Corrupted: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel

by Lisa Scottoline

  Bennie wondered if he was talking about Melissa but didn’t ask. “I understand that. I never go out and I don’t even miss it.”

  “You’re not seeing anyone?” Declan took the horse’s hoof out of the water, grabbed a small towel, then dried it off.

  “As if it’s your business?”

  “I take it that’s a no,” Declan said, with a faint smile. He set the towel down, picked up the white jar, uncapped it, and dug out some gray paste and smeared it under the horse’s hoof. “Why?”

  “I work too much, a typical trial lawyer, you know.”

  “No, I don’t. Tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me about yourself. What do you do with your free time?” Declan tossed her a roll of duct tape. “Tear off a bunch of ten-inch strips of tape. Put them on the stall door in a line.”

  “I don’t have any free time.” Bennie unrolled duct tape with freezing fingers and ripped it with her teeth, but she wished she were at the Hilton, working. She didn’t like talking about herself.

  “Hobbies?”

  “None.” Bennie stuck the first strip on the door, God knew why. Because Declan liked ordering her around.

  “I thought you were cooler than this, Philly. You’re not living up to your website.”

  “Nobody does.” Bennie stuck the strip on the door, then unrolled another, eyeing Declan as he wrapped the horse’s foot in cotton.

  “It said you were an Olympic rower.”

  “Almost. I missed qualifying.” Bennie tore off the strip with difficulty.

  “What got you into rowing?” Declan covered the horse’s hoof in cotton, then reached for the black cloth tape, which he began to wind around the cotton.

  “I’m tall and I suck at basketball.” Bennie tore off another strip, wondering why she found rowing, or it found her. She liked the physicality of the sport, the testing of her own limits. How far could she go, and how fast. How strong she could be, how powerful.

  “So no room for dating?”

  “Are we almost done here? I have work to do.” Bennie stuck another strip of duct tape on the door.

  “I offered you the chance to go inside. You said no.” Declan kept winding the black tape around the cotton, then pressed it together so that it adhered to itself.

  “I was being polite.”

  “So stay polite. I’m almost ready for the duct tape. Hurry.”

  “You like to give orders, don’t you?” Bennie ripped off another strip of tape.

  “And you like to duck questions.” Declan looked up, arching an eyebrow.

  “I’m in court all the time. I’m too busy to date anyone.” Bennie stuck the strip to the door with the others. “When you’re on trial, you’re busy all day and all night, too. You have to prepare witnesses, draft evidentiary motions, think about direct exam and cross. You don’t have control of a trial schedule. You go according to the court’s schedule.”

  “I get that. Enough tape, thanks.” Declan rose, went to the door, and took two strips, weaving them together.

  “Plus, the trial’s only for one client, and you have other active cases. I have a great staff and I like to pay them well. My business model is different, more equal. I like it that way, but payroll keeps me up at night.” Bennie heard herself explaining her business, which she’d never articulated before, even to herself. “I love my life, like you, but it takes a lot of doing. I thought it would be easier when I was younger.”

  “I get that, too.” Declan wove the duct tape together, his fingers working nimbly, and Bennie had no idea how, but he was making a lattice of duct tape.

  “Every day is wall-to-wall. There’s no time for a relationship, to give anything to a relationship. I pour everything into my business and trying to grow it. My firm has to get to cruising altitude, and I’m not there yet. If I didn’t have a dog that I could bring to work, I wouldn’t even have a dog.”

  “Cats are easier. I have Catmandu.” Declan went back to the horse with the duct-tape lattice, picked up her leg, and pressed the lattice onto the black tape.

  “Are you done yet?”

  “Almost.” Declan folded the duct tape around the hoof, making a MacGyver-like shoe.

  “It’s cold.”

  “Finished.” Declan rose and led the horse back to her stall. “Say good night to Melissa.”

  “Melissa is the horse?”

  “Yes.” Declan rolled the door closed. “How do you know about Melissa?”

