Simple Case

by V S Kemanis

  Praise for works of fiction by V.S. Kemanis

  Homicide Chart (Dana Hargrove legal mystery #2)

  “The second Dana Hargrove legal thriller is a well-paced, polished, and highly enjoyable read … Kemanis meters out the suspense in compelling fashion” — Carmen Amato, author of the Emilia Cruz mystery series

  Thursday’s List (Dana Hargrove legal mystery #1)

  “An intelligent mystery about a career lawyer trapped between the professional and the personal… Kemanis draws on her experience as a prosecutor at the county and state levels and brings her personal knowledge of the investigation process into the story… A true page-turner” — Kirkus Reviews

  Malocclusion, tales of misdemeanor

  “Quietly effective… Perfectly paced and brimming with mood and insight into our darker moments… Kemanis pulls off the difficult trick of imbuing the humdrum with a subliminal disquiet” – David Antrobus, author of Dissolute Kinship

  Dust of the Universe, tales of family

  “[Kemanis is] unarguably gifted … a great talent… There are stories here that I think I will remember forever. They’ve stayed with me in the weeks since I read them and make me smile even now as I call to mind their wonderfully flawed characters, their gentle humor, their twists and surprises and, without exception, the compassionate insight at their core” – Self-Publishing Review

  Everyone But Us, tales of women

  “V. S. Kemanis is certainly one of the most intelligent writers I have read, writers of classics included. Her insight into human behavior is truly unusual… These are believable stories and believable characters … unwaveringly fascinating” – Kindle Book Review

  SIMPLE CASE

  a Dana Hargrove story

  V. S. Kemanis

  All events and characters depicted in this story are fictional. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2014 V.S. Kemanis

  All rights reserved

  Cover design by Evelyn A. Stamey

  www.evelynstamey.com

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It is the copyrighted property of the author and may not be re-sold, reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or noncommercial purposes without the permission of the author.

  “Simple Case” was originally published in slightly different form, under the title “A Simple Case,” in the following short story collections by the author: Women I’ve Known, Stories, and Malocclusion, tales of misdemeanor

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Simple Case

  Dear Reader

  Also By V.S. Kemanis

  Plunge into this day in the life of rookie prosecutor Dana Hargrove, central character in the legal mystery novels Thursday’s List and Homicide Chart. “Simple Case” is the story that introduced her to the world!

  SIMPLE CASE

  ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY Dana Hargrove prepared her cases well, as much as her tight schedule and the inevitable surprises allowed. Senior members of her bureau were amused by her ardor, perhaps fondly remembering, but not admitting, their own enthusiasm from an earlier time.

  She was an assembler of objective facts, whatever might lead her to the truth. Lies and things ignored or deliberately withheld only caused complications. She searched every set of events, every witness’s statement, hungering for the crystal vision that life on city streets wouldn’t yield.

  Lofty ideals were rarely practical in the midst of chaos. At best, they simmered inside her conscience, perhaps too keenly felt, disturbing her preparations for trial. Only a year out of law school, class of ’87, and nine months into the job, she was already unbearably overloaded, sharing a noisy office with three other rookies. The two metal file drawers reserved for her use were stuffed tight with misdemeanor cases, over two hundred of them, all with her name on the outside: ADA Hargrove.

  In her profession, “garbage” was the generic term for these cases, given to first-year assistants for wetting their feet on the way to greater skill. Most of those slim manila file folders contained no more than a couple of pages: the complaint, the DA write-up, the defendant’s yellow sheet. Representing no more than a speck of city crime, her cases nonetheless affected perhaps a thousand lives: the cops, the defendants, the victims, their families and friends. These faceless people vexed her soul, nettled her curiosity and aroused her sympathies in the way that names and epitaphs on tombstones always did.

  ADA Hargrove’s first trial had begun as a prosecution against three defendants, now down to one after two pled guilty. The defendants should have been charged with burglary—a felony. But lacking any direct evidence linking them to the break-in, the supervising ADA in the complaint room had charged them with a misdemeanor, criminal possession of stolen property. In that way, the case had begun its bumpy descent down the stairs of the system—a felony that became a misdemeanor that became “shit” (another term of art) after the suppression hearing.

  Hargrove saw it coming midway and kicked herself later for not predicting it beforehand, wondering how she could have expected something different from the Honorable Brenda Johnson (known as “JJ” among Dana’s colleagues in the DA’s office), a former Legal Aid lawyer, veteran of the defense bar.

  The ADA arrived in court for the hearing in her best-pressed state, barely rumpled from her burden of carrying too many file folders and a fat law book from her tenth floor office in the criminal courts building to the fifth floor courtroom, AP-5, the “All Purpose” part. In the hallway, the defendant, Tyson Handler, skulked in a corner about six paces from his court-appointed attorney, Paul Cortina, who shifted from one foot to the other, empty handed except for the nub of a burning cigarette between two fingers.

