The man slumped into his chair, head hanging as he looked at the floor.
“Mister Domesta purchased the painting from the artist for five hundred credits eighteen months ago,” Lexi reported. “He insured it for over one hundred thousand credits immediately thereafter, using an appraisal from an individual whom I believe is not real.”
“What does that mean?” the perp asked.
“It means that the elements of the crime of which you have been accused have not been met. Stealing a painting worth five hundred credits is a misdemeanor, and a minor one at that. I’ve already punched you in the head, and I don’t feel like doing it again. Do you promise not to steal?”
The man vigorously nodded, eyes wide and eyebrows raised to show his sincerity.
Rivka went around the table to unlock his shackles, and he jumped to his feet. The Queen’s Barrister kicked him behind the knee and slammed him back into his chair.
“I’m not finished,” she said calmly as she returned to her side of the table. “If I see you in here again it will not go well for you. Keep your nose clean, and don’t accept drinks from strangers. And one final note, if it seems too good to be true, it is. Now, fuck off.” She stabbed a thumb at the door. The man ran out.
She wondered where he’d go, since they were on a ship or a space station. She wasn’t exactly sure.
“Lexi, issue a warrant for the arrest of Mister Ricciardo Domesta on felony insurance fraud. Use your research to build the case file to share with the local Magistrates.”
A slow clap sounded from behind her. “Looks like you’re one for one, although I have to question the oft-tried calm-the-fuck-down technique. Appealing to the wisdom of the perp has never worked. We’re usually a little more hands-on, but hey…you may help us to see the errors of our ways,” Grainger mused, leaning casually against the wall.
“I could use a shower, some chow, and a little sleep in a decent bed.”
“Couldn’t we all.” Grainger crossed his arms, making no move to accommodate her.
She waited, as did he. She kicked back, putting her feet on the table and lacing her fingers behind her head.
“Nice try.” He leaned away from the wall and started to walk out. Over his shoulder, he told her in a soft voice, “Perp number two will be in momentarily.
5
Rivka quickly stood, brushed her clothes straight. She’d forgotten that she was wearing a dress, the color of which didn’t suit her, and the Magistrate’s leather jacket. She liked the soft feel, and the emblem of the Magistrate’s office was a small pin on the lapel.
The jingle of shackles came from the corridor beyond the open door. A man shuffled in, pushed roughly by the same guards who had escorted her a short while earlier. “Easy!” she ordered, using her authority. They nodded in unison, pushed the man one step farther into the interrogation room and closed the door behind them.
“Sit down, please.” Rivka pointed to the recently vacated chair. Once he was in place, she sat down and accessed the datapad and the man’s case file.
“I did it. I beat that guy within an inch of his life. If they hadn’t pulled me off him, I might have killed him.” The man’s words were barely above a whisper, his eyes glistening as he delivered his own eulogy.
“Why did you do it?”
“He pissed me off, made me as angry as I’ve ever been.”
“About what?”
The man shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“They are just words, but they can hurt, can’t they?” she said, showing empathy to get him to talk more.
“I did it. I beat him like a rented mule.”
“Even a rented mule doesn’t deserve to be beaten. Why did you do it?”
“He pissed me off,” the man said, putting an inflection as if it were a question.
“Not good enough. We don’t get to go around pummeling people, no matter how big of an asshat they may be.” Rivka steepled her fingers before her, elbows on the table. The case file had been no help. It was three sentences stating that the perpetrator beat the victim.
“What did he say?” Rivka was curious, even though it was irrelevant to the case. They only needed the act, not the mental state, but that had been proven through his repeated confession.
The man shrugged again.
“Bullshit. You’re covering for someone aren’t you?”
“Say what?” The man looked confused.
Rivka watched his body language, which showed no subterfuge. Maybe he wasn’t covering.
“What am I supposed to do with you?” she asked. “You seem to know more of what you need than I do. You understand the crime of which you’re accused, and I expect you understand what kind of punishment you could be subjected to.”
“You’ve got to lock me away from other people. I can’t be trusted around them. They make me angry sometimes, and I can’t control it.”
“Bullshit, you hick-ass dumb fuck!” she yelled, slapping the table and jumping to her feet. He rocked back in his chair. She hadn’t hooked his shackles to the ring on the table. “What kind of chickenshit are you? You’re an adult! Fucking act like it!”
“But I get angry,” he whined.
“You look like a spoiled child who didn’t get his way.” She walked around the table and pushed him. With her touch, she felt his emotions surging. She balanced on the balls of her feet and pushed him again.
He roared and reached out, but his shackles held his hands back. Rivka turned away, continuing her momentum with a back kick to his stomach. He bounced off his chair and landed in the fetal position, cradling his mid-section.
Rivka straightened her clothes and returned to her seat. “Please sit down.” She pointed to his chair.
He gingerly got to his feet and crawled slowly into his chair.
“If you had killed that man there would have been nothing I could have done for you, but you did not take that final and fatal step. I believe there is hope for you, so I am sentencing you to anger management and rehabilitation.” She tapped on the datapad. “Lexi, please put the prisoner on probation and schedule him for daily anger management therapy.”
