“What? That she looked up your address, got it from personnel or something? Think, Lara. She had no earthly reason to connect you to this situation.”
“I guess you’re right.” Lara sighed and stood. “You mean we can finally go home? To my house in Irvine? We don’t have to stay at the condo anymore?”
“You got it, kid,” Rickerson said with a smile. “And rest assured, we’ll get her. Every cop in the city’s been alerted. She can’t get far.” He paused. “It’s over. You can finally go home. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, huh? There’s no place like home.”
“That’s for sure,” Lara said, draping an arm around Josh and turning to Emmet.
Rickerson walked up to the little man and pumped his hand. “I guess I owe you more than a dinner now, Emmet. You’re quite a man. My hat’s off to you, buddy. It was a lid off a can of peas, huh?”
“I…try,” Emmet said modestly. Then he smiled with pride. “You know…a person…has to be resourceful.”
“And Lara,” he said, turning to her, “if you had never asked Emmet to work on this, we might have never known it was Murdock. Leo Evergreen would be in jail right now, faced with defending himself against these charges.”
Lara didn’t say anything. She didn’t want the detective to feel worse than he already did. But it was a horrifying thought: that Evergreen might have faced prosecution for a crime he hadn’t committed. They were about to leave. Rickerson couldn’t take his eyes off Lara. He would turn toward the hall and then stop and face her again.
“Oh, by the way, Lara,” he finally said, as if he had forgotten something, “can I speak to you a moment in private?”
“Sure,” she said. She followed him down the hall to a vacant interview room. He closed the door and they stood there staring each other in the eye. A lot of things were said in those moments, things they couldn’t say with words. “Thank God it’s over,” Lara said, looking away. “I mean, Irene isn’t in custody, but just knowing…you know?”
“Yeah,” he said pensively. “Still think I’m a great cop? Right now I feel like an idiot.”
Lara reached over and hugged him, grinning up into his face. “Yes, you’re a great cop. I was certain it was Phillip, remember? How much longer do you have here before you can leave?”
“I just have to get Murdock to sign the statement. I’ll get a unit to transport him to the jail. Why?” His eyes were twinkling. “You got something in mind?”
Lara pulled back and played with his lapels. “I thought you could join us for dinner. Then later…who knows?”
“I’ll have to meet you when I finish.”
“No problem. We’ll wait,” Lara said. “Carl’s Junior right down the street? Can you live with that?”
He held her in his arms. He didn’t kiss her. He just held her. After a time he said, “Yeah, I can live with that.”
She slowly pulled away and headed for the door, glancing back over her shoulder for one more look at the detective. “What? About fifteen minutes?”
“You got it,” he said.
Then she walked out of the interview room into the lobby.
“You ready, fellows?” she said to Emmet and Josh. It was time to get on with the process of living. At least she didn’t have to worry about the budget cutbacks. Irene had taken care of that. “Hey, are you hungry? How about Carl’s Junior for dinner? You know, a really good bacon cheeseburger with an enormous mound of fries?”
“You’re on,” Josh said, snaking his arm around her waist as they walked side by side to the front door of the police station, Emmet rolling along right beside them. “We’re going to move back into your house in Irvine, right? Does that mean you’re going to actually cook one of these days? I mean, I don’t mind fast food, but don’t forget, Emmet and I are heroes.”
Lara laughed, tossing her head back and letting it all go. The nightmare was over. “Who knows, Josh, maybe we’ll get you that motorcycle you want so bad. You know, like a reward. And Emmet, you just might get a real award of some kind, maybe something from the city.”
“Not…me,” Emmet said.
Lara looked at Josh.
“Nan, I don’t want a motorcycle,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ve decided I want a dog. Then we’ll be a real family. All we need is a dog. I never had a dog.”
“A dog?” Lara said. This was the first time she’d heard this one. All he’d ever talked about was the motorcycle.
He looked up, completely serious. “That’s how my father got killed—on a motorcycle.”
