by Nick Dorsey
Adams himself shuffled in and looked at her. He had braids that hung down in his face. Just a nose poking through them. He hovered in front of the chair, peering at her through those braids. “You a lawyer? You just got out of school or what?”
“Sit down. I’ve been with the Public Defenders Office for about three years. How old are you?”
“Three years? Is that enough?” He pushed back his braids to get a better look at her. His eyes were bright and suspicious.
Jean wrote ADAMS at the top of her notepad then looked through the smeared glass at him. He looked young, younger than she looked. He had the tired, frightened look she had seen hundreds of times before. Orleans Parish Prison would do that to a person.
She also had another few dozen clients to interview in about that many minutes.
“I’ve got a bunch of people to talk to. Please answer my questions as quickly as possible. How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.” He said it grudgingly, then sat. Giving her a chance, at least.
“Do you have kids?”
“Yeah. Two.”
“Boys or girls?”
“Girls. Aliyah and Sandra .”
That was good. The judge wanted to hear about kids. About family. Anything to show that Adams, Craig had ties to the community. He wasn’t going to run. Anything that showed Adams, Craig, was a safe bet for a low bond . His family would run down Tulane Avenue to one of the bail bondsmen-business was always booming there-and the family would post for the accused. Yeah. Adams, Craig wouldn’t run. Probably had never been outside the state of Louisiana. Adams, Craig running off to Atlanta would be as far-fetched as him running to Tokyo. He would be back for court. “Those are pretty names. How old?”
“Aliyah is five. Sandra is,” He paused, looking up. Remembering. “Three.”
“Okay. Do your girls live with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s with them now?”
“They stay by my momma’s place.”
“Okay. Are you employed?”
“Yeah, I work at the Quick Lube.”
“As a mechanic? You change oil?”
“Yeah.”
Jean was writing all of this down. Marking salient points. She had done this a thousand times before. She was so used to the questions and the way clients reacted that she was almost in a flow state. She wasn’t regretting the caffeine now. Her head was buzzing. Maybe speaking too quickly, she said “Full time?”
“As much time as I can get. But hey, about this here, I didn’t say that man could search my bag. That’s illegal, right? I have to tell him yes, it’s okay?”
“Let’s just focus on these questions right now. You ever been arrested before? Been on any paper?” Adams didn’t respond. This was always a tough question. For the man on the other side of the glass from Jean, events had progressed quickly. Arrested, booked, jail, court. Now here she was asking personal questions. Was she on his side, or was she another link in the chain of events that would lead to him being locked up? That was a question Jean wanted to answer. She said, “I need to know everything. Have you ever been on probation, paid any court fees or fines for any reason?”
“No.” But he didn’t sound sure.
Too bad. This was already taking too long. “How far did you get in school?”
Adams said, “Tenth grade.”
“Where were you born?”
“What hospital?”
“No, what city.”
“New Orleans, Louisiana.” Proudly. Which was good. The pride spoke to roots. It spoke to community .
“And you’ve never been arrested before?”
“No.”
“Alright. That’s good. I’ll do what I can for you. Send in,” She flipped to the next report. Saw the name. “Please send in Sofia Adelfi.”
“That’s it? We don’t gotta talk strategy?”
“This is just about the bond. Sofia Adelfi, shout it out so she hears you.”
Adams hesitated like maybe he had something else to say, then he rose. Braids bobbing as he turned to leave the plastic box. He called out “Sofi Delfi. You up.”
Jean looked back at Adams’s report. No previous arrest. So he was telling the truth. Good for him. Maybe there was something to the search issue he had raised, too. If she could nail the cop for illegal? Maybe...
She refocused on the Adelfi report. White female, 36. Okay. She flipped back to the gist. Saturday evening. Officers responded to a reported gunshot out in Lakeview. Nice area. Big houses out there. Jean wrote ADELFI on her notepad.
Jean’s heart was going, caffeine kicking into overdrive as she read the rest of the gist. Gunshots. Police. Woman under the influence. Body. Declared homicide.
Homicide.
It was Jean’s third year as a Public Defender in the city. It was her first day without any oversight. Eason Kandinsky wasn’t holding her hand anymore. He was done looking over her shoulder. He had his own cases to work, and more of them every day. So here she was, the first day on her own.
And here was her first client accused of murder.
Adams was out there calling, “Delfi! Sofi, you up.”
I’m a fighter.
She exhaled. I’m a warrior.
Inhaled. And she paused. For whatever reason, she couldn’t remember the rest.
CHAPTER FOUR
P eople had all sorts of reactions upon entering high-pressure situations. Those brief moments before seeing a judge for the first time, with a strange lawyer asking you questions, the answers to which could put you back on the street or back behind bars, that was a high-pressure situation. Even if the lawyer was asking simple questions. People cried, or yelled, or forgot their names. Sometimes they just gave her a blank stare.