“So let it be said, so let it be written, so let it be done,” Lexi declared.
“Does that mean yes?” Rivka wondered.
“Mister Strathbourg has been scheduled. The times and directions will be included in the wrist monitor he’ll wear at all times as part of his probation.”
Rivka pointed a finger at the man. “Go forth and anger no more, my good man. When you find the root of your fury, you’ll be able to douse it and take control of your life once again. Be excellent.”
She unlocked his shackles, and they joined the first prisoner’s set on the floor. The guards met him at the door and affixed an oversized device to his wrist. The pleasant voice of the AI greeted him. Lexi recited the man’s schedule as they went down the hall until Rivka could no longer hear the AI’s voice.
She tapped the datapad, trying to read the third case file before the final prisoner arrived.
“One left. Are you going to let him go too?”
“It would be ill-advised to make a decision without going through the process. The process works, if we only give it a chance,” Rivka replied.
“Sounds like something a self-licking ice cream cone of a bureaucrat would say.” Grainger relaxed on one leg with the other braced against the wall, leaning back with his arms crossed.
“The universe needs bureaucrats,” Rivka countered, trying to get the Magistrate’s goat.
“Like the universe needs pimples on its ass.”
“The universe needs us, too—those who uphold and enforce the laws made by people wearing expensive clothes and looking down their noses at the ones who do their bidding. But we get to be more hands-on, did you say, in the laws we enforce? Stupid laws will die because they won’t be enforced.”
“And stupid bureaucrats will find themselves on the wrong end of Justice,” Grainger snarled. His cheek muscles bulged as
he clenched his jaw.
“What is the Magistrate’s role in providing input to the bureaucrats?”
Grainger made fish lips at Rivka. “Your Yollin has arrived. Good luck. At the end of this one you’ll get your shower and hot chow, but will it be as a Magistrate or as a prisoner? The jury is still out.”
Rivka wanted to give him the finger, her automatic response to most of the things Grainger was telling her, but stopped as a shackled two-legged Yollin appeared in the doorway. He was taller than her and had a carapace. Mandibles extended from the sides of his head.
“Take your seat,” she directed, pointing.
“I didn’t do it,” he snapped.
Rivka kept her face neutral and refused to answer him.
“Did you hear me? I said I didn’t do it,” the Yollin said loudly.
The door closed behind her. She looked at the datapad, one which the case file was already loaded. She tapped the link to the security footage. High definition video showed the Yollin before her driving a metal spike into another Yollin’s head. After the victim fell, the attacker kicked the spike to drive it deeper, throwing his head back and laughing while he strolled casually away.
“Did you fucking hear me, dickface?”
Rivka raised one eyebrow. “Why did you do it?” she asked in a level voice.
“I didn’t.”
“Looks to me like you did.”
“All Yollin look alike, but your stupid dickface can’t see that. Jumping to conclusions, it’s what dickfaces do.”
“I am utterly appalled at your language and demeanor and by the violence with which you murdered that man. You did it, and I am your judge, jury, and executioner. What do you think about that, Yollin?” Rivka asked as the heat rose from her neck to her face.
“Dickface,” the Yollin repeated. “I didn’t do it.”
Rivka forced her eyes back to the datapad. “Lexi, can you compile profile pictures for all Yollin within one kilometer of the murder site for the time period one hour prior to one hour after.”
“Working,” the AI acknowledged in its young male voice. She leaned back and crossed her arms. The Yollin was shackled, but not locked to the eyelet. He was much bigger than Rivka, his carapace scratched and scarred from a hard life. She wondered if Grainger was nearby in case this Yollin decided to take matters into his own hands. His mandibles clicked as he watched her.
“Dickface. I didn’t do it,” the Yollin repeated.
“Two legs. You’re lucky the Yollin people allowed you to live, so substandard are you. Basically an animal among the real Yollin.”
“If you are trying to provoke me, you’ll have to try harder than that. I didn’t do it, and won’t give you the satisfaction of fitting me up for something else.”
“I think you can fit yourself up just fine without my help.”
“Done,” Lexi reported. Four images filled the screen. Rivka looked them over, then tapped to access the next four. Seventeen screens of Yollins.
“None of your people look alike. More importantly, there were only three with two legs in the area all night.”
“One of the other two must have been the killer. All I know is that it wasn’t me.”
“There’s the rub, dickface,” Rivka started. “The other two were females. It was you, all right.”
“Bullshit! I didn’t do it!” the Yollin huffed, and grunted his dismay. He clicked his mandibles in annoyance, opening them wide as Yollins did to intimidate an opponent.
“Bullshit. You did it.” Rivka glowered at him. She didn’t know why she didn’t feel the need to dig deeper. She’d made her decision. Was Grainger right in thinking she would decide too quickly?
“Why am I being judged by humans? I demand a Yollin court!”
“Shut your pie hole. I need to think.” Rivka flipped from screen to screen reading the statements, watching the video, and looking through the images of the other Yollin. She didn’t find anything that suggested a different course of Justice, but she had one other trick up her sleeve.
