Running late for a full morning of court appearances, Zehra grabbed her purse, stuffed it into the leather bag, and glanced at her desk to see if she’d forgotten anything. As she hurried out the door, her phone rang.
Caller ID showed it was from the chief public defender, Bill Cleary. “Get up here right now,” he demanded.
“But Bill, I’ve got a full calendar this morning and I’m late.”
But Zehra could tell from his tone of voice not to protest any more. In five minutes, she sat before him in his spacious office.
He’d been in the job forever and had gone from a crusading young lawyer to an overweight bureaucrat protecting his position. He popped open what was probably his tenth can of Coke for the day and leaned forward.
She still wanted off the case. There were almost a hundred other public defenders that El-Amin might be more comfortable working with.
Everyone called Cleary Chairman Mao behind his back for his round face and body. Too many hot dogs and fries eaten on the Government Center plaza from the food trucks.
The moon face clouded over. “I just got off the phone with Judge Gordon Smith.” He scowled. “And I don’t like these kinds of calls. Know what I’m talking about?”
“I can guess.”
“Zehra, you’re good, one of the best, but I’ll get right to the damn point. I don’t give a shit if you want off the case or not. You’re on it, you’re going to try it, and you’ll do your usual great job. Got that?”
“Bill, don’t you have any consideration of me? He tried to hit me with a chair.”
Cleary blinked a few times. “I heard that. But public defenders face angry clients all the time. You have to be careful. I want a woman on the case, and you’re good. I know it’s window dressing, but it’s important to me.” His heavy cheeks quivered.
Zehra tried to remain calm, but her voice rose. “What the hell does that have to do with our mission to give the best possible defense to everyone? You don’t give a damn about that anymore.”
“Careful—”
“This bronco attacked me.”
His head dropped. He must be thinking about that issue.
“So I’m off the case?”
“No. But I’ll get you extra security. One of our investigators will be available if you need help.” Mao’s eyes glazed over to tell her he was done with the discussion.
Ten minutes later, Zehra carried a stack of files in her bag and struggled through the door into the courtroom on the sixteenth floor of the Government Center. Jackie had met her outside in the hallway.
Stuck with the El-Amin case, Zehra’s instincts as a defense lawyer started to kick in. What kind of defense could they construct? She believed in a system where the defense had to be as strong as the prosecution. Even if guilty, the accused deserved to be defended to at least make sure he or she got a fair trial.
“Thanks for letting me come with you,” Jackie said. She pushed her thick-framed glasses higher on her little nose.
“Oh, you’ll have fun.” Zehra raised her eyebrows to send the real message.
“How many cases have you got?”
“Let’s see—” Zehra reached one of the low counsel tables in the middle of the courtroom and dropped her load. “Eleven this morning. Not too bad.” She felt the energy surge in the courtroom: people moving in all directions at once, the constant buzz of negotiations, the public drifting in and out, and a clerk shouting out the names of cases to be heard before the judge. The only quiet bubble of space was directly before the judge, where lawyers and their clients made the formal appearances.
Most of the lawyers in the courtroom worked for the government, either assistant county attorneys or public defenders. A few private lawyers represented clients, but in reality, most criminals were poor and had appointed counsel. Since public defenders worked the courtrooms every day, they were some of the best criminal lawyers in the county.
When Jackie had asked her about a career as a public defender, Zehra told her not to expect big money. “Instead, you’ll get lots of freedom, responsibility, and an opportunity to have tough cases dumped on you at an early stage in your career. Dealing with the clients we represent is a tough part of the job. And a lot of us stay because we believe it’s an important part of what we call justice.”
“That’s what I want—the experience in the courtroom. It sounds like the most fun.” Jackie dropped her shoulders. “I’ve put everything on hold in my life for the El-Amin case. My partner, Josh, is so great. He adores me and says whatever I need to do is cool with him.”
“Let’s look for our client. Name’s ‘World Premier.’”
“Huh?”
“That’s his name.” Zehra shrugged.
They walked to the public area of the courtroom and searched over the crowd. Outside in the hall, they called out his name. Zehra looked at her phone for the time. “He always runs twenty minutes late, so he should be here now.”
“Miss Henning.” The slim black man strode toward them. He tipped from side to side with an exaggerated roll of his shoulders that matched the rhythm of his walk. The baseball cap, red and white, was too large for his head and was turned at a precise angle to his face. He smiled at them, exposing a golden front tooth.
