"The night before it ran. Like every other one that's followed. Then this bit with the mayor. Well, that clinched it. We know that was a slip on Search's part and not something Webb could know unless he's got the mayor's office bugged."
"This can't be!" Brazil boiled over.
"It's not my fault!"
"This is not about fault." Panesa was stern with him.
"Get to the bottom of it. Now. We're really being hurt."
Panesa watched Brazil storm out. The publisher had a meeting, but sat at his desk, going through memos, dictating to his secretary while he observed Brazil through glass. Brazil was angrily opening desk drawers, digging in the box under it, throwing notepads and other personal effects into his briefcase. He ran out of the newsroom as if he did not plan on coming back. Panesa picked up the phone.
"Get Virginia West on the line," the publisher said.
Tommy Axel was staring after Brazil's wake, wondering what the hell was going on, and at the same time suspicious. He knew about Webb, and had heard about the leaks, and didn't blame Brazil for being out of his mind. Axel couldn't imagine the same thing happening to him, someone stealing brilliant thoughts and analyses from his music columns. God. Poor guy.
Brenda Bond also was alert to the uproar as she worked on a computer that had gone down three days in a row because the idiot garden columnist had a knack for striking combinations of keys that somehow locked him out or translated his files into pi signs. Bond had a strange sensation as she went into System Manager. She found it hard to concentrate.
West was standing behind her desk, struggling to pack up her briefcase, and snap the lid back on her coffee, and wrap up the biscuit she didn't have time to eat. She looked worried and frantic as Panesa talked to her on the phone.
"You have any idea where he went?" West inquired.
"Home, maybe?" Panesa said over the line.
"He lives with his mother."
West looked hopelessly at the clock. She was supposed to be in Hammer's office in ninety seconds, and there was no such thing as putting the chief on hold, or being late, or not showing up, or forgetting. West shut her briefcase, and slid her radio into the case on her belt. She was at a loss.
"I'll do what I can," she promised Panesa.
"Unfortunately, I've got court this morning. My guess is he's just blowing off steam. As soon as he cools down, he'll be back. Andy's not a quitter."
"I hope you're right."
"If he hasn't shown up by the time I get back, I'll start looking," West said.
"Good idea."
West hoped that Johnny Martino would plead guilty. Hammer didn't. She was in a mood to cause trouble. Dr. Cabel had done her a favor, really.
He had ignited a few sparks of anger, and the brighter they got, the more the mist of depression and malaise burned off. She was walking the fastest West had ever seen her, a zip-up briefcase under an arm, sunglasses on. Hammer and West made their way through the sweltering piedmont morning to the Criminal Court Building, constructed of granite in 1987, and therefore older than most buildings in Charlotte.
Hammer and West waited in line with everyone else at the X-ray machine.
"Quit worrying." West tried to reassure her boss as they inched forward behind some of the city's finer citizens.
"He'll plead." She glanced at her watch.
"I'm not worried," said Hammer.
West was. There were a hundred cases on the docket today. In truth, this was a bigger problem than whether Martino pled guilty versus taking his chances before a jury of his peers. Deputy Octavius Able eyed the two women getting closer in line and was suddenly alert and interested in his job. West had not passed through his X-ray machine since it resided in the old courthouse. Never had Able so much as laid eyes on Hammer in person. He had never had complete control over her.
West was in uniform, and walked around the door frame that was beeping every other second as pagers, change, keys, good luck charms, and pocket knives, went into a cup.
Hammer walked around, too, assuming the privilege of her position.
"Excuse me, ma'am!" Deputy Able said for all to hear.
"Ma'am! Please step through."
"She's the chief of police," West quietly told him, and she knew damn well it went without saying.
"Need some identification," the powerful deputy said to Hammer.
A long line of restless feet stopped, all eyes on the well-dressed lady with the familiar face. Who was that? They'd seen her somewhere, Maybe she was on TV, the news, a talk show? Oh heck. Then Tinsley Owens, six deep in line, here for reckless driving, got it. This lady in pearls was the wife of someone famous, maybe Billy Graham. Hammer was nonplussed as she dug through her pocketbook, and this made Deputy Abie's assertion of self not quite as rewarding. She smiled at him, holding up her badge.