  “Tell me when the judge comes in,” Cortina told the prosecutor with a blasé nod, his diamond earring flashing. Hargrove regarded him with a nervous smile, glancing at him long enough to register a complete mental picture: the aging sport jacket, crooked tie, and curly hair brushing the top of his collar. Her adversary earned about as much as she—somewhere in the low thirties—but displayed his poverty openly in a studied concoction of hair, clothing and impudent swagger designed to characterize the underdog.

  Hargrove pushed the swinging door of the courtroom with her backside and stepped in. The courtroom was a small makeshift one, formerly an office for court clerks who had been unceremoniously shunted into a corner of the basement in the name of budget cuts and the burgeoning court docket. Sitting on the sole bench reserved for the audience was Police Officer Dave MacMarney, her witness for the hearing. Further in, near a side door, sat a court officer with his crossed legs propped up on a table, head bent over a curled paperback.

  Stopping first to exchange a few words with her witness, she went to the counsel table and plunked down her book and files. “Is the judge on her way?” she asked the court officer.

  Without a blink he continued reading, as if he hadn’t heard the question. But of course he had. A full ten seconds later he looked up and deigned to speak. “You know I can’t call her until everyone’s here and ready.”

  “The defendant and his attorney are in the hall.”

  “Okay. Why don’t you go get them? If you want to start, that is.”

  She pursed her lips and glared at him for an instant, then averted her eyes, too embarrassed to engage in a stare-down with this man near the top of the seniority list, counting the days to retirement. Fuming her way to the swinging door, she poked her head out and called to Cortina, “He won’t g
et the judge until you’re in here.” Cortina smiled. A sly smile, she thought.

  Cortina stumped his cigarette in the ash can by the door and swiped the air with his head to motion his client inside. In no hurry, the two men shuffled in and assumed their positions at the defense table where, she noticed for the first time, Cortina had previously laid a slender file folder. Handler sat in the chair indicated by Cortina, the seat farthest from the jury box. The defendant was a small, wiry youth, noticeably unaccustomed to wearing a jacket and tie, looking as though he were mentally recounting his attorney’s instructions to sit tall and maintain a poker face.

  The court officer made his promised phone call and within five minutes the side door opened. “All rise,” he intoned. The black-robed judge strode toward the “bench”—a gnarled wooden desk elevated on a poorly crafted riser—and nodded to the parties as she sat. “Let’s get going,” she said, all business. “What do you have Ms. Hargrove?”

  “The People are ready for the suppression hearing.”

  “Well, call your witness.”

  The hearing was quickly underway, and halfway through the testimony, Hargrove’s confidence began to build. It was, after all, a simple case, but every detail counted in proving a legal basis for admissibility of the key evidence: a small, round mantelpiece clock stolen from the burglarized apartment. Minutes after the crime, Officer MacMarney had recovered it from Handler’s jacket pocket.

  She was good at details, and details there were. Some of them were not very impressive—like the fact that her star witness was a rookie just like her, straight out of the police academy and on the beat for just six months. But she elicited Officer MacMarney’s credentials with pride, then nailed down the facts of the arrest with precision.

  MacMarney and partner, on patrol in a gentrified section of town at two in the morning, came upon three youths in their late teens: one at the wheel of a car, another loading a TV into the trunk, and defendant Handler nearby on the curb, standing next to stereo equipment. MacMarney alighted from his patrol car and asked what they were doing. The one loading the TV said they were “moving,” while Handler glanced nervously about and placed his hand inside his sagging jacket pocket. Officer MacMarney quickly patted the outside of the pocket, felt something heavy, and retrieved the small clock. The car took off and Handler fled on foot with the suspect who’d been loading the TV. Officers apprehended them all, several blocks away.

  Hargrove didn’t miss a fact, and Cortina’s sloppy cross gave her nothing to worry about. MacMarney was cool and honestly sure of himself. It was a question of self-protection. Any other officer in the same situation would want to know what was in that pocket before the suspect decided to use the object against him.

  “But there was no outline of a gun?” asked JJ during Hargrove’s legal argument, after the witness had left the stand.

  “No, Your Honor, but…”

  “Just a bulge.”

  “Yes, and other things…”

  “A bulge is never enough.”

  “But the circumstances were suspicious, especially that comment about ‘moving.’ The officer was entitled to protect himself when the defendant made a furtive movement to his pocket.”

  “Furtive? Someone puts his hand in a pocket and that’s furtive? Everyone has something in their pocket. This is a bulge case; you’re just trying to dress it up with thin air. And don’t forget, this defendant wasn’t touching the TV. As far as your cop knew, he was taking a walk and happened to be next to the car.” JJ paused before delivering the final blow. “I’m throwing this out. Motion to suppress granted.”

  Hargrove’s eyes shot wide in disbelief. Judge Johnson was still a defense attorney, now disguised in judicial garb. The court officer sat up, more to stretch his back than to indicate his reaction to the proceedings, and resumed his indifferent slouch. The defendant and his attorney, both with forearms and laced fingers on their table, wore identical smirks. Cortina, who hadn’t uttered a word of legal argument, was decidedly pleased that the court had made his job easy.

