November Novel: Chapter 4

[Chapter 1] . . . [Chapter 2] . . . [Chapter 3]

Yusif was looking through the through the Tyree Lee file. Tyree went into the eZee Stop in Saint Minas, grabbed a six pack of Bud, and walked out of the store while the clerk was looking the other direction. The theft was less than ten dollars, but Tyree had been in court so often that if he sneezed in the wrong place he caught a felony charge. There was a video of the theft and Tyree confessed to the Saint Minas officer who arrested him. His record was so bad that the sentencing guidelines called for him to get between a year and a month and a year and six months in jail. Yusif put down the file and started typing up a plea agreement on his computer.

It probably would do no good, but he would send the plea agreement to Tyree's lawyer anyway. Most people who were being prosecuted currently were going to get away with it this time. When the old inn burnt down it took out more than just a few offices. It destroyed records of all the investigations done by the Sheriff's Department. Worse, all the evidence which was kept locked in the basement was gone. Adding to these problems, the Clerk of the Circuit Court had his offices in the old inn too, so all the files which had the original indictments, signed by the grand jury foreman, were nothing more than ash.

"Excuse me." The voice roused Yusif from his gloomy thoughts and he looked away from the computer. There was a Black man standing in the door of his office which meant the guy was definitely from out of town. The only ethnic minorities in Bartlette County were one Egyptian-American, three Indian doctors and their families, and the Melugeons. The only African-American Yusif had seen in Bartlette County in the last year was one of the FBI agents who showed up after the attack. This rail thin man in threadbare black pants and beat up gray coat was not a member of the FBI.

Well, at least he doesn't look like a reporter either, Yusif thought. He waved the man into room. "Yes? Can I help you sir?"

The man walked into the room. "I hope so. The lady downstairs sent me up here . . ." As the man walked into room his coat swung open revealing his collar.

. . . . .

Jerome saw the moment of recognition. The man's eyes widened slightly and he immediately started to stand. Next, this man who had been perfectly cordial to him would overcompensate for imagined impropriety by becoming extremely polite and formal. He needed to nip that in the bud.

He held his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. "I come in peace, Earthling. Take me to your leader."

The man behind the desk froze. He stood there for ten seconds, then ten more. Finally, he spoke without smiling. "You know, Father, it never ends well when someone says that to Kirk."

Jerome put on his best smile. "Then I guess it's good we're not on the Enterprise."

Striding forward, Jerome stuck out his hand. "Hi. I'm Jerome Tolton. I'm looking for . . ."

The big man stopped with his hand halfway across the desk. "You're Father Awesome?"

Taking another stride, Jerome reached out and grabbed the hand which had stopped moving forward and shook it when the man squeezed back automatically. He almost regretted it a second later when the big man got a grin on his face and the squeeze became enthusiastic. "Heck, Father, I've been hearing stories about you ever since I moved to Bartlette County. Mrs. Mahan brags on you all the time. I expected you'd be ten foot tall and have lightning bolts flashing from your eyes."

As Jerome took back his slightly crushed hand it was his turn to be a little confused. "You mean Maggie?"

"No, sir." The man's grin got a few centimeters wider. "There's only one Mrs. Mahan in Bartlette County and that's Abigail Mahan."

"And she calls me Father Awesome?"

"No Sir. She brags on you so much that Maggie and Brad do though."

For a couple seconds, Jerome reflected on that. He did a lot of things over the last ten years as he became the Bishop's top troubleshooter, but not many of them felt much like they should be bragged about. "I can't say I've done much that deserved bragging. I just do what the Bishop tells me to as best God gives me the ability to. Living up to that nickname might take a little more than the abilities the Lord has given me."

"I wouldn't bet on that Father." The big man continued to grin. "And I definitely wouldn't let Mrs. Mahan know if I doubted it. I'd get a tongue lashing that would take off several layers of skin."

"Anyway," the man pointed to one of the chairs in front of his desk, "Have a seat. I'm Yusif Habib, the deputy Commonwealth Attorney. What can I do for you?"

Looking down at the two chairs in front of the desk, Jerome chose the wooden one over the one made of metal and plastic. Although both were of indeterminate age, they clearly had their best decades behind them. So did the metal desk with the Seventies era ugly green paint. The man who sat down in the equally dated orange chair behind the desk had a dark skin tone and he was offensive lineman large.

"Well, Yusif, I was sent here to help out. I'm not exactly Father Dowling, so I don't think I'd be much help sleuthing around the dark corners of Bartlette County, but I am a lawyer. I thought maybe I could be of some help here."

. . . . . .

Brad walked out of the examination room, putting his jacket back on. He might not even have a scar where they sewed his earlobe back together, although Doctor Ambedkar waffled about it the way insurance companies have trained doctors to do. At least the good doctor took off that ridiculous bandage. He gave all sorts of dire warnings about scratching the ear or getting it wet, but he allowed that it would probably be better if the ear got air as it healed.

As Brad was paying at the front desk, Maggie almost hurdled through the front door. "Get moving. We have to get to your office right now. Why aren't you answering your phone? I tried to call you four times and you never picked up."

It all came out in one breath and Brad was a little stunned by the onslaught. He pointed to a sign in the lobby which forbade the use of cell phones because they might interfere with medical equipment. It would have been more effective as an excuse if two kids in the lobby had not been texting away on their phones in the seats next to the picture. Yet, Maggie did not call him on it. Instead, she grabbed him by the arm and started hustling him out the door. "We've got to go now. My car is right outside. We'll come back and get yours later."

