Gideon - 02 - Probable Cause

by Grif Stockley

  “That’s not a crime,” I say, losing the thread of our conversation.

  “Stealing is,” Clan says wearily, as he opens the door.

  “Look, why don’t you just go in there and ask her to come home with you. You can tell Sarah this woman was going to have to sleep down at the jail and you took pity on her.”

  I laugh and him to look at Clan who, incredibly, seems about to cry.

  “We’ve got to do something,” I say, now ashamed that I let myself be so easily distracted.

  “This could be really humiliating if they make it stick.”

  Dan’s eyes are red.

  “Thanks for that insight,” he says dryly.

  “Well, damn it,” I argue, “you just can’t plead guilty.”

  Clan sighs, making a mournful sound through his nose.

  “Why the hell not? Because it’s not the American way? Do we have to litigate everything in this country? I ate me damn things! I’ve done it before, if you can believe I’m that stupid.

  Why? I haven’t got the slightest idea.”

  Jesus Christ, I think, now uncomfortable with what I am hearing. He really is middle-age crazy. Is this Dan’s idea of living dangerously, or what? Some guys get a sports car;

  others inhale Twinkles. What do do? Sleep with women almost twenty years younger, I guess. For the first time in weeks I think I feel a twinge of pain in my rear. I got caught, too, I realize glumly. I pat Dan’s shoulder.p>

  “Everybody does stupid things,” I say.

  “This doesn’t have to make you want to jump off the Arkansas River bridge.”

  Clan stands outside the door and bends down to peer inside at me.

  “I’m so fat I couldn’t climb over the side if I wanted to,” he says smiling, albeit wanly, for the first time tonight.

  “I’d have to roll down the bank.”

  I grin, feeling better. If he can joke about it, he is all right or will be.

  “Well, you’ve got a free lawyer, of’ buddy,” I say, sticking my hand through the window.

  “You think about it tonight and I’ll do whatever you want.”

  His big paw, which is as moist as an ink blotter, clamps down on mine. I look down to avoid the tears in his eyes.

  Hell, I might be crying, too. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette will carry this story. Reading my mind, Clan mumbles, “I can’t wait to read the paper tomorrow.”

  I return the pressure but still can’t look him in the eye.

  “It’ll seem more like a joke than anything else,” I say, unable to deny the story will make the rounds.

  As usual, Sarah, like a longsuffering wife, is waiting up for me.

  “What happened?” she asks from the couch, still in her robe, just as I left her an hour and a half ago. In her lap is a European history book. Woogie, who is sitting primly by his mistress’s side, looks at me suspiciously as if he has no intention of buying a cock-and-bull story about a late-night client.

  I sit down by her on the couch and begin to pet Woogie, who quickly rolls over on his back to have his stomach scratched. When all is said and done, it doesn’t take much to make my family happy. If I were to go strictly by our code of ethics, I would never have told Sarah a word about Clan.

  A lawyer is bound to keep his client’s confidences, but she would only think he had done something worse than he has.

  Still, I am at a loss to explain his behavior.

  “He’s a lawyer!” Sarah exclaims as I try to minimize his actions.

  Woogie’s eyes looked glazed with pleasure. This is as close as he will ever come to an orgasm.

  “But not exactly a serial murderer.”

  Sarah, who ought to be more charitable after reading her history book, with its unending story of mass slaughter, will have none of it. As if banging a gavel at me, Sarah’s hand moves Woogie’s muzzle in an up and down motion.

  “Behavior like this is exactly why people don’t trust lawyers.”

  Actually, it’s for stuff a lot worse, but she is missing the point.

  “My own theory is that lawyers’ worst sins are of omission,” I say, noticing for the first time how gray Woogie is getting. He probably thinks the same thing about me.

  “There are lots of people we refuse to help or just go through the motions because they don’t have the money to pay us. If there’s a hell, those are the kind we’ll burn for.”

