The Advocate's Ex Parte (The Advocate Series Book 5) (4 page)

“Okay, they’ll go to the bottom of my list. That leaves nine cases. Can we narrow it down any more?”

“Four of those are tox baby cases—numbers Three, Four, Seven, and Nine. The mother used drugs while she was pregnant; there’s nothing unusual about those cases. If the mother does what she’s supposed to do, she will likely have the child back within six months.” Sabre marked them off her list. JP started to do the same. “Wait. Let’s not dismiss number Nine yet. Both parents were pretty hostile on that case.”

“Okay, so we’re down to six dependency cases and one delinquency to start with. If we don’t uncover anything in those, I’ll investigate the remaining cases. Can you pull those files and I’ll start reading through them?”

“Sure.” Sabre stood up, walked to the file cabinet, and returned with an armload of files, one gray and five pink. She set them on the desk in front of JP. “The gray is the delinquency case, the pink are dependency. And there’s one more case: Wheeler.” Sabre went over to the file cabinet again and returned with three pink folders and two thick manila folders. She dropped them on the desk. “This is the Wheeler case. The family has been here before. The pink folders contain detention reports, social studies, and anything that happened before the Permanent Planning Hearing, or PPH as we call it, was set. The manila folders have everything after the PPH. Bob represents the father, Willie Wheeler. He’s crazy as a loon.”

“Who? Bob or Willie?”

Sabre laughed. “Both, I guess.” Bob Clark was Sabre’s and JP’s closest friend. It was Bob who introduced JP and Sabre. Bob and Sabre met at juvenile court over six years ago. They were thrown together on a difficult case when Sabre was first appointed to the panel. After weeks of constant contact, fighting for justice, and ultimately winning the trial, they discovered they really enjoyed each other’s company. It wasn’t long before they shared many of the same cases, lunched together daily, and occasionally socialized. Their relationship remained platonic with no romantic involvement. Bob was married to Marilee, whom Sabre came to know over time. She and Marilee were friends, but not like she and Bob were. He was her work spouse and helped Sabre fill a void created by her missing brother, Ron.

“Did you have a hearing on any of these cases yesterday prior to Mitchell’s ex parte with you?”

Sabre ran the morning calendar through her mind. “Yeah. Durham. And I have two of them on tomorrow: Martinez and King. Fisher, that tox baby case with the wild parents, was on the day before. Oh, and the Tran case was on calendar yesterday morning as well for a special hearing. Judge Mitchell ordered a CASA—Court Appointed Special Advocate appointed, and then continued the case for a week or so. The date’s in the file.”

JP stacked the files with Durham on top, followed by Fisher, Martinez, and King. “And the other two?”

“Howard and Wheeler were both on last week and they have hearings coming up again soon.”

JP continued with his stack. Under King he placed Tran and Howard. He picked up the huge stack of Wheeler’s files. “I’m leaving these until last,” he said, as he placed them on the bottom of his pile. “That one is going to take a while. Why don’t we go through each case and you can give me a quick synopsis.”

“Okay.”

JP walked over to Sabre’s credenza and opened the door. “I need a legal pad.”

“Sure.”

He returned to his seat, took out his pen and wrote the date on the first sheet of yellow paper along with the name,
Durham
. He had beautiful handwriting, which had initially surprised Sabre because he was such a cowboy. But as time went on, she came to know his gentle, sensitive side that matched his script.

“Durham, as you know, is the delinquency case. A double homicide. Matt is accused of bludgeoning two teenagers as they walked home from a school play.”

“And we know what he is capable of,” JP said with a bit of an edge in his voice. “But he was in custody so he would have to have had an accomplice, maybe even more than one. Was there any evidence that a second person was involved in the murders?”

“No,” Sabre said. “At least they don’t have anything that puts anyone else at the scene of the crime, but to tell you the truth, I’m not sure they’ve ruled it out either.”

“That boy is frightening.”