She leaned forward to study the Yollin, and he moved toward her and growled. She lashed out with her hand and grabbed him by the wrist and he tried to grab back, but he was too slow. His shackles caught as she pulled him sideways.
His darkness invaded her mind and tore at her soul, and she gasped as she released her grip. Spittle flew toward her when the Yollin spread his mandibles wide and roared. There was fire in front of her eyes. She jumped up and, twisting like a gymnast, drove both feet into the Yollin’s chest. With a crack and snap, he flew backward, hit the wall, and slumped to the floor.
She was over the table in an instant, flying through the air with her knees tucked to her chest. She stomped hard as she came down on the Yollin’s chest with all the fury in her body.
The crack echoed through the small room. Rivka staggered off the prisoner’s chest, and he gurgled for a moment before exhaling his final breath. His eyes started to glaze.
The door to the room opened, and Grainger rushed in. He didn’t need to bend down to see that the Yollin was dead, his carapace cracked and driven into his organs.
“What did you do?” he demanded, his face grim, and she gaped. It had happened again—she’d lost control after seeing the horror within another creature.
Rivka closed her mouth as she recovered her wits. The fury faded, and she brushed her clothes off and straightened herself. “The evil in that one would have tainted anyone he touched. The universe is better without him in it.” She lifted her chin defiantly.
Grainger’s scowl turned to a smile as he extended a hand. “Welcome to the team.”
“That’s it?” Rivka’s lip curled of its own accord. “You bastard!”
“What did I do? If I had an ex-wife, I think she’d sound just like you.” He pulled his arm back. “You don’t get to shake my hand.”
“What?” Rivka looked at the empty space between them as if a hand would materialize any second.
“Come on. Chow, a hot shower, then rack time. You have an appointment with the Pod-doc first thing tomorrow. You showed some strength in there, but that’s not enough. Not all perps are cuffed.”
Grainger signaled to the guards.
“Dispose of this garbage,” he instructed them, pointing at the corpse without looking at it.
“Yes, Magistrate,” the one replied.
“Collect those shackles and put them where they can be used again,” Rivka added, trying to assert some authority.
“Yes, Magistrate,” the other replied.
Grainger left without a further glance. Rivka hurried after him. “Wait, I have questions...”
6
Rivka woke with a start. She didn’t know the time or where she was. She bolted upright, looking around as she tried to get her bearings.
“Lights,” she called. Her room slowly illuminated. It was a single with all the amenities of any hotel room, but she wasn’t in a hotel. She was on a space station in orbit over a planet where she’d had a budding career as a barrister. That had ended when she became a murderer.
And her new career had begun—in space. She had become a Magistrate. Beyond a barrister, more than one who argued the law. She was judge, jury, and executioner, and she’d already carried out her first execution with extreme prejudice.
She hadn’t been wrong. She’d seen into the nightmare that was his dark soul. Would that hold up in court?
“It doesn’t have to,” she told the empty room. Rivka got up, went to the sink, and splashed water on her face before taking a long drink. The little things. Yesterday she had been a prisoner. “What the hell have I gotten myself into? Uphold the law, but use voodoo tricks to do it?”
The Yollin probably would have been convicted. The video had been convincing, but his denial would have carried weight with many juries. Criminals loved to confess. What they didn’t know is that most would get off if they simply denied everything and gave the prosecution nothing to work with. Forensics were limited, and there w
as always contamination.
But not in the soul of the accused.
“What is happening to me?” she asked, but no one answered. She was alone and the clock said she was up too early, but it was too late to get any meaningful sleep. She decided another shower was in order, along with a cup of coffee. The room’s hot water dispenser turned the dehydrated crystals into a cup of joe. She winced when it first hit her tongue but decided that for its therapeutic value it was good enough.
Grainger had improved his estimate of her size, based on how well everything in her wardrobe fit. It was like she had acquired her own personal concierge. She dressed casually in jeans and a stylish off-the-shoulder shirt. She started to walk out, but stopped. Her Magistrate’s jacket was hanging over one of two chairs at a small table. Rivka liked how it felt.
And the status—it screamed “Magistrate” loud and proud. She wrapped herself in the jacket and headed out the door to learn more about the station that would apparently be her training ground.
Corridors upon corridors and levels upon levels. Rivka hadn’t known that such a place existed. When she finally found an external wall, she looked through a small window at the planet below. So close, yet so far away.
Why? she wondered. Seeing the guilty for what they really are and meting out Justice—I can see why the Rangers received a bad rap. It would be easy for those without the responsibility to envy those with it, but for most, the burden of Justice would be too great.
A Magistrate’s life.
She took in her surroundings, the space station and its people. There was nothing else. There was nothing natural about living in space. The people kept the station alive and the station kept the people alive, and together they did more than survive. The bustle and the energy—they were hope. She hadn’t known what it was like to be without hope until she’d been jailed. Rivka took a deep breath. Free air smelled good, even if it was recycled.
She looked at her datapad. Time to meet Grainger.
You Have Been Judged_A Space Opera Adventure Legal Thriller Page 5