“World Premier.” Zehra reached out her hand to shake. With some of the male public defenders, the black clients gave a “soul shake”—with a turn of the wrist and a bump of the fist. None of her clients ever shook that way.
“W’as happ’n here, man?”
“You’ve got a disorderly conduct case. Nothing too serious.”
“Man—they should drop that. Jus’ a bad communication. Tha’s all.”
“Could be, but the prosecutor won’t drop it. Probably because it happened with an employee who works in the building. Prosecutors feel very protective of them.”
“Aw—what I gotta do?” His red shorts and basketball shoes matched the colors of his tank top.
Zehra flipped open the file containing a complaint and a single-paged police report. “It says you wanted your free bus card. When the clerk wouldn’t give you another one for the week, you went off on her, yelling, screaming, and threatening to ‘kick her ass.’”
“Nah, nah. That ain’t it. Man, she went off on me. Tha’s the truth. Here, catch this: how could I go off on her if I jus’ finished my last class in anger management? Twelve weeks in them classes. I graduated, man.” He leaned back in stiff pride and jerked his head once to emphasize his success and the proof of his defense. He crossed his arms over his chest. Tattoos ran up the underside of his arms. Most were gang signs.
“And that proves it?”
“Yeah, it proves it.” He jerked his head again.
“Look, World—or should I call you World Premier?”
“My mama named me World Premier; tha’s my name.”
“Okay. How about I get you ten days in the workhouse, stayed for six months?”
“I don’t gotta go?” His soft eyes focused on Zehra.
“Not unless you violate our probation.”
“Do it, man. I ain’t got time for this shit. I got my bidness to take care of, and I gots to get back to the crib. My baby’s mama’s there.”
After he’d pled guilty and was sentenced to probation, they all walked out to the hall again.
“Hey, thanks,” World Premier told Zehra. “You’re a good lawyer. I’ll ask for you next time.”
When he flashed the golden smile, Zehra saw a young boy trying to act tough but, in the end, a petty criminal. She liked him and hoped he could make something worthwhile out of himself before it was too late. “Yeah, do that. Good luck.”
By noon Jackie and Zehra were relaxing in her office over two cups of herbal tea.
“Damn, that’s draining.” Jackie laughed. “Can you imagine what my former colleagues at the law firm would say if they knew what I was doing here?” She pumped both fists up and down. “But this is what I wanted.”
“I don’t know where some of these cl
ients come from. Think about it—they’re living among us.” Zehra dropped her feet from the chair next to her onto the ground. She slid the drawer with the cupcake open to look at it, tempted. “Hey, Denzel’s coming in. He texted me.”
“You couldn’t make a reality show about these cases. No one would believe them—they’re too real. I can’t wait to tell Josh.”
In ten minutes, Bobby Joe walked into the office. “Hey, girls.” He sat in the chair next to Jackie. He tried to keep his lips closed, but a wide grin cracked open to expose his teeth, white against his dark face. “I got something for you. I told you I wasn’t getting anywhere with these Somalis. So I tried another idea. I’m tight with the security at Richardson High School, which has a high Somali population. I checked it out. One of the kids there has a parent who knows our boy, El-Amin.” He looked from Jackie to Zehra. “And it gets better.”
“Oh?” Zehra said.
“The friend was willing to talk to me. Got a part-time job in a hospital kitchen. He’s also an imam, a religious leader, at the local mosque on the West Bank, near the murder scene. He’s known our boy for a few months. Not close, but sees him every so often. He tells me on the night of the murder, he and El-Amin were chewing khat and drinking tea in the community room of the mosque.”
Zehra slammed the drawer shut on her chocolate cupcake. “What? You think the witness is legit?”
“Seems to be. The details check out so far.”
“This has got to be tight. You know that.”
“Right.”
“Why didn’t the witness go to the cops?” Jackie asked.
“Scared. Plus, the coppers didn’t have the connection like I got. They didn’t even know the witness existed.” BJ leaned back with a glow on his face.
Zehra ran both hands through her thick hair. For the first time, she felt a familiar tightening of excitement in her lower body. Maybe, just maybe, they had a defense to the charges. In spite of her contempt for El-Amin, her competitive instincts as a lawyer rose. “Damn, we’ve got ourselves an alibi,” she shouted to the other two.
As the cheering died down, another thought poked through: if El-Amin was innocent, why had he told Zehra he was guilty?
Chapter Ten