1 Motor City Shakedown (5 page)

That memory replaying in her mind, she was startled when her office phone rang.
She looked at it, then down at her hands. The bottle was in one, a little white pill in the other.

The phone rang a second time.
She put the pill in the bottle and the bottle on the desk. When she lifted the receiver from the cradle, she pushed all the obsessive dwelling aside and adopted her professional voice.

“Issabella Bright, attorney at law.
How can I help you?”

The voice on the other end of the line was smooth in its authority, self-assured.

“Oh, good, you’re in. Ms. Bright, this is Judge Chelsea Hodgens. When I order you down to my chambers, which I’m doing right now, how fast do you guess you can get here?”

*

The Brewster Williams Housing Projects were two red-brown monoliths squatting in the heart of an empty plain of dead grass, broken sidewalk flags, and unused roads. The wind whipped freely across the deserted plain and climbed into a banshee-wail as it shot throughout the empty depths of the towers.

Malcolm Mohommad strode alone across that broken length of Detroit. He was a sturdy, broad-shouldered intimidation cast in the clothes of a working man—a mustard-yellow Carhartt jacket, jeans, and work boots. Malcolm’s wide face and clean-shaven skull lacked any single characteristic that could be easily described to someone who had never seen him in person. His brown skin was of a medium hue, neither dark nor light, and the absence of wrinkles across his face gave him an agelessness, a disquieting impression that Malcolm had been breathed into creation fully formed as he now appeared, without history or future touching him.

Beneath his broad forehead, the little black stones that stared out at the world betrayed the carefully guarded intelligence that lurked behind them.

As he was wont to do, Malcolm kept his eyes peeking every which way as he stalked toward the distant towers. Except for the occasional junkie on the nod, he was the sole remaining occupant of Brewster Williams.
Detroit and her denizens had unconditionally surrendered the brick-and-cement cradle where he had been born.

As he closed in on the towers, almost to the line where their shadows darkened the earth, his cell rang. Malcolm paused. He did a slow pirouette as he thumbed at it, his deep-set eyes scanning. Nothing human moved as far as he could see.

“Hmm,” He grunted into the cell.

The only voice that ever spoke through his phone said the same thing to him that it always said before hanging up: “Shit, wrong number, brother. My bad.”

He shut off the phone and altered the trajectory he’d been maintaining before the cell phone call. He marched through the shadow of the southern-most tower. There was a large concrete trash can outside the front entrance. It hadn’t been emptied in years, and only ever accumulated new contents when someone needed to reach Malcolm.

Again, he paused and scanned.

Malcolm settled back on his heels, lit a Newport and proceeded to loiter at the entrance. He held his cell to his ear like he was talking on it. His eyes moved along the shadowed depths of the tower above him, then across the distance to the other, identical tower. He inhaled smoke, let it out through his nose and slowly felt more and more confident that nobody was nearby.

He reached in and withdrew a thick, folded newspaper. He peeked under the top fold just enough to confirm that there was a two-inch thick orange envelope nestled between the pages. It looked right, though Malcolm would still count the bills once he was inside. His fee was flat and was not open for negotiation. Negotiation involved communication and meeting with his client, and he was not ever going to make those sorts of mistakes.

He glanced at the headline on the front page and the accompanying photograph. A yellow highlighter had been used on the face of a person in the photo and again on the man’s name underneath the photo.

Malcolm stuck the paper under his arm and disappeared inside the dark, whistling depths of the tower. Someone had just hired him to kill a man named Vernon Pullins.

*

Judge Chelsea Hodgens watched the young woman Judy ushered into her chambers nervously take a seat across from her.
Issabella Bright looked frazzled and uncertain. She glanced around at the certificates and plaques that hung on the paneled walls, then at her hands, and finally at the Judge.

Chelsea favored her with a thin smile and leaned back in her swivel chair.

“I have a cold and I don’t want to pass it around,” she said. “Otherwise I would have stood and greeted you with a handshake.”

“That’s okay.”

“You’ve never practiced in front of me, have you?”

“No, Your Honor.
Not yet.”

“Good.”

A wrinkle of consternation appeared between Issabella’s eyebrows.

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be. It helps that I haven’t had you in my court. I’ve sent a note up to Chief Judge Summers asking to keep any case you’re handling off my docket for the foreseeable future, until the case against Vernon Pullins is concluded.”

She watched a series of expressions, one more confused than the next, play across the pretty young woman’s face.
Chelsea coughed into her fist twice, settled back, and waited for a response.

“I don’t understand,” Issabella said.
“I’m not representing Mr. Pullins. If this is about this morning…”

Chelsea arched a brow.

“This morning when you attempted to solicit business in a hospital? Yes, it is about that. That sort of nonsense isn’t the way to build a reputation worth having, you know.”

Issabella flushed red and sank her head down into her hands.
She mumbled something into her palms.

“Speak up, Ms. Bright.
I don’t tolerate mumblers in my court, or in chambers. You’re a lawyer. Get your head up and say it clearly.”

“I made a very bad decision
, Your Honor.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have an excuse worth hearing.”

“Good.
I wouldn’t entertain it.”

Judge Hodgens was beginning to doubt this frazzled, apologetic girl in front of her.
She didn’t need a mousy, passive lawyer. She needed someone she could believe had a backbone and enough assertiveness to keep Darren Fletcher from self-imploding.

