A Gambler's Jury Page 2

  “Hey, wisdom is found everywhere. Don’t knock it. See, now, my life is a painting. I wake up in the morning with no idea what I’m going to do or where I’m going to go. I surf whatever waves there are. And that’s it. I go where life takes me. My father lived his life like a clock. I mean, down to the minutes. Exactly eleven minutes to take a dump in the morning, fifteen minutes to shower and dress. When my mother and he had sex, it was scheduled: one time a week for fifteen minutes, always missionary . . . it was crazy.”

  “I’m not gonna ask how you know your parents only did it missionary, but I get what you’re saying. But that doesn’t apply to me anymore. I’m not twenty, Michelle. I’ve got a kid.”

  She put her hand on my arm. “That’s exactly when you need to choose which one to be.”

  3

  My day usually started with figuring out where the hell I was. This morning, I was in my own bed. True, I was still wearing my clothes from yesterday, but still an A plus for waking up someplace where I could shower and change.

  I put on a gray suit with a white shirt and thought I looked like my father. I didn’t remember much about my father in those early years—mostly how little he was around. I was eight when he finally left, and I don’t remember being sad about it. My mother and I accepted it. At least I thought my mother had accepted it, until the day she abandoned me to the foster care system.

  The thoughts were bringing me down and I didn’t want to be down. The sunlight came through the windows, I heard birds somewhere, and the weather was pleasant and cool. I wanted today to be a good day. So I changed my suit into something that didn’t make me look like a virgin schoolteacher—black blazer and jeans—and I checked my fridge for something to eat. Beer and a bottle of ketchup. I chugged half a beer and left the house.

  Looking at today’s calendar on my phone, I had a court appearance in the morning, a motion hearing in the afternoon, and two client consults in the evening. Not a bad day at all. I got into my car and looked over to my neighbor Beth’s house. As always, she was standing on her porch, and she waved to me. I waved back. Before I could pull out, she came over and shoved a granola bar through the open window.

  “I washed your dish,” I said. “It’s inside.”

  She brushed my hair out of my face with her fingers and tucked it behind my ear, making me look a little more presentable. “You’re a beautiful girl,” she said. “You need to show it to the world more.”

  I thanked her for the granola bar and pulled away. If it wasn’t for Beth bringing me food, I might have just been drinking beer all day.

  I listened to the Stones on the way to court in Draper City, the most affluent part of Salt Lake County.

  The bailiff knew me, and on my way into court said, “You look like shit, Dani.”

  “Thank you, Hank. Always a pleasure to get insulted by a man who still lives with his mother.”

  “I told you that was temporary.”

  I went into the courtroom and saw the prosecutor at her table. Christina Montoya grinned at me and leaned back in her seat. “Quite a spectacle at the jury trial. I think that’s the fastest verdict I’ve ever gotten.”

  I crouched down near her. The trial she mentioned had been a disaster—a DUI where my client got on the stand and said he had drunk sixteen beers that night but felt fine. I don’t know what possessed him to say that; we’d gone over his testimony ten times. Christina did have a sweet quality that made people want to be honest. Maybe my client had just been caught off guard. The jury convicted him in less than a minute.

  “Gloat much?” I asked.

  “I’m not gloating. Well, maybe a little. You were trying so hard to win. It was adorable actually.”

  “If he’d stuck to our game plan, the shoe could very easily be on the other foot. I like to think I’d be lady enough not to gloat.”

  She shrugged. “When we hanging out again?”

  “How about lunch?”

  “It’s a date. I can’t get out of here till one.” She opened her file. “As for our dear Mr. Passey, I’ll reduce it to an infraction and give him a reduced fine in exchange for a guilty plea.”

  “Done.”

  An infraction was a crime that wasn’t a crime. It wouldn’t show on a criminal history report and no incarceration was possible. The judge could issue a fine, but had no means to enforce it other than dinging the defendant’s credit. By any measure, it counted as a solid win. I turned to the audience and saw my client, an elderly man with white hair, sitting in the back. I motioned for him to follow me outside.

