by Jay Brandon
Ah ha, he thought.
But then time and the trial continued. As she walked back to her seat, Edward saw her run her finger across her lips; a finger on the hand that had held the bag. She resumed her questioning professionally, but something had gone out of her performance. Cynthia was distracted now.
So was he. But when the prosecution rested, Edward called his witnesses, putting on evidence of indiscretions the detective had committed that were yet unknown to his commanding officers. Edward had asked the officer during his cross-examination if he had set up Edward’s client, because they were rivals for the same woman.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ the officer had replied. ‘I would never do something like that.’
Which had been exactly the answer Edward had hoped for. It was broad enough – ‘never’ being the key word – that it allowed Edward to put on evidence that the detective had done exactly that. He called two young men to testify that the officer had planted evidence on them after he’d called their girlfriends for dates. The prosecution would claim these were lies to cover up their guilt, but in one case Edward produced the girlfriend, too, to corroborate the story.
This didn’t really prove anything that had happened or hadn’t in Edward’s case, but it made the detective look sleazy and worse, a liar.
Cynthia did a good job on Edward’s client on cross, when the time finally came, but the young man had been coached for long hours and held up well. He had a legitimate job, a college degree, a mortgage. He could appear to be a solid citizen when he needed to do so. After both sides rested and the jury had been excused, the veteran trial judge, who was very friendly toward Edward and obviously respectful of Cynthia, shook his head and muttered, ‘Close.’
Yes, it was. A close, well-executed contest. Edward and Cynthia shook hands sincerely. She looked at him slyly.
‘Wishing you hadn’t taught me so well?’
‘You taught yourself, lady. You’re better than I ever was.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
They looked back toward the front of the courtroom, where the court reporter was collecting the exhibits. She picked up the prime exhibit, now back in its paper bag, as casually as if it was a child’s lunch. Edward stared. Cynthia, beside him, was looking that way too.
They argued the case that afternoon and it went to the jury about four o’clock. At 5:30 the judge called them back and asked if they wanted to keep deliberating. The foreman shook his head.
‘We have a lot to talk about.’
Which sounded hopeful to Edward. The judge dismissed them for the evening. The courtroom relaxed, like an airliner decompressing, as the jurors filed out. Edward’s client shook his hand and left, maybe to celebrate his last night of freedom for a while.
‘Good job,’ Cynthia said again to Edward, then hurried out. Courtroom personnel were shutting down the room. By six it would be dark, and everyone gone home. In fact, he could feel how much the building had emptied out already. The halls of justice are not open late.
By 6:30 of that day – three years ago now – that whole floor of the building and, in fact, most of the Justice Center was darkened. There were security lights on every floor, but the courtroom was dark. So was the hallway behind it that led to the court offices and jury rooms. Edward emerged from one of those jury rooms, looked up and down the hall, and came out quietly. No longer wearing a tie or his suit jacket, he walked swiftly and silently down the hall. At the door to the court offices he hesitated, then put his hand on the knob and turned it ever so quietly. The door was locked, but hadn’t been pushed all the way closed. A clerk in a hurry to get home must not have pulled it tight. It opened at Edward’s touch.
He didn’t think he’d made any noise as he entered the outer office, the one where two clerks sat during the day. The room was empty and dark now, with that peculiar waiting emptiness of a room that bustled with people during the workday. Edward crossed it, heading for the court reporter’s office. Farther down the interior hall of the court offices, the judge’s chamber was dark.
But the court reporter’s door, to his surprise, was slightly ajar. And sounds came from within.
Damn it. The court reporter must be working late, preparing another record for an appeal. Or maybe just on the phone with her boyfriend, but he didn’t hear a voice and the office was dark. Was the court reporter working in the dark?
Edward didn’t have enough information. He needed to turn around and hurry out, down the hall and out of the building. But he still had that smell in his nostrils, that taste on his tongue, like the aftermath of a burn. He needed to salve it. That need was greater than his need for self-protection.