Jean wondered if she would be calm and collected under those circumstances. If someone was to ask her how old she was, say. Would she remember twenty-nine right off the bat, or would she fumble for a moment, forget a birthday or even make one up? Or would she stay quiet, mouth shut? She had seen that before in clients. A mistrustful silence. Almost rebellious. Self-defeating, sure, but sort of admirable.
No, if she ever was on the other side of the table, she thought she would be alright. Twenty-nine, that’s right.
Born in Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana, “The fishing capital of the world,” or so the locals would have you believe. A little town called Hopedale. Only nobody outside of her small town had ever heard of the place, so she always said she was from New Orleans. Mom and Dad, a hostess at Islenos Seafood and fishing guide, respectively. He’ll help you catch all the redfish you can eat and she’ll get you a table to eat it on. Jean liked the idea of being on a boat all morning more than she liked the idea of waiting tables, but she didn’t see herself going into the fish business either way.
She attended Our Lady Of Perpetual Help, a superb student and a decent softball player. Small but quick, she shone on second base. It was easy being out there, part of a team. Give her a job and she could execute. Hitting was another story. She would swing away in practice and sometimes even connect. Then came the game against Holy Cross. Jean was at the plate, hunched over, bat ready. The pitcher was tall, with a single blonde ponytail running down her back, a ponytail that whipped around as she reared back and launched the ball. One strike. Two. Jean not swinging, just sweating there in the batter’s helmet. The helmet pushed way back on her head, in exactly the way Coach told her was all wrong. So she could see better, she would say. Determined to smash the next pitch. She saw the pitcher’s ponytail curl behind her as she wound up, saw her start to release, and saw the pitcher’s shoe slip, kicking up a little puff of dust.
Then, black.
The ball snuck in right under the high batter’s helmet. Right into her forehead. She got three stitches over one eye and her first concussion that day, and permission from her mother to quit the game altogether. Jean said no, she’d stay on. She went back to practice that week with a bandage over her stitches. But she couldn’t swing.
When she saw the ball coming at her she panicked. After three games of Jean frozen at the plate, Coach Ashworth talked about a designated hitter. It seemed like every girl in the dugout turned to look at her, look at the girl who wasn’t pulling her weight, which meant someone else would have to pull it for her. That did it. The next game Jean swung. She didn’t hit anything, but she didn’t have to deal with the shame of a designated hitter, either. She would never be an all-star, but she would do her part.
How far did she get in school? All the way.
Any kids? No, and that’s not something she would stumble over, either. A slew of animals when she was younger, cats and dogs and rabbits and even a parrot, things little Jean could take care of. But now? No kids and no husband, though Jonathan Odell had come close to asking her, she knew. Had seen him picking out rings online one night, him on the computer and her pretending to be asleep on the couch. She decided to end it then. Couldn’t imagine marrying him and spending her life listening to his high-pitched laughter over cartoons, this grown man watching cartoons at midnight, or raising his children, and it would be her doing the raising. Jonathan wasn’t the kind to develop a progressive, co-parenting mindset. Him spending his days coding some security program she didn’t quite understand and his nights playing video games or watching cartoons, her raising the kids, because what else was she going to do with an English degree? It took a few months for her to build up the nerve to do it. When Jonathan told her he wanted to move to Illinois when he graduated from Tulane, that made it easier for her. He went to Chicago and she went to Emory Law in Georgia.
She hoped he never actually bought that ring.
She was at Emory when Hurricane Katrina hit and it hit hard. Her parents came to stay with her, her studying and them complaining about the food in Atlanta even when she took them out, Gus’s or Mary Mac’s or the Highland Bakery, nothing was good enough. Now almost five years later they were back in Saint Bernard, still seating customers and baiting hooks. Not an hour away and waiting for her visit, and not interested in coming to the city.
Had she ever been arrested? No, but she’d been in court more times than she could count.
Was she employed? Yes, by the New Orleans Public Defenders Office, just rounding out three years. They asked you for three years, but not many stayed that long. Long hours dealing with humanity at its nadir coupled with the lowest pay the city could get away with had the effect of quickly eroding talent, especially talent with law school-sized bills. Just three of her class left. Why didn’t she leave? Because she wanted to help people. Her time at Emory had taught her helping people meant fighting for them, and that you did the most good going to where the fighting was thickest.
So Jeanette Perez went home to New Orleans.
Where was she currently living? Half a shotgun double near the park. Olympia Avenue, and don’t look at me like that, the neighborhood isn’t that bad.
Out in the juror’s box, Adams was still shouting “Sofie!”
A blonde woman turned and looked at Adams, then looked at Jean. Confused. That was normal. Jean waved her in.
Waiting for the woman to walk in, Jean looked through the gist again, making sure she hadn’t missed anything.
It read like this: On the evening of February 14th, Officers Pennybacker and Quarles responded to reported gunshots at 25 Bluebird Street. No response to a knock or the officer’s announcing themselves, so the officers entered the residence. The officers heard voices but there was no response to their continued announcement of their arrival and entrance. While conducting a search of the home, they found Mrs. Adelfi in the bedroom, leaning against a dresser. Mr. Adelfi there on the bed. A nine millimeter between them. Mrs. Adelfi was distraught. Mr. Adelfi had three bullet holes in his chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene. She was taken for questioning and subsequently arrested.