As she was contemplating dismissing Issabella from her presence and putting in a phone call to Darren, the girl seemed to glean on to something.
Issabella’s flush of embarrassment subsided, and her eyes narrowed with calculation.

“You Honor?”

“Yes?”

“How, exactly, do you know about where I was this morning?”

“Darren Fletcher called me. He was impressed with you. He thinks you should be appointed co-counsel for Mr. Pullins. Wasn’t I clear on that?”

“No.
No you weren’t.”

“Well, there you have it,” Chelsea said, and looked up at the wall clock hanging behind Issabella.
She picked up a pen and began writing on the back of one of her business cards. “My afternoon docket begins in half an hour. Darren has the case file from the prosecutor’s office. This is his number. Also, don’t worry about not yet being approved for the felony appointment list. Darren’s still on the list for life offenses, so appointing you as co-counsel won’t cause a fuss with whoever your judge winds up being.”

Issabella took the offered card with Darren’s number, stared at it, then at the Judge.

“I still don’t understand.”

Chelsea blew her nose into a tissue and felt her sinuses throbbing with pressure.

“I can see that. Why don’t you give me all your questions, so we can make this fast. I have to prep my docket and guzzle a pint or so of cough syrup. Summer colds are the worst. I hope I haven’t passed it to you. If you wake up tomorrow feeling like someone ran you over and left you in a ditch, consider yourself apologized to, yes?”

Judy appeared,
peeking her head in the door. When she saw the Judge nod her head, Judy smiled and hustled into the room. The court reporter set a cup of steaming beef broth down in front of the Judge, gave her a supportive wink, and just as quickly hustled back out.

Chelsea took a tentative sip of the broth, gladdened at the scouring heat running down her throat.
She grinned and said “I’ll tell you something you might not know yet. The key to happiness as a lawyer is the person who answers your office phone and keeps everything organized. The same is true for a judge.”

Issabella didn’t return
the grin, and the Judge wondered if maybe there was some grit in the girl after all.

“Why?” Issabella said.

“Why what?”

“Why are you involving yourself in this?
Why are you appointing me to a potential life-sentence case? You don’t know me, Your Honor.”

Chelsea didn’t answer, letting Issabella ans
wer the questions in silence for herself. The young lawyer eventually clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and her face hardened with recognition.

“You know Darren Fletcher,” she said.
“He called you after I left the hospital. You’re doing this because he asked. Why?”

Chelsea pushed herself up, her entire length from scalp to toes aching and weak.
She plucked her robe of office off the coat stand in the corner and started shrugging into it.

“Darren and I have an agreement,” she said.
“He doesn’t take felony cases unless I approve it ahead of time. When he told me Mr. Pullins’ brother had hired him, I set the condition that he must have co-counsel. He seems to think you’d fit nicely in the second chair, so I’m appointing you. Congratulations. Not many public defenders can say they’ve represented an accused cop-killer less than a year after sitting for the bar. If all goes well, you’ll have jump started your career. If all goes poorly, consider it penance for your behavior this morning.”

Issabella was still frowning, but Chelsea had no more time for her.
There was a stack of pre-sentencing reports she needed to pick-through and decide on before taking the bench.

“This is where you get on your feet and thank me,” she said.

Issabella got on her feet, but there was no thanks forthcoming. She slipped the business card in her purse, shouldered it, and said “Why isn’t he allowed to run his own cases? What did he do, exactly?”

Judge Hodgens shrugged, mentally already moving onto other matters
. She sat and picked up the stack of sentencing recommendations while wiping at her raw nostrils with a fresh tissue. The broth was a balm on her throat, but it had done nothing for her plugged and aching sinuses.

“He’s you
r partner now, Ms. Bright,” she said, not looking up. “Ask him. On your way out, tell Judy to come in, would you?”

Issabella didn’t move.

“I don’t like this.”

Judge Hodgens favored her with a chilly grin.

“No?” she answered. “You’ve got some common sense, then. Be a dear and direct all of it at Darren. He needs a sound voice of reason. Good bye, Ms. Bright.”

The young lawyer seemed to recognize there was nothing to be gained by continuing the meeting.
Without a word, Issabella turned on her heel and walked out. The Judge expected to hear her telling Judy to come in, but all she heard was the sound of the outer-office door clacking shut.

It was a small thing, a slight, to ignore the Judge’s request.
Still, it meant Issabella could poke back if she had a mind to.

‘Good girl,’
Judge Hodgens thought before putting Issabella Bright and Darren Fletcher out of her mind. As miserable as she felt, and as nervous as she was about Darren’s attempt at getting back into the game of life, she had a court to run.

*

Issabella was heading home west on I-94 and passing the giant Firestone Tire landmark, when she heard her cell chime from inside her purse. Fishing around, she found it and answered on the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Issabella. This is—“

“I know who this is,” she snapped.

“—Darren. You do? Okay. Look, I wanted to let you know—“

“That you went behind my back and had a judge assign me to a case I shouldn’t be on?”

She heard the anger in her tone, felt the rush of it in her temples and behind her eyes. If she was having this conversation, it shouldn’t be while driving, she decided. She signaled and glided the Buick down the Telegraph Road exit to Dearborn.

“Well,” Darren answered, sounding
entirely unfazed, “I might quibble with the description. What do you mean ‘shouldn’t’? Of course you should. It’s a big case. Why shouldn’t you be on it?”

“I’ve been practicing le
ss than a year is why.”

She turned right on Telegraph,
saw a McDonald’s ahead, and brought the Buick to a stop in its parking lot.