First Offense

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  Ann bolted upright in the bed. “What happened? Did he get busted again for drugs?”

  “Hopkins thinks Sawyer was the one who shot you.”

  “No.” Ann had to stop short, think about this. “That’s ridiculous, Tommy. Why would the man shoot me and then stop to give me first aid? When did Glen tell you this? You don’t know Glen that well. He must have been joking. I just talked to him today, and he didn’t say a thing about Sawyer or a warrant.” Ann reached over and turned the light back on.

  “Look, I’m just repeating what I heard. He believes Sawyer shot you so you wouldn’t execute the search terms. You know, Ann, Hopkins might be right. Maybe Sawyer had a big stash in his house and panicked when he realized you could just walk in and bust him. Abrams said your car…”

  Reed kept on talking, but Ann wasn’t listening. Her hand holding the phone was trembling, her heart racing in her chest. She’d accepted this terrible event thinking it was a random act. Now Reed was telling her it was premeditated.

  Reed said, “Did you hear me?”

  She had the phone clasped with both hands now. “But you said it was a drive-by. Even Noah said it was.”

  “That was what we originally thought. Like I was saying, Abrams told me today that your Jeep was disabled. The ignition wires were cut, Ann. That doesn’t mesh with a random act like a drive-by.”

  “Then I was set up. Ambushed. That means they wanted me. Tommy. They weren’t just shooting for the hell of it. They were shooting at me.”

  The detective paused, trying to gauge her mood. “Listen, Ann, why don’t we discuss this another time? I don’t want to upset you.”

  “No,” Ann yelled in the phone. Then she lowered her voice, remembering David. “Tell me everything you know, Tommy. I have to know.”

  “Okay,” he said, sighing. “Glen Hopkins believes Sawyer decided to shoot you the minute the judge issued the order. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”

  Ann was staring out over the room, reliving the shooting. Every single second was frozen in her mind. As hard as she tried to forget it, suppress it, she knew it would always be there. One word, anything, and the whole night reappeared in blazing color.

  “Ann,” Reed said, “did you and Hopkins go somewhere after Sawyer’s hearing and then come back to the courthouse for some reason?”

  “No,” she said, puzzled. “We’ve already gone over how this went down. Didn’t you read the statement I gave Abrams?” When the detective didn’t respond, Ann recapitulated the events for him. “Okay, the hearing lasted maybe thirty minutes. It was supposed to start at four, but Sawyer was late, so that means it must have been around four-thirty when I left the courtroom with Glen.” She paused, not wanting to tell him what had transpired in the stairwell. “Then I went back and dictated my report. Everyone had left for the day by the time I finished, so I’m guessing it was after five by then. I killed some time in the parking lot trying to decide what to do about the car and then started walking. I assumed Glen had already left, or I would have asked him to drive me home. That’s when I was shot. Glen must have spotted me on the sidewalk with Sawyer on his way out of the complex. He told me he stayed late to work up his notes on a case.”

  Reed started to tell Ann the truth, that the hospital had conducted a rape exam and established that she had engaged in sexual intercourse on the day of the crime. Then he stopped himself, knowing it would only embarrass her. He had to assume that she had met Glen for lunch that day, and they had snuck in a little afternoon delight. She’d evidently been so heavily drugged the night in the recovery room that she didn’t recall him mentioning their original belief that she’d been raped. Once Ann had denied it, there’d been no reason to bring it up again.

  “Why did you ask if I left the courthouse?” Ann asked, not certain where he was going with this line of thought.

  “Forget it,” Reed said quickly, his tone indicating that he was sorry he’d brought the subject up.

  Ann said goodbye, slowly replacing the receiver. She didn’t agree with Glen’s suspicions about Jimmy Sawyer, but that didn’t trouble her. What had her stomach in knots was the fact that the person who had shot her had intended to shoot her, not just anyone, but her. Would whoever it was keep trying until he succeeded?

  Feeling a chill, Ann pulled the covers up to her chin and stared up at the ceiling.

  From out of the silence erupted David’s pleading voice.