  Woogie hops off the couch. All this attention is beginning to get to him. My daughter nods, but I suspect she is still too young to feel comfortable with the various shades of gray that stipple the middle-aged human organism. There is only one cure for that, and with luck, it’s a good thirty years off.

  As I’m brushing my teeth before getting into bed, it occurs to me that the partners in Mays & Burton would consider me a far worse thief than Clan. I’m glad I have never told Sarah when I acquired Andy as a client. As someone who hasn’t stolen even so much as a boyfriend, my

  daughter probably i wouldn’t be very sympathetic. | the next morning in municipal court, Daniel Blackstone (I never knew before what the initial stood for) Bailey pleads guilty to the crime of theft of property which has a value of less than one hundred dollars.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Darwin Bell, our black judge, says more to me than to Clan, who is resplendent in an expensive charcoal gray pin-striped suit from Dillard’s.

  The suit makes Clan look like some visiting dignitary rather than a petty thief confessing his sins. Tunkie Southerland and Frank D’Angelo, who with me form Dan’s male support group, are in the front row. I turn and glance at their solemn faces. It is as if we are expecting Clan to be sentenced to die in the electric chair.

  I nod in the direction of my friend Amy Gilchrist, the prosecutor in this case. Amy, whom I realize now I haven’t seen in weeks, has obviously been sent down to the minor leagues as punishment for having an abortion. Amy, who perhaps is sad for a number of reasons, looks somber without her usual jewelry. She says in a puzzled tone, “I haven’t talked to the defendant’s attorney about this. Your Honor.”

  Patting down an out-of-fashion Afro (only acquired since the election), Darwin Bell, who seems destined for a much higher judicial calling (except for his hair, he is developing a reputation for conservatism) squints at Amy as if to ask:

  Why is he pleading guilty if there is no deal? Amy’s small palms turn out to her sides in a gesture of frustrated ignorance.

  Normally, there is a litany of formal questions the judge will ask to assure himself (and to protect himself on the record in case there is an appeal) that he has a guilty client in front of him who is voluntarily pleading guilty and who knows the court is not obligated to accept the prosecutor’s sentencing recommendation, but here Clan is simply throwing himself on the mercy of the court with no questions asked.

  “Judge, my client would like to make a statement about what occurred,” I say, confined by Clan to an embarrassingly small role in this drama.

  Plainly puzzled by what he is witnessing, Darwin looks past us to the rest of his morning’s docket seated impatiently behind us. Lawyers are served first. For a group that contains a high percentage of drunks, druggies, street persons, and irritable cops, the men and women sitting behind the railing are remarkably restrained today, though not entirely silent.

  In federal courtrooms (I’ve been in a total of two—one when I carried Oscar May’s files in a diversity of jurisdiction car accident case and last week on my first appointment in a minor, federal firearms violation case involving an alien from Panama), a majestic dignity pervades. There is no such mystique in municipal court. Darwin, whose already big shoulders look immense beneath his black robe, says casually, “Please do.”

  Clan begins in a dignified, quiet voice that is several octaves below his normal gossipy, breezy tone.

  “Your Honor, what happened is that I opened a package of Twinkles in the Quik-Pie on Texas Street and ate them. I had no intention of paying for them because I would have been
too embarrassed to admit what I had done. I’m sorry and I apologize to the court and to the manager and to every member of the bar.”

  Darwin Bell rubs the bridge of his nose as if a headache has settled in between his deep-set eyes. A fat white lawyer stealing Twinkles. What next? Amy Gilchrist, who had seemed on the verge of tears, says cheerfully to the judge, “Your Honor, for the last five years I’ve known Mr. Bailey to be an honorable and valued member of the bar, and I recommend that the court accept his guilty plea and order him to pay costs and to stay out of the Quik-Pie, and if there’re no other incidents of this nature within a year, to expunge his record.”

  Looking squarely at the reporter from the Democrat-Gazette, the judge pauses for what seems like an eternity, then barks gruffly, “I’ll accept the prosecutor’s recommendation.”