He pushed the door open ever so slightly more. There was light in the office after all, but not the overhead light. He pushed the door open more. This was crazy, but he had a hunch. If it was the court reporter, he’d claim he had forgotten something and ask if she had picked it up for him.
But it wasn’t the court reporter in the reporter’s office. When Edward stuck his head around the corner, he saw a woman’s back as she knelt in front of a cabinet against the wall. The woman wore a crisp white blouse that stood out under her black hair. Her brown fingers were working at the cabinet’s lock with something Edward couldn’t identify, but that wasn’t a key.
Edward must have made some noise, or maybe the first intruder’s caution just kicked in. She turned and looked at him. The light came from a penlight she held in her mouth. But Edward could still see her features behind the light. Cynthia Miles dropped the flashlight and stood up quickly.
‘I lost my purse,’ she said quickly. ‘I thought maybe Gloria put it away for me.’
Obviously a line she had ready.
‘Uh huh,’ Edward answered. ‘Why didn’t she just look in the purse, find out whose it was, and call you?’ As Cynthia started to stammer out more of an answer, Edward gestured her aside. ‘Let me,’ he said quietly. He took a set of lock picks from his pocket. As he bent to perform the job she’d been trying to do, he said over his shoulder to Cynthia, ‘A burglary client who couldn’t pay his bill traded me a couple of lessons instead. Said they might come in handy.’
Cynthia’s voice came hoarsely. ‘Must not have been a very good burglar if he didn’t have enough money to pay a lawyer.’
Edward stood up and opened the metal cabinet door. ‘Maybe my skills are better than his.’
He looked at Cynthia and gestured at the interior of the cabinet. Their heads bent together as they peered inside.
‘I don’t see a purse,’ he said.
For a long moment they remained silent and motionless. Deciding whether to trust each other, how far to go. But that hunger was strong. And they both came to the same solution at the same time.
‘I think we have a duty to the justice system to make sure the evidence is authentic,’ Edward whispered.
Cynthia nodded. ‘Field test it.’
That was the solution. If they both did it they’d be partners, neither would have something to hold over the other’s head. They reached in together and pulled out the paper bag. Edward held it open and let Cynthia pull out the laden plastic bag, slowly, the way some children open the first present of Christmas morning.
She carried it carefully to the desk and opened it. They both bent toward it, inhaling like connoisseurs sniffing the slowly swirling wine. Then Edward pulled from his pocket a tiny spoon. It was gold, ostentatious, a gift.
But Cynthia stopped him as he started to reach into the bag. She, it turned out, had brought her own razor blade and a small hand mirror. She pushed back a paper on the desk to reveal them. Edward understood. Once he’d produced his own paraphernalia, Cynthia was willing to show him hers.
She raked out some of the coke with the razor, then expertly swept it into four lines, each about two inches long.
‘I assume since he’s your client he gets the good stuff,’ she said softly.
She pulled from her pocket a dollar bill already rolled up, bent
at the waist with the elegance of a gymnast and sniffed up the first line. Then she handed the bill to Edward. When he brought the bill close to his face he saw it wasn’t a dollar, it was a hundred. Cynthia was experienced. But he’d seen that already. He bent and inhaled his own first line, then wiped up the tiny bit of residue and rubbed it on his lips.
The two of them stood with their heads slightly back and their eyes closed, with what looked like reverence. Edward was the first to break it, with a deep sigh. Cynthia didn’t move. She was savoring. Her face in repose was lovely in a way he hadn’t seen before, with classic lines from her cheeks all the way down her neck. With her hair falling down behind her, she could have been Cleopatra.
Or that could have been the cocaine talking. It didn’t matter a bit. Edward felt great, beyond great, and breaking the law with a beautiful woman only enhanced the experience.
After a minute or two, Cynthia bent without even opening her eyes and inhaled the third line. Eyes still closed, she passed the rolled-up bill to Edward. He sniffed up the final line and the feeling returned, the feeling of being smart, powerful, brilliant, invulnerable. He and Cynthia dropped into the two visitors’ chairs in front of the desk. Edward was looking at her when she finally opened her eyes, a languorous smile spreading until it illuminated her whole face. She shook her head in wonder and said, ‘I wish we could smoke in here.’