"Thanks for checking." She could have knocked him over when she said that.
"In case anybody had any doubts about the security of our courthouse." She leaned close to read his nameplate.
"O.T. Able," she repeated, committing it to memory.
Now the deputy was dead. She was going to complain.
"Just doing my job," he weakly said as the line got longer, winding around the world, the entire human race witnessing his destruction.
"You most certainly were," Hammer agreed.
"And I'm going to make sure the sheriff knows how much he should appreciate you."
The deputy realized the chief meant every word of it, and Able was suddenly taller and slimmer. His khaki uniform fit perfectly. He was handsome and not nearly as old as he had been when he was at the BP pumping gas this morning and a carload of juveniles yelled, calling him Deputy Dawg, Hawaii Five-0, Tuna Breath, and other racial slurs. Deputy Octavius Able was ashamed of himself for throwing his weight around with this woman chief. He never used to be that way, and did not know what had happened to him over the years.
Chapter Twenty-one
Hammer and West signed in at the Court Liaison Office and punched time cards. On the second floor, they followed a long corridor crowded with people looking for a pay phone or the bathroom. Some were sleeping on maple benches, or reading the Observer to see if their cases might be mentioned. When West opened the door to 2107, her anxiety increased.
The courtroom was packed with defendants waiting for punishment, and with cops whose fault it was. Hammer led the way to the very front, sitting on the side for lawyers and police. Assistant District Attorney Melvin Pond spotted the two powerful women instantly and got excited. He had been waiting for them. This was his chance.
Fourth Circuit Judge Tyler Bovine, of the Twenty-fifth Prosecutorial District, had been waiting, too, as had the media from far and near.
Batman and Robin, she. Judge Bovine, thought with intense pleasure as she departed from her chambers. She'd see about that when she reigned on high in the long black robe that covered her massive body of law.
West felt increasingly troubled for a number of reasons. She was worried about Brazil and afraid she'd never get out of here to check on him. Tyler Bovine, as was true of the rest of the judicial herd, was a traveling judge. She resided on the other side of the Catawba River, and despised Charlotte and all that was good about it, including its citizens. The judge was confident that it was only a matter of time before Charlotte annexed her home town of Gastonia, and all else Cornwallis had failed to seize.
"All rise for the judge."
All got around to it, and Judge Bovine smiled to herself as she entered the courtroom and spotted Hammer and West. The judge knew that the press had been tipped not to waste their time hanging around here this day. Batman and Robin would be back on Monday. Oh yes they would.
The judge sat and put on her glasses, looking important and godlike.
ADA Pond stared at the docket as if he had never seen one before this morning. He knew he had a battle on his hands, but was determined he would prevail.
"The court calls the case of the State of North C
arolina versus Johnny Martino," he said with confidence he did not feel.
"I'm not ready to hear that now." Judge Bovine sounded bored.
West nudged Hammer, who was thinking about Seth and not sure what she would do if he died. It did not matter how much they fought or drove each other crazy or proved irrefutably that men and women could not be soulmates or friends. Hammer had a tragic look on her face, and ADA Pond took it as a slight to his knighthood and professional future. He had failed this wonderful, heroic woman whose husband was shot and in the hospital. Chief Hammer did not need to be sitting here with all these cretins. Judge Bovine saw the look on Hammer's face, too, and also misinterpreted, and was further aroused. Hammer had not supported Bovine in the last election. Bovine would see how big and important Hammer was now.
"When I call out your name, please stand. Maury Anthony," announced ADA Pond.
Pond scanned despondent faces. He searched people slumped back, pissed off and sleeping. Maury Anthony and his public defender rose near the rear. They came forward and stood before the ada's table.
"Mr. Anthony, how do you plead to possession with the intent to sell cocaine?" the ADA asked.
