Dead Man's Thoughts by Carolyn Wheat Read Free Book Online

people’s coats in the pews, an open pen on the counsel table, but the human beings had all disappeared. I walked over to the clerk’s desk and looked through the pile of yellow commit cards. Blackwell’s had suicide watch/admin, seg. ctd . in the right place. Everything was okay.
    I walked out to the hall to see Mrs. Paculo and nearly knocked Judge Di Anci down with the door. “Seen my D.A.?” he asked.
    â€œNo,” I replied curtly. As long as Digna was in jail, I had no desire to be polite to Di Anci. I didn’t even bother to tell him the courtroom was on a break; let him find out for himself. As he reached for the door, he said, “By the way, Ms . Jameson, they want you in Jury One. Return on a warrant.”
    Just what I needed. A case upstairs. But I owed it to the Paculos to see them first. They were waiting in a corner, impatient for news.
    They didn’t like it much when it came. Paulie Paculo was facing Rob One. Two-to-six minimum. No possibility of probation.
    Mrs. Paculo was a stark contrast to her sister. Where Gloria Vinci had struck her son for disgracing the family, Theresa Paculo wanted the world to know her boy was innocent. It was all the fault of that white-trash Irishman Dennehy, and the sooner he was behind bars for good, the better. She wanted her son’s case dismissed today, and if it wasn’t maybe they would hire a real lawyer for the next court date.
    I was still seething as I climbed the stairs to the eighth floor to get to Jury One. What a woman, I thought; her precious son’s a passenger in a car stolen at gunpoint, and if I can’t make it all go away in one day, I’m not a real lawyer.
    Jury One was on a break too. Like a dummy, I’d left my Dick Francis novel downstairs, so there was nothing to do but sit and wait. When the bridgeman came in, I told him I’d had a message about a warrant. At first he looked puzzled, then said, “Oh, yeah, we got a guy returned on a warrant in the back. We don’t know whose case it is, just that it belongs to Legal Aid.”
    Oh, great. Dragged out of AP4 to come up here, and it’s not even my case. The trouble with judges is that they think Legal Aid lawyers are fungible. “Fungible” is my favorite law school word. It means interchangeable goods, like nuts and bolts, where one shipment is just as good as another. Unlike say, Picassos. We’re nuts and bolts, not Picassos.
    When I got back to AP4, court was already in session.
    I stood up on more cases. The red light on the phone blinked. I picked it up, talking softly so as not to disturb the court. “AP4,” I said.
    â€œWho is this?” It was my office-mate, Bill Pomerantz.
    â€œHi, Bill. It’s me, Cass. What’s up?”
    â€œYou’ve been elected chairman—or should I say chairperson—of the Cozzoli committee. Got a pen and paper handy?”
    â€œThat sounds like one of those orange Monopoly cards. You know, congratulations, you have been named chairman of the public works program. Pay each player fifty dollars.”
    He laughed, then read off a list of sandwich orders. It was an established tradition; whoever was in Criminal Court picked up hero sandwiches from Cozzoli’s on the way back to the office.
    â€œSee you soon.” I hung up just before the court officer ordered me to. Judge Whalen was glaring at me over his rimless spectacles. “If you’ve quite finished, Miss Jameson,” he said in his dry, thin voice, “maybe this court can conduct business. With your permission, of course?” I mentally stuck my tongue out at him.
    The court officers were rushing to call as many cases as possible before lunch, but still people were coming up to me to beg me to get their cases called. “Please, miss, I have to get to work.” “I have to pick up my child at school.” “I got a clinic appointment.” And my personal favorite, “I