screen out a lot of the really petty stuff, since they're the first to hear someone who's just been booked. Like the old justices of the peace, they can accept certain misdemeanor guilty pleas and admissions of infractions, settle small claims, and issue warrants. (A magistrate is also, to my private disappointment, the only civil official who can perform marriages. I'd love to be able to marry my nieces and nephews.)
District court judges get all the rest of the non-jury trials. In addition to juvenile court, we conduct preliminary hearings to determine probable cause in felony cases, we have original jurisdiction over misdemeanors, and we adjudicate civil cases involving less than $10,000. Last year 130,000 cases were filed in superior court; 2.3
Considering our caseload, you'd think that judges out here on the barricades of justice would have a few perks, right? If not a personal secretary, at least access to a pool of clerical staff?
Uh-uh. We don't even get a paralegal to look up statutes or precedents.
No personal offices either. When I arrived at the courthouse on Tuesday morning, I robed myself in one of the small bare chambers not being used that day by Ned O'Donnell, a superior court judge sitting in Courtroom 2, or F. Roger Longmire, who would be hearing probable causes in 1. The eight-by-eight cubicle held an empty bookcase, an oak veneer desk, four metal tube chairs, and nothing else. Not even a pencil holder on the desk top.
There were two doors on the left wall. One led to a three-hanger closet, the other to an equally small lavatory. There was another door on the other side of the toilet. Presumably, it led to the room F Roger Longmire was using today.
I hoped I wouldn't forget to knock before barging on through the door because I certainly didn't know Longmire that well. Ned O'Donnell probably wouldn't give a damn, but I had to grin when I pictured the reaction of a judge like stuffy old Harrison Hobart if I walked in on him sitting there with his pants down. Probably give him a stroke quicker than the one that felled his pal Perry Byrd.
Just the thought of Hobart and Byrd made my temples throb and I opened the medicine cabinet over the sink, hoping to find something for my headache. I shouldn't have drunk that last bourbon-and-Pepsi.
Not that I was hung over exactly. I never drink too much.
Well . . . almost never.
Last night, though, some of my rowdier kinfolks had insisted on toasting my appointment a few times more than I should have let them, and another aspirin would certainly have been welcome. Unfortunately, this cupboard was bare, so I wet a paper towel with cold water and pressed it to my forehead a few minutes. That seemed to help.
Back in my chamber, I hung my green-and-white seer-sucker jacket in the closet and had no sooner zipped up my robe than Phyllis Raynor tapped on the door and handed in a piece of paper.
'Add-ons, Your Honor.'
'I hope this means you're clerking for me this morning,' I said as I adjusted the heavy folds of my flowing sleeves.
She smiled. 'Mr. Glover always assigns me to a new judge's first day.'
Very politic of him.
As clerk of the court, Ellis Glover could have sent up anybody he damn well pleased, but he knows that Phyllis is everybody's favorite. An attractive mid-forties, Phyllis Raynor is efficient, professional, and totally unflappable. She knows as much about courtroom protocol and procedure as any judge or attorney in the courthouse, but she's savvy enough not to flaunt it. She seldom gets backed up, not even when the judge is zapping out decisions, defendants are trying to sort out their judgment papers, and attorneys are clamoring for case numbers. The rare times I
God knows Ellis had plenty of those he could have sent up if he'd wanted to.
'Anything special on today?' I asked.
Phyllis shook her head reassuringly. 'Just the usual.'
She continued on down the hall to Courtroom 3, and I scanned the top sheet of the day's calendar—seven pages of traffic violations, assaults on females, worthless checks, and misuse of alcohol. Despite my own misuse of alcohol the night before, the heading gave me a sudden ripple of chill bumps:
IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE
DISTRICT COURT DIVISION—COUNTY OF COLLETON
DOBBS DISTRICT COURT
JUDGE PRESIDING: HONORABLE DEBORAH KNOTT
Phyllis had left the door ajar and as I savored the words, Reid Stephenson, my tall, good-looking cousin and ex-partner stuck his curly head in through the opening. Old Spice aftershave wafted in, too, and the familiar smell was comforting.
'Nervous?'
'Nope,' I lied and continued reading through the names. 'Any of these belong to you?'
'Just a couple of lead-foots who'll probably throw themselves on your mercy.'
We walked down the short hallway together. 'Mercy?' I said. 'What makes you think I have any mercy in me?'
''Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge,'' he reminded me, stealing one of John Claude's favorite quotes.
''Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy,'' I retorted from my own stock of Shakespeare.
At the end of the hall, several attorneys were clustered around the coffee maker that was kept plugged in year-round no matter how hot and muggy outside.
'Here come de judge,' someone murmured sotto voce.
'Good morning, Your Honor,' the others chorused.