Her car was parked right outside the doctor's office on the yellow curb. She shoved him toward the passenger side and hit her key fob unlocking the vehicle. Once they were both in she turned the key so fast that the starter made a grinding noise and she practically stomped the gas pedal as they pulled out.

While he fumbled to get his seat belt on, Brad looked over at his wife. "What's going on Maggs?"

She kept her eyes in front as the car barely paused at the stop sign at the entrance of the parking lot. "Paula called me. She tried to call you first, but couldn't get an answer. I was in Yared doing the political wife thing at a Red Hats lunch. It took me an hour to get here and get you - still with your phone off."

Brad could tell he was going to hear about this later. Maggie considered it just this side of a sin not to be reachable by cell twenty-four hours a day. Again though, she was not fussing at him about it. Something really had her flummoxed. "Maggs, slow down. What is it?"

"Father Tolton's here. He is at your office, waiting to talk with you and you are making him wait."

Brad winced as his wife made a left turn onto Main Street, at speed, under what could have arguably been the last glow of the yellow before the light turned red, and directly in front of a town officer. "Dammit, Maggs, slow down! It won't do anyone any good if you kill us five hundred feet from the courthouse. And Tolton seemed like a decent guy. He'll understand."

She pulled around behind the courthouse and directly into the space reserved for the General District Court judge. "Bradley 'Nickel' Dollerby, it's Father Tolton and you will call him Father. I know the Father will understand. My mother, on the other hand . . ." She paused and gave Brad a meaningful look. Both of them got out of the car and strode quickly into the courthouse.

When they got to Brad's office, Paula was on the phone and she pointed upward.  They turned around and headed straight to the attic office.  When they got there, Yusif had two people sitting in front of his desk.  There was a thin black man in priestly garb and an older lady with a light blue blouse and long dark blue skirt.  Brad had just enough time to think "damn, she's wearing the pearls" before she opened up on him.

"Well, it's about time you showed up, Mister Commonwealth Attorney.  While you've been out gallivanting, Father Jerome has been sitting here for an hour and a half waiting for you to be kind enough to show up at your own office.  You do still work here don't you?"

Brad stood there. All he could do was weather the storm.  There was no arguing with this woman and even if he did argue, God help him if he scored any hits because then his wife would turn on him too.  Of course, if he remained silent his wife would start arguing with Abigail on her own in about ten seconds.  This would lead to chastisement later about how he never stood up for himself and how she always had to defend him from her mother. That was infinitely better than having the two women yelling at him in tandem.  Then, just as Abigail was hitting stride, a voice cut across her harangue.

"Now, Abby, this is my fault, not his."

Then Brad saw something he had thought impossible.  Abigail Mahan stopped in mid fuss. It was only a moment, but when the slightly built priest interrupted her she stopped.  Then she turned to the priest.

"Nonsense.  You are a guest and shouldn't be treated this way.  And you a Father even."  She scowled slightly and started to turn back to continue tearing strips off Brad's hide.

The priest stuck his hand, palm out, between that scowl and its intended victim. 

"Abby, I'm the one who's being rude here, not Mr. Dollerby. I came to town without calling anyone, showed up without an appointment, and it never even occurred to me that a man who was in a building when a massive explosion took place right outside would probably be seeing a doctor." The priest stood and took Abigail's arm, helping her to her feet. "And you, of all people, know that the fact that I'm a priest does not make me perfect.  The Bishop sent me to talk to these gentlemen about what happened last week, so I'm afraid I'll have wait until tonight to finish filling you in on all the details of what I've been up to." He walked her over to the door and looked at Maggie. "Maggie, would you be kind enough to walk Abby out so that I can talk to your husband?"  Maggie nodded and both women left after the priest promised he would show up at half past six for supper.

Brad stood there astonished.  He had never seen anyone stop Abigail once she got rolling, much less give her the bum's rush out the door.  As the priest shut the door behind the ladies and turned back around, Brad heard his assistant's voice behind him. "Wow. Now I know why they call you Father Awesome."

As Brad watched a little grin crossed Father Tolton's lips. "Don't expect it to last. I give it a day or two and she'll be pushing me around just as much as she does everyone else."  

With that, the priest returned to his seat.  Brad sat in the the old metal chair next to him.  "Father, what can we do for you?"

The priest's expression became much more serious. "I've been sent by Bishop Mannion. What can you tell me about the death of Father Ted Pahl?"

November Novel: CrimLaw Novel: Chapter 3

[Chapter 1] . . . [Chapter 2]

Chapter 3

Father Jerome Tolton stood outside the shuttered doors of the building which used to be the Archangel Michael Church in Richmond. The diocese still owned the land, but the Bishop decided to close the church when its regular attendance at its one mass a week fell below twenty regular parishioners. Jerome's first job as a priest had been to close this church. That was ten years earlier and whenever he came back to Richmond he visited the old church.

On paper it made sense. Only six blocks away Mary Queen of Heaven had a thriving Catholic community and Archangel Michael was in terrible condition. The roof leaked badly and several of the stained glass windows had holes which were covered by boards. During the winter the church held services in the basement because it cost too much to heat the high ceilinged and drafty worship area.

Jerome was told that the church would be closed in four months and all he would have to do was caretake it until that time. He would say mass once a week, visit sick parishioners, ease his flock through the merger with Marry Queen of Heaven, and get some good experience as a first time parish priest.