Josh helped Emmet into the front seat of the Jaguar and climbed in the backseat. So, Lara thought, Josh has learned what most young people don’t learn until it’s too late: the value of that fleeting thing called life. Three lives had ended this evening in senseless tragedy: Victor Adams and his two daughters. Her closest friend had been responsible for her sister’s death. A man she had known for years, had respected, had been a practicing pedophile. Lara looked up at the sky. She wondered why these horrid things happened, how people could go so far off track. But there were no answers. She knew that. All a person could do was struggle toward acceptance, keeping fighting the fight. As her father used to tell her, you just had to keep marching.
Lara opened the trunk and hoisted Emmet’s wheelchair inside and then glanced through the rear window of the car. Josh and Emmet were chatting and laughing. No, she thought, nothing would bring back Ivory or Victor Adams and his little girls. But somehow in the midst of it all, Josh, Emmet, and Lara had stumbled upon a new beginning. And she had found Ted Rickerson. The powers that be had somehow moved them all into position, moved them where they were supposed to be. She thought briefly of the pending hearing on charges of impropriety. All they could do was officially reprimand her; the charges couldn’t possibly be deemed serious enough to remove her from the bench. It was a mark on her record, but after all she’d been through, she decided it was nothing to lose sleep over. Getting into the Jaguar, she pulled out onto the street.
An hour later, Judge Irene Murdock was arrested and charged with murder as she was attempting to catch a flight at John Wayne Airport. In her purse was the tiny .25 caliber handgun she had used to kill Packy Cummings, purchased years before to protect herself from irate defendants. She had tried to carry it through a metal detector.
In her haste to avoid apprehension, Irene Murdock had completely forgotten the gun was in her purse.
They handcuffed her and walked her through the crowded terminal. It was just about the time Josh, Lara, Emmet, and Rickerson got their cheeseburgers.
You are invited to
Preview an Excerpt from
Nancy Taylor Rosenberg’s
Latest Triumph—
FIRST OFFENSE
A Riveting Legal Thriller
Sizzling with Suspense
The courtroom was armed and waiting. The Assistant district attorney Glen Hopkins was making notes in his file and sipping a cup of coffee while the defense counsel, Harold Duke, glanced at his watch anxiously. Two court clerks and a uniformed bailiff were staring straight ahead like statues. A probation officer, Ann Carlisle, an attractive woman with short blond hair and classic features, had her head braced in her hand and intermittently glanced over at the well-built district attorney, waiting to catch his eye.
Judge Hillstorm took another look at the clock and then glared at the defense attorney. Originally from Georgia, the white-haired judge still spoke with a distinctive southern accent. “Your client is late, Mr. Duke,” he chided. “This here hearing was scheduled for five o’clock. In exactly sixty seconds your client will forfeit his bail, and a bench warrant will be issued for his arrest.”
A small, wiry man, Harold Duke gulped and swallowed. He turned toward the double doors for the hundredth time and then let out an audible sigh of relief when they were thrown apart by a lanky, long-haired young man wearing black jeans, a black shirt, and black leather boots with jangling chains and fake spurs. He strode into the courtroom as if he owned i
t, marched straight to the counsel table and flopped down in the chair between his attorney and the probation officer. Duke’s relief quickly dissipated when he saw the entourage that followed.
The judge had the gavel in his hand and opened his mouth to call the court to order when he froze. Four striking young girls pranced into the courtroom, each one flashing a smile at the judge. They looked like recycled hippies: bell-bottom pants, bare midriffs, breasts bulging and jiggling, platform shoes, long straight hair. They slipped into the back row and huddled together.
Following them was a tall, handsome Chinese man in his early twenties. He rushed up to the defendant at the counsel table, dropped down on one knee and whispered something. As soon as he was finished, he took a seat several rows up from the girls, glancing back and smiling at them over his shoulder.
Judge Hillstorm’s face flushed, and he slammed the gavel down to call the courtroom to order. As he did, the back doors opened again and another attractive young man, this one with blond hair, burst through the doors, scanned the courtroom and then quickly took a seat next to the young Chinese man.
“Well.” Judge Hillstorm said nastily, “now that we’re all assembled under the big top. why don’t we try a little law on for size? People versus James Earl Sawyer II.” He nodded his head at the probation officer, and the sentencing hearing was officially on record.
“Mr. Sawyer spent six days in custody subsequent to his arrest and prior to the court setting bail,” Ann Carlisle said, her words clearly enunciated as always. “According to the felony disposition, the defendant should receive credit for time served of twelve days, pay a fine of one thousand dollars, and be placed on twenty-four months probation. Since the original charge was a felony and involved narcotics, it’s our recommendation that the defendant be placed on formal probation with full drug and search terms.”
“I see,” the judge said slowly, turning toward the district attorney. “Mr. Hopkins.”
At that moment Glen Hopkins was leaning over the counsel table, gazing across the room at Ann Carlisle. A tall, muscular man in his late thirties, his face was more rugged than handsome. Fine lines radiated out from his eyes and clustered around his mouth from too much time spent in the sun. Raised in Colorado, he had once ridden bulls on the rodeo circuit. That wildness of spirit had not left him either. No matter how expensive or well tailored his suits were, he always looked uncomfortable in them, constantly pulling his starched collar away from his neck as if it were strangling him.
Ann Carlisle flushed when she realized he was eyeing her. Several months ago, after a year of fencing and flirting, she had finally given in to his advances. Sex with him was an adventure, she had quickly found out. Knowing he could see her long legs under the table, Ann slowly crossed and uncrossed them. Then she stiffened her back and stared straight ahead, annoyed at herself for having such thoughts in the courtroom.
“Mr. Hopkins, we’re in session here. Could you please give us your full attention?”
“What? Oh,” the district attorney said, instantly collecting himself and facing the judge, a sly smile on his face. “I think Ms. Carlisle is mistaken. We agreed on the fine and the credit for time served but not supervised probation. The negotiated disposition states summary probation.”
Judge Hillstorm looked down at his file and riffled through the papers. “Ms. Carlisle, do you have a copy of this agreement?”
Ann looked up, “Yes, Your Honor, I have the documents right in front of me, but the agreement only states twenty-four months’ probation. It doesn’t specify summary or formal. My agency is recommending formal.”
“It was an oversight,” Hopkins said impatiently, speaking to Ann instead of the judge. “The typist just failed to type the word summary next to the word probation.”
“Mr. Duke,” the judge said, “would you like to comment?”
The diminutive attorney stood formally to address the bench. “This is a first offense, Your Honor, and my client is an earnest young man who unfortunately bowed under peer pressure. He has never used drugs before and is preparing right now to enter college. All he did in this matter was accept what he thought were ‘smart pills’ from a stranger, not knowing they were controlled substances or in fact hallucinogens. This same individual then told Mr. Sawyer that they would help him concentrate at a higher level. Mr. Sawyer, after ingesting these—”
“Mr. Duke,” the judge said, interrupting the attorney’s dissertation, “we’re only discussing one point here, and we wouldn’t be discussing even this point if there hadn’t been an oversight. I mean, you are aware that this case has already been settled. You’re not in the wrong courtroom, are you?” Hillstorm smiled as chuckles rang out.
“Of course not,” Duke said, shifting his jacket uncomfortably.
“Well, then,” Hillstorm said, “this is what we’re deciding: will your client be on summary probation to this court, basically unsupervised, or will he have a probation officer? Once we determine that, we can all go home.”
Duke continued, his voice carefully modulated, showing no hint that he was annoyed. “There’s no reason to submit my client to supervised probation.”
Judge Hillstorm played with his glasses, taking them off and putting them back on again while he made his decision. “James Earl Sawyer,” he finally said, “in case number A5349837, I hereby sentence you to twenty-four months modified probation. As a condition of this here modified probation, you will have what we call drug terms, and you will pay a fine of five thousand dollars by October 23rd, exactly one year from today. Now, I know this here fine is more than this agreement stated, but the agreement between you and me was that you were to appear in this court promptly at five o’clock and you failed to honor that agreement. That,” Hillstorm said, chuckling, “is what we call breach of contract. Running this operation costs what a young fellow like you’d call big bucks. As for your probation, you’ll have to report once a month to your probation officer, Miss Carlisle. She’s the pretty little lady sitting right next to you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” Sawyer answered stiffly, not looking at Ann, whose mouth was open in outrage.
“This court’s adjourned, then,” Hillstorm said, standing and quickly exiting the bench down the back stairs.
As soon as the judge disappeared, the court reporter began folding up her machine and the court clerks bolted from the room to beat the rush-hour traffic. Ann remained at the table, incredulous. Hillstorm had done it again. The older judge had developed an annoying habit of making up the rules as he went along. A judge could modify the terms of a person’s probation, but there was no such thing as modified probation per se, and Ann did not supervise probationers. Judge Hillstorm, however, was a dinosaur. He thought every offender should have his own private probation officer. It simply wasn’t possible. The field supervision officers now handled only the most serious offenders, and their caseloads were still mammoth and unmanageable. This was the second time Hillstorm had done this to Ann, sticking her with a probationer to supervise personally, and she was hopping mad. Her desk was piled sky-high with files as it was.
“What did that mean?” Jimmy Sawyer asked her. “You know, what the judge said?”
Ann looked over her shoulder—let the man’s attorney explain it to him—but like everyone else, Harold Duke had made a run for the hills. Everyone, that is, except Glen Hopkins. The district attorney was still seated at the counsel table, packing files in a larger black litigation case, a scowl on his face.
“I guess it means I’m your probation officer, Jimmy,” Ann said, her expression making it clear that she was not happy about the situation. “Call me tomorrow to set up an appointment, okay? Then I’ll get your terms and conditions typed and go over them with you.” She picked up her files and started to leave.
Sawyer held out a hand to her. “I understand about the probation part. But the drug terms, what does that mean?”
“It means you have to urinate in a bottle once a month any ti
me I ask you. If the test comes back dirty, you go to jail for a violation of probation.” He flinched as she bore in on him. “You also have search terms. They go along with the drug terms. That means I can come out to your house and search for narcotics without notice, anytime I wish. Any more questions?”
“Yeah,” Sawyer said, his face ashen, “you mean you can just walk in my house any time you want? Isn’t that a violation of my constitutional rights?”
“What constitutional rights?” Ann said harshly. “You’re on probation now, Jimmy, you don’t have any rights.”
As she headed down the aisle, Glen Hopkins fell in beside her. “Can you believe it?” she said. “Hillstorm did it again. I wanted this guy supervised, but I didn’t want to be handcuffed to him for life. That stupid old fart.”
Outside the courtroom, Ann stopped, turned to face the district attorney. “And your office simply has to stop busting felony drug charges down to misdemeanors. Sawyer had a ton of dope on him, an extensive juvenile record, and he ends up convicted on a paraphernalia charge.” She gave him a querulous look. Normally he hated to settle for less than the top count. “Give me a break, Glen. Why don’t you just give the guy a medal and the address of every elementary school in the city so he can ply his trade? He’s a damn dealer.”
She looked over and saw that Jimmy Sawyer had trailed closely behind, listening to every word they said. Their eyes met briefly before Ann turned her back on him. A few moments later, she heard Sawyer’s chains and spurs clanking down the hallway.
“It was his first adult offense,” Hopkins said softly, his eyes following Sawyer down the hall. When he turned his gaze onto Ann, his voice was unusually sharp. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do. Tell me one person who works harder at putting these people away than I do, huh? But you have to look at the big picture, Ann. We’ve got four murder trials in progress, seven rapes and God knows how many gang-related shootings and stabbings. We can’t take the time to try every first offense that comes through the doors any more than you can supervise them.” He frowned as he recalled something, then went on. “I thought you’d be overjoyed that I asked for summary probation. You really threw me for a loop in there, Ann.”
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