The Judge’s dislike grew even more when my dad was elected to the United States Congress at age twenty-six and took his daughter away to Washington, DC—a place the Judge, like so many others, referred to as “Hollywood for ugly people” and “an incestuous breeding ground for idiots.”
When the Judge’s wife passed away, my mom moved back into her childhood home in Compton Heights to help him navigate. She had become tired of life as a congressman’s spouse in Washington, DC, and it was a good excuse to leave.
I’m glad she did, because I’m not certain where Sammy and I would be if she hadn’t convinced the Judge to allow us to move in when our lives had fallen to pieces. We could’ve moved into the main house, she insisted, but I needed some separation. After being fired from my job and going deeply into debt, I couldn’t handle the further indignity of being a middle-aged widower living down the hallway from my mom.
“Time for dinner, sweetie.” I poked my head into the ornate library. It was such a warm space. Sammy and the Judge sat on a large leather sofa in the corner. They were surrounded by shelves, floor to ceiling, filled with books.
They were reading The Iliad.
I took another step into the library. “Come on, Sammy. You’ve got school tomorrow.”
Sammy looked up at the Judge, pleading with him to convince me to allow her to stay. The Judge, however, did not interfere.
“We’ll read again tomorrow.” He placed a bookmark on the page where they had stopped and then gave Sammy a gentle pat on the back. “I promise.”
Sammy’s face curled up into a pout. “We were just getting to the duel.”
“Duel?” I didn’t remember that part.
“The duel to end the war,” Sammy explained.
The Judge smiled, proud that she understood the sometimes-convoluted story, then elaborated on her behalf. “In the fourth part there was an offer to end the war by duel. Both sides agreed to a truce and to allow the winner of the duel between Paris and Menelaus to dictate the terms.”
“See.” Sammy nodded. “We can’t stop now.”
I shook my head. “Yes, we can, and yes, we are—no matter how riveting Paris and Menelaus might be. Give the Judge a hug and we’ll go.” I pulled Sammy off the couch and to her feet.
She turned and gave the Judge a hug, and then I put my arm around her and guided her out of the library.
Just as we were about to leave, Sammy turned. “See you tomorrow, Judge.”
“Good night, sweetie.” The old man blew Sammy a kiss, and she blew the Judge a kiss right back.
We walked down the hallway, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. My mother was at the stove.
“Thanks for watching Sammy.”
My mother turned. “Never a problem.” She looked at Sammy and smiled, and then she looked back at me. “You can stay if you want.”
I shook my head. “Not tonight; maybe tomorrow.”
“Just let me know.” She paused. “Did Lincoln happen to call you today?”
The question caught me by surprise. “He called,” I said, “wanting to go to lunch.”
My mother nodded, although it seemed like she’d already known the answer to her question. “Get a chance to talk?”
“We didn’t,” I said. Then I changed the subject. “There was a young girl in my office, neighborhood kid, wanting to hire me to find her lost brother.”
Her eyebrows raised. “New case?”
“Gonna compensate me in quarters and dimes.” I smiled wide. “Unusual method of payment, but I can’t turn down any type of client at the moment.”
“No, you can’t.” My mother’s eyes sparkled, playing. “Good for you to help.”
I shrugged. “We’ll see how good it is.” I turned and opened the back door. “See you tomorrow.” Then I shut the door behind us as we walked into the backyard.
It was a perfect August night. The temperature had dropped down to seventy-five, which felt cool compared to the heat and humidity of the day. A few stars managed to shine through the dense city sky, and fireflies bounced around the sweet gum trees.
We walked down the stone path and through the garden.
“Any homework tonight?”
“I did it already,” she said. “Got it done right when I got home.”
I nodded as we walked. “Did you take the bus?”
Sammy started to answer and then paused. “Why?”
“Came to your school today, thought I’d give you a ride.”
“Oh.” Sammy stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Yeah. I took the bus. I didn’t see you waiting.”
“Figured that,” I said as we approached the door, “but I was watching pretty close.”
Sammy didn’t respond.
CHAPTER FOUR
In the morning, Sammy did not want to go to school. She delayed at every opportunity. First, she claimed that she didn’t have any clean clothes, even though there was a basket of clean clothes by her dresser. Second, Sammy claimed that we were out of her favorite cereal, even though there was an unopened box of Frosted Mini-Wheats on the top shelf. Third, Sammy claimed that she couldn’t find her homework, even though it was in a folder next to her backpack. Finally, she claimed that her stomach hurt, and that might have been true.
“Listen, Sammy.” I put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m gonna drive you to school this morning so you don’t have to worry about the girls on the bus.”
Sammy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m on the bus or not. They hate me.”
“They don’t hate you,” I said, even though I didn’t know what I was talking about.
“The girls say I’m stuck up. That I think I’m better than everybody else because I’m rich.”
I took Sammy’s hand and led her over to the wooden bench in our entryway. We sat down. I knew that I couldn’t explain our economic situation to an eleven-year-old. Sammy was smart, but she wasn’t going to understand how she could be a part of a famous family and live in the fanciest part of town, but I couldn’t afford an air conditioner for my office.