It was a disaster. No one told the parishioners that Archangel Michael was closing before he arrived; worse, no one told him of the omission. As well, no one had told the parishioners that their new priest was African-American. When he said his first mass in front of a group of thirty-two people, all but two of whom were elderly and all of whom were White, he felt a sense of dread. It did not help when a third of the attendees did not come forward for communion. Then, at the end of the mass he stood to introduce himself a little better and read a couple announcements.

"Hello. For those of you who might not have figured it out I'm the new priest." He paused for an expected chuckle and got stony silence. He hurried on. "I'm going to be the priest for Archangel Michael until we merge into Mary Queen of Heaven in August . . ."

There was an audible gasp from someone. The parishioners all started talking at once. A man on the third pew turned red in the face before he stood and walked out. A lady on the first row stood and then crumpled back down onto the pew and dissolved into tears. After a couple minutes, two other parishioners walked her out. Jerome was stunned and when things dropped into a lull, he forgot the announcements and just did the closing blessing. He recited the blessing, but no one in the pews replied. Then no one sang the closing hymn. Jerome found himself walking down the aisle to the back of the church alone. There were two doors at the back of the church and Jerome stood next to the one on the right. Two parishioners gave him tepid handshakes as they went out the door. The others all hurried by, walking out the left hand door.

He prayed a lot that week and came back the next Sunday determined to do everything he could to mend fences and get things moving in the right direction. Then he walked into the church and found himself conducting mass for three parishioners. The following Tuesday he was served with a law suit by a group of parishioners who styled themselves the Archangel Michael Church Council. They asked for an injunction against the closing of the church. When Jerome called the Bishop's office he was told in no uncertain terms that the reason they assigned someone who was a lawyer before he became a priest to tend to the closing of Archangel Michael was that he could handle any legal matters that popped up. Thus, he ended up personally fighting a court battle against the parishioners he was supposed to be helping. It had been almost ridiculously easy to win, but it delayed the closing by three months. During the entire last seven months of Archangel Michael's time as a functioning church he never had more than seven parishioners in the pews.

It was a soul crushing experience which almost broke Jerome. He spoke with other priests about it and even approached Bishop Mannion a couple times. They were all full of encouragement, good will, and platitudes. However, no one provided much in the way of actual assistance. In the end, it was his church secretary that got him through it.

Abigail Marie Mahan was a sixty year old woman and if Hollywood was going to cast a stereotypical Irish grandmother it would have looked to her. She was no nonsense, tough as nails, and she more or less adopted Jerome. She was not happy about Archangel Michael closing and she was at least as angry about the way he was being treated. About three months in, when he had been about to fall apart, she marched him into the back office of the church and lectured him for over an hour on his duties as a priest and how he needed to buck up and do his job for both the Church and this church. She was strength from God and stiffened his backbone for the rest of his time there. Years later he found out she had also turned herself into an absolute terror for the Bishop's office over her anger that Bishop Mannion had thrown a young priest like him to the wolves. When Archangel Michael was finally closed she was its only parishioner to come to the mass he held with Father Rios at Mary Queen of Heaven. A lone Irish-Catholic woman, she stood in the middle of pews filled with African-Americans and Mexican-Americans. After the mass she gave him a fierce hug and told him if the "bastards" ever did anything like this to him again that he should call her and she would set them straight. Then she turned and left while both of them were still able to hold their tears in.

Three years later he was in Charlottesville, reorganizing Blessed Sacrament Church for the diocese, when she called. Her wayward daughter, Margeret, had come back from the Army and gone to some law school in Kentucky. Now she was living in sin with some man deep in the mountains of Virginia. Abby was going to go out there and fix that. Would he preside over the wedding? He agreed and once he set the telephone down promptly forgot the call. After all, while he never met Margeret, he had met Abby's other two daughters, Kate and Ann, who were both every bit as willful as their mother. He had no doubt that Margeret would be just as stubborn as the other Mahan women. She would not get married unless she wanted to and she would never let her mother choose the priest for her wedding.

Six months later Father Jerome Tolton found himself in a place most Virginians did not realize existed. When most people thought of Southwest Virginia they thought of Roanoke. Bartlette County was three hours west of Roanoke and he was assured by the local priest, Father Gabe Mullins, that Virginia continued on for at least two more hours of driving until you left Lee County, Virginia and went into Middlesboro, Kentucky. There was a tiny Catholic church right next to a local hospital which had been built by the Church but was now owned by some conglomerate. Saint Berlinda was a rural church with a congregation that was theoretically about seventy and actually worked out to thirty parishioners at the weekly mass. The wedding had been a joyous, if somewhat chaotic, event. The church seated about one hundred. In the church proper there were nowhere near enough seats for the Mahans, who descended on Bartlette County in droves, much less the groom's family. However, Abby and her daughter Maggie made sure that every member of the Dollerby clan who wanted a seat got one. They were Protestants of some sort and the ceremony, celebration, and length of a Catholic wedding all seemed to combine to leave them kind of happily bemused.

The five hour reception dinner and party afterward at the local hotel and bar stunned the entire town. When a town policemen showed up at eleven thirty to calm them down some idiot who married into the family actually threw a punch at him. Before the local officer could get up off the floor three of Abby's nephews had slammed the attacker to the floor and were flashing their own badges. They helped the officer up and asked him to let them take care of the moron their cousin married. The local cop looked around, nodded his head, and left. About thirty minutes later four local officers and three deputies showed up to shut the party down. The Mahans reacted to that mostly with good humor and started to head back to their rooms until one of the local officers decided they were moving too slowly and got mouthy. The confrontation which followed was almost word for word from a movie.