"Guilty," Mr. Anthony spoke.
Judge Bovine stared out at the defendant who was no different than all others.
"Mr. Anthony. You realize that by pleading guilty you have no right to appeal," she stated rather than asked.
Mr. Anthony looked at his public defender, who nodded. Mr. Anthony returned his attention to the judge.
"Yes, sir," he said.
Laughter was scattered among those awake and alert. Mr. Anthony realized his egregious error and grinned sheepishly.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. My eyes ain't what they once was."
More laughter.
Judge Bovine's big flat face turned to concrete.
"What says the state," she ordered as she sipped from a two-liter bottle of Evian.
ADA Pond looked over his notes. He glanced at Hammer and West, hoping they were attentive and impressed. This was his opportunity to be eloquent, no matter what a dog of a case it was.
"Your Honor," the ADA began as he always did, 'on the night of July twenty-second, at approximately eleven- thirty, Mr. Anthony was drinking and socializing in an establishment on Fourth Street near Graham. "
"The court requires the exact address," Judge Bovine interrupted.
"Well, Your Honor, the problem is, there's not one."
"There has to be one," said the judge.
"This is an area where a building was razed in nineteen- ninety-five, Your Honor. The defendant and his associates were back in weeds…"
"What was the address of the building that was razed?"
"I don't know," said the ADA, after a pause.
Mr. Anthony smiled. His public defender looked smug. West was getting a headache. Hammer had drifted farther off. The judge drank from her bottle of water.
"You will provide that for the court," the judge said, screwing on the cap.
"Yes, Your Honor. Only, where this transaction occurred isn't precisely at the old address, but rather farther back, approximately eighty feet, and then another fifty feet, I'd say, at a sixty-degree angle, northeast, from the Independence Welfare building that was there, that was razed, in a thicket where Mr. Anthony had set up a hobo camp, of sorts, for the purposes of buying and selling and smoking crack cocaine and eating crabs with associates on that night. Of July twenty-second."
ADA Pond had the attention, however briefly, of Hammer, and West, plus Johnny Martino's mother, and the conscious courtroom, in addition to two bailiffs and a probation officer. All stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and lack of comprehension.
"The court requires an address," the judge repeated.
She took another gulp of water and felt contempt for her psychiatrist, and for manic-depressive people everywhere.
Not only did lithium necessitate drinking a tub of water daily, but it caused frequent urination, which by Judge Bovine's definition, was double jeopardy. Her bladder and kidneys were a drip coffee maker that she could feel and measure as she drove back and forth from Gaston County, and sat on the bench, and went to the movies, and flew on crowded airplanes, or walked on the track and found the field house locked.
Because she was a superior court judge, she could adjourn every fifteen, twenty, or thirty minutes, or until after lunch, if her need was great and she so chose. She could wheel in a damn Porta-John, do whatever she liked, ipso facto. But what she would never do, not once during this life and on this planet, was to interrupt a case after it was started, because above all else, the judge was a well-bred lady who had grown up in an antebellum house and gone to Queens College.
Judge Bovine was tough, but never rude. She did not tolerate fools or classless people, and no one could accuse her of anything less than impeccable manners. There was nothing more important than manners, really.
ADA Pond hesitated. Hammer had faded away again;
West could not get comfortable. The bench seat was wood, and it pressed her police belt and the small of her back. She was perspiring and waiting for her pager to vibrate. Brazil was decompensating. It was something West sensed, yet she wasn't certain why, or what to do about it.
"Mr. Pond," the judge said, 'please continue. "
"Thank you. Your Honor. On this particular night of July twenty-second, Mr. Anthony did sell crack cocaine to an undercover Charlotte police officer."
"Is this officer in the courtroom?" The judge squinted at the sea of wretches below her.
Mungo stood. West turned around, dismayed when she saw who had caused such creaking and shuffling and whispering. Oh God, not again. West's sense of foreboding darkened. Hammer remembered Seth bringing her breakfast in bed and dropping keys on the tray. The new Triumph Spitfire was green with burl wood, and she had been a sergeant with free time, and he was the rich son of a rich land developer. Back then, they went on long drives and had picnics. She would come home from work, and music filled the house. When did Seth stop listening to Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, and Bach, and start turning on the TV? When did Seth decide he wanted to die?
