A Certain Justice

34

Senator Wager's daughter, Elaine, had finally slept – soundly and long, waking up a little after dawn. Out through her living-room window, under the cloud cover, there was considerably less smoke than there had been the day before. She allowed herself a moment's optimism – things might be getting better, the city's wounds would heal after all.

Then she had opened the newspaper…

In one of the oversized men's T-shirts she used as a nightgown she was sitting on the hardwood floor just inside her door, where she had been when she saw the headline and her legs had gone. She remembered reaching out to the wall for support and then deciding she was just going to have to sit down. She must have lost control of her bladder, the floor under her was wet. She was sucking her index finger. Time must have passed.

Her stomach was growling and she tried her legs again. It was a long way to the bathroom.

She could not believe no one had called her. But then she remembered she had unplugged the phone and turned down the answering machine – there were some times when you had to get some sleep.

Chris Locke's voice was on the answering machine.

'Oh God,' she said, a new wave washing over her.

He'd called before… before…

Her hand clutched at her stomach, kneading the unyielding knot, mesmerized by the words, the voice, the last time she'd hear it.

He loved her, he was saying. He needed her, they had to talk. Was there any chance she could meet him tomorrow – oh Lord, that was this morning – before work? He was going out with Mohandas and her mother for di

Then here was her mother, with her voice of controlled calm she used in moments of greatest stress, calling from the police station. Someone had almost shot her, had shot Chris… Please, honey, she was saying, don't go out until you get this message, until you've talked to me.

Next on the machine was her officemate, Jerry Ouzounis, but that was information only, the start of office politics, and she fast-forwarded through part of it, then let it play, not listening, her eyes glazed over.

Somehow she had gotten dressed. Was she actually pla

There was the telephone, next to the bed. Was it somebody she wanted to call? She'd tried her mother but there was never any telling where she might be. The phone had rung fifteen times. She punched in that number again. Maybe that was it. Trying again.

There was always a line of black-and-white police cars parked along the curb in front of the Hall of Justice, but this day they clogged four of Bryant Street 's five lanes.

Elaine Wager had to take a cab – her usual bus wasn't in service this morning. She stood at the corner – Seventh and Bryant – again with the overriding sense that reality had shifted in some fundamental way. A parking and traffic enforcement meter minder was casually writing out citations on the police cars as though they were normal vehicles, writing down license numbers and sticking his handiwork under wiper blades as though someone had told him this was a reasonable use of his time amid all this madness. And he had believed it…

The crowd inside the Hall had thi

There were maybe a dozen officers in uniform, standing loose guard over their charges. Why, she thought, were there so many police cars in front of the building? Where were the rest of them? The disco

The men in the line this morning were the usual unkempt and motley collection, shuffling along, exhausted, black-eyed. As she was waiting for the elevator one of them caught her attention.

She had been pla

Walking to the yellow tape that delineated the temporary booking area, she stepped over it and got a better look at the man.

'Excuse me,' she said to an officer talking to another uniform.

'Yes, ma'am.' Then, seeing she was a civilian: 'I've got to ask you to go back over there. You're not supposed to be behind the yellow tape.'

There weren't any cordial smiles left in Elaine. 'I'm with the DA,' she said, flashing her ID. 'Elaine Wager.'

If either of the two cops in earshot put together any relationship between this attractive young woman and the senator from California, they hid it well. But the DA was the DA, and if this woman was part of that office she could talk to them and they would listen.

'Yes, ma'am,' the officer repeated, 'how can I help you?' Elaine gestured with her head. 'Isn't that man Jerohm Reese?'

'Hey, hey, this ain't right. Hey. I'm talking to you. You hearing me. I am talking to you.'

Elaine ignored him. The officer, with J. Dealey on his name tag, was between her and Jerohm, and he told Jerohm to shut up. They were riding up in the visitors' jail elevator, which was faster than the public elevator and stopped at the sixth floor only – the entrance to the jail.

'No, I mean it, 'cause hey, this is no shit. They got no warrant on me. I just got sprung. This is bullshit, man; just a pure hassle. I didn't do nothing

Dealey turned to Elaine, as though they were enjoying a stroll in the park: 'We pulled him over in a curfew zone, in a stolen car loaded with merchandise he'd looted from-'

'Hey, now, hey… that wasn't no stolen car, that-'

'Did I mention shut up, Jerohm?' Dealey gave a jerk on the handcuffs, almost lifting Jerohm off his feet.

'This is brutality! Po-lice brutality. You seein' it, sister. This is it, now. Hey, c'mon, this guy-'

'I'm not your sister,' Elaine told him, meeting his eye and staying with it. 'I am your worst nightmare.'

Art Drysdale, the chief assistant district attorney, was living his worst nightmare. It wasn't yet nine in the morning and he'd been up all night, getting downtown by five-forty. He refused to work even temporarily in Chris Locke's office – he didn't want any misinterpretation, he wasn't angling to become the new DA – and his own space wasn't even marginally close to big enough for the parade of humanity he'd been entertaining this morning, everybody wanting answers or consolation or decisions he wasn't empowered to make.

Normally Drysdale had a carefree style, often juggling baseballs behind his desk – he'd been a major-league player for several weeks in his youth – while he discussed office policy or negotiated plea bargains with defense attorneys. Today he wore a white shirt, his tie loosened, arms resting on his desk and hands folded in front of him, knuckles whitened. 'All right, send her in.'

Elaine came through the door and stood in front of him. 'I hope I didn't hear this right,' he began. 'You've got Jerohm Reese… the same Jerohm Reese we released two days ago without charging him with murder – that Jerohm Reese we've got back upstairs?'