Justice in June

by Barbara Levenson

  J.C. was laughing heartily. No one seemed to notice that the food still hadn’t arrived. Carlos poked me. “Our dads have made a date to play in each other’s poker games. See, you had nothing to worry about. They’re getting along fine.”

  The food finally arrived. Everyone dug in while the waiter poured more wine. Carlos signaled for another bottle.

  When the coffee was served conversation began again. The coffees were as diverse as the group. Mother and Dad had decaf, Angie ordered café con leche, a blend of coffee and scalded milk, I opted for cappuccino, and Carlos and J.C got the high-test Café Cubano. This is a drink that is so strong it is served in a thimble-sized cup and is guaranteed to keep most Anglos awake for a week. I knew it would have no effect on Carlos, who could drink three cups and fall asleep in the car.

  “I want to thank you for going to the hospital with Mary when she was accosted,” Mother said.

  “Don’t mention it. We were all worried. I hope someone would do the same for my daughter. Celia is so far away, and so is my younger son and my grandchildren. All of them are in Argentina,” Angie said.

  “I guess I am lucky that William and Jonathan and their kids are close by,” Mother said.

  “And that you already have four grandchildren. I only have two. I’ve given up on Celia. She’s my wild girl. She’s even wilder than Carlos was.”

  My ears perked up. “How wild was he?” I asked. Dad leaned forward and looked at Mother with the I-told-you-I didn’t-trust-him look.

  “Well, he did nothing but play around at the university. His professors said he was a brilliant architect in the making, but he quit in his third year.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said, glaring at Carlos.

  “But he did what he wanted. Started his construction business. He did so well that he never even dug into his trust fund.”

  “You have a trust fund? I didn’t know that, either,” I said.

  “He probably didn’t want to tell you. You know his ex-spouse tried her best to get at it. It makes you a little gun shy,” J.C. said. “We’re proud of Carlos. The only help we gave him in getting started was to arrange some bank loans. You know I sit on the boards of a few banks.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Mother said. “Mary had us worried a few times when she was an undergraduate. Especially when she brought home that baseball player.”

  “Oh, yes, we were worried,” Dad chimed in. “Announced that they were engaged. But then he was drafted by the Red Sox, and he was out of Miami before the next day dawned.”

  Carlos stared at me. “I didn’t know that,” he snarled.

  “Getting back to grandchildren, Carlos is my last best hope for some who live in Miami,” Angie said.

  “I want more, too, especially from Mary. You know daughters are supposed to be different from sons, closer to family. But that doesn’t seem to be holding true yet,” Mother said.

  “Maybe that will change when they settle down. Can you imagine the gorgeous children Carlos and Mary will have?” Angie asked.

  “Why are you talking about us like we’re not here?” I said, but no one bothered to listen.

  “Maybe Mary will stop getting herself in these dangerous situations with those criminal clients of hers, if she has kids waiting at home,” Mother said.

  I turned to give her a dirty look. She was sipping the last of her wine. I saw that her hair had come loose and was falling around her face, which had turned a strange crimson color. I realized that she was sloshed.

  “You know what would be nice?” Angie asked. “A November wedding. The weather is cooler and the holiday dresses are so attractive.”

  “Okay, this is getting out of hand. Who said anything about a wedding?” I realized I was shouting. Everyone stopped talking and looked at me. Then they started in again, as if I wasn’t there. The four parents were all talking at once.

  Carlos saw the anger creeping up my face. He took my arm. “This is why we have the escape room upstairs,” he said. He guided me out of my chair. As we exited the dining room, he gave the waiter his credit card, signed the bill, and pushed me toward the elevator. No one noticed that we had left The Dinner.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I was having a strange dream that the alarm clock was ringing and I was unable to find it or move my arms. I realized the phone was ringing. Carlos grabbed it, while I fumbled to see my watch. It was not eight o’clock yet.

  “Okay, we’ll leave right away,” Carlos was saying

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” I tugged at his arm.

  “Here, better tell all this to Mary.” Carlos handed me the phone. It’s Marco. Don’t panic.”

  Marco’s voice sounded far away. “Mary, we have Sam at the vet. Catherine remembered that your vet is Doctor White. That’s where we are.”

  “What has happened?” I was on my feet searching for my clothes.

  “Sam was barking to go out real early. I let him into the backyard. A few minutes later, he was at the back door and he was having trouble walking. I got him inside and he looked like he was going into shock. His eyes rolled back. I called Catherine, and she called Dr. White. He met us here at the clinic, and he’s looking at him right now.”

  “Oh, my God, we’re on our way. I’ll call from the car.” I slammed down the receiver. Carlos was throwing our clothes into our overnight bags.

  We were on the road in fifteen minutes. I couldn’t stop crying.

  Carlos drove down the turnpike at ninety miles an hour. Thank goodness, it was early Sunday morning with very little traffic. Dr. White’s clinic was near downtown Miami. We were there in less than thirty minutes. I was out of the car before Carlos could stop.

  Catherine opened the front door. “It’s going to be okay, Mary. He’s coming out of it.”

