Paul shook his head, felt a shudder in his chest even after all these years. “No. I was gonna do a General George Custer-wrap it all up before the rest of the army got there. If I could pull that off, I’d be promoted to Washington within a week. So, I talked to him, and he told me a few things. When the Washington guys got there, they finished his full confession. Month later, the dude comes up for trial. The defense lawyer successfully suppressed the whole confession because of the way they said I ‘forced’ him to talk without his lawyer. Entire case was tossed.”
Joan didn’t say anything for a while.
Paul took a deep breath. “I ended up here, answering telephones on Sunday afternoons.”
Joan reached for Paul’s right hand. Her fingers felt warm and slightly moist. “Be careful, Paul. ICE is all over it. I’m gonna blow the lid off this and uncover whatever’s underneath. Let us take the shots. We’ve been using some private contractors-don’t you breathe a word-that are great. How about the murder case? Will this slug El-Amin be convicted?”
“Don’t know. Our read is he’s the guy. DNA matched. We want him taken out. And the alibi witness … that’ll be taken care of.”
She urged Paul, “You should back-off. If Conway’s after your ass, don’t make it easy for him.”
He looked at her face, her hair and the brown color of roots peeking out from underneath the blonde. “It’s personal, Joan.”
“I can imagine. You want to prove yourself.”
“It’s more than that. It’s the families of the victims in Milwaukee. The victims here. I let them down, and I wanna make it right in some way.” He changed the subject. “How are your kids?”
“Kid. Just the one. Mark is ten. He’s great. Can’t say the same for his ‘bio-dad,’ who’s usually never around. He never helps with the tough stuff, like when Mark’s sick or has problems at school or with friends. Dad shows up for the fun things, like … sorry.” Joan stopped, blinked. “Sorry, they don’t let me out much anymore. I hardly date now-no time, and they’re so many losers out there.”
“It’s tough trying to do it all,” Paul paused. “I’d like children some day, but I have to sift through all those same ‘loser’ women out there.”
Joan said, “If we weren’t friends, I’d never be meeting like this. Be careful. Not only because of your boss, but this network has a long, well-financed reach. El-Amin may be in custody, but we don’t know how many others are out in the community with an interest in the case.”
“Yeah?”
“Who got the murdered kid back
“El-Amin?”
“He’s too low-level. There are people higher up here in the Cities. People smarter and more connected than he is-that’s who scare us. Who are they? And what will they do next?”
Paul sat back in his chair. Joan had echoed his fears.
She sighed, “Well, I’ll keep you in the loop as much as I can, but you’re on your own.” She leaned close to him. “If these guys think we’re getting too close to them, they’ll do anything to protect themselves.”
“If I get anything on this imam, the alibi witness, I’ll let you know. Some of these imams are real cooperative, but others smell like terrorists. This one smells to me.”
“Oh?”
“We’re getting a lot more traffic all of a sudden. Phone intercepts. It means something’s going on, but I don’t know what.”
Paul’s eyes dropped to the table, to their empty cups and Joan’s crumpled napkin stained with her ruby lipstick. It wasn’t himself he worried about. He thought of Zehra.
Fifteen
At eight-thirty, Zehra sat at the edge of the counsel table in Judge Palmer’s courtroom, as far from her client as she could. Jackie sat on the other side of their client, Mr. James Carlson.
She prayed this client woudn’t freak out and cause her trouble. She had enough stress from the murder case. But knowing Judge Palmer, Zehra was sure something would blow-up.
Jackie looked at Carlson. “We think the trial went well. What’d you think?”
Zehra felt her face twist tightly. Wrong question, Jackie. Well, she’d learn.
Mr. Carlson complained, “I don’t think I got a chance to really explain to the judge.”
“But you testified …” Jackie reminded him. She put on her dark glasses that almost hid her little nose.
“My daughter is making this all up because my former wife, the bitch, told her to blame me for touching her. I asked both of you to investigate that, but you haven’t done shit.”
Zehra held out her hand, palm down to him. “Sshh here comes the judge.”
They all rose and sat to the rhythm of the coming and going of the judge. Palmer wore his robe, but Zehra could see the lavender collar of a cotton golf shirt poking out from the top of the black cloth. He looked amused and smiled at things no one else thought funny.
Carlson had been charged with having sexual relations with his teenage daughter. After hearing all the evidence, Zehra knew he was guilty. During the pre-trial hearings, one of the court clerks, a good friend of Zehra’s, had approached her in the hallway of the courthouse to serve some papers on her client. Zehra smiled at the memory.
“Yo, Z,” the clerk asked, “I have these papers to serve. Can you point out your client?”
“This is all you need to know, Henry. He’s accused of having sex with his daughter.”
Henry blinked and waited for a description. When Zehra smiled at him, he nodded and disappeared around the corner. In three minutes, he returned. “Found him,” Henry said and, without cracking a smile, grinned with his eyes at Zehra. “Spotted him right away. You can always tell those kiddie sex offenders.”
At the counsel table, Zehra looked at Mr. Carlson. He was white, thin, had scraggly blonde hair, and was so pale, she could see blue veins streaked down his arms. He twitched constantly. He insisted on sucking throat lozenges because he said he had asthma. During the entire trial, Zehra heard him next to her, sucking and coughing over the lozenges. He sneezed on her shoulder.
Judge Palmer finally stopped grinning, looked at the file before him, peered up into the ceiling, looked down and spied Zehra, Jackie, and their alleged sex offender client. The prosecutor sat quietly at the other table. She was winning and knew enough to keep her mouth shut.
The judge stuck his head out like a chicken plucking for food and bobbed up and down. “Ready, counsel?” he said to both sides.
Suddenly, the judge ducked down behind the raised bench and disappeared. He remained submerged for a while. Two arms popped up. On each hand, he had a puppet. A green and a purple one wiggled back and forth.
Zehra had seen it before. She wondered how Carlson would react and how much calming down it’d take to keep him from bolting out of the courtroom. Maybe Jackie could tackle him.
Judge Palmer finally sat up and looked down at Mr. Carlson. “Sir, you see these?”
Carlson crunched a lozenge and choked it down. “Uh … yeah?”
“These are the people who’ll decide your case. This one,” he lifted his left hand, “is Not Guilty. This one is Guilty.” Judge Palmer wiggled his right hand. “After your lawyer’s argument, one of these will decide the verdict. So, you watch because when I duck down, one of these will come up and pronounce the verdict.”
Carlson jerked his head back and forth between Jackie and Zehra. He started to gag on his words.
“You got it, son?”
Carlson nodded slowly. “I … I guess,” he coughed something onto Zehra’s shoulder.
“Proceed, Counsel,” Judge Palmer ordered. He lowered his arms.
After both sides made their final arguments, they sat down. The judge looked up to the ceiling and twisted his lips in concentration. “Okay let me think about the evidence …” He rotated his head, nodded, and then looked down at this notes. “Okay.” He ducked below the bench.
The right hand puppet came up. From below the bench, a high-pitched voice said, “Guilty.” And the puppet