  We stood to the side of the courtroom entrance. “Marty, you gotta take the deal I’ve worked out. They’ve got you on video hitting that girl.”

  “She was mouthing off to me. I already told you. And I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  I don’t know why clients always said that—as though they deserved to have their problems disappear because they’d never been caught doing it before: “I know I shot that dude but I ain’t never killed anyone before.” “I don’t understand why they putting me on trial; I ain’t never run over anyone before now.” “I know I beat my wife but I’ve never been convicted of that before; they should just dismiss it.” “I know I drove drunk but it’s the first time I’ve been caught. They should just make the case disappear.”

  “Marty, it’s being reduced to an infraction. It won’t be on your criminal history and the judge can only impose a fine. You can pay it or not pay it, and he can’t really do anything to you.”

  “Would I have to say guilty?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “No way then. I didn’t do nothin’ she didn’t deserve.”

  This was probably the hardest part of my job: convincing the unreasonable to be reasonable. Three witnesses saw him strike the woman, there was a cell phone video, and the judge had five daughters and a pet peeve for males who laid a finger on females. Sometimes it felt like my job was nothing more than falling on swords.

  “Trial then?”

  He nodded. “Damn straight.”

  We went back in, and the judge grinned and said, “Ms. Rollins. Wearing your Sunday best again, I see.”

  I glanced down at my jeans and blazer and thought they looked fine. Then I noticed my shoes. I’d put on my white Chuck Taylors. Well, that was a risk of the profession.

  “I tied them, Judge. Just for you.”

  “I appreciate that.” He turned to his computer. “What are we doing with Mr. Passey?”

  “Trial, please.”

  “Sixty days out okay for everyone?”

  “It is,” I said.

  “That’s fine, Your Honor,” Christina said.

  “Your Honor, may I just say that it’s refreshing to be in a courtroom where fuckery has no place. I mean that in the nicest way.”

  I think I heard a gasp from the audience. Maybe it wasn’t the court to drop an F-bomb in, but I had to let the judge know how much I appreciated him not yelling at me or degrading me or my client. Cool and collected. Even after I cussed, all he said was, “Please be here a half hour early so we can go through jury instructions on the day of trial.”

  I leaned toward Christina and said, “Leave the offer open. I’ll try to get him to take it.”

  “No promises.”

  I checked my phone when I got outside and didn’t see any calls from Stefan or our son, Jack. The two people I most wanted to hear from.

  I didn’t have the patience to talk to Marty right now. I would hit him up the day before trial, when a lot of clients grow afraid of conviction, and see if I could convince him to take the deal. I had a few hours before my next court appearance so I went to a local bookstore, something that soon would go the way of the dodo so had to be enjoyed now.

  The store smelled of coffee, dust, and books. I got a cup of coffee and wandered around for a while.

  A quick lunch with Christina followed at some sushi place where we talked about anything but work. I had met her outside of the cour
troom when she gut-punched a defendant who grabbed her boob. It was an instant friendship from then on.

  “You seem sad,” she said.

  I didn’t know how to respond so I ordered us two beers. She didn’t want any so I drank them both.

  When I left, I headed to the Salt Lake City Justice Court and was trying to parallel park when a lawyer named Farley pulled into the spot from behind me.

  “Are you serious?” I said. I rolled down my window and shouted, “Get your own damn spot, Farley.”

  “I was here first.”

  “The hell you were. I’m halfway in already.”

  “So am I, and the front end gets priority.”

  “What? That’s not a thing.”

  “Yes it is. Now move your ass.”

  I backed up a few more inches and lightly tapped his car.

  “What the hell are you doing, Danielle! You hit me.”

  I began revving the engine, my back bumper pushing against the front bumper of his car. The curse words spilling out of his mouth would have made a pimp blush. I made one hard push, and he finally backed up and flipped me off as he drove around the block to find another spot.