‘Can’t,’ Edward said. ‘It’s against the rules.’
That set them off on a laughing jag that went on and on, until they were shushing each other like children creeping downstairs long past their bedtime.
After another minute Cynthia said, ‘That’s good. Should probably quit now.’
Edward nodded. ‘Yep.’
But they sat. It wasn’t long before Cynthia looked at him, her smile changing.
‘They’ll never miss it,’ Edward said, reaching for the bag.
Like her, he laid out four lines. Nobody ever did only one. That first rush always came with a beckoning finger that asked you back for the second kiss.
He’d laid out longer lines than she had. Cynthia gave him a look, but then bent again for the first sniff. This time he watched her before indulging himself. Watched her lean back in her chair, watched her skin flush, her smile begin to encompass her whole face, watched until her shoulders widened and her eyes opened. The smile remained in place and her eyes fastened on his, so she looked like a woman in love. She didn’t even question his staring at her.
Edward bent and inhaled his own line. When he opened his eyes he saw that Cynthia had unbuttoned the top buttons of her white blouse, down to where her cleavage began. She looked like an executive on her second drink after work. He continued to look at her face. She looked back.
They each took one more hit. This one made Edward analytical, or what passed for analytical in the current setting. Cocaine was the best drug ever invented. It turned on all the pleasure sensors, made him feel smart, assured, confident that he was the first person who would live forever, get rich and be universally adored.
But how did it do that? He felt so great. Well, damned good. Not bad.
The pleasure ebbed that quickly. An afterglow of the rush remained, but he could no longer capture what had made him feel so good. A minute after sniffing up the line, he couldn’t begin to describe how the cocaine made him feel. Only the desire remained.
Cynthia was watching him, tapping the razor blade on the mirror. Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. Edward looked back at her. Cynthia still looked beautiful to him, at least that feeling hadn’t swirled away. Especially with her top blouse buttons undone, her lips parted, her eyes with that gleam. Red, red lips. For a long moment his gaze lingered there.
They were sitting in adjoining chairs. At some point they had turned them to face each other. He didn’t even remember doing that. Still staring, he bent toward her. Cynthia remained leaning back and he suddenly felt unsure. But then her smile widened. He had to move forward in his chair for his face to reach hers. Without otherwise touching her, he brought his lips slowly to hers. She didn’t duck or evade. Her mouth remained slightly open. So were Edward’s eyes as their lips touched. Cynthia’s were exquisitely soft. He lingered on them for a long minute, another. One of them moaned. He couldn’t have said which. It was like something between them, born of their joining. Edward reached for her.
Cynthia did stop him then, but gently. He leaned back, puzzled. Was she calling a halt? But Cynthia still smiled at him and that smile had turned intimate, not quite a smirk. She reached for the bag of cocaine again and Edward had a moment’s jealousy. She preferred the drug. Well, he couldn’t blame her for that.
Cynthia picked up the little spoon he’d left on the desk, and scooped out as much white powder as the small implement could hold. She brought it toward her nose, then stopped. Still looking him in the eyes, still smiling, she carefully dropped the cocaine onto the top of one of her breasts, so it formed a small pile where the breast just protruded from her blouse. Then she waved a hand in his direction.
Edward’s eyes widened. He gave her a questioning look.
‘Hurry up, man, before I lose my balance.’
So he bent quickly then and inhaled the cocaine, not using the rolled-up bill, just going close enough to her skin to sniff. So he inhaled Cynthia at the same time, an earthy but sweet smell that was more heady than the coke. Then, of course, he licked the residue off her breast. Then, of course, let his tongue explore. Cynthia reached under him to undo more buttons. Edward pulled back just enough to discover that her bra fastened in front. It unfastened easily, in spite of the slight tremble of his hand.
