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“What are the charges Mr. Bre
“Abuse of a corpse, Your Honor.”
“Charming. What, no littering charge you can tack on?”
“I’m afraid not, Your Honor,” Mr. Bre
“Please tell me that you’ve reached an agreement on this,” she said, dropping a couple of Alka Seltzer into a glass of water and taking a big belt of it before it had even finished plop-plopping and fizz-fizzing.
“I’m afraid not, Your Honor,” I echoed, throwing a baleful look at Mr. Bre
“Your Honor, the victim’s relatives …” he began.
“The victim?!” Judge Epstein screeched. “The victim is a corpse!”
“Nevertheless, Your Honor …” Mr. Bre
“Oh …” she grumbled something unintelligible. “Get them up here!” Mr. Bre
A couple of minutes went by, and Mr. Bre
“Your Honor,” Mr. Bre
“I want that sicko locked up!” Gladys shouted, waving her handbag at my client.
“Off the record!” Judge Epstein yelled back, glaring at the stenographer who immediately stopped typing and looked up at her in shock like a deer in headlights. She must have been a sub. “Mr. Bre
“During the early morning hours of October twenty-fourth of this year, in the city and county of Philadelphia, undercover vice squad officer, Jason Gallagher, observed Mr. Norman, uh, sorry,” Mr. Bre
“Why not?!” Gladys shrieked, and the glass of Alka Seltzer on the bench shook.
“Order!” Judge Epstein banged her gavel, shaking the glass harder. Nobody was going to out-shrew her in her own courtroom. “Counselor,” she said, glaring at me, “why was your client taking a dead guy out for a midnight stroll in North Philly?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could get a word out, Gladys chimed in again, “He wanted to have sex with him!” We all turned and looked at her in confusion.
“I’m not a homosexual!” Mr. Bates piped up. We all turned to look at him in confusion. Gay? He was worried we would think he was gay?
“Your Honor,” I answered, ripping my gaze away from Mr. Bates and shaking my head to clear it, “my client was concerned with the rate of car theft in the area. He felt that if he stored Mr. Peterman in his car, that it would act as a deterrent to car thieves.”
I wondered if that explanation sounded as stupid as I thought it did. When several people waiting in the gallery broke out in laughter a moment later, I got my answer. Yep. It sounded as stupid as I thought it did. I looked up at Judge Epstein and winced. Somehow, I didn’t think she was really onboard with Mr. Bates’ anti-car theft strategy. She just sat there, glaring. Why wasn’t she saying anything? I started to sweat and shifted my weight to the other foot, waiting for her to crucify me.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said finally.
“Tonight, or in general?” I asked. Bre
“I’m telling you. He wanted to have sex with Sid! I know about these narcoleptics. I saw it on the Discovery Cha
“And God forbid that Sid have sex for once,” the live Mr. Peterman spoke up. I had forgotten he was there. “It’s Gladys’ mission in life to make sure my brother never gets laid. Even in death.” He shook his head in obvious disgust.
“I’m not gay!” Mr. Bates yelled again. Apparently, the possibility that he might be a necrophiliac, or a narcoleptic for that matter, didn’t seem to bother him, as long as we knew that he was heterosexual.
“Why did you toss Mr. Peterman at Officer Gallagher, Mr. Bates?” Judge Epstein asked my client.
“It was North Philly at night and some guy dressed like a deadbeat, no pun intended, ordered me to stop. I was scared!” It said something about North Philly that the guy carrying the dead body was scared.
“It's true, Your Honor, that Officer Gallagher wasn’t in uniform, but he did identify himself as a police officer,” Mr. Bre
“And I was supposed to believe him?” Mr. Bates asked, sounding incredulous. “You know what kind of crazy people are walking around out there these days?”
“All right! Enough already!” Judge Epstein broke in. “That explanation is so stupid that I actually believe it.”
“You do?” I asked, wondering if I had heard her wrong.
“Yeah. I do. But he still couldn’t just walk out the door with a dead body. Charge him with Receiving Stolen Property. Did he spend the night in jail?”
“Defendant served 24 hours, Your Honor,” Mr. Bre
“Time served. Fines and costs.” She banged her gavel.
“Wait a minute! That’s it?” Gladys screeched.
“That’s it!” Judge Epstein snapped back. Her clerk handed her a paper, which she quickly read. “Half hour recess!” she called out and got up to leave. The minute she was gone, the lights seemed to get brighter.
As I escorted Mr. Bates off to meet with a deputy, who would take him to fill out his paperwork, Braden walked over to the courtroom door and gestured subtly for me to join him. I smiled with anticipation, and followed.
We walked down the hall casually. I was about to turn the corner toward the vending machine room, when Braden steered me in the other direction. “Where are we going?” I asked, looking up at him, intrigued.
“For a trip down memory lane,” he answered with a smile, and I saw that he was headed for the District Attorney’s on-site office suite.
“We can’t do that in there anymore,” I said coyly, feeling my tummy flutter at the memory of how we had utilized the negotiation rooms back when Braden was a prosecutor and I was a public defender.
“I asked Mr. Bre
He led the way down the hall to the furthest room, and then stepped aside to let me pass by. I went in, flipped the light on, and turned to face him. I immediately recognized the look on his face, and my breathing quickened in response, as my pulse shot up. The hot Braden sex look always did me in.
“Just like old times,” I said in a husky voice.