A large Mahan looked down at the officer. "You'd better have the National Guard out there to back you if you think you can make us do anything."

The town officer snapped back, "Hell, we don't need no army. We got us a Bo."

On cue, a deputy walked through the door. He turned sideways as he did so and ducked his head under the door frame, then straightened out. None of the Mahan men were small, but they all looked up at Bo, who seemed to be as large as any three of them put together. The room got very quiet as Bo walked up. He had lieutenant bars on his collar and pointed at one of the other town officers.

"Get Mouse out of here before he gets me in another fight." The town officer who was making trouble gave Bo a sullen look, but went without a fuss. Then Bo pointed at the bartender. "You know that no alcohol can be sold after twelve. It's seven after."

The bartender looked like he was used to this. "Aw Bo, it's an open bar. I ain't selling anything."

Bo looked singularly unimpressed. "Don't care. You can serve these folks one more round and then you shut down if you want to keep your license."

Finally Bo turned to the Mahans. "Gentlemen, we got noise ordinances and drunk in public laws. I got little old ladies who live down the street who think that any drinking is a sin and who will be bugging the living crud out of my Sheriff tomorrow. He's already going to be on me for not shutting you down earlier. I hear some of you are officers and I'm sure you know what that's like." Several of the Mahans nodded as he continued. "Get a last round and break it up by one. I'm certain we'll get a couple more complaints by then and we'll swing by. Anybody who's still in the bar or partying in the halls will get to spend the night in jail on a drunk in public. Have a good night."

As Bo turned to leave, one of the younger Mahans started forward only to be grabbed by a couple of his elders. One of them whispered loudly enough that everyone in the bar could hear it through the continuing silence. "What the fuck's wrong with you? Don't you have enough sense to recognize a force of nature when you see it?"

People laughed and started to talk again. As he got to the door the big deputy stopped and turned back. "One last thing. Whoever punched Mark here," Bo pointed at the local officer, "had best be out of the county before eight in the morning. Mark doesn't mind letting it go, but he's going to have shiner and that means he has to file an incident report. His boss will get to the office about nine and read that report. He don't take kindly to people attacking his officers. We don't have a name right now and if he's gone from the county I don't expect much follow up. If he's still here, hitting an officer is a felony with a mandatory six months in jail. Make sure he's gone." With that Bo left and the other lawmen went with him.

Jerome was sitting in a back corner with Father Gabe, Abby and the bride. Abby chuckled and looked like she was suppressing a guffaw. "You know, that man just became a legend in Boston, New York, and Richmond. There are at least three officers from each of those cities here and by the time they get back Bo will be nine foot tall and when he walked in the door he bent a steel bar just to get everybody's attention."

Father Gabe turned to Abby with a bit of conspiratorial gleam in his eye. "You know, Abby, the reason he's a deputy is that he was the runt of the litter and his daddy thought he was too small to do real work on the farm."

Abby stood with a smile. "Oh, that's too good. I'm going to go up and get our last rounds at the bar and make sure everybody knows that." She turned to her daughter. "Maggie, you better go round your husband up. You know what they're doing to him."

Maggie stood up too. "I know. Heck, I figure they've already got him so snookered that he'll be worthless in bed tonight." Then she raised her voice as she turned to walk away past a table where some of the young Mahan women were gathered, commiserating on the lack of worthwhile men at the party. "But, you know, if I wanted to marry a man just because he was great in the sack, I'd probably have gone after Bo."

Jerome smiled at the memory and brought himself back to the present. That was the last time he had seen any of the Mahans, much less Abby. Abby stayed in Bartlette County and they kept in touch through phone calls and email, but for the last year Jerome was assigned to merge two monasteries which each had less then fifteen brothers apiece. It should have been easy since both were from the same order. However, like everything else the Bishop sent his troubleshooter to do, it turned out not to be anywhere near as simple as it first seemed. He spent the majority of the last year cloistered with a bunch of men in monasteries which forbade talking, much less phones and internet. He had just finished a meeting with the two abbots when a message arrived from Bishop Mannion. He was to return immediately to Richmond and get briefed about going to Bartlette County. It was a little after seven when he left the monastery and started driving back to Richmond. He stopped at a church on the way back and tried to call Abby, but got her voicemail. He could not think of anything the Bishop would think important enough to send him to Bartlette County. Whatever it was, he was certain that Abby had something to do with it. Why else would the Bishop be sending him? He looked at his watch. It was ten and the appointment with His Excellency was at eleven. He needed to get going so that he could make sure he got there on time. He walked back to the beat up old dodge truck the diocese was kind enough to provide him. On the third try the truck's engine coughed to life and he started driving.
. . . . .

His Excellency Bishop Wayne Mannion waved Jerome into a chair in his office. He was on the phone at the time and Jerome waited patiently while the Bishop finished speaking to some politician about how he should vote in a manner consistent with his faith. He was unable to tell whether the Bishop was going after a Republican for the death penalty or a Democrat for abortion before the conversation ended with the usual meaningless amenities.

Then Bishop Mannion looked at him with an unpleasant scowl. "Father Tolton, ever since the incident in Bartlette County, we have not been able to keep that Irish attack dog of yours at bay. She keeps insisting that you come out there to investigate. She won't leave us alone. She even called Rome." He glared at Jerome. "Do you know how much I hate getting calls from Rome questioning me about whether I have been lax in investigating attacks on the Church? And we're also getting calls from a Monsignor Reilly out of the Archdiocese of Newark who wants to know how one of their priests got killed. She called the Archbishop's office too."