  The judge impatiently banged the eraser end of a pencil on the desk, its even rhythm accompanied by the rattling of an antiquated air conditioner, while everyone in the room waited for the ADA’s response.

  “Well,” said the judge at last, “are we going on? What else do you have?”

  Hargrove, still recovering from the blow, was momentarily speechless.

  “I haven’t much time for this. I’ll give you two minutes to call your supervisor, or whatever you have to do.” The judge whisked out the side door, her black robe ballooning behind her. Cortina stood and leaned intimately toward his adversary. “I’ll be in the hall. Call me.” Tyson followed his attorney out the door.

  The young prosecutor finally sat down and stared blankly at her notes, faced with making a decision she hadn’t anticipated. She could stop everything now and appeal the court’s suppression order, get it overturned and then come back for trial, but that process would take a year. Minimum. The defendant was in court, now, miraculously present to preserve his $500 bail, perhaps his only money in the world. But JJ surely would return his bail money pending an appeal, and a year from now, with the evidence that much staler, Handler would be in the wind.

  The alternative was to go ahead with the trial, but only if she had enough evidence to proceed. The clock was gone, but everything else established that Handler was an accomplice of the other two, helping them to get away with the stolen goods. Legally, it was enough to convict—she just had to convince a jury. Handler didn’t deserve to walk out the door today: his yellow sheet had three prior arrests for stolen property, one dismissed, and two resulting in sentences counted in mere days. She knew what to do and would not be asking that paperback-nosed badge-shirt to let her use the rotary dial phone on his desk to call her supervisor.

  “I’m ready,” she told the court officer.

  He looked up with that familiar insolence. “Hey, I’m happy for ya.”

  “I’ll get Cortina and the defendant.”

  “You do that.”

  Judge Johnson appeared surprised to hear the news, but then, with the flame in her eye that had caused many juries to acquit in her time, immediately ordered a panel of jurors sent up for voir dire. Less than an hour later, six jurors and two alternates were selected and sworn, and after a lunch recess, testimony commenced.

  The trial would be over in just a few hours. The victim of the burglary, a young woman, testified about finding her fire escape window broken, her apartment ransacked, and the TV, stereo equipment and mantelpiece clock taken. No, she didn’t see the burglars—she wasn’t at home at the time. Officer MacMarney repeated his testimony for the benefit of the jury, careful, of course, to omit any reference to the mantelpiece clock in the defendant’s pocket. Judge Johnson even prevented Hargrove from eliciting testimony about the telltale “bulge.” At the close of the People’s case, the defendant predictably declined to testify, and the defense launched into closing argument.

  Cortina’s strategy was not surprising. He had taken his cue from JJ’s implausible suppositions during the hearing: his client had just been out for an airing and happened to be in the neighborhood of a burglary. “He wasn’t with those two other guys, he wasn’t helping them load the stolen goods, he wasn’t touching a single piece of the property,” whined Cortina as the young prosecutor bit her lip. JJ’s suppression order implicitly authorized Cortina’s argument, which, to Hargrove’s ears, sounded more like a string of deliberate falsehoods.

  During her own final argument, Hargrove implored the jurors to use their common sense, to ask themselves why the defendant would be out on that street at two in the morning, why he stood so near the other two youths and the stolen stereo set, why he ran with one of the other suspects when the officers came. A few heads nodded, but expressions remained blank or indifferently pleasant.

  After the jury retired for deliberations, JJ turned to ADA Hargrove. “Don’t go too far,” she warned. “Th
is is going to be a quick one.”

  Hargrove, Cortina and Handler stepped out into the hallway, but almost immediately, they were called back in. The clerk delivered notes from the forewoman with questions that the jurors must have blurted out to one another the second they set foot in the jury room. “What happened to the other two men?” “Was that small clock ever found?” The judge, in consultation with the attorneys, formulated answers that said, in so many words, “never mind” and “none of your business.”

  With these troubling questions out of the way, deliberations quickly concluded within another half an hour. The six jurors walked back in, this time not in a file, but in congenial, shifting pairs of smiling, relaxed faces, looking as if they were longtime bosom buddies at their high school reunion. ADA Hargrove knew what was behind those faces but wouldn’t believe it until the words “not guilty” tripped easily from the forewoman’s mouth as she cast a motherly smile in the defendant’s direction.

  Cortina immediately moved to seal the record—his most decisive and impressive act thus far—and the motion was granted. Then Judge Johnson turned to the jury with a beaming face. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. You have performed a valuable service. You are free to speak about the case or not, as you wish. You are excused with the court’s thanks.”

  Feeling small but overly conspicuous, ADA Hargrove stood as soon as respectability allowed and said “Thank you, Your Honor,” a lump rising in her throat beneath the carefully assembled dignity in her expression. Defeat weighed heavily on her shoulders, much heavier than she ever expected it would, and doubt swelled where none had been felt before, adding a sense of self-disdain for the decisions she had made along the way.