  Clan , blinking back tears, nods gratefully at Darwin Bell and whispers in a choked voice, “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  Tomorrow there may be headlines charging lenient treatment for lawyers, but today justice reigns in Blackwell County. I wink at Amy, who manages a thin smile from hollow cheeks. She must be going through a living hell at the Prosecutor’s Office. Until this morning, I had never seen her perky face when it wasn’t bursting with energy and high spirits. This might have cost her job today. As Darwin hastily calls the next case, I make a note to call her. I know Clan will.

  Before noon I swing by my old place of employment. It is virtually impossible to call the Blackwell County Division of Social Services office because of their automated telephone-answering service. They might as well have dug a shark-filled moat around the building, so effective is the system at denying access. After ten minutes of “dial this” and “dial that” with no results, I decide to hell with it. In sixty seconds I am back in the office of my old supervisor from my days as a case worker for the agency.

  “Been seeing you on TV, Gideon.” Shelley Jenkins grins from behind her desk.

  “But you’re looking a little rougher even in person.”

  “Got any openings, Shel?” I ask, mugging for her so she won’t think I’m serious. At the rate I’m going, I ought to consider it.

  “With this phone system though, I guess you’re trying to lay some people off.”

  She cackles mournfully, “Isn’t it a disgrace?” Shelley, an obese woman in her early sixties with sad eyes, took a special liking to me for some reason. Actually, it was Rosa she probably enjoyed. When we had her to dinner, at least once every year, like a mother and daughter-in-law they conducted a comprehensive discussion of my shortcomings that covered my performance at home and at the office.

  ” I need some help,” I tell her after a few minutes of office gossip. The state is being sued because of the lack of resources and management problems in the Division of Child and Family Services. The papers have had a field day documenting the failures of the child welfare system. Rumors about mass firings crop up every month, according to Shelley.

  I worked in this building for more years than I cared to remember, primarily as an investigator of dependency-neglect cases. Over the years I investigated scores of allegations of sexual and physical abuse in Blackwell County, but more often situations involving neglect. I have no memory of Olivia Le Master being in the system, but Shelley, who kept up with all the cases in the office, might, and I tell her what I’m looking for, “Olivia Le Master wouldn’t have been our typical poverty-stricken welfare mother. She’s a tall white woman who owns River City Realty. You’ve seen her ads on TV.”

  “Threw the damn thing out ten years ago,” she mutters, opening her desk drawer. As I have seen her do so many times in the past, Shelley takes out a calligraphy pen and begins to doodle on green graph paper while she thinks.

  “Around what year are we talking about?”

  I shift in the uncomfortable wooden chair. If they keep this furniture much longer, they can sell it as antiques. This is one agency that doesn’t get in trouble for spending state money to redecorate bureaucrats’ offices.

  “Maybe close to fifteen years ago,” I say, wondering if Olivia had another name back then. For all I know, she could have been married four times since her divorce.

  Abruptly, Shelley stands, telling me, “I think I know who you’re talking about. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  While she is gone, I look around her office, stilling an urge to go see who has my desk. Shelley has told me only three people remain in the entire office from the time I was there, which was only three years ago. The turnover is enormous.

  Insufficient staff, low pay, and unqualified people who shuffle paper until the next tragedy hits the news have long made the place a revolving door. Why did I stay so long?

  Much of the time I felt like a voyeur of horror. I know I would have gone crazy if I had accepted a supervisor’s job.

  In a system this bad, you have to prove that a case worker lay in bed drunk for six months before you are allowed to fire him. Ordinary incompetence and negligence are part of the job description. On Shelley’s wall is a sign she has lettered herself.

  “IP YOU GET YOUR PANTIES IN A WAD BEFORE 10

  A.M.” YOUR MEDICINE ISN’T STRONG

  ENOUGH.”