  Bennie’s mouth went oddly dry. “I heard the bartender mention her.”

  “Who’d you think she was?” Declan asked, with a knowing smile.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The next morning, Bennie was in the car bright and early, and the countryside was even more beautiful, with new snow lying on the rooftops and icy sleeves covering the bare limbs of the trees. She followed the winding road, with the pale sun rising in a frigid blue sky, thinking unaccountably of Declan. He was gone by the time she got up, and she’d showered, changed back into the same clothes, and ate cereal from his well-stocked kitchen cabinet. His refrigerator had everything, and judging from a stash of Hershey’s products, he was a chocoholic. His house had been what she’d expected; a three-bedroom, inexpensively but neatly furnished, with a family room containing a locked gun rack, a big-screen TV with Madden video games, and a bookshelf full of biographies and detective fiction. The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader arrived on his doorstep this morning, which did not surprise her, along with the New York Times, which did.

  Bennie was heading to the courthouse to file the petition she’d written last night. She’d been up all night researching and writing, but she felt confident of success. She was right on the case law, Commonwealth v. Monica, and even the statutory law, Section 6337 of the Juvenile Act. Her trump card was an on-point precedent she’d found—In re A.M., in which the state’s appellate court had held that an admission by a juvenile was a critical stage at which the juvenile had a right to counsel. The case had been decided in January 2001, reversing an adjudication by Judge Zero Tolerance, the same judge that Jason had. It was almost too much too hope for, a home run.

  Bennie steered onto the main road, traveling behind a tractor-trailer whose chunky tires sprayed road salt and dirt. She reached for her phone, pressing Matthew’s number. The phone rang a few times, and Matthew picked up. “Matthew, good morning,” she said. “I’m heading toward the courthouse to file a petition to get a rehearing in Jason’s case.”

  “That was quick! Do you think we’ll win?”

  “All I know is that we should, but I don’t know if we will.” Bennie switched on her windshield wipers, trying to clear the road salt from the truck.

  “Can Jason get home by Christmas?”

  “We have a chance. I asked the judge to schedule the Commonwealth’s responsive pleading in three days, instead of the standard ten. If the response comes in this week, then the judge might schedule a hearing on Monday of next week, which could get Jason home on Christmas morning.”

  “That would be great!”

  “But no promises.”

  “When will we find out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please keep me posted.”

  “I’ll update you at the end of the day.”

  “Good. I’m at work now. I better hang up. God bless you.”

  “Bye for now, Matthew.” Bennie hung up, touched. She cared about all of her clients, but there was something about representing a kid that got to her like nothing else had, ever before. She turned right onto the highway, merging behind the tractor-trailer.

  About an hour later, Bennie was turning left onto Pennsylvania Avenue and passing the stately limestone courthouse, situated in the center of a parklike parcel covered with snow. Parking was around the back, and she steered into the long lot, past cars and white police cruisers lined against a wall. She found a spot, grabbed her stuff, and got out of the car, then hurried to the closest entrance, in the basement of the building. She
went through a newish metal detector and retrieved her stuff. Security had heightened since 9/11 and the war, and Bennie hated that the courthouses wouldn’t be easily accessible to the public, a notion enshrined in the Constitution itself.

  She went down a hallway, passing administrative offices, and a sign that read DOG, HUNTING, FISHING, SPORTSMEN’S FIREARMS, BINGO AND SMALL GAMES-OF-CHANCE LICENSING, something she’d never seen in Philadelphia’s City Hall. She got into an elevator and traveled upstairs, then was let off into the most beautiful courthouse she’d ever seen. The floor of the foyer was covered with a darkish tan marble, and the space was dominated by a double-banked stairwell of gray-and-white marble. The atrium was three stories high, ringed with rose-gray marble balconies, but the pièce de résistance was a domed mosaic ceiling and at its very apex, an orb of stained glass.