  “Come back, Dad,” he cried. “Don’t go away. Don’t leave me.”

  Grabbing her robe off the foot of the bed, Ann raced down the hall to her son’s room. “Wake up,” she said, shaking him gently by the shoulders. “You’re having a nightmare, honey.”

  David bolted upright in the bed. His pajamas were soaked in perspiration, and his dark hair was dripping wet. “He was here. Mom,” he said, his eyes searching the shadows around the room. “He was standing over my bed. I saw him. I really did.”

  Ann sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her son into her arms. She could feel the dampness beneath her and smell the odor of urine. God, she thought, consumed by anguish, why did her child have to suffer this way? “It’s okay, honey,” she said, stroking a thick clump of wet hair out of his eyes. “You had another bad dream.”

  “No,” he insisted, clawing at the edge of his mother’s robe. “Dad was here, really here. He said he was coming back. He said I had to stop you from marrying Glen.”

  “Oh, baby,” Ann said, her heart in pieces. “I’m not marrying anyone, okay? Come on now, let’s get you out of these wet clothes, and I’ll put some dry sheets on the bed.”

  Ann was reaching over to turn on the light when she heard her son quietly sobbing. Instead of putting him through the embarrassment of changing his sheets, she went to the bathroom and got a large towel, making him move so she could put it over the wet spot. Most of the time he got up and changed the sheets himself, placing the soiled ones in the washing machine the next morning.

  Climbing into bed with him, Ann pressed his head to her chest. “I’m going to stay right here, honey,” she whispered, her voice soft and comforting. “Shut your eyes and think of happy things.”

  “Dad’s going to think I’m a baby,” the boy sobbed, his entire body shaking. “He’s going to know I still pee in my bed. I have to stop before he comes back. Mom. I just have to.”

  Ann held her son, stroking his back gently until the crying stopped and his breathing slowed. After some time the dampness soaked through the bath towel, and she felt as if she were sleeping on a sheet of ice. Pulling the blankets over them, Ann finally closed her eyes and let her exhausted body find sleep.

  Chapter 4

  Claudette Landers was on a tear, her booming voice bouncing off the walls when Ann walked into the office. “Get on outta here,” Claudette was yelling at someone. “I don’t want to hear any more pansy-ass complaints.”

  Ann grabbed a cup of coffee from the small kitchenette, waited until she saw the offending probation officer scurry off from Claudette’s office like a field mouse, and then stepped inside. They called their work spaces offices, but they were constructed out of fabric-upholstered partitions in one enormous room. As a supervisor, Claudette at least had a partitioned area of her own. Ann had to share hers with another probation officer. Phone conversations, business or personal, filtered from one cubicle to another. There was no such thing as privacy.

  As the supervisor over adult investigations, Claudette assigned cases to investigators as they came in from the courts, conferred with them on cases—basically approving their assessments and recommendations—and acted as the intermediary between the courts, the district attorney’s office, the public defender’s office, and other related agencies.

  “Well, I’m back,” Ann said. “Got a minute?”

  Claudette smiled. “Man, am I glad to see your pretty face. I’m not foaming at the mouth yet, but soon…soon. Sit down. How you feeling? You sure you should be back here already? Did the doctors give you clearanc
e to return to work?”

  Ann lowered herself into the chair; she didn’t lean back, for her shoulder was still too painful. “I’m weak…still sore, you know?” The two women knew each other well enough that Ann didn’t have to explain. Yes, she was still in pain, her eyes said. Yes, she was scared. Yes, she had no choice but to return to work.

  The contact broken, Ann quickly changed the subject. “So, what’s the problem with Rogers?”

  Claudette was a good friend, a fine woman, and one tough cookie. There would be no more talk of Ann’s injury, no more gratuitous expressions of concern. At thirty-five, Claudette Landers was a large woman, most of her weight carried in the lower half of her body. Of African-American descent, she was intelligent and articulate, thoroughly respected throughout the county as an outstanding supervisor.

