It was the kind of work for which Leo was suited by experience and temperament. He thought he’d never get out of it, and it was driving him mad.
‘Okay, Trial Calendar line six, what have we got here?’
This morning was never going to end. The bailiff brought in Line Six – all the cases were given line numbers off the huge computer printout that had to be processed every Monday. Except Monday had been a holiday. So the list was longer.
He forced himself to look up. Line Six was a guy about Leo’s age and, like Leo, an Hispanic, although Leo couldn’t have cared less about his race. Line Six shuffled behind the bailiff to the podium in front of the bench. Mr Zapata was represented by the public defender, Ms Rogan. Chomorro looked down at the list for the next available judge. Fowler, Department 27. He intoned the name and department.
‘Excuse me, Your Honor.’ Leo looked up. Any interruption, any change in the deadly routine was welcome. It was the summer clerk who’d been quietly monitoring proceedings at the D.A.‘s table all morning. ’May I approach the bench?‘
The boy reminded Leo of himself when he’d been a student. Dark, serious, intent, fighting down his nerves, he whispered. ‘Mr Drysdale would like to ask you to reconsider your assignment of Mr Zapata to a different department.’
Leo Chomorro cast his eyes around the courtroom. He and Art Drysdale went over the Calendar on disposition of cases every Friday night, and he’d mentioned nothing about Zapata at that time. Well, maybe something new had come up, but Art wasn’t in the courtroom.
‘Where is Mr Drysdale?’
‘He’s in his office, Your Honor. He asked if you’d grant a recess.’
‘When did he do that if he’s not here?’
‘That’s all he’s asked me to say, Your Honor, if you could grant a recess and call him.’
Leo frowned. He wanted to keep things moving but felt empathy for the kid, and Drysdale made up the Calendar with him every week. In a world full of no friends, Art was as close to one as he had. He looked up at the defendant.
‘Mr Zapata, sit down. We’ll take a ten-minute recess.’
‘It’s pretty unusual, Art. It’s circumvention.’
‘I know it is.’ Drysdale wasn’t going to sugarcoat anything. This was Locke’s call, and he was delivering a message, that was all. He was sitting back, comfortable in the leather chair in front of Chomorro’s desk. ‘We don’t want Zapata going to Fowler’s department. He threw out the last one.’
‘I know. I read about that. Zapata’s another sting case?’ Art nodded. ‘I just plain missed him on Friday or I would have mentioned it then.’
Chomorro was moving things on his desk. ‘I’ve already assigned it, Art. Rogan might make a stink.’ He’d called out Department 27 – Fowler’s courtroom. If the defense attorney he’d appointed was on top of things, she’d know Fowler’s position on these kinds of cases. From Rogan’s perspective, Fowler was a winner for her client – he’d throw out the case. Any other judge probably would not.
Art leaned forward. ‘We’re ready to lose one like that. What we don’t want is Fowler getting any more of these -start another landslide and screw up this program.’
Chomorro shuffled more paper. His life was shuffling paper. He didn’t believe he could do what Art was suggesting. It was at the very least close to unethical. The D.A. or the defendant could challenge one judge, on any case. A judge could be recused from a case because of conflicts of interest, because he or she knew the defendant, for no reason at all, but such a public challenge always involved a political fight that both sides lost. Usually such problems were settled privately in the chambers of the Master Calendar department -certain cases just never happened to be assigned to certain judges. But here, Mr Zapata’s case had been publicly assigned for trial. ‘I don’t think I can do it, Art.’
Drysdale wasn’t surprised. He nodded, then leaned forward, fore-arms on knees, and settled in. ‘Leo, Your Honor, how long have you been on Calendar here?’
It took Chomorro a minute, a subtle shift in posture, like Art’s own. His mouth creased up. ‘Year and a half, maybe.’
‘Any talk of you getting off?’
Chomorro shrugged. ‘Somebody’s got to retire soon, die. I’m the low man.’
Art leaned back. ‘The job used to rotate, Leo. You know that?’
Again, a tight smile. ‘I’d heard that rumor.’
‘But if somebody carries a grudge around, maybe a little superior attitude, doesn’t make any friends, do any favors…’ Art held up a hand. ‘I’m not talking illegal, I’m talking little things, amenities. Things could change, that’s all I’m saying. Chris Locke is pals with some of your colleagues, so is Rigby. They both like this program, the one that got Zapata. And no one – not even Fowler -is denying these guys are stealing. They’ve still got to be found guilty by a jury. They get a fair trial. We’re not circumventing justice here, maybe just fine-tuning the bureaucracy.’
Chomorro did not for a moment buy Drysdale’s argument that they weren’t circumventing justice. Of course they were. But Chomorro was not a newcomer to politics, deals. He knew a deal when he heard one, and – assuming you were going to play – it wasn’t smart to leave things up in the air. ‘Labor Day,’ he said. ‘I’m off Calendar by Labor Day.’
Art Drysdale stood up, reached his hand over the desk. ‘Done,’ he said.
‘Line Six.’ Mr Zapata was back up at the podium. ‘I’m sorry, there was a scheduling conflict, my mistake. The trial will be in Department,’ he looked down again, making sure, ‘Twenty-four, Judge Thomasino.’
Leo watched Line Six being led out in his yellow jumpsuit. Time was standing still. It wasn’t yet noon and he’d just had a recess. His blood was rushing. Well, it was done. It was possible that Ms Rogan would never understand the significance of the change of department. Art would make sure he would be forewarned on any other Zapatas, and the whole thing would never have to come up again. Still…
He shook himself, chilled in the hot room.
‘On the arraignment calendar, line one thirty-seven,’ the clerk intoned. ‘Penal code section 187, murder.’
Suddenly the chill was gone. Something about murder cases got your attention, even when you were already familiar with them. This was the one he and Elizabeth Pullios had discussed after the indictment on Thursday -Owen Nash. They were dragging their feet over in Muni and the D.A. wasn’t going to stand for it. On Friday, Art Drysdale told Chomorro it would hit this morning, and they were going to move ahead if not with haste then with dispatch. Send a little message to the junior circuit.
Line 137, May Shintaka, had surrendered on the grand-jury indictment and bailed again. She was in the gallery, Chomorro had noticed her earlier this morning, the one flower in a field of weeds. This was Line 137? He raised his eyebrows, then looked back down. Now she stood, unbowed, at the podium. Next to her was David Freeman, about the best defense attorney in the city. The defendant and her rumpled attorney were a study in contrasts. Leo theorized that Freeman’s sloppy dress was a conscious ploy to appeal to juries as a common man, one of them, regular folks.
But regular folks didn’t make half a million or so a year.
‘Mr Freeman,’ he said, ‘how are you doing today?’
Freeman nodded. ‘Fine, thank you, Your Honor.’
During his recess with Art, Elizabeth Pullios had come into the courtroom and sat at the prosecution table with her second chair, one of the new men. He nodded to them.