business to maintain.”
Speaking in his own defense, Billy Wall was clearly embarrassed to be standing before me so soon after we’d met out at Jap Stancil’s pumpkin patch. He’d crammed his Royster fertilizer cap in the hip pocket of his jeans and his knuckles were rawboned as he leaned his hands against the table. He looked so much like one of my nephews as he earnestly explained how he’d gotten a little behind this fall that I couldn’t help feeling sympathetic toward him.
“My truck needed some work and a set of new tires, too, if I’m going to haul corn up to Washington, and then I had to pay my labor cash or they wouldn’t ready the corn. I swear I’ll give him his money soon as I get back next week, but, Judge, I just ain’t got it till then.”
I could have laid a fine on him in addition to court costs and restitution, but it seemed to me that if Mr. Thornton was going to keep on handing out credit so freely, he could just wait another week for the sixteen hundred dollars Billy Wall owed him. “But I don’t want to see you back in here with Mr. Thornton again,” I warned.
“No, ma’am,” he promised. “Thank you, ma’am.”
As he turned away, his young wife stood up to meet him with a relieved smile, and she, too, murmured thanks to me.
I smiled back and handed the judgment papers over to the clerk, then looked expectantly at Tracy Johnson, the assistant district attorney who was prosecuting today’s calendar. She seemed to be in yet another whispered conference between two attorneys. Court’s busy enough without these constant interruptions.
“What’s the holdup, people?” I asked impatiently.
“Sorry, Your Honor,” said Tracy, without a smidgin of sorrow in her tone as she reached for the next shuck. She’s been an ADA about a year longer than I’ve been on the bench. Tall, blond, knockout gorgeous. Or would be if she’d take off those ugly oversized glasses. She thinks they make her look more professional.
I shifted my gaze to the two attorneys who’d taken advantage of the six-second break that occurs when I sign a judgment and hand the paper over to the recording clerk. Sometimes there are legitimate and urgent reasons for a lawyer to speak with the ADA while court’s in session, but sometimes it’s just a matter of the lawyer’s convenience. Give them too much leeway and they’ll wind up conducting a lot of their business on your time.
“Mr. Whitbread? Mr. Stephenson? Either of you have clients on this morning’s calendar?”
Reid Stephenson’s my own cousin and former law partner and he was too familiar with my testy tone not to say “No, ma’am” and sit himself down, but Edward (“Big Ed”) Whitbread thought he had enough charm to get away with it. He gave me an ingratiating smile as he continued to lean over Tracy’s shoulder. “Your Honor, if I could just—”
“Unless this pertains to the next case, I suggest you speak to Ms. Johnson when we recess,” I said crisply. He probably had business elsewhere and hoped to clear up a small but crucial point with Tracy so he wouldn’t have to wait around till I was ready to recess.
“Sorry, Your Honor.” He lumbered over to squeeze his ample backside in between Reid and another colleague on the attorneys’ bench.
“Call your next case, Ms. Johnson.”
The next thirty-five minutes moved briskly as we disposed of some more guilty pleas. Pimply-faced black and white kids of both sexes stood penitently before my bench, nervous that they were about to lose their driver’s licenses before they’d even worn the new off. Unless they’ve done something really stupid like passing a stopped school bus, roaring through a residential section, or deliberately running a red light, I usually enter a prayer for judgment continued so that they don’t get points against their insurance or licenses.
At ten-thirty, a grandmotherly white woman came forward with a timid air. She didn’t look like a leadfoot even though she was charged with doing 57 in a 45 mph zone. Probably hadn’t noticed when a 55 zone changed to a 45.
“How do you plead?” I asked.
She hesitated nervously and seemed to be on the edge of blank panic.
I leaned forward and spoke as gently as I could. “Guilty or not guilty, ma’am?”
“Guilty,” she blurted. “But I’d sure appreciate it if you could offer up a prayer for my redemption?”
The attorneys and law officials seated on the side benches burst into laughter and I couldn’t stop my own lips from twitching as I said, “You haven’t been with us before, have you, ma’am?”
Bewildered, she shook her head.
I explained what a prayer of judgment was (basically a suspended sentence—the temporal equivalent of “go in peace and sin no more”), entered hers, then announced a fifteen-minute recess.
Three lawyers swarmed toward Tracy.
As I stepped through the courtroom door and out into the corridor, I, too, was waylaid by people who wanted my signature on various documents. I signed a search warrant, a couple of show causes, and a temporary restraining order against a well-known merchant here in Dobbs who always treats his wife with old-fashioned courtesy. At least, that’s how he always treats her in public. According to her attorney, he’d broken her nose last night. For the second time in two years.
I haven’t been on the bench long enough not to still be surprised by the violence that can rage behind a lovely facade of heirloom silver and Queen Anne mahogany.
Eventually I made it to the rest room off the small office assigned to me this week, and when I emerged, I found Merrilee Yadkin Grimes clicking up and down in turquoise high heels in front of the bare desk. She’s a Clairol auburn, a perfect size four body inside that turquoise suit, and five or six years older than me.
(“Than
“Hey, Merrilee, what’s up?” I asked. Dallas’s cousin works in Raleigh, a middle manager of something with the Department of Transportation, and would normally be in her own office on a Monday morning.
“It’s not what’s up, but what’s out,” she said, her little Yadkin eyes flashing.