Cynthia inhaled with a sound of relief as her bra opened. Her breasts were magnificent, smaller than he’d expected but wonderfully shaped. Edward returned his mouth to them. Cynthia breathed even more deeply.
That was the last inhibition. From there it turned into an old-fashioned sex romp. Twenty minutes later they were naked and had moved to the couch in the judge’s office. Still in the kissing and touching stage. Edward’s tongue was in Cynthia’s navel, which she seemed to enjoy, and he was trying to decide what direction to take from there, when she gently pulled him up to where he could see her face. There were cocaine traces around her mouth. She was looking past Edward, with the wildest gleam of all in her eyes.
She was looking at a coatrack beside the office door. Hanging on it was the judge’s robe.
When their eyes met Edward’s had widened again. But Cynthia nodded at him and she was impossible to refuse. She rose, took his hand and pulled him upright too. As she advanced Edward walked very close behind her, touching her, which made Cynthia giggle.
They took one more hit, no, two, in the court reporter’s office, then tiptoed to the door out to the hall. Edward had his hands on her continuously now.
‘Come on,’ she whispered, and Edward did one of the stupidest things he’d ever done. He followed Cynthia, naked, out into the hall. It was only a few steps to the door of the courtroom, but they seemed to take forever. Cynthia opened that door too. She was a prosecutor, in the justice center every day, and probably felt a greater sense of ownership of it. Edward marveled at how confidently she moved in just her skin.
The courtroom was dim, with security lights under the railing of the jury box. Cynthia walked up two steps to stand behind the bench, next to the judge’s chair. She turned and Edward caught up to her. They kissed again then, their bodies touching at full length. Then Cynthia stepped back and with a mischievous grin drew on the robe. She zipped it up carefully and presented herself to him with spread arms. Edward smiled and shook his head, but in wonderment, not denial.
So it was that he was the first person in the world to see Cynthia Miles in a judge’s robe. And out of it. Anyone entering the courtroom from the outer hall a few minutes later would have seen what appeared to be a judge sitting on the bench. Cynthia even had a gavel in her hand. Edward was out of sight, under the bench.
‘Oh, God, yes,’ C
ynthia groaned. Edward pushed her chair back and rose. Cynthia stood up too, for the first time looking slightly uncertain. Then Edward stepped aside and she grinned and leaned forward, resting her forearms on the bench. Edward positioned himself behind her and lifted the robe, until it was above her waist. Moments later he achieved the fantasy of many a lawyer before him. And maybe of a few judges.
That wasn’t the end of the evening, but it was the highlight. From the courtroom they went back to the judge’s office and couch, stopping off again at the court reporter’s desk. The cocaine was significantly diminished now, but they didn’t notice. The couch in the judge’s office was black leather, so Cynthia, naked again, looked lighter skinned on it. She seemed to like the texture, too, writhing on it like a cat. Edward loved the combination of textures too. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her and Cynthia obviously felt the same way.
They were on their way back out to the court reporter’s office when they heard a sound. It froze them. A moment later it became clear it was the sound of footsteps in the hall.
To their credit, the lovers moved very quickly. Edward closed the plastic bag, stuck it back in the paper one and shoved them into the cabinet. He closed the metal door as quietly as he could, made sure it was locked. By the time he turned back around Cynthia had wiped up all the spillage. She was rushing into her clothes at the same time. Edward pulled on his pants.
And the door from the hallway opened.
It was a guard, of course. He didn’t call out, which led Edward to believe he already knew someone was there. The justice center would have security, of course, maybe video surveillance. Edward and Cynthia looked at each other, twin portraits of alarm. She had frozen again.
Edward made a split-second decision. Cynthia looked so scared. A protective instinct he didn’t know he had kicked in. Maybe they could pull it off, maybe he should kiss her, let the bailiff find them that way. A big laugh for everyone. An embarrassment, nothing more. But in putting away the cocaine Edward had noticed how much lighter a load it was. The court reporter or someone else would surely notice in the morning. And maybe the bailiff wouldn’t even be fooled. This was undoubtedly not the first time someone had tried to break into an evidence locker.
