More likely, she thought, the cop spotted the backpack and had a bad feeling about it and didn’t want to wait. And it turned out he was pretty much right.
She and her former classmate both knew this. In her head she was preparing a legal-search-and-seizure argument, just as she knew he was.
The kid had a good record at school. A community college future. Maybe the state university if he just pulled up his grades in math and continued on the basketball team. He had a part-time job flipping burgers at McDonald’s and an intact family-father, mother, grandmother all living at home with him. And, most important, he had no prior arrest record-an astonishing detail growing up in the middle of Liberty City.
But the gun-that was a real problem. And why was he taking it to school?
Eat it, she told herself again. The kid’s got a chance.
Eating the gun was prosecutor slang for dropping the mandatory minimum three-year sentence in Florida for anyone who used a gun in the commission of a felony. The prosecutor’s office used the requisite prison term as a cudgel to force guilty pleas, dropping this part of the charge sheet at the last possible legal minute.
The phrase meant something very different to clinically depressed police officers and PTSD-suffering Iraq War veterans.
“Sue, give us a break here,” the public defender said. “Look at the kid’s record. It’s real good…” She knew that her onetime classmate didn’t get many clients with actual “good” records, and he would be eager-no, probably desperate-to find a positive outcome. “… And I don’t know about that cop’s search. I can make a pretty strong case that it was a violation of my client’s rights. But anyway, he goes away now, and he’ll be right back here in four years. You know what will happen in prison. They’ll teach him how to be a real criminal, and you know what he’ll do next will be something a helluva lot worse than a half-key of low-grade dope that really ought to plead down to a misdemeanor.”
Susan Terry ignored the public defender and stared at the teenager.
“Why’d you have the gun?” she demanded.
The teenager stole a sideways glance at his lawyer, who nodded to him, and whispered, “This is all off the record. You can tell her.”
“I was scared,” he said.
This made partial sense to Susan. Anyone who had ever driven through Liberty City after dark knew there was much to be frightened of.
“Go on,” the public defender said. “Tell her.”
The teenager launched into a halting story: street gangs, carrying the marijuana-one time only-for the thugs down the block so they would leave him and his little sister alone. The backpack and the gun were for the person who was supposed to move the grass.
She wasn’t sure she believed it. There were some truths, maybe, she was sure. But in its entirety? Not damn likely.
“You got names?”
“I give you names, they’re going to kill me.”
Susan shrugged. Not my problem, she thought. “So what? Tell you what: You talk to your lawyer. Listen to what he tells you, because he’s the only thing standing between you and the complete ruin of your life. I’m going to call in a detective from the urban narcotics task force. When he gets here-I’m guessing maybe about fifteen minutes-you get to make your decision. Give up all the names of the motherfuckers on your block dealing drugs and you get to walk out of here. Gun or no gun. Keep your mouth shut, and it’s see yah later, ’cause you’re going to prison. And whatever your momma was hoping you’d grow up to be simply ain’t going to happen. That’s what’s on the table in front of you right now.”
Susan slid effortlessly into tough-girl edginess as she spoke. She particularly liked using the word motherfucker because it generally shocked defendants when it fell from the lips of someone so attractive.
The teenager squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. The basic, routine, day-to-day inner-city existential dilemma, she thought. Fucked one way. Or fucked the other.
Her classmate absolutely knew what her little hyper-harsh performance meant. He had his own variations on the same stage that he used from time to time. He clasped his arm around his client in a friendly, reassuring I’m the only person in the entire world you can trust grip, but at the same time he said to Susan, “Call your detective.”
Susan pushed away from the table. “Will do,” she said. She smiled. Snake smile. “Call me later,” she told the lawyer. “I have an appointment right now I don’t want to be late for.”
Andy Candy thought, What am I doing here? She wanted to say this out loud-maybe even scream it, high-pitched and near-panicked-but kept her mouth shut. She was seated beside Moth in the security area outside the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. He was bent forward at the waist with his hands on his knees, drumming his fingers nervously against his faded khaki pants.
Moth had said little in the drive over to the state attorney’s office, a modern, fortress-like edifice adjacent to the Metro Miami-Dade Justice Building, a sturdy, nine-floor courthouse that was no longer modern but was too young to be antique and had many of the same qualities as a factory slaughterhouse-an endless supply of crimes and criminals on a conveyor belt. They had passed through wide doors and metal detectors, ridden escalators and finally arrived at the security area, where they waited. The comings and goings of lawyers, detectives, and court personnel kept up a steady buzzing, as sheriff’s officers behind bulletproof glass hit the electric entrance system. Most of the people arriving and departing seemed familiar with the process, and almost all seemed in an I can’t wait hurry, as if guilt or innocence had a timing clock attached.
Both Andy Candy and Moth straightened up when a burly thick-necked guard with a holstered 9mm pistol called his name out. They produced identification.
The cop gestured at Andy Candy. “She’s not on my list here,” he said. “She a witness?”
“Yes. Assistant State Attorney Terry wasn’t aware that I would be able to bring her along,” Moth lied.
The guard shrugged. He wrote down all of Andy Candy’s information-height, weight, eye color, hair color, date of birth, address, phone, Social Security number, driver’s license number-searched her pocketbook thoroughly, then once again made the two of them walk through a metal detector.
A secretary met them on the other side. “Follow me,” she said briskly, stating the obvious. She led them through a warren of desks filling a large central area. The prosecutors’ offices surrounded the desks. There were small name placards by each door.
They each spotted “S. Terry, Major Crimes” at the same time.
“She’s waiting,” the secretary said. “Go on in.”
Susan looked up from behind a cheap gray steel desk cluttered with thick files and a nearly-out-of-date desktop computer. Behind her, next to a window, was a whiteboard with lists of evidence and witnesses arrayed beneath a case number written in red. On another wall there was a large calendar, updated with mandatory hearings and other court appearances underscored. A single window, which overlooked the county jail, let in a weak shaft of light. There was little in the way of decoration other than a few black-framed diplomas and a half-dozen mounted newspaper articles. Three of them were illustrated with Susan’s black-and-white picture. It was an austere place, dedicated to a single purpose: making the justice system work.
“Hello, Timothy,” Susan said.
“Susan,” Moth replied.