  “Little shit is such a bitcher,” Claudette said. “Every time I assign Rogers a case with more than one count, he cries like a damn baby. Doesn’t even know what a bingo sheet is yet and refuses to learn. You hear me, Rogers?” she yelled over the partition, her voice as big as Texas. “Your mommy should have whipped you when you was a kid, stopped all this complaining shit. Look at Ann here, already back on the job. Now, that’s the kind of people we need around here, not a bunch of sniveling crybabies.”

  “My mom did whip me,” Rogers yelled back, undaunted and long suffering under Claudette’s abuse. “That’s what’s wrong with me. Now I’ve got you for a boss. I’m going to apply for a mental disability if you don’t leave me alone, Claudette. Maybe even sexual harassment might work. Then every month when they pay me, they’ll deduct it from your check.”

  “I wouldn’t fuck your skinny white ass if you was the last man on earth,” Claudette quickly retorted.

  Chuckles and snide comments from other probation officers rang out and then were replaced with a chorus of voices: “Welcome back, Ann.”

  “Thanks, guys. Glad to be back.” The probation officers in the unit had been very supportive, coming to see her in the hospital, offering to help with David, bringing food to the house.

  “I want to take Jimmy Sawyer back to court and get his probation switched,” she said to Claudette once the unit was quiet again. “What do you think? Do you think Hillstorm will go for it? I more or less promised Sawyer I’d do it.”

  “Why in the hell would you do that?” Claudette barked, her dark eyes flashing. “The D.A.‘s office is about to charge him with the shooting and toss him in jail.”

  “He saved my life, Claudette,” Ann said. She couldn’t believe Glen was really going after Sawyer, with no solid evidence to back him up. Not only that, it was completely unlike him to jump in feet first. He liked cases that led to certain convictions. “You know Glen Hopkins and I have been dating, Claudette, and he’s livid over what happened to me. He must think the sooner he files, the sooner I’ll be out of danger. There are no other suspects or leads, so he’s going after Sawyer.”

  “Maybe the man is right,” Claudette said.

  Ann shook her head. “I’m certain it wasn’t him.

  How many people shoot you and then stop to give you first aid? If he wanted to hurt me, why didn’t he just let me bleed to death?”

  “Humph,” Claudette said, shifting her ample hips from side to side in the small chair and then lunging forward over the desk. “No free rides. You know how I feel about that. Besides, Hillstorm will just think you don’t want to supervise him. It’ll never fly.”

  Although Ann respected this woman, she also felt Claudette was being unnecessarily callous. If her supervisor had been the person bleeding on the sidewalk, she would know how Ann felt about Jimmy Sawyer. But Claudette was the boss, and Ann didn’t have the strength right now to go up against her. “You’re the supervisor,” Ann said, standing.

  Time to take the plunge, she thought, see how bad the damage was in her office. “Shit,” Ann screamed once she walked into her cubicle. Half the people in the unit, including Claudette, rushed into her office, looks of terror on their faces. Ann glanced over her shoulder at them. “Sorry. No one’s shooting at me but the records clerk.” Ann kicked a big cardboard box out of her way so she had a small path to walk to her desk. “Look at this place. I knew it would be bad. I never thought it would be this bad.”

  Everywhere Ann looked were case files and cardboard boxes. Her ten years with the agency, coupled with her considerable expertise, had left her in the unenviable position of handling only the most complex and serious cases in the system. This meant mountains and mountains of paper: trial transcripts, police reports, preliminary hearing transcripts, criminal histories from other states and agencies, autopsy reports, forensic reports. All of these documents Ann had to read and study. They were tossed and stacked everywhere. On her desk, rising four feet high from the floor, set haphazardly in a plastic basket on top of the metal file cabinet, any second ready to spill over onto the floor.

  Ann turned around and saw Claudette still standing there, a concerned look on her face.

  “I tried my best, Ann. I really did. I took work home. I assigned it to other people. Just do your best. That’s all you can do.” She sighed in weariness.

