"Courrrrrrrt!" bellowed the little court officer, and the congregation rose as the Honorable Willard J. Kinnington fairly scooted from a door to the right side of the bench and ascended. Possibly he moved so quickly because he was only barely medium height and didn't wish to advertise it. He had slightly graying, blondish-red hair and was wearing amber horn-rimmed glasses. He clutched a small loose-leaf book in his right hand; with his black robes this gave him the appearance of a new parish priest slightly late for his first mass. Once on the bench, however, he fixed the entire courtroom with a baleful eye. With the added height of the raised bench, he now looked as though he could jump center for the Celtics. He bowed his head as the court officer intoned the full salutation. The courtroom clock showed 9:00 A.M. on the nose.
"Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. All those having business before this, the Fourth District Court of Western Norfolk, now sitting in Meade, within in and for our county of Norfolk, the Honorable Willard J. Kinnington presiding, draw near, give your attention, and you shall be heard. God save the commonwealth of Massachusetts and this honorable court. Be seated."
I watched the judge as the court officer spoke; he didn't twitch during the entire soliloquy. In Massachusetts, there is a district-court system, which handles lesser matters, and a superior-court system, which handles graver matters. Each district court is in an important town and includes several smaller towns within its jurisdiction. The superior courts are countywide courts. Until court reorganization becomes a functioning reality, the major difference between the two systems is that whereas the district court is apparently less prestigious, the superior-court judges have to ride the circuit, rotating every month or so all over the state. The district-court judges sit almost exclusively in one district court. Accordingly, some district-court judges, appointed for life, have built up substantial little fiefdoms over which they exercise almost unbridled control. I'd been in a dozen district courts and every superior court in eastern Massachusetts during my time with Empire. Although the full "Hear ye, hear ye" salutation is occasionally heard in superior court, I'd never before heard it used in a district court.
When the court officer ended, the judge sat down briskly and spoke a name quickly. The clerk had materialized in the wooden kangaroo's pouch immediately in front of the judge. He turned to Kinnington and began giving short, nervous answers to whatever questions the judge was asking.
Meanwhile, I caught sight of the back of a huge court officer who was sliding down the left-hand side aisle toward the judge's bench. He looked to be my height, but he was enormously thick across the back and bottom. He clicked open a side gate and entered the bar enclosure and moved up next to the clerk, who literally cringed away from him. Seeing him standing with his back to me and looming over the clerk, I pushed him up to six feet five. The giant's head bobbed up and down a little, as though he were talking. The judge's expression clouded, then cleared, and he muttered something to the giant. The giant nodded and backed away as the clerk called the first case.
A couple in front of me popped up with their son and blocked my view of the bench momentarily. They said their lawyer would be late, the judge asked the clerk if the lawyer had called the clerk's office, and the clerk said no. At that point the judge stated that their son's case would not be heard until 3:00 P.M. The father began to say something, but the clerk had already begun calling the next case.
As the trio hesitatingly sat back down, I saw the giant court officer in the side aisle pull even with my row and roll his gaze toward me as he walked back toward the only public entrance. His was the beefy, now not-quite-as-stupid face I'd seen in the car that had swerved at me the day before. He had a fringe of wispy blond hair around, and combed in ridiculously long strands across, his balding head. I didn't follow him with my eyes to the back of the room, but no sound came from the central door, which had squeaked a bit when opened by a latecomer a moment before. So much for my concerned-parent cover. The next case was a Bonham police matter. The defendant's name was called, and the defendant and her attorney answered "Ready." No one, however, answered for the Bonham police, which, like most Massachusetts departments, prosecutes its own minor cases through a senior officer instead of tying up an assistant district attomey. A young, clean-cut guy within the bar enclosure (who turned out to be the Meade police prosecutor) stood up haltingly. He said, "Your Honor, I believe the Bonham police prosecutor is on the telephone arranging to bring in a witness." The judge glared down at him. "Case dismissed for lack of prosecution." I was stunned, but the young cop/prosecutor gamely tried a stall. "If Your Honor please. I can run back and-"
"Case dismissed!" boomed the judge, whose microphone was set, I suspect, a bit higher than anyone else's. The defendant and her lawyer got the hell out as fast as their feet would carry them.
And so it went. Of the twenty or so preliminary rulings I saw Kinnington make, at least six were similarly outrageous; yet he seemed to favor neither police nor defendants as a class. Each decision seemed exactly arbitrary, depending upon which party happened to appear to be giving the most affront to the judge's sense of how his time was to be used. I'm sure all six rulings were technically defensible. The point was that it was clear to everyone in the courtroom that the rulings were unfair and showed an incredible disregard for common sense.
I almost forgot. About six names (or three minutes) after the "case-dismissed" defendant, the central doors squeaked and a fiftyish, crew-cut guy in a brown double-knit blazer and baggy blue slacks hustled down the center aisle. I recognized him from the Bonham pistol range. He entered the bar enclosure and sat down hurriedly next to the young police prosecutor who'd stood up for him. The young one whispered to him. The old one turned to him with a look of disbelief on his face and half-rose from his chair. He sunk back down, faced front, and bowed his head. He then pounded the counsel table three times silently with his fist.
After the criminal cases had been called, the judge muttered something to the clerk, who turned to the judge and then turned back around with a surprised look on his face. "Court will recess for thirty minutes," he announced.
"All rise," shouted the elderly court officer as the judge scampered off the bench as quickly as he had ascended it and exited through the same door.
"Shit, man, we're gonna be here all fuckin' day," said the kid next to me to his friend as they got up and edged past me. About half the courtroom's population decided to do the same. I could feel the exodus clearing from the aisle, when a five-pound ham dropped on my shoulder. A gruff, egg-breathed voice said, "His Honor wants to see you in his chambers. Now."
I put on my most indifferent face and swiveled my head around. The giant's eyes were small and mean.
"I don't expect any special treatment, you know," I said mildly.
"Now."
I got up, and we walked abreast to a side door just forward of the right-hand seating area. I decided Giant was pushing six feet seven and maybe three hundred pounds. Giant used a key on the door. I moved before he could shove me through it. We entered a narrow corridor with PRIVATE stenciled on the painted walls. We made a sharp left and walked into a small outer office with a striking brunette secretary behind the reception desk. She gave me a quick look, as if she didn't want to be able to say later on that she recognized the body. Giant rapped a knuckle twice on the heavy-looking inner door and then pushed it open and motioned me in ahead of him. I walked in and glimpsed reddish hair behind the cloud of light blue cigar smoke hanging over a big desk. Then I was whirled around against the wall. I heard the door slam, and Giant said, "Assume the position."