  The metal-detector bailiffs waved me through, past a crowd of onlookers waiting in line who scowled at me. “Hey,” I said as I turned to them, “I suffered through three years of law school and got an anal fissure from the stress. I should get some recompense, don’t you think?”

  “No. Get back in line,” someone said. I ignored them and went to the courtroom.

  The case was a simple charge of exhibition driving. My guy and another had raced their souped-up cars on the street and got busted by a cop who was sitting outside a bagel shop. My client was in the back row, with his girlfriend. He had spiky black hair, a giant silver chain, and a tattoo of a naked stripper on his arm, which he felt the need to expose in all its glory to the judge and prosecutor today.

  I was in and out in less than ten minutes. Quick plea, six-hundred-dollar fine, and good luck to the client.

  4

  My office always seemed colder and emptier in the afternoons, and I tried not to be there if at all possible. Client consults were the only reason I came in after two. Kelly sat at the front desk typing something up. I had found Kelly at a big firm, fresh out of college, when I went there for a deposition. Everyone there treated the staff, particularly the female staff, like crap. At the deposition, the partners forced her to sit quietly in the corner. One of them, a big guy in an expensive gray suit with massive male boobs, said something that pissed me off and I called him Adolph Titler, which caused her to laugh to no end. The partner fired her right there, and I immediately hired her.

  She said, “One consult cancelled, the other one should be here in a sec.”

  I sat at my desk. My degrees hung on the wall along with various honors that meant nothing but somehow impressed clients. I leaned my head back and thought about my conversation with Michelle yesterday. I didn’t see how it was fair that a girl like Peyton the Duck Serial Killer got a guy like my ex. Stefan was humble and sweet, and she was flashy and cruel and a hunter who posed next to beautiful animals she had just slaughtered, with a ridiculous grin on her face. But what could I do about it? Life seemed to be random chaos on top of random chaos, dragging you by the short hairs. Maybe the point was not to show life how much power it really had. Also, I’d cheated on Stefan. He had every right to leave me and marry whoever he wanted, and I had no right to complain.

  The comm buzzed and Kelly said, “They’re here.”

  “Send ’em back.”

  A moment later, a middle-aged couple walked in with a boy. The man was in a red jacket with a logo for FHY Pharmaceuticals over the breast and gray sweatpants, and the woman wore a nice sweater. The boy was probably around sixteen or seventeen. He was black and the parents were white.

  The boy crossed and uncrossed his fingers as he held his hands up, and he smiled widely as he looked around the office. He had bits of food stuck to his chin and lips.

  The woman held out her hand and I shook it.

  “I’m Riley Thorne, nice to meet you,” she said softly. “This is my husband, Robert, and our son, Teddy.”

  “Nice to meet you guys.”

  Teddy said, “I rode the elevator here.”

  His voice went from a low pitch to a high one, and the wide smile stayed on his face. I didn’t know what type of disability he had, but it was severe enough that he couldn’t keep his gaze on anything for too long. His eyes went from me, to the diplomas on the wall, to the window, to the desk, to the floor, back to me . . .

  Riley Thorne pulled out an iPad and giant headphones, and put them on the boy. Teddy immediately laughed and began to play some game as the three of them sat down.

  “His official diagnosis is severe intellectual disability, but we don’t use those words around him,” she said, sensing my curiosity. “We adopted him at three months and didn’t find out until . . . I don’t know, a year later maybe. We couldn’t put him back into that awful foster care system, so he’s been our boy now for seventeen years.”

  I just gave a dopey, understanding grin, unsure what else to do. I knew the foster care system well, and not once did anyone ever consider adopting me. It was the dream of every foster kid that some loving family would take you in as their own, and I wondered how different my life would’ve been had a nice couple like this adopted me.

  “My secretary told me you guys had a family member charged with drug distribution, is that right?”

  She nodded. “It’s Teddy.”

  I looked at Teddy, who made a noise between a laugh and a hiccup as he tapped ceaselessly on the iPad.

  “Teddy?” I said.

  “Yes, it’s a complete joke, Ms. Rollins.”