“I know.” Sabre didn’t want to talk about Matt Durham right now. The last encounter with him had left her very uncomfortable. She picked up the Durham file and stood up. “I’ll make you copies of this. You’re going to need it anyway.” She stepped toward the door on her way to the copy room but continued to talk. “Working our way through these files is going to take a while and I’m hungry. Do you mind if we get some food? We can get take-out. Maybe even have something delivered.” She paused for just a second without giving JP time to respond. “Oh, I’m sorry. You probably have dinner plans. Never mind, I’ll be….”

“Food sounds great. Let’s order in.”

Chapter 5

The Snow Pea Chinese BBQ had received their order for delivery. Sabre and JP continued through the files while they waited for their food to arrive. Sabre copied the Durham file, put the pages in a manila folder, and labeled it before she handed it to JP.

“Thanks,” he said.

JP picked up the first thin, pink file folder and wrote
Fisher
on the second page of his legal pad. “And Fisher is the baby born on drugs with the volatile parents?”

“Right.”

“So, how volatile? Any incidents or threats made?”

“The father threatened the social worker when the child was taken from the hospital and placed in foster care.”

“So, the baby never went home?”

“No. And at the detention hearing the mother flipped out and started screaming, ‘You’ll all pay for taking my baby.’ That time the father tried to calm
her
down.”

“Did anyone take her seriously?”

“Not really. This stuff happens all the time. And I’m pretty certain she was high in court that day. Your typical meth freak behavior.”

“So, both parents are suspect on Fisher.”

“Pretty much.”

JP picked up the next pink file. This one was a little thicker than the first, indicating it had been around a bit longer. He read the computer-generated label: “Martinez.”

“Domestic violence,” Sabre said. “They had one heck of a brawl one night in front of her house—three kids all screaming, neighbors coming out of their houses. One of the Martinez kids called the police and reported it.”

“Did they arrest him?”

“Her.”

“That’s a switch.”

“They took them both in, but she was the only one charged. It was about the fourth time the cops had been called this year.”

“But this was the first arrest?”

Sabre nodded.

“Because it was the woman—not the man—doing the beating,” he said in more of a statement than a question.

“Maybe. Anyway, by the time they arrived the guy had a broken nose. Blood had spurted everywhere. She’d beaten him with a Mickey Mouse lamp, of all things. The oldest child tried to stop her, but he got kicked in the face and ended up with a black eye.”

“And none of the neighbors did anything?”

“Not at first. Even when they did finally intervene, they didn’t stop the fight, but one of them picked up the two-year-old boy and held him so he couldn’t see what was happening.” Sabre stopped talking when she heard the front door open. She started to stand up. “That must be the food.”

JP beat her out of her seat. “I’ll get it,” he said and walked out of her office.

Sabre wasn’t sure if he was anxious to keep her from paying for the food or if he was concerned that it might not be the delivery. She heard an exchange of a few words between JP and another male voice, and a minute or two later JP returned carrying a white paper sack that smelled of shrimp, ginger, and garlic. He set the bag on Sabre’s desk. She retrieved two paper plates, a couple of spoons, a fork, and two sets of cream-colored plastic chopsticks from a cupboard. She handed JP a plate. “Chopsticks?”

“No, thanks.”

Sabre laid the other utensils on the desk. They dished up their food and for a moment ate in silence, JP with his fork and Sabre with the chopsticks.

“Why do you use those when you eat Asian food?”

“Actually, I use them for other food, too. At home, that is. It feels better than the taste of metal in my mouth. I learned to use them when I was a kid. My mother would get annoyed at me because I would eat so fast. She constantly told me to slow down because it wasn’t healthy and it was bad manners. I think the manners thing bothered her the most. One day my father came home with a beautiful set of chopsticks with mother of pearl embedded on the handles. They were gorgeous. After a great deal of practice and my brother’s harassment and teasing, I mastered using them. Now, they trigger pleasant memories for me.”

JP smiled and for a second Sabre saw wonder in his eyes. She couldn’t decide if it was out of fascination, admiration, or just curiosity.

“I could teach you how to use them.”

JP shook his head. “There’s no use trying to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”

She laughed. “Fair enough.”

JP finished eating before Sabre. He threw his plate in the trash and picked up his file again. “So, back to Martinez. You were saying a neighbor helped with the youngest child.”