  I rushed into the exam room. Sam was on the metal table. His eyes were closed, but when he sensed that I was there, he wagged his tail. It made an off-beat drumming noise on the table.

  Dr. White was half dressed in jeans and what looked like a pajama top. “It was a bufo toad, Mary. You know how poisonous they are. I’ve told you over and over, don’t let a dog out unattended at dawn or at twilight when those damn things are hiding in the shrubs. Sam must have gotten hold of one and got a mouthful of that poison. If he were a smaller dog, he wouldn’t have made it, but these big guys dilute the poison enough to come around. They got him here fast. I’ve washed his mouth out thoroughly and poured a lot of milk down him to absorb the poison. His vital signs look good.”

  Marco was as pale as the cotton swabs lying on the table. “I’m so sorry, Mary. He had such a good time last night. We all loved playing with him. I would never have let him out, but I didn’t know.”

  I was still too shook up to answer, but Carlos patted his arm and told him it wasn’t his fault.

  “You can take him home in a few minutes, but keep an eye on him. If he has a seizure, call me right away,” Dr. White said.

  Carlos carried Sam to the car and the week from hell was finally at an end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Monday morning I awoke to the sound of thunder and gusts of rain. I rolled over and reached for Carlos. Instead, I touched something warm and furry. I opened my eyes and looked into Sam’s eyes. He had crawled onto the bed and wedged himself between us. He looked perfectly normal, but he must have been scared after being poisoned or scared of the thunder or both.

  I got up quietly and left my two guys sacked out. By the time I dressed and gulped down some coffee, Carlos and Sam walked into the kitchen.

  “I’ve got to get to the office early and hunt down the embassy people to help me find Luis. Then I’ve got to formulate some plans for my other case,” I said.

  “The case you can’t tell me about?” Carlos asked. “Go ahead. I’ll feed Sam and walk him.”

  “Call me if he doesn’t seem A-okay, and please, don’t hassle with the attorney about the condo tower. Just fax me a copy of the standard contract that the buyers
signed. I’m pretty sure no one will be able to sue you.”

  No lights were on in the office. I was in before Catherine. I put in a call to Ambassador Miller’s office. It was almost eight o’clock here. Argentina is at least two hours ahead of us, so I was sure he’d be there.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, Ambassador Miller is not here at the moment. Would you like to leave a message?” the clipped voice on the other end of the line asked.

  “I left a message on Friday. Does the ambassador actually work there? I am calling about an Argentine citizen who has been wrongly arrested, and spirited away by federal officers here in Miami. His parents are well-known citizens. Before this turns into an international incident, you better have Miller return my calls. I may have to have a press conference today if I don’t hear from him.” I slammed down the phone. Media threats usually get some action.

  Catherine arrived while I was trying to reach the unreachable Mr. Miller. She was standing in front of me as I hung up. She looked foggy and a bit undone, her hair in tendrils around her face, and her jeans wrinkled and sagging.

  “Are you losing weight?” I asked.

  “A little. Is Sam okay? I can’t tell you how sorry I am about the toad incident. Oh, I just answered a call from Mr. Marquez’s office. His assistant said that they are working on the Luis situation, and that Luis’s parents are flying in to Miami today. They were in touch with him, and thought it would be better if they were here in town.”

  “Sam is fine. When are the Coronas arriving, and how can I reach them when they get here?”

  “He didn’t say, but I’ll try to find out all the details. The assistant just said to tell you that as soon as they get more information about Luis, they’ll call you.”

  At ten o’clock, a messenger arrived with a thick packet of papers from Liz. She had listed every closed case on her audit for the last six months. A note was attached. She had worked over the weekend to list all the cases. She wanted to know what else she could do to help me prepare her case. All I could think of was to pray, if she was into that.

  The list was very long. Either Liz was the most productive judge in the courthouse or something or someone was manipulating her assignments.

  Catherine interrupted to announce that State Attorney Jason Jones was on the phone. I picked up, but fear was making my voice sound hesitant and squeaky.

  “What’s it going to be, Mary? Is Judge Maxwell coming in voluntarily? I’m in the process of readying subpoenas for a grand jury session,” Jason said.

  “I will be bringing her in to meet with you, but I have some scheduling conflicts. I have to be in court on a federal case, and I may be called into trial also. As soon as I can get free of this schedule, we’ll set an appointment.”

  “Well, don’t drag your feet too long. I’ll cut you a little slack, but patience isn’t my best trait.” Jason hung up abruptly.

  “Okay, Catherine. It’s time for another field trip. Forward the phone lines to your cell phone, and let’s go,” I said.

  Catherine grabbed her ever-present backpack and we piled into my SUV with Liz’s file, yellow legal pads, and a laptop computer and headed for the courthouse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The clerk’s office covers two whole floors of the criminal courthouse. I explained to Catherine that we were going to request every file of every closed case on the list Liz sent over. There were so many that the normal procedure for viewing case files was not going to accommodate our accomplishing this task.

  Ordinarily, you fill out a slip of paper with the case name and number and your name and phone number. Then you wait while a clerk fetches that file from the thousands shelved by numbers. If the case is fairly old, it has to be brought from storage. It would be impossible to get fifty or more files with that procedure. By the time we were able to look at half of them, Liz might be serving a prison sentence.