The door to the box opened and chains scraped on the floor. Jean looked up as the woman shut the door behind her. The shackles on her arms made Sofia Adelfi’s shoulders slump and her burgundy jumpsuit was a baggy, formless thing, but Jean could tell Sofia was tall and thin under there. Her hair was brushed and tied back in a greasy ponytail. What makeup she still wore was smudged around puffy eyes. A night in prison did not leave her looking her best.
“Sofia Adelfi?”
Nothing from the woman.
“Sofia? How old are you?”
“Old?” She frowned at Jean like she didn’t understand the question. “Thirty-seven.” She had a lilting accent, not something from this part of the world.
“Where were you born?”
“Stockholm, Sweden.”
The judge wouldn’t like that. Add that to her address in Lakeview, a prosperous part of New Orleans, and Sofia’s bail tipped the scales.
Wait. What was she thinking? This wasn’t possession. Not some penny-ante drug charge. This was murder. Bail wasn’t going to be in the cards here.
“Do you have any children?”
“No.”
“Do you have any family here?”
“My husband. Wait. He’s...” Sofia shook her head. She wasn’t breaking down, not crying. Which Jean appreciated, as she had a few dozen more clients to interview. “No. No family.”
Jean leaned back.
“Do you have a job?”
“No. He made all the money.”
Uh-oh.
“I want to…cooperate with everything.”
“Okay, great. But just cooperate with me. Like I told the whole group, don’t talk to anybody else about your case.”
“But this is a mistake. I didn’t do anything. I want to help them find whoever did this to Ernie.”
Ernie. Jean nodded. She liked that the woman wanted to be helpful, but realized Sofia wasn’t quite aware of her circumstances. It wasn’t the time to unload on her. Jean was sure she wasn’t going to get any more information if she took that tact.
“How far did you get in school?”
“I graduated from University in Stockholm. Marketing.”
“Great. But you’re not employed at all? No job?”
“I told you, Ernie made the money. The restaurant. He didn’t want me to work.” Sofia looked down at the shackles on her hands. Like they had just appeared. Yeah, this wasn’t going to be easy for her.
“Alright.” Jean wrote that down but wasn’t sure how she would use it. What she would use at all, in fact. Not enough in the report right now. This could be a Negligent Homicide, though. An accident that occurred while cleaning a weapon. Happened all the time. Wait. Jean was getting ahead of herself.
Rattling on the plastic partition brought Jean back around. Sofia Adelfi was tapping her manacles against the smudged window. She leaned forward and spoke quietly, almost conspiratorially.
“I have to call. I need a phone. I have to tell Ernie’s family.”
Jean paused a moment. That wouldn’t be a pleasant conversation. She said, “Ms. Davis out there is with Client Services. But you really shouldn’t speak with any of Mr. Adelfi’s family right now.”
“I really need to.”
“Alright, Mrs. Adelfi. I’m going to do the best I can for you.”
The woman didn’t move. She looked down at her hands and said something in what Jean thought was probably Swedish. Now the tears came.
Jean put down her pen.
“Mrs. Adelfi, this is only a bond hearing, but I’m going to do everything I can for you, alright?”
Whimpering from the other side of the plastic, but the woman in the jumpsuit nodded.
“Alright. Go back out and sit down. Try and calm yourself. And when you get out, send in Francis Brown, okay?”
Jean flipped Sofia Adelfi’s file face-down on Craig Adams’s and began to look over Brown’s arrest report. Possession, intent. Unregistered firearm. This, at least, she was used to.
She made a quick count of the remaining files.
Still two dozen more clients. And court began in twenty minutes.
Outside the box, s
he heard Sofia Adelfi’s accent softly, “Francis Brown? Brown?” Melodic. Giving the name ‘Brown’ two syllables.
“What?” A thin man barked out at Sofia.
“Francis Brown,” she said, louder this time.
The thin man rose, brushed past Sofia, and clanked into the box.
Jean glanced at the time on her phone. Nineteen minutes.
The Assistant District Attorney was named something-Orillion, Jean couldn’t remember his first name. He was a young hipster type. Well-dressed with horn-rim glasses. Playing the part of a southern lawyer from the last century. He didn’t stand as he read out of the arrest report for Adams, Craig.
“The defendant was charged for-”
“No.” That was Judge Gerates, the sitting magistrate this morning. She sipped from an old Time Saver travel coffee mug and looked down at the ADA. “Mr. Adams has not been charged with anything yet. He was only arrested.” This was true. A defendant’s first appearance in court wasn’t just about setting bail, but establishing that the arresting officers had cause to make the arrest. If the judge found that cause was established, then the DA had at least 60 days to accept the charges and formally charge the defendant. That was two months that a person could live with their life hanging in the balance.
