his suit jacket.
“Ahh, no, Judge Brewer.” Mike straightened. “Are you eating with the law clerks again?”
At least once a week, he sat down with the law clerks, all recent grads from law school, and talked them through their first year in the profession. To a person, the law clerks started with the fire-eyed optimism and passion of a graduate, dedicated to changing the world through profound and world-shaking legal work. By the end of the year, they were worn down by the system. They traded bets on settlements and deals likely to be made before going to trial and had their ears open for cushy corporate jobs that would pull them away from the grind and toil
of public law.
“Not today. They’re having a special lunch with Chief Judge Fink.” Tom winked as Mike’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. It was late spring, the time for most of the law clerks to start handing in resignation letters and start fancying their wardrobes for their future corporate gigs. Chief Judge Fink liked to give them all one last pep talk, extolling the virtues of public service.
Tom eyed Mike, still standing in the center of his office like he was out of place, like a coat rack in the middle of the rug. He fidgeted, and kept looking at Tom’s desk.
He didn’t know Mike well enough to ask him about what had happened. He really didn’t know him well enough to offer to take his phone, either, and it seemed like Mike’s phone was burning inside his desk, an infrared beacon blazing in the office. He should give it back. He should tell Mike he hoped everything was all right and focus on his own work. He shouldn’t get involved.
But that’s not at all what he did.
His mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. “I am in the mood for some BBQ. Want to join me? There’s a great place up on Seventh.”
He’d lost count of how many times he’d stunned Mike that morning, how many times he’d seen Mike’s jaw drop, just slightly. It did again, Mike’s mouth hanging open for a moment before he snapped it shut, his teeth audibly clacking.
I don’t know what I’m doing either. Tom shrugged and smiled, already letting Mike off the hook, feigning a casualness that was so very far removed from what he really felt. He felt like ants were racing in his veins, like his heart was an engine struggling to start.
But then, Mike smiled. “Sure. The weather’s great. Want to walk, or should I bring my car around?”
“Let’s walk.”
They fell into step together, heading for the staircase in the center of the Prettyman Courthouse Annex. The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse proper housed the main judiciary and the DC Court of Appeals, and, tucked away in its dark recesses, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the FISA court of wiretapping fame. In the Bryant Annex, the triple-football-field-length marble hall attached to the main courthouse, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the DC federal court, made its home. Courtrooms were on the second and fourth floors, and in the center of the Annex, a spiral staircase enclosed in bright maple wood paneling curved upward through all levels. White marble steps gleamed underfoot as they padded down the four floors side by side.