“From my chambers?”
“From my purse. Zeke had been by that morning, Judge. Because of the dog. And he’d grabbed hold of my keys out of my purse.”
“And why was that?”
She presses her finger to the center of her lips, determined not to cry again.
“He wanted to get into our shed. We stored his things when he went off, Judge.” Prison is what she means. “And I don’t know how exactly, but Reggie found two guns in there, and when Zeke came out, his father wouldn’t let him have them. You know, he can’t own firearms.”
It’s both a federal and a state crime for a felon even to hold a gun.
“And Reggie and Zeke, they go around about those guns every couple of months. Zeke says all he wants is just to sell them, that they’re worth good money. So he took my keys and got them. That boy Khaleel, he has the guns now, but I guess they made a deal, Khaleel was supposed to walk in and put the keys on my desk when I got up for a second, and if anybody saw that, he’d just say he’d found them in the hall, right outside the door.”
She has her face in both hands.
“Judge, if he could just get himself going in the right direction, he’d really be all right. I truly believe that.”
There is no divorcing your children, George thinks. For Dineesha, hope is eternal. And thus, so is the heartbreak.
“I mean, Judge, I don’t have any right-”
“I’ll keep it to myself, Dineesha.” She stands, still under the weight of it.
Ten minutes later she knocks again. No more, George thinks. Even for Dineesha. But when she opens the door, he can see she has regathered herself. This is business.
“Murph’s on the phone, Judge,” she says. “Area Two picked up two boys. They want you for a lineup.”
17
Area 2 headquarters is a fortress, a limestone redoubt built near the turn of the century. It is frequently shot by TV and movie crews when they need an exterior that appears utterly impregnable. Entering, you confront a much newer cinder-block wall, interrupted only by a small window of bulletproof glass, behind which the desk officer sits. Years ago there was a little metal teller’s tray at the bottom so bondsmen or relatives could pass bail money, but that was before some gangster stuck a sawed-off in the slot and seriously wounded three officers. These days everybody passes first through a metal detector.
Cobberly, the red-faced detective who enjoyed giving it to George last night, is on the other side.
“So what do we know about these fine young lads, Philly?” Abel asks him. On the way over, Abel said that the younger boy had been grabbed in a nod in George’s Lexus, which was parked on a North End street. An hour later, the older one strolled up with the car key and a sack of burgers.
According to Phil Cobberly, the two are brothers, the last of four.
“Nice family,” the detective says. “Dad was always in and out of the joint, but now there’s sort of a family reunion. Older two boys are in Rudyard with him. I just love happy endings,” he adds.
“Bangers?” George asks.
“Natch.”
“Latinos Reyes?”
“Nope. Over where they’re from in Kewahnee, that’s Two-Six turf.” Twenty-sixth Street Locos.
“So no connection to Corazon?”
“Can’t say that. Two-Six and Latinos Reyes make their deals.”
Abel asks if the boys gave any statements.
“Usual speeches,” says Cobberly, “don’t know nothin’, but we didn’t take it down. They’re juvie.”
Juveniles may not be questioned outside the presence of their parents, who, in Area 2, do not tend to answer when the police come knocking. In their absence, a youth officer must attend the interview. The State Defender assigned to the station was summoned too, since both boys will be charged as adults. He, in turn, called for his supervisor. George suspects he is the reason a higher-up was needed. The State Defenders want to tread carefully with a judge, especially one on the appellate court who sides with them occasionally.
When the supervisor arrives, it turns out to be Gina Devore, who oversaw the S.D. s in George’s courtroom during the two years he sat at the trial level in the Central Branch. She was famous in the courthouse for punching out one of her clients in the lockup when he grabbed her breast. Five feet in her heels, Gina knocked the guy cold.
“The best and brightest,” George greets her. She surprises him a bit with a quick hug despite being on duty. Married to a police lieutenant in Nearing, she gives him a one-sentence rundown on both of her kids.
“How’s the arm, Judge? I heard about you on TV.”
“It’s all right, but I don’t think I’ll be sending your clients a thank-you note.”
“Judge,” she says, “I bet when you get a look, you’ll realize they’ve got the wrong kids.” She is utterly stone-faced making that remark, although both George and she know that not only were these boys arrested in the judge’s car, but each kid’s clothing-and the guns discovered under the front seats-matched his descriptions.
The boys’ defense, if it goes according to the book, will be that they found the Lexus abandoned with the key in the ignition. It’s farfetched at best. But if George makes the IDs, the case becomes a lock. No jury will disbelieve a judge in these circumstances.
Led by the Detective Commander, Len Grissom, a bony, self-contained Texan, the procession- two defense lawyers, a Deputy P.A. named Adams who has arrived from Felony Review, Cobberly, Abel, and several other officers, and, finally, the judge-enters the shift room, where the Area 2 cops assemble to start duty. It looks like a classroom, full of school chairs with plastic desk extensions on the right arms. In front, a track of high-wattage floodlights blares down. They were installed for lineups, both to illuminate the participants and to prevent them from getting a good look at the witnesses.
Four boys parade out and spread themselves along the platform from which, at other times, the shift sergeant makes the day’s assignments. They are all between five six and five nine, the height George gave for his second assailant. Three of the kids are probably volunteers from the juvie house who will be rewarded for their cooperation with a hamburger in the squad car on the way back. They all wear blue jail coveralls, but a sweatshirt is passed from one to the next. Each puts it on for a second and draws the hood around his face, then turns to expose both profiles.
By the time the fashion show, as it’s called, has ended, George has settled on the third boy from the left. Gina clearly does not like the array and scribbles notes on her yellow pad. The problem is obvious. Two of the kids don’t have the close-cropped hair George described on the younger boy, but even with that hint, he is not quite positive about the kid he’s inclined to identify. From the corner of his eye, the judge catches Cobberly scratching his face. He uses three fingers and rakes his nails across his cheek three times, repeating this performance twice more. George says nothing but stares until Gina’s younger colleague catches on.
“What?” Cobberly says.
“Can we get that dipstick out of here?” Gina asks Grissom. She looks at George. “Did you know him?”
“Sixty, seventy percent,” he tells her. “I’d have said, ‘Most closely resembles.” ’ The lawyers make notes.
It takes more than half an hour for the second array of taller boys to appear because Gina has demanded that Grissom find sweatshirts for all of them, and each emerges with the hood drawn around his face, depriving George of any clues from their hair.
He asks Gina, “Do you mind if I get closer?”
George walks along only a few feet from the platform. Gina has asked Grissom to instruct all the participants to look only straight ahead, but when George strolls by, the fourth in the group, the kid he’s ready to make, can’t resist a peek downward. His eyes do not rest long, but he might as well have shaken hands and called George ‘ puto ’ for old times’ sake.