She made the job sound boring, and, after twelve years, it rather felt that way.
Margie listened carefully, her fingertips tapping the file. She took a deep breath and asked, “The person who files the complaint, is he or she always identified?”
Lacy thought for a second and said, “Eventually, yes. It’s quite rare for the complaining party to remain anonymous.”
“Why?”
“Because the complainant usually knows the facts of the case and needs to testify against the judge. It’s hard to nail a judge when the people he ticked off are afraid to come forward. Are you afraid?”
The very word seemed to frighten her. “Yes, you could say that,” she admitted.
Lacy frowned and appeared bored. “Look, let’s cut to the chase here. How serious is the behavior that you’re talking about?”
Margie closed her eyes and managed to say, “Murder.”
She immediately opened them and glanced around to see if anyone had overheard. There was no one close enough to hear anything except Lacy, who absorbed this with the hard-boiled skepticism she had developed after so many years on the job. She reminded herself again to be patient. When she looked at Margie’s eyes again they were wet.
Lacy leaned in a bit closer and softly asked, “Are you suggesting that one of our sitting judges has committed a murder?”
Margie bit her lip and shook her head. “I know he has.”
“May I ask how you know this?”
“My father was one of his victims.”
Lacy inhaled this and glanced around herself. “Victims? As in more than one?”
“Yes. I believe my father was his second victim. I’m not sure which number, but I’m certain of his guilt.”
“Interesting.”
“That’s an understatement. How many complaints have you had about judges killing people?”
“Well, none.”
“Exactly. In the history of America, how many judges have been convicted of murder while on the bench?”
“I’ve never heard of one.”
“Exactly. Zero. So don’t dismiss this as something ‘interesting.’？”
“Didn’t mean to offend.”
Across the way, Darren finished his important business and left. Neither woman acknowledged his departure.
Margie said, “No offense taken. I’m not going any further in this coffee bar. I have a lot of information that I would like to share with you and no one else, but not here.”
Lacy had encountered her share of nuts and unbalanced souls with boxes and paper sacks filled with documents that clearly proved that some sleazeball up on the bench was thoroughly corrupt. Almost always, after a few minutes of face-to-face interaction, she could reach her verdict and began making plans to route the complaint to the dismissal drawer. Over the years she had learned to read people, though with many of the wackos that came her way a quick evaluation wasn’t much of a challenge.
Margie, or whoever, was neither a nut nor a wacko, nor an unbalanced soul. She was onto something and she was frightened.
Lacy said, “Okay. Where do we go next?”
“What is next?”
“Look, you contacted me. Do you want to talk or not? I don’t play games and I don’t have time to pry information out of you or any other person who wants to complain about a judge. I waste a lot of time cajoling information out of people who call me in the first place. I go down a dead-end trail once a month. Are you talking or not?”
Margie was crying again and wiping her cheeks. Lacy studied her with as much compassion as possible, but she was also willing to leave the table and never come back.
However, she was intrigued by the idea of murder. Part of her daily grind around BJC was suffering through the mundane and frivolous gripes of unhappy people with small problems and little to lose. A murder by a sitting judge seemed too sensational to believe.
Finally, Margie said, “I have a room at the Ramada on East Gaines. We could meet there after hours. But you have to come alone.”
Lacy nodded as if she’d anticipated this. “With precautions. We have a rule that prohibits me from conducting an initial meeting with a complaining party off premises and alone. I would have to bring another investigator, one of my colleagues.”
“Like Mr. Trope over there?” Margie asked, nodding at Darren’s empty chair.
Lacy slowly turned around to see what in the world she was talking about as she tried desperately to think of a response.
Margie continued, “It’s your website, okay? Smiling faces of all staff.” From her briefcase she removed an 8×10 color photo of herself and slid it across the table. “Here, with best wishes, a current color mug of myself that’s far better than the ones Mr. Trope just stole.”