Chapter 12; Back to the law
Musical Theme; Fortunate one by Credence
In the morning, Will went back to the DA office. Everyone wanted to ask him about something. For the most part, he found out what they wanted to do and affirmed their decisions. He went to his office, and found the fish tanks were all done. He watched the black mollies for a while. The discs were cruising around looking happy.
He had very little paperwork, because he had delegated everything. He went up front and sat on Poquita’s guest chair. She was wearing a maroon satin pantsuit with black pumps.
“Nice outfit.”
“Thanks. I love my cichlids.”
They looked at the 400 gallon tank. The little fishes came out from the holes in between the rocks warily.
“They get a little excited when they get the tubifex worms. Quint says you’re right not to worry if they get in the gravel. They get in, they eat some detritus, and then the fishes eat them. He says we can’t really have a balanced ecosystem because we want too many fishes to look at for that.”
“I think that’s right.”
“Come back, let’s look at the other tanks.”
She hit a key. “Helen, you have incoming calls.”
“OK, Poquita.”
They went back to Will’s office.
“Your severums have grown.”
“They will be six inches long at maturity.”
“What will you feed them then?”
“They like lettuce and night crawlers.”
“Lettuce?”
“Get a clean leaf and cut it in bits some time and try them.”
“The Discus are very dignified. They might have been the best thing to put in the front office.”
“The Malawi cichlids are furtive and paranoid. Maybe that’s more appropriate.”
“Quint says these are a plecostomus catfish and a spiny eel. I don’t know what the new fish is.”
“He’s an Oscar. We might get an Arowana. Someone talked about trading it in. Looks like an eel with catfish whiskers. They jump, so you must keep the tank covered if we get him. We don’t want to come in and find him dead on the carpet.”
Steve came in. “Will, the senior prosecutors want a conference.”
“OK”
Will went to the conference room, and they were all there.
Steve the Mouse, of course
Leslie Barens, a battered looking brunette of about 45 who ran sex crimes.
Todd Lauren, a blonde man of about 40 with a no nonsense look. He ran crimes against persons, and tried cases about 4 days a week on top of his supervisory duties.
Jessie Holt, a petite blonde who ran homicides, and had put more people on death row than any living lawyer in Oregon.
Mick Stone, a short pudgy man with black hair who ran property crimes.
Herb Katz, a tall thin man with curly black hair, who was as Jewish as his name, who did robbery and major felonies
Aaron Mason, a rather ordinary looking man with brown hair who ran misdemeanors and miscellaneous crimes, known for his motions.
Will took a seat. “I guess I’m in trouble.”
Jessie opened. “You’re not providing enough direction.”
“You need me to tell you how to try cases?”
“No. I want you to discuss them with me. I want to know that you think I’m right to ask for death or not to.”
Herb said “I don’t need you to tell me how to try a case either, but you have to plot the course our ship is going to take. What is our policy?”
“To seek justice. To incapacitate the truly evil. To give those who simply acted foolishly a little slack. To take out the super bad guys.”
Aaron asked “What is a super bad property crime? When can I meet with you and see what you think of a specific case? Should we pursue the car thieves?”
“OK guys, I understand this problem, and I will address it by going to your offices and letting you yell at me, vent, ask, whatever you need. Is there another issue?”
Todd spoke up. “We need our front man. You need to announce and explain office policy. You say you will take the heat, but you have to announce the policy, and then when we do what you told us to do, we say ‘he said to’, then you will really be taking the heat.”
“This is generally perceived as a problem?”
They nodded.
“OK, so I need to get out in front and show the colors.”
Leslie said “Will, crimes against women begin with attitudes. Yours is that women must be protected. That’s real sweet. But you have to take that to the public, that we are doing just that. In this room, we all know you would take the child molesters, pimps and rapists and throw them in a wood chipper. We also know you can’t state it quite that bluntly on Channel 2, but we do see how you can talk. Talk for us.”
Herb spoke. “We need to get across that innocent people die in robberies. This isn’t a movie where the guys who do a heist are not so bad. They are very bad. Tell people about it. You’re the preacher. You don’t need to tell us, you need to tell them.”
Mick said. “You are perceived as the DA who went to take pictures of Marcie Della. We don’t mind that but we don’t want our office to be perceived as dilettantes and piddlers. Get out in front and roar a little. Remind everyone that you’re not some wimp with a camera. Don’t get me wrong; if I could make a camera do what you can, you would need someone else to do property crimes. But we need the image of a tough, no nonsense DA office or we will not get much done.”
Will made the rounds of the office and discussed cases with every ADA who was in the office. He said a lot of ‘right’ ‘I think so’ ‘Sounds good to me’ and such phrases. He made a few suggestions, and poured in a lot of ‘I have confidence in you’ ‘your judgment won’t be questioned’ ‘It’s up to you’ ‘you know the facts, you decide’ ‘it’s your call’ ‘try your case your way’.
On some serious cases, he shook out the prosecutor’s thinking, and made them explain their severity or leniency. His criticism was as mild as a June southerly.
In the early afternoon, he got a chance to correct his second deficiency. Someone robbed a convenience store and shot the clerk. The media descended, and Will came out.
“Mr. District Attorney, will this suspect be charged with capital murder?”
“He might be. I will assign the case to a DA who knows about this area, and he or she will evaluate the case, and decide whether or not to seek it. I will review the decision but it is unlikely I will change it.”
“So you don’t tell your assistants what to do?”
“These are professional prosecutors. Lawyers with doctorate degrees. Not a janitorial crew. The ability to think and make important decisions is part of their job description. If I confer with a DA and consider his decision to be completely wrong, I will change it. But I do not micromanage. I tell my assistants to do justice, and to conduct themselves with dignity and honor. Yes, I tell them what to do. I’m responsible to the People for what they do. They are doing what I told them to.”
“Will, do we have a violent crime problem?”
“Since a guy named Cain got out of hand, we have had.”
“What’s going to be done about it?”
“About what has been. It sort of works. With a little more freedom of action for my ADAs, constructive criticism, and a little help, I hope to make this office more effective in doing our part.”
“Are the police doing their part?”
“Oh, yes. They bring us more than we can prosecute or jail. They should have increases in uniforms and detectives both, but who wants to pay for it? I would suggest we will pay more in losses to crime than a few more cops would cost, but nobody will listen. We could put pressure on the politicians to stop using the police to sit by the side of the road looking to write speeding tickets just for the money.”
“Have you ever driven faster than the speed limit, Will?”
“Roll up a newspaper. I’ve been a bad kitty.”
“Will, do you have a comment about Marcie Della and her latest indiscretions?”
What that referred to, Will did not want to know. “I have already said what I have to say about her on her web site.”
“There is almost nothing from you on there.”
“What I had to say about Marcie, I said with the camera. I probably better get back to work.”
He went back in, and having seen the seniors already, he decided to do the juniors from the newest up. He went to the office of Rachel Solomon. Rachel was a small girl with a nice figure and long black slightly curly hair. She wore a print dress in black with orchids all over, black stockings and pumps.
“Rachel, do you have time to talk, or you need to get stuff done?”
“Both. Come on in, Will.”
She stood up to shake hands.
He sat in her guest chair. “So, are you getting the help you need?”
“Sure. Lots of guys are helping me with things.”
“Advantages of being a pretty girl. Am I doing what you need?”
“I don’t know what you do. Aaron waits until I ask, but he always helps. He told me when I started that we didn’t have jail space for all these morons, so I should try cases when I want to, and if I lose a shoplift, it doesn’t really matter.”
“Right. We got lots of them. I want you trying felonies in six months, if you can do it. I need prosecutors who can take out the real bad guys. What you’re doing now is trying to quickly resolve a lot of unimportant cases. We can’t stop prosecuting people for stealing candy bars. Merchants won’t put them on the shelf if someone can take them and nothing happens. So you make good offers, and if they refuse, you try it like a real case. Nothing wrong with you trying a case every day. You return calls at lunch with a sandwich at your desk, and you get rid of 10 cases with probation, whatever. I’ll see that you get enough cases to get in high gear and stay there, and not so many that you can’t go dancing on Saturday night.”
“I’m definitely in high gear, but it’s hard to keep up with this. And I don’t have anyone asking me to go dancing anyway.”
“How many open cases?”
They rough counted them. About 250. “If you’re getting this much, we’re buried deeper than I thought. May I deal some cases for you?”
He turned on the speakerphone. He dialed the defense lawyer’s number. “Girard Hawkins law office.”
“William Ames for Girard.”
“Girard. How are you Will?”
“Good. Busy. Want to talk about Jon Erikson.”
“What happened to Rachel Solomon?”
“She’s right here. I’m just helping out. Make an offer, you don’t want it, take it off the chalkboard. He’s in on a shoplift. 5 days already. Time served, considered served, Deferred adjudication six months standard terms.”
“I’ll have to ask my client, but I think that is a go. He’d be silly to turn it down.”
“Calendar for the 18th, 21st or 23rd. Rachel has notes. She’ll see you in the morning you pick. Got anything else with her?”
“Randolph, Carl Jr.”
“Possession of marijuana by influence? No NCIC. Infraction treatment $200. Does he have the $200?”
“Sure. I also have Paul Lane, possession with intent to sell.”
Will looked at the file. Just enough cocaine to assume he was going to sell it and convict him of something he may never have done or intended to do.
“Simple possession. A week of road crew 12 months probation. We want standard conditions, but not the drug tests.”
“Great. I’ll ask, but he is going to have to take that. That’s it for clients.”
“Hold, please.”
Will put the call on hold. “Would you go dancing with him?”
“Office policy…”
“Is that you can, but no handing over inside information. Talk about the meaning of the universe, not the office’s business.”
“In that case yes.”
“Girard, do you want to ask this girl out for Saturday night?”
“I’m asking.”
“8 pm good for you, Girard?”
“How about 6 so we can go to dinner first?”
“You’re on.” She gave him her home address and phone.
“Will has a lot to do, I imagine.”
“I bet. See you Saturday.”
They hung up.
“So now you do some more of the same, Rachel. Clear out the cases you don’t need much for. Get the in custody guys who have done too much time out of there. Save the space for bad guys. Talk to Aaron if you don’t know what to offer. You’re good. Girard is probably not very handsome by comparison to what you could get, so he’d better treat you like a princess.”
She blushed, and Will left. He went through the rest of the new kids with similar help, and then to Aaron.
“Come in, Will.”
“Aaron, Rachel has 250 pending cases. She’s been here a month.”
He closed the door and sat down.
‘We’re buried, Will. One of the things they shyly didn’t explain at the meeting. We need you to do something about this caseload.”
“Let me see what the Chief of Police can do.” He dialed. “Roger Warrington.”
“Will Ames.”
“Long time no hear. You were in Europe and now you’re here.”
“Reason I take up your valuable time, Chief, the office is buried in cases. I’ve got an ADA with one month experience and 250 open files.”
“That strikes me as a little much.”
“We would work her to death, and she would quit so she could get some sleep, and there goes all our training effort.”
“I let a detective start working 80 hours a week, and the quality goes down, he burns out, and next thing I know, he’s gone.”
“We can’t afford attrition at that level. We’re going to be dumping cases. But we are still opening the file and all. So legal secretaries are doing a bunch of work and then we throw it away. Meantime an ADA can’t get a motion typed.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Start pre-dumping. Tell your officers if they get a possession of less than an ounce of pot, just cite it as an infraction and get on with work. Don’t do a sting on prostitution. Do it on a chop shop. Get me one of those slavery and prostitution rings. Forget the scrape bags and all that junk. Give me your robbers, your rapists, and your kidnappers, yearning to do hard time.”
“We can do that. It will sell well in the ranks. They all want the serious bad guys.”
“Thanks, Chief. See you later.”
“Yep.”
“Did I accomplish anything, Aaron?”
“I think so.”
“Let me know if anything changes. He has to do it. I can dump cases, refuse to file, whatever. The People like me being a bad kitty. I won’t get diselected for that. And if I do, I can do something else.”
“I imagine you can.”
Will went back to his office. Poquita came in. “Can I watch your fishes?”
“Yeah. Oh, it’s after 5. I might leave in a while. You can come in and look at the fishes.”
She rolled a chair over by the small community fishes. “These are the best, because there is so much going on in the tank, with the fish so small. Except those plecos. They will eat everyone else?”
“Never heard of a pleco eating a live fish. They like the algae on the glass, and they will go over a dead fish, but they don’t bite. They sort of abrade.”
She looked back at the tank. “The rocks on top of the gravel are for the fry to hide?”
“Right. Quint doesn’t think they will make it but it’s worked for me before.”
“For the swordfish, guppies and so?”
“Yeah. The cardinal tetras are egg layers. They may be able to make a nest in the rocks. The white cloud tetras have young the size of a typewriter period. That’s why we have the giant duckweed on the surface. So they can hide.”
“Will my cichlids breed?”
“I think so. The master aquarist, Dennis Groff has bred them in a 55 gallon community tank. He says you keep the water quality good, feed your fishes, and leave them alone, most likely they will breed.”
“Does the larger tank work for or against me?”
“Lake Malawi is a little over 400 gallons. I would say for.”
Chrissie came in. “I had to see this Poquita. Wow. Looking good, girl.”
“How do you like my Discus?”
“Pretty. I want to go to Asia Palace. Are we going to do it the hard way or the easy way?”
“Let’ go with the easy way. Are you inviting Poquita?”
“Sure.”
“Want to follow us, Poquita?”
“OK.”
They drove to the restaurant and were seated by Mama. They ordered the house special. Will got milk, Chrissie got Tsingtao, and Poquita got iced tea.
“Poquita, that is Mama’s Arowana.”
She looked. “Wow. That is a really big fish. He looks like an eel but with sort of a catfish head, with those whiskers.”
“Quint is maybe going to get one like that but not so big for the community tank. The big one, of course.”
“You should just go all the way with the million gallon tanks, dolphins and all.”
“You mad about something, Chrissie?”
“What gave you that idea?”
“You’re mad, Chrissie, but you aren’t telling Will about what.”
“You take over the DA office, then you go to Europe to photograph a supermodel. Then you come back and put fish tanks in the office. The staff is angry with you.”
“They were, but they’re mollified.”
“You have 300 Mollies in your office. Of course they’re mollified.”
“But you didn’t put your finger in the tank and receive the magic kiss of the Mollies, so you are mad. Tell the mouse about it. You are the one person I cannot supervise. I talked to everyone else today.”
Chrissie said, “Take this dinner away, I don’t want it.”
“I’m sure Poly does.”
“She can have it. I suppose you like her better than me anyway.”
“I like the cat. I love you.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well, pick out a few things so you have some food in you. Otherwise you will feel worse.”
She fiddled around, and ate a shrimp.
Poquita said, “I have some good news!” She put a driver’s license in front of Will. The name was Poquita Medina Rojas de Santa Cruz.
Will pushed it to her. “Great name.”
Chrissie reached for it, but Poquita took it away. “Eat your dinner.”
Chrissie ate a few bites and then put her hand out. Poquita handed her the license.
“It’s not even a CDL.”
“Alan will fix that. Get her a Class A with air brake endorsement.”
They all laughed.
“So is this a real name?”
“It is my name.”
“I didn’t know you were Mexican.”
“I am Argentinean. But I don’t speak any Spanish.”
“Do you, Will?”
“Hablo un poco muy mal Espanol.”
“What does it mean?”
“I think, ‘I speak a little very bad Spanish.’ Whenever I say it, Spanish speaking people laugh, and then we do the thing with a little English, a little Spanish, some pointing and miming, and we usually do all right. I do know the one phrase you must know if you go to Latin America. ‘Donde esta los banos?’”
“What does that mean?”
“Where are the bathrooms.”
They laughed.
“What’s your most ridiculous conversation in Spanish?” Poquita asked.
“We were trying to fix a tractor. I knew nothing about working on tractors, and we had two good mechanics, who were illiterate. We had a manual in Spanish, so I read the instructions, which I did not understand, and they had to go by what I told them, because they didn’t speak English.”
“You were reading things, and didn’t understand what you were saying?”
“Yeah. Want to see a real good trick? Hand Poquita your wallet.”
“She’s not going to make it disappear?”
“No, but this might come in handy if it does disappear.”
Poquita flipped through the driver’s license, and credit cards, and looked over the banknotes that were in it. She flipped through the coins. She handed it all back. “We’re ready.”
“Poquita, what is her driver’s license number?’
“7812 3472.”
“The number of her Master Card and the issuing bank.”
“2314 3429 1509 2230, issued by the First National Bank of Oregon.”
“The date of the oldest dime.”
“1973.”
“If she lost her Visa card, what is the number to call?”
“800 555 3243 extension 91, which is available 24/7.”
“The Supremacy clause.”
“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”
“Poquita, how long do you remember these things?”
“I don’t forget.”
“Poquita, if I talked to someone for an hour, when it was done, how much would you remember?”
“Every word.”
Will smiled. “Check this out, Chrissie.” “Merriam Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Definitions run from?”
“43 to 1373.”
“Chrissie, pick a page in that range. A column, one or two, and the entry, first, second, or whatever.”
“Page 609 second column, fourth entry.”
“Inclinable. Having a tendency or inclination. Also: disposed to favor or think well of.”
“Pick a word that is probably in that dictionary. Something real hard.”
“Diageotrophic.”
“Tending to grow at right angles to the line of gravity.”
Chrissie was eating her dinner, which interested Poquita more than memory tricks, since she had done them as a child, and still remembered those.
“Will, would AFCD be interested?”
“I imagine, but can you imagine knowing too much?”
“Oh, you have been there already. That may be…”
“Right.”
Poquita huffed. “What are you keeping from me?”
Will looked at the floor. “If you can forget anything, forget what we just said.”
“I want you to explain.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“Did you ever read any Le Carre? How long will the KGB want to get George Smiley?”
“All his life.”
“So do you want to get involved with those people?”
“No.”
Did you hear us say, a few minutes ago, something that made you wonder what we were talking about?”
“No.”
“What you didn’t hear will never ever be recalled because you didn’t hear it?”
“Well, of course. I didn’t hear it.”
“And you will never ask about it or refer to it.”
“I won’t.”
“You will never ask anything about it ever.”
“I won’t.”
“Enjoy your dinner.”
Now it was Chrissie who was cleaning her plate, and Poquita who was fooling around.
“Oh, fergawdsake!”
He put his ONI badge and ID on the table next to her, and took a few bites of his dinner. She stared at the card, then closed the badge wallet and handed it to him. He pocketed it.
“Wh…”
“We don’t answer questions, OK?”
“I can ask you what ONI is?”
“The investigative agency of the US Navy. Responsible for investigating cases that might result in the court-martials of Navy personnel. Normally, the Shore Patrols do the bar fights, petty thefts and stuff. ONI is more like the Navy’s version of the FBI. It handles mostly major