  Shelley returns, panting a bit as she comes through the door and shuts it behind her. Her blue polyester pants, freak-show size, strain against her hips as she turns the handle on the flimsy door.

  “If you reveal where you got this information, I’ll be in bad trouble.”

  I watch her ease her huge body into the chair, thinking she could set the governor on fire and no one would touch her.

  “You know I’d never do that.” What motivates her to stay?

  She’s been here twenty-five years. Low pay and bad working conditions only explain part of it. Actually, I know the answer.

  Without making a federal case of it, she is totally convinced there is nothing else on earth she could do with her life that is more important. “Don’t you remember this?” She grins happily, delighted by her superb memory.

  “Good, good talker. We were about to file once before and she talked us out of it. This case was not your run-of-the-mill, attractive middle-class single white woman struggling to sell real estate and raise two small children;

  and we kept getting calls she was neglecting the one-year-old. The older child, a girl, was retarded. We never exactly understood the problem, but when there was an incident with boiling water that burned the boy, she agreed to a placement with her mother in Ohio and we closed the file.

  We never went to court. We’d file on a case like that now instead of having an informal agreement.”

  I feel a chill run down the back of my neck. Olivia has never mentioned a word about any of this. Boiling water?

  Give me a cattle prod any day. I think of her commercials.

  She is a damn good talker all right, but, I suspect, a better actress.

  “Can you live with a subpoena?” I ask.

  “All of a sudden my memory’s crystal clear.” It isn’t, of course, but I have no qualms about lying to protect her.

  My old friend’s smile becomes a smirk.

  “You better say that,” she says, squinting at the file in front of her.

  “And I didn’t tell you a damn thing.”

  After getting a few more details (Olivia would admit only that her infant might have pulled a pan off the stove but had no answer when Shelley pointed out he wasn’t tall enough to reach it), I thank her and leave through the rat’s maze of cubicles, watching the workers at their desks, some gobbling sandwiches and talking at the same time. Almost always it is the poor who get caught up in abuse and neglect proceedings.

  Was Olivia that down and out? This child would have had to have been born only a year or so after Pam but before the settlement with the obstetrician came through. Her husband left her, so maybe at one time she wasn’t all that much different from the terrified parents who are sitting across from the desks of my former colleagues. I look into the eyes of a young b
lack man sitting in my old cubicle. Does Andy know about this part of Olivia’s life? I seriously doubt it. Just because she abused one child and let it be sent away doesn’t mean she wanted Pam to die. Yet, if I were a prosecutor, I’d be rubbing my hands with glee and wondering what else I could find out about the past of the star of the River City Realty Commercials.

  “My brother’s a little naive,” Morris Chapman says soon after Andy introduces us. He flew in this morning from Atlanta and has accompanied Andy to my office for our final interview before the trial begins tomorrow.”

  “You’ve noticed,” I say, unable to resist sarcasm now that I have an ally. Morris Chapman does not have his brother’s flair for clothes. For this visit at least he is dressed in a drab blue business suit that in no way announces its wearer’s presence Taller than Andy, he is also skinnier, but the family resemblance is there around the eyes and mouth. Yet, where Andy’s intelligent face mirrors his emotions even beneath his trim beard and glasses, his brother has a wary, pinched look as if he has an internal computer clicking off prices that he knows aren’t ever coming down. So this is where the money has come from, I think, already wishing this guy had been around for the last couple of months. His long fingers, clenched until this moment like talons around the arms of the chair, finally uncurl but do not relax. He lives in the real world; his brother does not. Uncertain how he will take the information about Olivia, and still wondering how to use it at the trial, I have not yet told Andy about what I learned at the Blackwell County Social Services office.

  Andy, who seems to have returned to his more open and accessible personality now that his brother is here, flashes his first smile in days.

  “Just a few days in prison will make me like y’all,” he says easily crossing an ankle over a thigh.

  The half grin, half smirk on his face suggests to me that some of the weight he has felt in the last two months has been shifted to his brother.