Bishop Mannion's rant ground to a halt, but he continued to glare across his desk at Jerome. Jerome sat there in shock for a few seconds before he began to speak very carefully. "Your, Excellency, I have been either at Sacred Trinity Monastery or Christ the Savior Monastery. I've not had contact with the secular world at large."

The Bishop sat back for a second. "Then you don't know?" When Jerome shook his head, Mannion leaned forward again. "Well, that explains why she kept accusing us of hiding you or ordering you not to talk to her."

Jerome stayed silent and after a couple seconds Bishop Mannion sat up. "All right. I guess I can't blame you for something you didn't even know about. And I never can stay angry at you too long anyway. I don't know how you do it, but every time I send you out to do something which should make everyone hate you, you do it and make friends along the way. Of course, none of the others are quite as fierce as that Mahan woman. Next time you talk to her find out how she got the personal assistant of the Prefect of the Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei to call me at five in the morning." He grinned crookedly. "Let me tell you, it's quite a shock to be woken up and told the Inquisition is holding for you on line three."

"Anyway, you need to know what's going on. A week ago in Bartlette County a bunch of people were ambushed at the back door of the courthouse. During the gunfight, someone shot a big propane tank and it exploded. The explosion destroyed a building and sent about a dozen people to the hospital. The only one to die was a Father Ted Pahl - a priest from the Archdiocese of Newark."

"And now you know about as much as I do. For all I know it was some sort of Hatfield-McCoy thing and the Father Pahl just got in the way. I don't know. You need to find out."

Jerome took it all in and sending him to poke around Bartlette County seemed like a spectacularly bad idea. "Your Excellency . . . "

The Bishop waved his hand. "You're out of the doghouse. Stop with all the formality."

"Yes sir." The Bishop rolled his eyes as Jerome went on. "It may not be a good idea to send an outsider to look into this. My understanding is that they don't like it when outsiders poke their noses into local business. Also, this is a part of Virginia where people openly fly Confederate flags. I may not be the person who can handle this most effectively."

"Because you're Black?" Jerome cringed inwardly as Bishop Mannion's voice rose. He had heard that tone before. "Part of the Church's job is to combat moral ignorance. If they are too stupid to make use of your considerable skills because you have more melanin than they have, then they are idiots. But, we're going to make sure that they know they're idiots because if they don't accept your help you'll figure it out anyway - won't you?"

Jerome nodded. What else could he do? The Bishop had already made up his mind and now he had fastened a moral imperative on top of the need to investigate. To get there, he had badly misinterperated what Jerome meant. Local officials would cooperate. It was the guys out in the mountains who unabashedly flew Confederate flags who bothered him. He was fairly certain that he would not be welcome there. He was now equally certain that Bishop Mannion was not going to let him out of this.

Two hours later Jerome found himself back at his truck with instructions to drive immediately to Bartlette County. After meeting with the Bishop, he waited for another ninety minutes while the Bishop's aide de camp scared up a cell phone and portable computer for him. His clothes, New Jerusalem Bible, and rosaries were already packed in the old army duffelbag sitting on the passenger seat of the truck. He coaxed the truck back into life and started the five hour drive. This morning the Brothers at Christ the Savior woke him up at two thirty so he could participate in Lauds and then help with morning chores. He would be dead tired soon and no one in Barlette County even knew he was coming. It would be best if he found a place to bunk down tonight in Roanoke and then finished the part of the drive through winding mountain roads tomorrow.  He called directory assistance and asked for the number of one of the Catholic churches in Roanoke.

November Novel: CrimLaw Novel: Chapter 2

Bartlett County

[Chapter 1]


Chapter 2

Yusif Habib walked toward his boss' room at Mount View Hospital. It took the Sheriff's Department over three hours to find him and tell him about the gunfight and explosion. The 911 office in the Sheriff's Department had his cell number, but the explosion caused the ramshackle old inn next to the courthouse which housed the Sheriff's Department and the offices of the clerks of the various courts to catch fire. It burned to the ground long before the volunteer fire department got itself together. Thankfully, the building had been mostly empty and everyone got out, but the 911 office went up in flames with it. Of course, getting in contact with Yusif was not a high priority either.

Paula finally called him about nine-thirty, ten minutes after Rare Dare, the movie his date had chosen, started. He was at a theater in Bristol and dropped his date off at her place before he drove back. He did it in less than ninety minutes and it was something of a miracle that he did not wreck his car driving the curved roads of Southwest Virginia at night at the speeds to which he pushed his little Hyundai. Mount View Hospital was immediately next to the exit from 23E on the first Mount View exit so Yusif pulled into the hospital immediately without going into town. He could see lights flashing further up the road, but he was going to check on Brad first. He knew that Mount View Hospital was really just a glorified clinic and there were only two types of patients who stayed the night - those who had no real problems and those for whom nothing could be done. Anyone else was sent on to one of the big hospitals in Tennessee. He was going to make sure into which category Brad fell.

As he approached the door he heard Brad's voice raised in irritation. "Dammit, Maggs, give my phone back!"

A female voice replied tartly. "Don't you Maggs me, Nickel. All you were doing was annoying any deputy dumb enough to answer his cell. You are supposed to be resting. I'll let you know if anybody calls about anything important."

