their unfitness as parents.
There were thirty-four matters on the criminal list. Judge Cavanaugh was seated behind his desk. He cupped his hand over the microphone on the bench that fed the tape machines recording all public utterances at every session, and leaned forward so that his face and Merrion's were barely a foot apart. 'Hate to tell you this, Judge,' Merrion said in a low voice as soon as he had reached the clerk's desk, one step down in front of the judge's, and turned his back on the crowd, 'but as soon's you get through arraignments today, we got four domestic violence cases onna list I gotta ask you to hear. We got these two women comin' in, new, but the usual thing say they want restraining orders, husbands battin' them around. And there's a guy today, too, little change of pace Ellsworth Ryan's his name wants one. I told him he hadda come in front ah you.
'I dunno what to make of this bird. He looks like he should be able to take care of himself all right, but he says she's always telling him he's got to sleep sometime. That's all she says, nothin' else, but that's enough for him: he thinks that means that when he sleeps she's gonna get him. So, what do I know, huh? Ellsworth says he hasn't been able to get any rest. He's afraid to go to sleep. Says he's afraid if he does, his devoted wife Sheila, she gets a few too many drinks in her, she'll come and stick a bread knife in him while he's got his eyes closed and he can't defend himself.
'And then we got the Federico matter comin' up again, for your listening pleasure. Johnny Federico. His wife's name is Tishie, you recall. You oughta be pretty close to being on a first-name basis now.
You put the paper on him, week ago, and far as we know, until yesterday he's okay, left her alone. Now she says she wants him violated. Had him picked up on the restraining order early last night. Cops held him overnight in the lock-up up the Pond, meditate upon his sins.
'She says he come home Sunday evening; he'd been to the ballgame, Sons of Italy from Holyoke hired a bus, took it down to Fenway Park, an' he had too much beer to drink. Must've got it onna bus. That horse-piss they sell at the ball-park now hasn't got enough kick in it give a young nun half a charge. Got back to Holyoke all fulla beer, and he decided: 'Well, this'd be an awful good time, go back home and violate the order.' Which he knows perfectly well he's not supposed to do, since you told him to stay the hell away from her and leave her alone.
But he went there and started whalin' the shit outta her again.
Neighbors called the cops but he either heard 'em comin' or else he got tired and left when they got there he was gone. She makes out a complaint though, so they're onna lookout for him, and they grab him six this morning, someone spots him sleepin' it off inna park. So that's what he did last night. And if he tries to tell you that it wasn't him, ask him who it was; we gotta find him, 'cause he's mean.
Her face's all bruised. He kicked her a couple times too, for good measure. Good thing for her he's not a soccer fan, he does this after a baseball game.
'Says she wants him put away this time. Ludlow, Lancaster; anywhere they got a bed anna lock onna door he can't open from the inside. Not changin' her mind this time, backin' down from this man any more.'
'Uh huh,' the judge said, 'well, we'll see about that, wont we? She has before, I recall.'
'Twice,' Merrion said. 'Twice she's done it to us. Come in and said 'This time he's got to go.' And then when you tell him he's gonna do six months, she's starts to scream and holler, 'No, no, you can't do that. How'm I gonna pay the rent, you put my Johnny in jail? Never see my man again.'
'Ain't love grand,' Cavanaugh said.
Four of the matters on the docket that Monday were bail revocations; the defendants had attracted attention to themselves by doing something sufficiently annoying to interest cops. The cops instead of immediately arresting them had detained them long enough to type their names into the computer. There without surprise they had found there was no need to make a new arrest of the annoying person, necessitating another paperwork-hassle to take him out of circulation; he'd already failed to show up to answer charges lodged against him by other cops on one or more previous occasions. Therefore he could be rousted on the basis of the existing paperwork and taken off the street.
Three were hearings on probation-office motions for orders to commit probationers who had exceeded the considerable patience of their supervising officers, usually first by not bothering to show up for their appointments and then making it worse by disappearing when the probation officers went looking for them.