  Court employees with laminated ID lanyards crisscrossed the lobby, and groups of lawyers talked together, carrying old-school briefcases. Bennie found the clerk’s office, which had a modern glass door retrofitted into a carved arch of white marble, and went inside to an antique mahogany counter, incongruous with computers, fax machines, and the gray cubicles of the staff. She slid her petition from her messenger bag as a clerk walked over with a pleasant smile. She was an older woman with short, feathery gray hair, and she had on a sweater sporting a sequined Christmas tree.

  “Good morning, how may I help you?” she asked, slipping on a pair of reading glasses with a sea-glass lorgnette.

  “Hi, I have some papers I’d like to file with the juvenile court judge.” Bennie passed them to the clerk, who pointed to the capitalized title of the papers, EMERGENCY PETITION FOR READJUDICATION IN THE MATTER OF J. L., A JUVENILE.

  “What’s an ‘Emergency Petition for Readjudication’? I’ve never heard that term.”

  Because I made it up, Bennie thought but didn’t say. “I represent a juvenile who was adjudicated delinquent last Friday. I believe his right to counsel was violated and I’m seeking a rehearing of the adjudication of delinquency.”

  “But there is no local court rule that provides for rehearing of adjudications. I don’t even think there’s a rule in the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure that allows such a thing.” The clerk’s hooded eyes fluttered behind her reading glasses.

  “There may not be, but at the same time, there is no court rule that prohibits the filing of petitions not sanctioned by court rule, if you follow.” Bennie knew it sounded circuitous, but she was right on the law.

  “Which law firm are you with? I’m sorry, we haven’t met.”

  “I work with my own law firm in Philadelphia.”

  “That explains it.” The clerk slid the papers back. “You may do it that way in Philadelphia, but that’s not how we do it here.”

  “It shouldn’t make a difference, it’s a Common Pleas Court. You can enter it in the docket like any other petition or motion.”

  “The Clerk’s Office has to reject filings that don’t comply with local rules.”

  “But this filing doesn’t run afoul of any local rules. I can file any motion with the Juvenile Court, and if that’s improper, it would be up to the judge to deny it.”

  “But the judge is busy this week. He’s presiding over the double murder trial in 302. It’s a big deal, all over the news.”

  “He does criminal cases, as well?” Bennie was surprised that a Juvenile Court judge heard other matters, yet another difference between the courts in the city and out here.

  “Yes, two days a week he hears juvenile cases, and the other three days he hears civil or criminal cases.”

  “Is there only one Juvenile Court judge?”

  “Yes.” The clerk kept fluttering her eyes, and Bennie realized she just wanted to follow the correct procedure, which was impossible, because there was no procedure.

  “Look, I get that this is an unusual petition. But let me tell you, I clerked for a state appellate judge, and in my experience, judges don’t like it when other people make decisions for them. If I were you, I’d accept the papers for filing and let him deal with it. It’s the safer course, don’t you think?”

  The clerk smiled, relieved. “Now that’s the truth. I’ll make sure these get filed and entered in the docket.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Bennie followed the curved hallway of the courthouse, her boots clacking on the marble floor. She kept going until she came to another curved arch with a retrofitted door that read, OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY. She entered, walked to another antique counter, and spotted a young man in a gray suit and tie, with the telltale short haircut of a prosecutor.

  “Excuse me, can I speak with you?” Bennie asked the prosecutor, who nodded and strolled over. He looked about thirty years old, his alert brown eyes vaguely caffeinated and his fresh morning shave aromatic.

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “I represent a juvenile who was sent to River Street. I just filed some papers that I need to serve on you—”

  “I’ll accept service.” The prosecutor held out his hand.

  “Thanks. Did you handle the matter? I haven’t gotten the transcript yet.” Bennie dug in her messenger bag, extracted the service copy of the papers, and handed it to the prosecutor.

  “No, it wasn’t me. There’s only one guy who does Juvenile Court and he’s not in right now.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “No idea.”