  They were in a sad state at the agency. The cases just kept coming and coming, all of them with deadlines: filing dates, dates for interviews, dates to appear in court, review dates, secondary offense dates. Having more work than they could handle was bad enough, but when everything had a deadline, the pressure escalated to an almost intolerable level.

  Once her supervisor had gone off, Ann collapsed in her seat. Her desk was situated flush against a floor-to-ceiling window which allowed her to look out over the parking lot for the complex. Her eyes went immediately to the shrubs on the outer border of the lot, searching for the opening leading to Victoria Boulevard. Then she found it—the exact spot in the bushes where she had stepped through only seconds before she was shot. Earlier this morning, she had made a point to park on the opposite side of the building, not wanting to come anywhere near it.

  Grabbing the Delvecchio file, Ann opened it, thinking she could distract herself and forget what she could see out the window. Five or ten minutes passed, but Ann wasn’t looking down at the file. She was thinking about that spot, about how much she didn’t want to see it ever again. People fought for these desks by the windows, but right now Ann would have preferred to work in a closet.

  Without thinking, she stood and walked around her desk, placing her palms flat against the glass. When she saw her hands there, Ann knew why she had done it. She wanted to feel the glass, test the thickness. What she wanted was to assure herself that there was something between her and the spot in the shrubbery.

  The next moment questions leaped into her mind against her will. They pounded inside her head like a migraine headache, pressing against her forehead, pushing in at the tender spots at her temples—incessant marching questions—questions she knew she would be asking forever, just as she had with Hank. “Exactly like Hank,” she mumbled, shaking her head from side to side, wanting to put a stop to it right this very minute.

  Where had he been standing when he fired? Why had he fired at all? What had she done to this person? Who hated her enough to shoot her in the back and leave her bleeding on the sidewalk? On and on the dreaded questions marched, taking on a life of their own.

  At last Ann pulled herself from the window and sank again into her chair, looking around at the mountains of paperwork and files, the questions a secondary, whispery voice now. “Where did that file go I just had in my hand?” she said, talking aloud in an attempt to override the voices.

  Where was Hank’s body buried? erupted another voice. What had happened that night on that lonely stretch of road? Who had turned her life upside down?

  That was the problem when you started asking questions and looking for answers that were not there, Ann thought. One set of questions only led to another.

  Around ten o’clock, Ann ran into Perry Rogers on her way back from the coffee room. “Ann
,” he said, a thick file in his hands and a look of frustration on his face, “I know you just got back and all, but I can’t figure this bingo sheet out. This is worse than figuring out my income tax return.”

  Ann chuckled. A bingo sheet was what they called the form they used to compute prison terms, and it reminded a lot of people of an income tax form. The state of California had enacted a determinate sentencing law many years back, with specified terms for each crime. “Sure,” she told him, “come into my office and we’ll go over it right now.”

  Perry Rogers was a wisp of a man in his late twenties, so thin and emaciated that he had to sit on a pillow when he was at his desk. Ann had never seen him so much as touch food, and the rumor was that he suffered from an eating disorder. But he was a likable guy, and Ann was always willing to lend a hand to less experienced officers.

  “Okay, Perry,” she said once he’d pulled a chair up next to her desk. “Give me your bingo sheet and the court order, setting forth the convicted counts, along with your recommendation.”

  Rogers handed Ann the entire file and waited while she pored over the particulars. One of the reasons he was encountering so many difficulties, Ann noted, was that the case he was handling involved multiple counts, all sex crimes. Sentencing guidelines for sex offenses had become more complex than those for any other crime. Every year a new law was enacted affecting sentencing. As everyone knew, Ann was the expert at this particular task. She could compute a fifty-count case in her head in a matter of minutes, whereas Rogers and most of the others had difficulty doing it at all.

  “Here’s where you went wrong,” she told him, pointing at the sheet as she talked, “this count must be served consecutively, not concurrently, and you put the enhancement for the prior burglary offense in the wrong spot.”

  Rogers wasn’t following what Ann was saying. “Why can’t the damn judge just figure this out for himself? They make a lot more money than we do.”