One case was a State Police turnpike speeding ticket charging the defendant with operating his motor vehicle in excess of 90 miles an hour, but not with operating so that the lives and safety of the public might have been endangered. This meant that after an exhilarating pursuit with whooping siren and flashing multi-colored strobe- lights through early-morning thin or non-existent other traffic the cop had arrested him for doing triple digits but otherwise driving competently, and that the driver once pulled-over had been sober and polite, with all his papers in good order, and had not insulted the cop's intelligence by trying to lie his way out of it. The cop had given him a break, so now the guy was going to see whether being sober and polite maybe even contrite in the courtroom would get him found Not Guilty, thus rescuing him from a fine, surfine and costs that would set him back just under $400, and guarantee a surcharge on his car insurance every year for the next five that would make him feel like he was bleeding from the ears each time he paid it. If the cop showed up to give evidence, the gambit wouldn't work, but neither Merrion nor Cavanaugh ever blamed a guy for trying.
There were four drunk-and-disorder lies two of them combined with charges of making an affray, the arrests having been made in bars in Hampton Pond and Cumberland after the managers carried out threats to call the cops if noisily quarrelsome patrons refused to quiet down.
There were two cases of driving under the influence of alcohol. There were three narcotics cases, two of them the people Merrion had met in the Canterbury lock-up Saturday night.
'On the Rosenbaum matter,' Merrion whispered to Cavanaugh, 'the Rosenbaum and also the Fernandez matter, Leah Rosenbaum and Felipe Fernandez, his goes with hers. She's the barmaid up at Cannonball's.
You can see her sittin' back there in the third row, over to the left beside the wall, young broad with big tits and a long blondish ponytail, see her over there?'
'Sleeveless red blouse, tight white jeans?' Cavanaugh whispered. 'She the one that just stood up there?'
Merrion turned enough so that he could sneak a glance over his right shoulder. Leah Rosenbaum had inflated her chest and was tucking her shirt in, looking toward the bench; she saw him peeking. She smirked.
He felt his neck getting red. 'That's her,' he said, turning back.
Cavanaugh concealed a smile from everyone in the courtroom but Merrion.
Merrion tried to ignore him. 'Fernandez's the movie-star dude with the black hairdo sittin' next to her there. He's her foot-soldier, gofer delivery boy.
'Cocaine charge. Fairly heavy one, about thirty-five grams, time you get through. State Police matter. We've had a call from Mister Cohen's office this morning, and they say he'll be representing Miss Rosenbaum, and maybe well, make that 'probably' — Fernandez as well. But he's engaged before Judge Segal in the probate court up in Northampton this morning, will be all day, and so he asks at least that both these matters be held for second call, so they can get somebody here to enter pleas for them. But preferably just go off the calendar, put over for a week, if that would be okay with you here, until he's had a chance to have a talk with the DA. Let it go off the list 'til a week from Tuesday. See whether they can work something out, maybe avoid a trial here.'
'Geoffrey Cohen's handling drug cases now?' Cavanaugh murmured, raising his right eyebrow. 'My my. Music of the Renaissance and crack cocaine. 'Tonight my friends, for you we have: con certi by Corelli and Scarlatti, and a gram or two.' Quite a combination. Branching out a bit, is he?'
'Looks like,' Merrion said. 'Hard even for him, I guess, as much as he must be makin,' all of those domestic cases, resist the kind of retainers dopers offer these days.'
'Continuance look all right to you on it?' Cavanaugh whispered. 'Look, I know if Geoffrey's on it, oughta be okay, his word's usually good.
But you hadda close look at these two birds: think there's any chance they'll flee?'
'Aww, I'd doubt it,' Merrion said. 'You always got that chance, of course, maybe the bastards bolt. But they had since Saddy-night to run and here they are today. I'd say 'No, I don't think so.' They look all right to me.'
Cavanaugh nodded. 'Off the list then,' he said. 'Give Geoff his week, which as usual with him's gonna come to about nine days. Like they say about his divorces: when he represents the wife, he thinks her half a hundred grand oughta work out to about seventy-five thousand bucks. But what the hell; like you say: anything to avoid a trial here.'
Other cases were: one larceny by check; one grand larceny, motor vehicle; one petty larceny, shoplifting; one failure to heed a Stop sign, Canterbury; four attaching plates, uninsured and unregistered motor vehicle; and eleven