  “Call me Dani. Why’s it a joke?”

  “Teddy doesn’t go out. He doesn’t have any friends, not really. Just some kids from a class that we take him to four times a week. There’s this neighbor boy who Teddy just worships—Kevin. Teddy’s known him his whole life.” She paused. “Kevin’s just, I guess, everything Teddy isn’t. He plays sports; he’s on the high school baseball team; he dates girls . . .”

  Robert Thorne chimed in, “He’s got a scholarship to play for Arizona State.” The pride in his voice was clear, as though he were talking about his own son. “He’s a good kid. Like Teddy. They both are.”

  “Yes,” Riley said sadly. “So you can imagine that Teddy really likes him. I don’t know why, but he asked if Teddy wanted to come play games at their friend’s house. We don’t let Teddy out on his own, so I said that he couldn’t go. Teddy really wanted to, though, so he sneaked out and went with Kevin. I don’t know all the details, but the next thing I knew, the police were at our house saying Teddy was arrested for trying to sell cocaine. Teddy doesn’t know what cocaine is. He has no conception of money or wealth. He couldn’t sell something if he wanted to.”

  I looked at Teddy again, whose mouth was open as he lost himself in the iPad. A handsome boy who wore a shirt with too many stains to count. He had large, soft, brown eyes that looked like a doe’s eyes: innocent and open.

  “Is this the first criminal charge Teddy’s ever had?”

  “Of course. He never even leaves the house except to play in the front yard and watch Kevin with his friends.”

  “And he’s seventeen?”

  “Yes, but he turns eighteen soon.”

  “Do you mind if I talk to him?”

  She gently took the headphones off her son and said, “Teddy, this is Danielle. She would like to ask you some questions.”

  Teddy looked at me and breathed out of his nose before he said, “I rode the elevator here.”

  “I know. Was it fun?”

  “Yeah, it goes really fast.”

  “Little too fast for me. What are you playing?”

  “Um . . . it’s birds and they fly through the air and hit these pigs.”

  “I’ve played it.” I leaned forward. “Teddy, do
you remember going out with your friend Kevin the other night?”

  “Kevin . . . Kevin is my friend.”

  “Is he?”

  “Kevin is my friend, yeah. He says we’re pals.” He looked down at the desk. “He says we’re pals.”

  “That night you went out with Kevin, do you remember what happened?”

  “No, because Kevin said we’re pals, see. So I don’t remember.”

  “I know Kevin’s your pal, buddy, but he would want you to tell me what happened. I’m here to help you.”

  His brow furrowed a moment. “Yeah, Kevin’s my pal. And he said he would take me to play games, see. And that we could play basketball because he has a ball. I can’t play basketball. My mama says I’d get hurt. I’d get hurt. So Kevin will take me to play.”

  “Where were you with Kevin on that night you went out with him?”

  “At a house. And they had fruit punch there.” He laughed. “They had fruit punch, and Kevin said I could have as much as I want, and they were playing games.”

  “Do you remember what happened after you had the fruit punch?”

  “Yeah, we drove, we drove, and then the police came and then I went home. I went home. Kevin said that it would be okay, and he would take care of me. I went home.”

  Riley said, “The officer said they weren’t taking him to jail because of his condition. He was a nice enough guy. He brought him back to us.”

  “Yeah, I rode in a police car, and they said I can’t hear the siren, see. The siren is only for emergencies.”

  “That’s right, buddy, it is.” I thought for a second. “Did Kevin tell you to do anything that night?”

  “Yeah, we’re playing games, see. And we were going to play basketball but not football because Kevin says football eats ass.”

  “Teddy!” Riley gasped.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. I cleared my throat when his parents looked at me disapprovingly. “Tell me about the police, Teddy. When did the police get there?”

  “Yeah, the police said I could ride in the car but I couldn’t hear the siren, see. Because it’s only for emergencies.”

  I nodded. I leaned back in my seat and watched the parents as Riley put the headphones on her son again.