Well, that was a good sign. If Brad's wife was picking on him then his injuries could not be too serious. The two of them kvetched at each other constantly, usually because Maggie was pushing Brad to do something he ought to and he was resisting. When she really wanted to get his goat she started calling him "Nickel." Of course, everyone in Bartlette County called Brad "Nickel", but Maggie was the only one who did it to his face - usually with a fierce grin on hers while she did so. Brad hated the nickname which came from his years on the high school football team. He played football because his father made him and Coach Huggins had screamed at him over and over again "Dollerby you ain't worth a plugged nickel!" By his junior year everyone at Yared High called him Nickel. In his senior year, the local newspaper was running weekly sports stories about "Nickel" Dollerby which culminated in a front page headline when the Yared High Black Cats won the district championship over the Pound Wildcats and Brad ran for three touchdowns: "Nickel Worth More Than Pound!" Brad had been mortified and he still hated the nickname.

Walking through the door, Yusif saw Brad sitting up in bed with a bandage covering his right ear and Maggie sitting in the chair next to it. Brad saw him first. "Yusif, would you tell this insufferable woman that I need my phone?"  

"Umm, no thanks boss. I learned a long time ago not to get in between a man and his wife. Nothing good can come from it."

Brad waved his hand and Maggie turned to Yusif. She was thin as a rail and had flaming orange hair. She pointed at her husband. "He gets no phone before eight tomorrow morning and I don't want to hear that you gave him your phone either. No damage to the courthouse and this idiot still manages to get himself hurt and when I come tearing up the four lane to get here I found out that all that really happened was that he got his bell rung and had to have a scratch in his ear stitched up." She turned back to Brad. "Now that Lurch is here, I am going to go get some coffee. He can keep you company for an hour or so while I call everyone and make sure they know you are safe." As she started to walk out of the room she stopped and looked up at him. "Al-telephone mamnooa. Tafemni?"

Yusif stared at her blankly for a second. "Uh, no telephone?" She nodded sharply and walked out of the room. Yusif walked over to the bed. "Y'all have known me for over ten years, since our first year of law school, and she still doesn't believe I don't speak Arabic."

Brad adjusted himself in the bed, pushing a button to make it incline further. "Hell, Yusif, the reason she made us track you down at that mixer was that she saw your name on the list of new students and wanted to practice our language skills. I'm pretty sure she's never forgiven someone named Yusif Habib for not speaking Arabic."

Yusif chuckled. "I grew up in Winchester, Kentucky. The only person who spoke Arabic in my house was my Giddey and he died when I was eleven. Now, if you ever need a translater of Kentuckyese, I'm your man."

They both smiled. It was a familiar bit of patter - a joke the three of them had been sharing since they met at the mixer for first year law students at the University of Kentucky. It was also a favored way of dissembling when they did not want address a difficult topic. As the conversation lulled, Yusif took a deep breath.

"What the heck happened, Brad?"

"Well, you have to understand that I didn't see any of it. I was in my office, prepping for the next day of trial, and there was gunfire and a massive BOOM." Brad waved his hands in the air emphasizing the point. "Maggie's right. There's no damage to the courthouse, but that didn't keep me from having a bookshelf fall down on me. The next thing I remember is waking up in this bed a couple hours later with a bandage on my head where they sewed a rip in my ear back together." Brad rolled his eyes. "First thing they did after I woke up was try to give me an oxy. I don't remember much, but I understand I cussed the nurse out and told her where she could shove her oxys, tabs, and percs. Damn doctors hand those pills out like they're candy. Then I passed out again and when I woke up Maggie was here. She let me make a couple calls and then, when I wasn't looking, she grabbed the phone. You showed up while we were discussing that."

"Have you been into town yet?" After Yusif shook his head, he went on. "Okay. As best I can tell sitting here, the deputies were walking the Pahls over to the holding cell in the Sheriff's Department. Lasley, Tolliver, and that priest from up north were walking with them. They were in the alley between the buildings when someone opened fire on them. The deputies returned fire and everybody ran back toward the courthouse door. The propane tank was at the end of the alley and as the deputies rushed everyone back to the courthouse it was between the them and their attackers. Don't know who shot it, but the tank let out a big cloud of propane gas which filled the alley and then blew. It was basically a fuel air explosion. The courthouse is made of granite pulled out of the Yared quarry. Other then blowing out windows and causing furniture to fall over, the explosion didn't affect the courthouse. The old inn didn't make it. The part facing the courthouse collapsed and it caught fire. They don't think anyone was in the building but the two women working dispatch in the 911 center and it was on the other side; they got out."  

Brad paused and when he did not resume Yusif prompted him. "Who were the attackers? Was anyone hurt?"

"No idea who the shooters were. Everybody in the alley was medflighted to Tennessee. They're all in bad shape. Burns, bullet wounds, and concussive injuries. The door to the courthouse closed and locked behind them and the alley's door to the Sheriff's Department was twenty feet down the alley, in the direction of the shooters. They got back to the courthouse door, but they didn't get it unlocked in time."

"The only reason we know as much as we do is that Bo was trying to get the door unlocked and he got hit by four bullets right before the explosion. Three hit the back of his vest, but one hit him solid in the right arm. He got knocked down and fell in the middle of those trash cans they keep back there. Apparently, they absorbed most of the heat and explosion. He got bruises and a concussion, but was able to tell what happened before they sent him off to one of the Tennessee hospitals for surgery."

Brad motioned Yusif closer and lowered his voice. "You need to get over there. The last I heard, Major Harvey had broken into the empty store across from the courthouse and set it up as a headquarters. Get over there. Try to keep them from doing anything we, and they, will regret later. Don't be stupid about it though. I've seen what's going to happen here in Iraq. Before tonight the deputies knew they were the toughest, meanest, and most untouchable people in Bartlette County. Tonight, three of their people were are in a hospital and their headquarters is a pile of smoking rubble. These men are going to be scared and angry. That makes them dangerous. Try to keep a handle on things. The last thing we need is for the Sheriff's Department to go on a witch hunt, breaking down doors and rousting people because they've given the deputies trouble before and therefore they might be involved in this. We want to be able to prosecute the bastards who did this and if the deputies run wild they'll fuck it up."

Yusif nodded. He was unsure what good it would do to send him over. His working relationship with the deputies was good, but if they were going to go as wild as Brad feared there was no way they would listen to him. They would not listen to an outsider who moved into the county three years before to take the assistant Commonwealth Attorney position the way they would Brad, whose family had lived around the town of Yared for longer than anyone could remember. Still, he had to try.

As he turned to walk out, Brad must have seen his concern because he held up his hand in a halting motion. "Just hold the line until tomorrow morning. I'll be out of here as soon as I can and I'm coming straight over, no matter what Maggie says. Now, go do some good." As Brad smiled grimly, Yusif completed his turn and left the hospital room.

November Novel Month: CrimLaw Novel: Chapter 1

November is supposed to be national novel month. There's even a website, so you know it must be important.  I am going to try my hand at this.  As I finish chapters I will post them here.  Enjoy Chapter 1:

Brad Dollerby looked up at the jurors sitting in front of him. It had taken two and one half days to select the people who would sit on it, which was an unusually long time in Virginia.  In Virginia most jury trials were finished in the first day and jury selection was an hour of that day.  Selecting this jury had been a nightmare because the defendants were the sons of Martin Pahl, one of the five or six richest guys in Bartlette County.  He owned at least twenty eZee Stops, the BartMart (the biggest store this side of the Wal*Mart in Norton), and he was probably the biggest local donor to the Republican Party.  Everyone did business with Martin or owed him a favor.

The defense attorney tried to get the trial moved to another county because the local paper, the Weekly Mountain Democrat, published six front page stories about the Pahl brothers.  Brad also urged the judge to move the case because he was worried about Martin Pahl's influence in Bartlette.  Judge Isom would not have any of it.  He made it very clear that there was no way the trial would be moved to another county unless they absolutely could not seat a jury in Bartlette.  Then he ordered the circuit court clerk to assign two hundred people to jury duty for the term of court from January through March and to summon all two hundred of them to jury selection.  One hundred and forty two actually showed and it had been a close question as to whether the jury would be seated.  By the time all the jurors who had some sort of bias from the paper or who knew the Pahl family were removed and both sides did their peremptory strikes, one hundred and seventeen jurors had been dismissed.  However, there were now nine women and five men sitting in the jury box. If nobody got sick or disappeared, two of the jurors were alternates, but no one would know which two until they were randomly selected at the end of the trial. He glanced one last time at his notes and began.

"'Ah Hell, they ain't nothing but money hungry pill whores.'  That's what Justin Pahl said when the deputies arrested him and his brother Kyle chimed in, 'Yeah, them bitches didn't get nothin' they didn't want.'"

"On the twentieth of June last year, the Pahl brothers went to Finch's Pub and Grill in Saint Minas.  They picked up four women - Kayla Mullins, Maggie Forwith, Kate Young, and Marla Tate.  They all went back to the Pahl brothers' house and spent the night drinking, snorting pills, playing around in the hot tub, and having sex.  We're not prosecuting them for any of that today."

"The reason we're here is what started the next day and went through the following week.  When the women woke up the next day they were in a couple bedrooms on the third floor with a bathroom shared between them.  The doors to the bedrooms were locked from the outside with deadbolt locks that could only be opened by key.  The only windows were a couple skylights which were through the roof and out of reach. For the next eleven days Kayla, Maggie, Kate, and Marla were held against their will.  They were only let out of the bedroom one or two at a time and only to have sex.  When the they refused to come out, those two," he pointed at the defendants, "refused to give them any food.  When a day of that didn't work, they cut off the water, electricity, and air conditioning to the third floor.  The temperature outside was in the eighties; inside the temperature got much hotter.  By mid-afternoon on the third day the women gave in."

"For the remainder of the eleven days the two of them would choose whichever woman they wanted and order her to come out of the rooms.  They'd do whatever they wanted to that woman and then lock her back up.  Finally, on the eleventh day, a day before their father got home from his vacation in Gatlinburg, they let the women out of the rooms, gave them a bottle of oxycodone pills and five thousand dollars. Then they dumped them all back in front of Finch's. Kayla and Maggie wanted to forget it all, but Kate and Marla refused to let them get away with it.  They went to the Sheriff's Office in Mount View the next day and reported it all."

"Justin and Kyle Pahl are charged with abducting these women and various charges of rape, sodomy and object sexual penetration.  At the end of this trial you'll see what those men did and we trust you'll hold them responsible for their actions."

As Brad returned to his seat, Grant Lasley, the defense attorney for Kyle Pahl stood up and started his opening statement with the traditional formula.

"May it please the Court, Learned Counsel for the Prosecution, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, this is the story of four prostitutes who got upset because they didn't get the money they expected . . ."

Brad half listened to Lasley's opening.  He knew what Lasley was going to do in this case.  He was going to do what he did every time - blame the victims.  The evidence was overwhelming about what the Pahl brothers had done, so the women must have actually wanted it done. Furthermore, the victims were terrible persons who deserved what happened to them, and the defendant was the actual victim because these women were persecuting him. There were rape shield laws in Virginia which were supposed to stop that sort of thing and Brad argued before the trial that these arguments should be barred, but Judge Isom overruled him. Now Lasley would spend the next three days of trial slandering these women.

Of course, technically Grant Lasley represented only Justin Pahl.  Squire Tolliver represented Kyle.  However, Squire was not going to be the attack dog, slandering the woman and trying to get improper evidence admitted.  Instead, he would do the "not in anger, but in sorrow" part of the show.  Indeed, as soon as Lasley finished Squire stood up to start his part of the double team.

He looked for all the world like a country squire from a BBC show about 1940's England standing there in his tweed suit and sorrowful face.  "Ladies and Gentleman, I am Keith Tolliver, but everyone's called me 'Squire' for the last twenty years. Not sure why." He smiled at the jurors as though sharing an inside joke. "We're not here because we hate these girls. However, because we believe that our clients are falsely accused, we are going to have to tell you some bad things . . ."

As Squire droned on, Brad thought about the evidence he would present today. He would probably only have time to call Deputy Mullins and if he had to he would call Investigator Powell. He would put off calling any of the victims until tomorrow or Friday. He looked at the time on his computer. Four-seventeen. If opening statements went much longer Judge Isom might not let him call any witnesses at all today and the last impression the jurors would have would be the defense attorneys' openings. However, Squire was already at least five minutes beyond the fifteen minutes Judge Isom allowed for an opening statement. As if on queue, Squire wrapped up and walked back to his seat.

Judge Isom looked at Brad.  "Commonwealth, call your first witness."

Brad stood. "Your Honor, Commonwealth calls Deputy Sergeant Tom Mullins."

.........

It was six-forty seven when Brad got back to his office.  The questioning and cross examination of Deputy Mullins took about an hour and then the judge let the jury go.  As soon as the jurors left the courtroom, Lasley made a motion for a mistrial on the grounds that Brad had irreparably prejudiced the jurors because he repeatedly referred to the four women as "victims" rather than "complaining witnesses." They argued for another forty-five minutes about that before the judge shut it down, ruling that the defense was not entitled to choose the words the prosecution could use and was not entitled to sanitize the trial by removing words a normal person would use. Then the judge adjourned for the day.  The deputies had not yet started putting the shackles on the Pahl brothers, so they could be transported back to jail, when Brad grabbed his files and left the courtroom; in fact, the brothers were saying a prayer with their uncle when he left.  The uncle was a Catholic priest who had driven down from New Jersey and sat in the front row, behind the brothers, for every minute of jury selection and the trial so far.  Brad disliked that bit of staging, but he could not think of a viable way to stop it.

The lights were still on in the office when he got there.  His office was up the stairs in the old balcony of the courtroom, which had been converted into two rooms.  The first room had two desks in it. One was for Paula, who filled the role of secretary, receptionist, and paralegal.  The other was for Jeanna, the victim-witness advocate.  If you walked between the desks through the door behind them you were in his office. It was not an opulent office. There was barely enough room for two bookshelves, his desk, and a couple chairs in front of it for visitors.  In fact, his deputy's office was three times the size of Brad's, but it was also in the bell tower even further up the stairs and was basically an converted attic.

Brad walked through the empty office and sat at his desk. There were at least twenty phone messages stacked neatly on his computer keyboard.  Paula did not trust that he would find them anywhere else amidst the piles of papers on his desk.  He picked them up and looked through them.  There were three that required an immediate phone call; one from Delegate Pierce, one from the Governor's office, and one from the Bristol newspaper. There were about six from salesmen trying to get him to buy law books or computer programs - those could be ignored.  The rest were from various people who did not have emergencies and probably would not appreciate him calling them in the evening anyway; he would leave a message for his deputy to call them tomorrow. He picked up the phone and dialed the Delegate's number.  It went right to voice mail and the message had just beeped . . . 

Pop. Pop. Pop. . . . Pop Pop Pop Pop

He had not heard that noise since Iraq.  He dropped the phone and reached for his pistol. Then he realized he did not have it; during a jury trial, Judge Isom forbade anyone to be armed in his courtroom other than the bailiff.  His pistol was locked in the desk. He grabbed for his keys and fumbled to get the right one.

A massive blast hit him from the left side. He was thrown to the right and he tumbled to the floor still in his chair. He saw the wooden bookshelves which were next to the the wall bounce against it and rebound, falling over top of him.  Then everything suddenly went black.

In This Era of Unemployment, Can Criminals Provide a New Job Source?

According to a Cali Court they could (if police could not pull over a car if they saw a passenger who was a wanted felon):

"Appellant contends that since Officer Hopkins had no suspicion of criminal activity or wrongdoing by him, the officer may not stop his vehicle. He argues [that] an investigatory stop [is allowed] only if there is a reasonable suspicion that the person driving was involved in a completed felony. Therefore, he argues, he could not be stopped. If we were to adopt such an untenable rule, then legions of criminals throughout the land could hire drivers, who are upstanding citizens with no past criminal involvement, to chauffeur them around our streets and highways in open, notorious view. As smug passengers they could wave to the police who could only watch in frustration as they passed by. A momentary stop of an automobile by police to investigate a passenger reasonably believed to be involved in a past crime is proper. It creates a minimal inconvenience to the driver of that automobile, when balanced against the government's interest in apprehending criminals." In re William J., 171 Cal. App.3d 72 (1985).

I wonder if the pay scale increases depending on how serious the crime the fugitive is accused of?