  I would have to call on my friendship with the elected clerk of the court. It was eleven o’clock by the time we arrived on the seventh floor. The morning hubbub in that office had subsided. Two clerks are assigned to each courtroom. One clerk does courtroom duty while the other sits in an assigned cubicle answering phone requests and processing paperwork. Clerks unassigned to a particular courtroom division pull files needed in court and reshelve cases coming back from the courts.

  By the time we arrived, clerks were already in court and the rest were busy doing their office work. I approached the reception desk and asked to see Mark Epstein.

  “Please tell him Mary Magruder Katz is here and needs to speak to him,” I said.

  A few minutes later, Mark came through the swinging gate marked “No admittance. Court Personnel Only.”

  Mark had been in the clerk’s office for some years, and had been elected chief clerk four years ago. It wasn’t the career he planned. He was a star baseball player at the University of Miami the year they won the College World Series in Omaha. He was scooped up by the major leagues and was so good that he played for the Red Sox in the same year he was drafted. Two years later, he blew out his knee. Surgeries never repaired it enough for him to play again. Eventually, he came home to Miami and ended up in the courthouse.

  Mark was my college boyfriend. By the time he returned to Miami, I was in my last year of law school, and I was more interested in my career choices than in boyfriend choices, especially a boyfriend who had left town without a backward glance in my direction. As they say, timing is everything.

  “Mary, what a great surprise. How are you?” Mark asked. He gave me a hard hug.

  I introduced him to Catherine and explained that I needed to have a kizillion case files pulled. “I can’t tell you the reason. Attorney-client privilege. I wouldn’t bother you, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get a look at this many files.” I said.

  He pulled two visitor passes from the pile on the receptionist’s desk and handed them to Catherine and me. He took each of us by the elbow and walked us back through the swinging gates to the file room area.

  “Let’s see what we can do,” he said.

  I produced the list of file numbers and handed it to him. He went to a red phone and called over the loudspeaker for three workers.

  “This is a long list, Mary, but for you I’ll do what I can.”

  In a few minutes three young kids arrived. “These are summer interns doing their high school community service,” Mark said. “I’m going to assign them to help you. Girls, pull some carts out and start looking for these files. When you get ten or so, bring them to the conference room, so these ladies can start looking at those files while you locate some more.”

  “This is very nice of you. I didn’t mean to tie up your conference room. We’ll try to do our work quickly,” I said.

  “Stop in my office on your way out.” Mark walked us to the conference room and left us there. I noticed that he was limping.

  The first files were delivered in a few minutes, followed by a full cart of files a short time later.

  “This isn’t as hard as it sounded,” one of the interns, whose name badge said Lena, told us. “All the files are from the same division, so it won’t take us that long. Here’s my cell phone number. Call when you’re done and we’ll take all the files back.”

  “Lena, please, don’t discuss this with anyone. This is very confidential. Here’s my card. I might need an intern sometime soon, so call me,” I said, hoping that three high school girls had better things to gab about than files in the courthouse.

  We began the task of looking for the final orders in the case files. We listed the case number, the name of the defendant, and the disposition of each case.

  A few of the cases had been settled by a plea agreement and sentencing. A few more had gone to trial and were noted NG, meaning not guilty with the jury verdict attached to the back page of the file. A few more showed conviction at trial and a sentencing order signed by Liz.

  The bulk of the cases were dismissals. Some were dismissed after a perfuncto
ry boilerplate motion by a defense attorney. The orders were also boilerplate, saying only “Motion to Dismiss, Granted,” and signed by Liz. No legal or factual reasons were given for the decision to dismiss. Some contained a similar order of dismissal at the arraignment. All of these cases were drug related, including a few that were charged with money laundering.

  Many different attorneys were involved in the cases. One firm was involved in eleven of the cases, but different attorneys from that firm were attorneys of record. The rest were from a variety of offices including the office of the public defender.

  “There doesn’t seem to be a real link as to the attorneys. What are we missing here?” I asked Catherine. “Let’s make copies of some of these orders so I can go over them with Liz.”

  Catherine began pulling orders from files and utilizing the copy machine in the back of the conference room. “Mary, all of these files have a disposition sheet on the back of the file and they’re all signed by Judge Anne Ackley. Why is she the one to sign them all?”

  “I guess it’s her job. She’s the chief judge of the criminal court, but I’ll ask Liz.”

  I looked down at the file in my hand. It contained one of the dismissal orders. Then I looked at the five orders Catherine had just copied. Liz’s signature was exactly the same; none bigger or smaller, all slanted exactly the same. I doubted that I could sign my name repeatedly without some little variances. Maybe this was something important.

  I looked at my watch. It was two o’clock. “We’ve missed lunch. Let’s get out of here and eat. We’ve earned a real sit-down meal,” I said.

  Catherine rang for Lena and we packed our laptop.

  “Remember, Mark told you to stop and see him on the way out,” Catherine said.

  “I’d rather not open up old closed doors. I’ll send him a thank-you e-mail.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY