States of Grace by Mandy Miller (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

hands and deep corporate pockets—a criminal lawyer is all I’ve ever wanted to be. Upon graduation from Columbia, intent on being a voice for the victims of crime, I accepted a position at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, but bowed to familial pressure and rescinded my acceptance, going to work at a Wall Street law firm instead. “Do you want to deal with that population every day? You’ll do much more good doing pro bono work on the side for whatever cause you wish,” was my father’s pitch. It took 9-11 to scuttle his plan.

I pause for a moment on the periphery of the ruckus to take it all in. Two of the three rings of the circus are in action. In ring one, the ASA du jour marches back and forth in front of the prosecution’s table trying to look like he knows what he’s doing, his too-long pant legs mopping the floor. The second ring, the defense bar, a pulsing bevy of shiny suits and loud ties, a testament to their willingness, or perhaps, desire, to be classified as trouble-makers. Most are men, only a couple are women, dressed in pantsuits like the men, but their style more Brooks Brothers, less Italian flash. The presiding judge has yet to take the bench, yet the wheels of whatever justice he will dispense are being greased by the wheeling and dealing between State and defense like rug merchants in a bazaar, trading time for crimes.

The third ring, the bench, the elevated centerpiece, stands empty, except for the clerk to the judge’s right hand, a squat woman barely visible behind a mountain of files. The files will be almost empty at this point. All the judge will have to go on today is the probable cause affidavit, a few illegible biased lines of scrawl to justify the arrest of the accused. Bottom line, do the charges have at least one rickety leg to stand on, just like me?

I stash my briefcase under the defense table because every inch of the surface is occupied by the assistant public defender’s stuff, boxes and boxes of files for the majority of the cases that will be heard, those of defendants who can’t afford a “real lawyer,” indigent nomenclature for high-priced sharks. Rich defendants have already posted the standard bond and are back home, cocktails in hand, leaving their less well-heeled counterparts in shackles, hoping against common sense that they’ll get released on their own recognizance, or that some long-suffering relative or friend will put up whatever little of value they own as collateral for a bond.

And then there are the ones like Zoe, rich, charged not with a garden variety crime, but with murder—one of the few no-bail offenses. Wealthy no-bail holds with high-priced sharks who donated to the judge’s last reelection campaign will likely get bond. Given campaign donations are well beyond my current means, whether Zoe gets one last taste of freedom pending trial is a crap shoot and might depend on whether His Honor had a successful bowel movement this morning.

The polished brass plaque affixed to the front of the bench reads Hon. Michael C. Garrison.

Shoot. Not Garrison.

The docket pinned to the wall outside the courtroom lists Susan Childs as the presiding judge, a woman with a penchant for teary widow’s and orphan’s tales. “She must be sick or something, so Garrison’s covering. Just my luck!”

Garrison’s a bona fide hard-ass. All well and good when I was an ASA. Not anymore. Once, at an event for his reelection, Garrison told me he takes no greater pleasure than “blowing up the world now and letting the bastards up in the appellate court sort it out later. In the meantime, I’d rather see an innocent man or two, or even a dozen, in jail than risk some violent thug walking out on my watch.” After gulping what remained of his martini, he added, “Got to err on the side of public safety, don’t we?”

How am I going to stay in the game with Garrison in charge? No way the Slims will pony up any more cash unless I get their little princess out. Somehow what seemed like a clever, albeit ethically dubious, plan to climb out of the gutter, might all be for naught unless I can persuade Garrison that Zoe deserves bail.

I prop myself up against the defense table to compose my thoughts, but a frantic wave from the back row of the jury box interrupts my train of thought. Zoe. She’s even frailer and wilder looking than when I saw her in the jail. Hair more matted if that’s even possible, skin so pale it’s ghostly. A crazy-eyed waif who looks like she should call a psychiatric hospital home, not a waterfront mansion. Hardly the poster child for the upstanding member of the community I need her to appear to be today.

My path to the jury box is blocked by the bailiff, a burly, ruddy-faced man sporting a massive gun belt. The polished steel of a handgun, Taser, and handcuffs, glint under the lights, portending nothing good for the uncooperative.

The bailiff steps back and gives me a once over. “Ms. Locke, I didn’t recognize you. I mean, it’s been some time since you’ve been down here,” he stutters, searching his lexicon for the appropriate thing to say, given the circumstances of my departure from the premises.

I recognize his face. He’s one of the old-timers. He’s been around this place as long as the right to counsel, but I can’t remember his name. Shields? Shaw? Just another piece of the judicial jigsaw lost to time.

“Yes, it has. And why haven’t you moved on upstairs to a trial court? Haven’t you been in this dungeon long enough?”

He gives me a knowing half-smile. “It’s Shelton. And are you kidding?” he says, a bit too loudly. Whispering behind his hand, he adds “I like it this way. Seven in the morning ’til three in the afternoon. I tell ’em where to sit, when to stand,