"The subject, Mr. Anthony," Mungo was saying, 'was sitting on a blanket in the thicket Mr. Pond has just described. He was with two other subjects, drinking Magnum Forty-four and Colt Forty-five. Between them they had a dozen steamed crabs in a brown paper bag. "
"A dozen?" Judge Bovine queried.
"You counted them, Detective Mungo?"
"Most were gone. Your Honor. I was told there had been a dozen originally. When I looked there were three left, I believe."
"Go on, go on." What patience the judge had for this drivel from the dregs of humanity was inversely proportional to her filling bladder as she took another slug of water and thought of what she would eat for lunch.
"The subject, Mr. Anthony, offered to sell me a rock of cocaine, in a vial, for fifteen dollars," Mungo continued.
"Bullshit," was Mr. Anthony's comment.
"I offered you a fucking crab, man."
"Mr. Anthony, if you aren't quiet, I will hold you in contempt of court," Judge Bovine warned.
"It was a crab. Only time I used the word crack was when I told him to crack it himself."
Mungo said, "Your Honor, I asked the subject what was in the bag, and he distinctly replied, " crack. "
"Did not." Mr. Anthony was about to approach the bench, his public defender restraining him by a sleeve that still had the label sewed on it.
"Did too," Mungo said.
"Did not!"
"Too."
"Uh uh."
"Order!" the judge declared.
"Mr. Anthony, one more outburst and…"
"Let me tell my side for once!" Mr. Anthony went on.
"That is what you have a lawyer for," the judge said severely, and was beginning to feel the pressure of water and a loss of composure.
"Oh yeah? This piece of shit?" Mr. Anthony glowered at his free-lunch defense.
The courtroom was awake and interested, more so than ADA Pond had ever witnessed before this morning. Something was going to happen, and no one was about to miss it, people nudging each other and making silent bets. Jake on the third row, defendant's side, was putting his money on Mr. Anthony ending up with his butt in jail. Shontay two rows over was betting on the undercover detective who reminded her of a haystack wearing a wrinkled pinstripe suit. Cops always won, no matter how wrong they might be, it was her belief, based on hearsay. Quik, way in the back, didn't give a fuck as he practiced flicking his thumb out like a switchblade. As soon as he could, the asshole responsible for Quik's show cause warrant was gonna pay. Ratting on him like that.
Man.
"Detective Mungo." Judge Bovine had had enough.
"What probable cause did you have to search Mr. Anthony's brown paper bag?"
"Your Honor, it's like I said." Mungo was unmoved.
"I asked him what was in the bag. He told me."
"He told you crabs, and suggested you crack these crabs yourself," said the judge, who really had to go now.
"Gee. I don't know. I thought he said crack." Mungo tried to be fair.
This sort of thing happened to Mungo more times than not. He'd always found it easier to hear whatever he wanted, and when one was as big as him, one could. The case was dismissed, and before the judge could adjourn to her chambers, the agitated ADA called the next, and the next, and the next, and the judge did not interrupt, because it was one thing she would not do. Citizens arrested for burglaries, car thefts, rape, murder, and more drug dealers and those who patronized them stood with their public defenders. ADA Pond was mindful of the judge's constricted body language and miserable demeanor. Pond was accustomed to the judge's frequent visits to her chambers, and knew that capitalizing on her disability was his only hope.
Each time Her Honor started to rise from her bench, ADA Pond was off and running on the next case. As fast as he could, he announced the Johnny Martino once again, in hopes Pond would break the judge, wear her down, and subject her to the water treatment until she could take no more. Her Honor would hear the state of North Carolina versus Johnny Martino so Hammer and West could return to life's highways, and the hospital. ADA Pond prayed Hammer would think kindly of him when he ran for DA in three years.
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