“You’ve got to ignore those girls.”
“How? You should hear what they say about us, about the Judge and Grandpa and Uncle Lincoln and you.” Sammy started to cry. “Nobody likes me.” She looked away. “Or maybe some do, but they’re afraid to be my friend.”
“I’ll talk to your principal.”
Sammy looked up at me, panicked. “No, Daddy, don’t do that. It’ll make it worse.”
“I have to do something. You have to go to school.”
“It’s awful.” Sammy looked away again, eyes bloodshot with tears. “Girls say I’m acting white. They leave Oreos in my locker, Daddy.” Her head dropped, defeated. “Black on the outside, white on the . . . Oreos.”
Now tears welled up in my own eyes. I put my arm back around her and squeezed her. “They’re ignorant.” Weight pressed down on my chest with a mix of sadness and anger. The idea of sending Sammy back into that school building another day made my own stomach hurt.
If Monica were still alive, she would’ve known the right thing to say. Sammy was just like her mother. That mother-daughter conversation, however, was impossible.
Then I caved.
“Why don’t you come to work with me today?”
Sammy wiped the tears away. Her body visibly relaxed. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “Just for today, and we’ll try and figure something else out.”
The decision to bring my daughter to work with me at the courthouse was arguably not my finest moment as a single parent, but you know what they say about desperate times. It was a general arraignment calendar, which is inherently chaotic. Keeping track of a tween girl amid the crowd of low-level street criminals made it even more of a scrum.
In the hierarchy of legal proceedings, misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor arraignment court is near the bottom. It’s a sea of people who are usually homeless, mentally ill, addicted to drugs, or all the above. They haven’t
been charged with major crimes like murder or robbing a bank, but quality of life offenses—loitering, open bottle in a park, urinating in public, possession of a small amount of drugs, shoplifting.
I deputized Sammy as my assistant. I gave her the stack of files we’d picked up from the public defender’s office that morning and told her to sit in a chair in the hallway with them while we worked through them together.
“Who’s on top?” I asked.
Sammy handed me the first file, reading the name. “Schultz.”
“Thank you.” I took the file from her, and then I shouted, “Schultz.” Nobody responded, but the mass of people in the hallway quieted down. I looked at the label. “DeAnne Schultz. Is there a DeAnne Schultz here?”
Still no response. I handed the file back to Sammy. She put it on the bottom of the stack, then handed me the next file. “Bates,” she said.
I took the file and shouted, “Bates.”
An older man, about twenty feet away, raised his hand.
“Cecil Bates?” I asked him.
“That’s me.”
“Good.” I nodded and walked over to him. “Mr. Bates, I’m your attorney, and we’ve got about forty seconds to figure out whether you’re going to plead guilty today or we’re going to set this matter on for trial.”
I turned and shot Sammy a wink, and she winked back. At least she was having a good time.
The law factory started in earnest around ten in the morning. By the time the judge took the bench, I had spoken with about 70 percent of the people who were identified in my stack of files. There were a few people who came late that I didn’t get a chance to consult. The remainder did not show up, and when their cases were later called, the judge would issue a warrant for their arrest.
Sometimes I didn’t see the logic in spending the money to arrest, transport, book, and jail a guy who didn’t show up for court to receive a seventy-five-dollar fine for pissing in an alley, but that was how it worked. That was justice in America.
I kept my frustration with the system contained. I did my job, made my arguments, and collected my check. It was dangerous to think too much while on the clock. Railing against the Man was restricted to off-duty hours. In the evenings or at happy hour with the other public defenders and low-rent street lawyers, I was allowed to complain as much as I wanted about the system’s failures and inefficiency. But when I was at court, I had to get the job done.
It was a sentiment shared by most of the veteran attorneys at the public defender’s office. One public defender even had a sign taped to her door that said:
DISTRICT COURT MISSION STATEMENT:
SHUT UP AND PUT THE CHOCOLATES IN BOXES
It was an acknowledgment that we were often the practitioners of assembly-line justice, and a not-so-subtle recognition that most of our clients were black.
“Next case, State versus Hernandez, file number 65-MD-14-293849.” The clerk picked up a copy of the criminal complaint and police reports and handed the stack of paper to the judge.
In the meantime, Sammy located the Hernandez case in our stack of files as the defendant walked from the back of the courtroom to the front. She handed me the file, and I noted my appearance for the record and stated that the defendant qualified for the services of the public defender’s office.
The judge looked at Sammy and then at me. He was about to say something, but didn’t. Sammy wasn’t causing any problems, and if she wasn’t slowing down the assembly line, he didn’t care. “Mr. Glass, what’s the status?”
I looked at my client and he nodded. “My client would like to plead guilty to the shoplifting charge, if the charge of trespass would be dismissed.”
“Is that true, Mr. Hernandez?” The judge peered down at my client from the bench.
“Yes.” He nodded. He’d been through the routine before.