“She finally tried to get the other two children away from the parents, but the oldest boy kept trying to stop the fight and the little girl just stood there screaming. The neighbor’s contact information is in the report.”

“How old are the other children?”

“The girl is five and the boy is seven.”

“Same father for all three kids?”

“Yes. And according to the father’s attorney, he puts up with the mother’s behavior because of the children.”

“Any drug or alcohol abuse on this case?”

“Of course. Mostly alcohol, I think. That’s the common denominator on most of these cases, isn’t it?” Sabre didn’t wait for him to answer. “Both of them drink quite a bit, but the booze really sets the mother off. Apparently, she’s pretty bad to start with and impossible with the help of her friend in the bottle.”

JP made some more notes on his pad about Martinez, turned the page, and wrote
King.
“So, what is this one?”

“Physical abuse. Two boys, ages two and twelve. The dad beat the older boy, who is his stepson, with a belt. Left some pretty nasty bruises. He spent the last year in prison for a probation violation on an earlier assault charge.”

“And the violation was for?”

“Drug possession with intent to sell.”

“And
Tran
?” JP started a new page.

“Neglect. The mom left her eighteen-month-old baby girl locked in a room while she went to work. The apartment complex caught on fire. Apparently, someone heard the baby crying so a couple of young guys broke in and rescued her.”

“Good for them.” JP wrote his notes. “Do we know who the CASA worker is yet?”

“No, but I’ll check on that.”

“One more thing: Where does the mother on the Tran case work?”

“Initially, she named a dry cleaning establishment, but then she finally admitted to being a stripper.”

“This case just got more interesting.”

Sabre glanced at JP without turning her head toward him. “Oh, it did, did it?”

A hint of pink flushed over JP’s face. “I’m sure she’s a very nice girl.” His face reddened more. He turned to the next page in his notepad. “Tell me about Howard.”

“That’s a shaken baby case. Someone shook the three-month-old and jarred his brain loose. The child died. There’s a three-year-old sibling who was removed from the home.”

“Anyone arrested?”

“Not yet. The parents are pointing the finger at the babysitter. The babysitter says the child was fine when she left.”

JP turned to another blank page on his yellow pad. “That leaves Wheeler.”

“Ah, where do I start with Willie Wheeler?”

“If this huge stack of files is any indication, this case has been going on for some time.”

“It first came into the system about two years ago with a ‘dirty home’ petition. Bob was appointed for the father, Willie Wheeler, and Regina Collicott for the mother, Debbie Wheeler. I represented the twelve children.”

“Twelve children?”

“Yep, and all the boys are named William and the girls are all named Debra. All of us involved with the case use the middle names of the children. Otherwise, it becomes way too confusing.

“Don’t tell me the parents call them William and Debra?”

“No, that would be silly.” Sabre couldn’t keep a straight face. “They call them Willie and Debbie.”

JP just shook his head and smiled. He looked back at the huge file. “This case has been going on for four years, you said?”

“Yes. We thought it would be a simple case. Get them to clean up the house and give them some services to teach them how to keep it clean, enroll them in a few parenting classes, and close the file.”

“I take it that didn’t work.”

“We soon discovered the case was riddled with drug and alcohol abuse, an obsessive belief in ghosts, mental instability, and some physical abuse—mostly ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ type.”

“Who’s the mental case?”

“Both parents, really, but Willie is crazier than a loon. A few of the children have some mental problems, too. But now there are only eight children left in the system. Four of the twelve are no longer minors; the oldest Willie just turned twenty; the twin Debbies are nineteen; and another Willie is eighteen now. There are a sixteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old who are in the delinquency system, so we’re only dealing with five placements: two girls, eleven and thirteen; two boys, five and seven; and the nine-year old twins, Holly and Bradley. It’s a lot easier to try to find placements for six children than twelve, especially if you’re trying to keep some of them together.”

JP and Sabre continued to search through the cases looking for clues to the judge’s murder. Four hours later and after, a lot of reading, questions, and some bad Chinese take-out, JP said, “I’ll hit the streets first thing in the morning.”