First Degree by David Rosenfelt Read Free Book Online Page A

couldn’t be proved. Make-up calls are for NBA refs, not our courts.
    So an injustice may be committed. So what? I’m aware of injustices all the time, which I can’t do anything about. The world is full of them; putting away Garcia is a fairly mild example.
    And who said he’ll be put away? If he didn’t do it, which he didn’t, then how strong can the evidence be? The prosecution won’t be able to prove its case, he’ll walk, they’ll catch the real murderer, and all will be right with the world. My job is to feed a couple of dozen ducks and have a nice afternoon with Tara.
    I’ve just got to drop this Garcia thing. Wipe it from my mind.
    I can’t.
    I leave Tara back home and go down to the courthouse. The court clerk, Rita Golden, is on a lunch break that her secretary tells me should be over in ten minutes. I position myself in the hallway outside her door, and she comes back two minutes ahead of schedule.
    I like Rita. She lets you know exactly where you stand, all the while doing her job with total efficiency. That job is to keep the court schedule running smoothly and protect the judges from pain-in-the-ass lawyers like me.
    Rita talks about two things: the court and sex. She does this simultaneously and creatively and lets me participate. For instance, when she sees me standing by her door, she says, “Andy, is that a gavel in your pants, or are you happy to see me?”
    “I’m always happy to see you, you hot little clerk you.” She’s clearly better at this than I am.
    “Then why don’t you come into my office, and I’ll conduct a direct examination?” she says. “I’ll be the aggressive lawyer, you can be the hostile witness. There won’t be anyone around to object.”
    “Alas, my heart belongs to another. But you can have everything else.”
    She laughs, then gets down to business. “What’s up?”
    “I want to know if Garcia has representation,” I say.
    She enters the office and I follow her in, talking as we go.
    “That would depend on who Garcia is,” she logically points out.
    “The guy they arrested for Dorsey,” I say.
    “Oh, right, another of the wrongly accused.” She reaches her desk and looks for the information on the list. “PD,” she says, which means the case has been assigned to the public defender.
    “Thanks, Rita,” I say, and turn to leave.
    “Don’t tell me you’re scrounging around for clients,” she says. “Not with your money.”
    “Money isn’t everything.”
    She nods. “You’re right. Sex is everything. And if the money’s right, I’ll prove it to you.”
    I barely get out of there with my male dignity intact, and I head down to the public defender’s office. Movies generally portray public defenders in one of two ways. One version has them as courageous defenders of our precious rights, fighting on despite a horrible work over-load, a woefully inadequate budget, and working conditions straight out of
Oliver Twist
. The other view has them as incompetent hacks who couldn’t make it anywhere else and who guarantee their poor clients a life in prison due to miserable representation.
    In this jurisdiction, neither portrayal is accurate. For the most part, PDs are tough, competent lawyers who do a damn good job. They are in fact overworked, but the system provides them with an adequate budget to represent their clients. It wouldn’t fund the dream team, but if an expert witness is needed, it gets paid for. As far as office space goes, it’s a hell of a lot nicer than mine. Of course, as Edna would point out, that ain’t saying much.
    The head of the Public Defender Division is Billy Cameron, nicknamed Bulldog, not because of his considerable tenacity on behalf of his clients but because he played wide receiver for the University of Georgia. Legend has it that he caught eleven passes for four touch-downs to beat Auburn. I would have been about five years old at the time, so of course, I don’t remember the game, but I probably bet on