The judge turned to the prosecutor. “And that’s the deal?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Very well, proceed with the waiver of his trial rights and the factual basis for the plea.” The formalities of the plea agreement were placed on the record, and the judge accepted the deal. He adjudicated my client guilty after the four-minute hearing, then picked up his pen and crossed Hernandez off the list of cases on his docket.
The system lurched forward.
“Next case, State versus Cecil Bates, file number 65-MD-14-358217.” The clerk picked up a copy of Cecil Bates’s criminal complaint and police reports, then handed the stack of paper to the judge.
I got the file from Sammy, and once everybody was in their places, the judge officially appointed me to represent Mr. Bates. The same script as the others was followed. “Mr. Glass, what is the status?”
I looked at my client, and he vigorously shook his head. “Mr. Bates would like to plead not guilty, and we’d like to set this matter on for pretrial and trial.”
The judge sighed and rolled his eyes. It was an expression and gesture that would never appear in the court reporter’s transcript, but the judge’s body language made it clear that he did not approve of Mr. Bates wasting the court’s valuable time and clogging up the system. They were all guilty, after all.
“Very well.” The judge looked at his clerk, and she barked out a date for a pretrial hearing and trial. The judge repeated it, and I wrote the date down on the file. “Hearing is set,” the judge said. “Next case.”
I patted Mr. Bates on the back, gave him my card, and pointed him toward the judge’s law clerk, who was waiting with a written notice of the date and time of his next hearing. Then I turned to Sammy to retrieve the next file, continuing to work through the remainder of the cases.
We finished the morning arraignment calendar at eleven thirty. In just an hour and a half, the court had processed sixty-three cases. Ten were set for pretrial and trial. Twenty warrants were issued, and the remainder of the defendants pled guilty.
“That was fun.” Sammy pressed the elevator button in the hallway, smiling. “Where are we going now?”
I put my arm around her. I was glad that she was happy, and for a second I allowed myself to believe I was actually a competent parent. “We’re gonna take those files back to where we got them this morning and then go over to the police station for a few minutes.”
“Then get a milk shake?”
“How about we get lunch first, something super healthy like a chili dog. Then we can get a milk shake.”
Sammy nodded. “Deal.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The main government buildings for the City of Saint Louis were all clustered together on the southern edge of the Gateway Mall. The mall was a long park that stretched from one end of downtown to the iconic Gateway Arch on the Mississippi River. As we walked past city hall toward the public defender’s office and police headquarters, Sammy asked whether we could stop and visit Annie.
Annie was Angela Montgomery. She and I had grown up together, the two oldest children in two famous political families. Annie was also the first female mayor of Saint Louis and one of the only African American female mayors in the country.
I played it cool as we continued down the street, glancing over my shoulder to ensure that nobody was around to overhear the conversation. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“But I love the castle.” Sammy referred to city hall as “the castle” because of its ornamental towers and columns. The four-story structure even had a grand imperial staircase like in the movie Cinderella. Sammy liked to spin around on the marble floor and then pretend to lose her shoe going up the steps.
“I’ll call Annie and see if she wants to have dinner sometime. How about that?”
Sammy nodded, agreeing, although she was disappointed and a little confused. She wasn’t sure why we couldn’t just surprise the mayor of Saint Louis—with whom I was currently having an on-again, off-again extramarital affair—and hang out in the middle of the day.
I let it go. It was complicated.
After chatting with some co
lleagues at the public defender’s office and handing off the majority of the files, we walked farther down Tucker to a large structure at the corner of Tucker and Clark. It was the city’s main police headquarters and connected to the police academy. Built a few decades after city hall, the building was quite plain in comparison.
Inside headquarters, there was calm. Most of the excitement was now dispersed among the various neighborhood precincts and the new jail down the street.
This building was where the police chief had his office, as well as his more senior officers, human resources personnel, and the geeks. The geeks were computer nerds who analyzed the city’s crime data and generated a myriad of reports that advised commanders where the city’s beat cops should patrol. Twenty years ago patrols were doled out by instinct. Now there was an algorithm.
Sammy and I walked into the empty lobby. At the far end, there was a reception desk. We went up to the desk and were ignored.
Every time I tried to speak, the heavyset blonde with the painted face raised a finger and quieted me. It didn’t matter that I was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. To her, I was just another boy who needed to be taught that his hurry wasn’t hers. She would not be interrupted. She was in the middle of reading an important article about Hollywood’s best and worst beach bodies.
Two minutes passed. The woman still had not looked up from her magazine. Then she nodded, laughed, and stood. Her point had been made, and I, hopefully, understood who was really in charge. “Who are you coming to see?”
“Sergeant David Schmidt.”
She nodded. The woman looked down at Sammy and then back up at me. “And you are?”
“Justin Glass.” I looked her in the eye and I held it.
The last name clicked somewhere in the deep recesses of her bureaucratic brain, and her attitude softened. “Just a second.” If she wasn’t careful, she was going to seem almost friendly.
The woman looked at an office directory, then picked up her phone and punched in a number. “Sergeant,” she said. “This is your angel at the front desk.” The woman looked me over again. “I got a Justin Glass and a little girl up front wanting to see you.”
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