  “These are emergency papers. I’m going to try to get a readjudication if not today, then tomorrow. Can you alert him to that fact, so we’re good to go when the judge gives the word?”

  “Will do. I’ll leave a note on his desk.” The prosecutor checked his watch.

  “Let me ask you one last question.” Bennie flipped to the last page of her petition, which was the waiver form that Matthew had given her. “You see this form?”

  “Yes, what about it?” The prosecutor glanced at the form quickly.

  “This is a form they’re using in Juvenile Court, which purports to be a waiver of the right to counsel. You can see the signature line for the parents, who are permitted to sign on the juvenile’s behalf—”

  “I have a trial I have to get ready for, so could you get to the point?”

  “I think it’s constitutionally defective and—”

  “What’s your question?”

  Bennie didn’t mind getting a hard time. On the contrary, she liked a good fight. “My question is, did your office develop this waiver form?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think the judge developed it?”

  “No idea.”

  “Is the District Attorney around?”

  “You want to see my boss?” The prosecutor smiled slightly. “He’s trying the double homicide.”

  “How about the First Assistant?”

  “Everybody’s there but me. I’m Cinderella and I have to get ready for the ball. Thanks.” The prosecutor slid the papers off the counter and edged away with them.

  “Please have your colleague call me. My cell phone number and email are on the papers,” Bennie called after the prosecutor, as he made his way through the warren of cubicles and disappeared. She left the office, crossed the lobby, and consulted a court directory festooned with red-and-green tinsel, which told her where else she had to go. Lawyering wasn’t always fireworks, but she wanted to get to the bottom of that waiver form.

  Bennie found a wide marble stairwell and headed upstairs to the judge’s chambers. She reached the fourth floor, got a copy of her papers ready, and opened the heavy wooden door onto chambers, which had a waiting area with blue cloth chairs and a coffee table with Pennsylvania Bar Association journals. A secretary sat at a small wooden desk, which held a computer monitor, neatly stacked files, and a green mini Christmas tree, its multicolored lights aglow.

  “Good morning.” Bennie introduced herself, stepping forward with her papers, and the secretary looked up, a middle-aged woman whose dark hair was pulled into a lo
w ponytail. She wore oversized glasses with blue acetate frames that matched her eye color almost exactly. She had on a blue jumper, white blouse, and a red sweater.

  “Yes, how can I help you?”

  “I’d like the judge to have a courtesy copy of papers that I just filed, seeking an emergency hearing this week.”

  “Oh. My.” The secretary accepted the papers, her thin lips pursed. “The judge is very busy. I doubt he’ll be able to schedule a hearing this week.”

  “I’m hoping he can schedule something after court is out of session today or before it convenes tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m not sure that will be possible. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  “I won’t, thanks. Does he take a break at midmorning, during trial?”

  “Yes, usually,” the secretary answered, reluctantly.

  “I assume he hasn’t taken that yet, since it’s on the early side.” Bennie glanced at the wall clock, a bronzed-eagle affair that read 9:30. Most trials took a break at 10:30, when the judge had to pee, the staff had to smoke, and the lawyers had to double-bill somebody.

  “He hasn’t taken a break yet.”

  “Good. So maybe you could show him the petition then?”

  “Thank you. Good day now.” The secretary averted her eyes, seeming to dismiss Bennie, who wasn’t leaving just yet.

  “I know that the judge uses a waiver-of-counsel form in his courtroom. Do you know if he generates the form himself?”

  The secretary hesitated. “Perhaps you should take that up with the judge. Good-bye now.”

  “Okay, thank you.” Bennie let it go, having become persona non grata in thirty seconds, which was a personal best. She left chambers, hurried down the hall and down the stairwell four flights, then left the courthouse by the side entrance. The air was bitterly cold, and she found herself running down the slate walkway to the sidewalk, then scurrying across the street toward the courthouse annex, a modern building of tan brick and smoked glass windows. The edifice lacked the vintage grace of the courthouse, but she was hoping for a friendlier reception at the public defender’s office.