“And?”
“Drop it.” As he spoke, the last traces of sunlight faded from the apartment, leaving him entirely in the dark.
Alvarez strained to see Corbin. “I’m entitled to know because my future’s on the line. Can you pull the trigger?”
Corbin didn’t respond.
Chapter 25
Corbin stood in the lobby of the old Tribune Building. It had seen better days. The marble floor was cracked, the wallpaper dingy, and the brass fixtures lost their luster years ago. Few tenants remained. Beckett had arranged to borrow an office on the seventh floor while they worked on Beaumont’s case. The elevator ride to the seventh floor took a long two minutes. As Corbin stepped off the elevator, he found himself face to face with Beckett, who was pulling on his jacket and straightening his frayed tie.
“Hey, Alex,” Beckett greeted Corbin as if nothing unpleasant had ever passed between them. “The court just called. They moved up the hearing. I’m going there now.”
“Let me set my bag down, and I’ll join you,” Corbin replied as nonchalantly as he could manage; his rage remained, but he suppressed it. “Nice building by the way, was the morgue booked?”
“You try finding an office free of charge in downtown Philly.”
“Free of charge? How did you swing that?”
“I called in an old favor.”
“Must’ve been a small favor.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers. Also, the office itself isn’t so bad, it’s been renovated.” Beckett showed Corbin to the conference room, which would be Corbin’s temporary office. Then they set off on foot to the courthouse.
The Alfred E. Hackman Courthouse, located a long four-block walk from the Tribune Building, was old and gray, like much of the area. At one time, the courthouse had been a magnificent structure, a testament to noble dreams, but neglect and indifference robbed it of its glory. To divert attention from the encroaching decay, someone years ago, erected a modern sculpture of the scales of justice outside the courthouse. This sculpture consisted of a large steel spike and three misshapen scales. The highest scale contained an elongated globe of the Earth. The next contained a Botero-like sculpture of a dove. The third scale rested at ground level to allow passersby to stand within it. The sculpture lacked subtlety and grace.
Beyond the sculpture, an oversized concrete stairway led to the courthouse entrance, which stood six feet above sidewalk level. A row of second floor windows surrounded the building just above the entrance and three more rows of windows stood above those. Just inside the entrance, two deputies ran a metal detector. Beckett identified himself and Corbin and gave the reason for their visit. He placed his bag on the X-ray machine and walked through the detector. Corbin followed.
Corbin and Beckett made their way to the second floor main courtroom, where Judge Judith D’Amato held court today. The main courtroom was large, with an extremely high ceiling. Everything was ornately decorated in cherry wood. Portraits of retired judges hung around the room. Judge D’Amato, a smallish woman with a large voice, marked up a file as she listened to the colorful testimony of a police informant. A disheveled attorney in a cheap suit stood at the podium before Judge D’Amato. His feeble efforts to poke holes in the informant’s testimony kept falling flat. The disheveled attorney’s client, sitting at the defense table in an orange jumpsuit, with his wrists and ankles shackled, seemed resigned to his fate. Standing at the prosecution table, ready to pounce, was Hillary Morales, a stern-looking young Hispanic woman in a navy pantsuit. The jury box, to the right of the defense table, sat empty.
Corbin and Beckett slipped into the courtroom and sat on the wooden benches at the back. Several other attorneys sat nearby, waiting to be heard.
“I’m sorry. . I don’t understand. What. . what did he say?” the disheveled defense attorney asked the informant. He was struggling.
“He said, ‘he jacked his shit,’ counselor,” the judge interceded without any trace of humor. “Move on.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” the attorney replied. “But he didn’t say he actually saw my client steal anything?” the attorney asked the informant.
“I said ‘move on,’ counselor,” Judge D’Amato warned. “We covered this already.”
The attorney slumped his shoulders and looked at his client. “Nothing further.”
Almost before the attorney left the podium, Morales took his place. If he hadn’t ducked at the last second, Morales would have elbowed him.
“Your Honor, the people renew their motion.-”
Judge D’Amato held up her hand to stop the young woman. “I’m inclined to agree, the case will stay docketed. But, I will allow bail. I’m setting bail at $15,000. Anything else?”
“No, Your Honor,” said both Morales and the disheveled attorney in unison.
“Very well, next case: People v. Beaumont.”
As Judge D’Amato rearranged her files, two deputies came to the defense table and took the orange-jumpsuited defendant back to a hidden room behind the witness box. They immediately returned with a bald, muscular black man, also wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles on his wrists and ankles. The deputies brought the shackled man over to the defense table, where Corbin and Beckett waited for the disheveled attorney to clear out.
“Good to see you again, Beaumont,” Beckett said to the black man.
“Who’s this,” Beaumont demanded, trying to point at Corbin, though the shackles kept him from raising his hands above his waist.
“This is the guy I told you about. He’s going to help. Alex, let me introduce Washington Beaumont. Beaumont, Alex Corbin.”
Corbin nodded, but Beaumont eyed him suspiciously. By the time Beckett first read about Beaumont’s case, Beaumont was already assigned a public defender. To convince Beaumont to drop the public defender and let Beckett represent him instead — and to explain why he wouldn’t charge Beaumont — Beckett told Beaumont that he works for a foundation which represents people who are unfairly targeted by the police. Beaumont accepted the explanation, primarily because his long association with the criminal justice system taught to distrust public defenders, but he remained suspicious, as he’d never heard of the foundation. He was particularly suspicious of Corbin, who dressed much more sharply than Beckett or the other people who normally worked for public interest organizations. Indeed, Corbin’s well-tailored, single-breasted, black suit, with his starched, French-blue, pure-cotton dress shirt, his dark-red designer tie, and his perfectly shined shoes, stood in stark contrast to Beckett’s dated and ill-fitting gray suit, his frayed, white, polyester shirt and paisley tie, and his un-shined shoes, which were breaking along the creases which appeared after years of hard use. Compared to Corbin, who looked like a professional, Beckett came across like a struggling solo-practitioner, who may or may not be living in his car.
Before Beaumont could quiz Corbin, Morales tossed a file onto the defense table. She didn’t say a word. Beckett picked up the file and flipped through it.
“Mr. Beaumont, welcome back,” Judge D’Amato called from the bench.
“Thanks Judge, can’t say I want to be here.”
“I can understand that, Mr. Beaumont, I can understand that,” the judge replied absently, as she flipped though the file. “Mr. Beckett, are you ready?”
“Yes, Your Honor, though I’ve only just received the prosecution’s file, so I really don’t know yet what my client has been charged with or why.” Beckett held up the thick file to emphasize his point.
“Are you ready to enter a plea?”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Beckett motioned Beaumont to stand up.
“How do you plead to the charges made against you,” the judge asked, without looking up from her file.
“Not fucking guilty.”
“‘Not guilty’ is enough, Mr. Beaumont. Let the record reflect the defendant entered a plea of not guilty. I’m going to hold the defendant over for trial. Do I hear any motions regarding bail?”