Randy Singer - The Justice Game

Her dad didn’t flinch. He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, closed his eyes, and asked the Lord to bless her.

On the way home, Kelly’s dad arranged it so she rode with him. She welcomed the chance to be alone with him for a few minutes before they hit the pandemonium of the house on Christmas Eve. It reminded Kelly of high school, how her dad would get up early every morning and drive her to swimming practice, even though she had her own license.

“Did you like the homily?” he asked.

“Fifteen minutes. What’s not to like?”

“People don’t want a long sermon on Christmas Eve. They just need a reminder. They need a chance to take a breath and remember.”

“It was great, Dad. They always are.”

Her dad kept his eyes on the road. “I’m really proud of you, Kelly. You’re an exceptional young lady.” He paused. She could sense a but coming, and he didn’t disappoint. “But you’ve always been so hard on yourself.”

This from a man who knows how to pile on the guilt. Her dad had a gentle, soft-spoken way, but he knew how to trip-wire every emotion. Especially remorse.

“I’ve had a good teacher.”

He gave her a knowing smile. Her dad was too honest to argue the point. Nobody was harder on himself than Kelly’s dad. “Is there something you need to talk about, Kelly?”

She let the question hang in the air for just a second. It was tempting to tell her dad everything. Somehow, after the initial shock, she knew he would understand. But something more powerful held her back-maybe the pain it would cause him; maybe her own shame at what she had done; maybe the fact that time had started to dim the memory and she didn’t want to fully open the painful wound.

“I’m fine, Dad. I’m just not in a place where I can take Communion right now.”

This brought a prolonged period of silence. It was an old trick that Kelly had wised up to in college. Her dad would just wait her out. Sooner or later, she would confess, driven by her overactive conscience and the deafening sound of silence. But she was older now. Wiser. A lawyer.

“I’ll work through it, Dad. It’s one of those things I’ve got to do on my own.”

On Christmas morning, Jason’s father woke at ten, had two cups of coffee, and downed a few ibuprofens for his headache. Then he apologized.

“I didn’t mean what I said last night,” he managed, speaking quietly with a thick tongue. “That was the booze talking.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You’ve got a job to do. Give ’em hell.”

“I intend to.”

Jason fixed pancakes, though his father didn’t have much of an appetite. They went for long periods without saying anything, emphasizing the fact that they no longer had much in common. By noon, it was time to open gifts.

First, they both unwrapped presents mailed by Jason’s sister. Afterward, Jason pulled a small package out of his briefcase.

“Thanks,” his father said, unwrapping it gingerly. The man had big hands, and Jason noticed they shook a little, making the gift opening more of a chore. His dad eventually got down to the single piece of paper at the center of a small box.

“Based on what you said last night, you might want to trade it for another model,” Jason offered.

His dad pulled out a picture of an MD-45, the gun Jason had fired at the shooting range. Underneath the picture was a gift certificate to the Bulls Eye Marksman store in Cumming, Georgia.

“I called the store and found out how much the MD-45 would cost. That gift certificate is for the exact amount. But seriously, Dad, I won’t be disappointed if you get a different gun. You can use that certificate for any gun in the store.”

“I never said they didn’t know how to make a good gun,” his father said. He looked at Jason, a spark of pride in the bloodshot eyes. “I never thought I’d see the day that I got something like this from you.”

Jason opened his father’s presents next. A new briefcase-soft leather. A gift certificate to Office Depot and another to S amp;K Menswear. Jason had to admit-his dad had tried.

“What kind of guns do you own?” Jason asked his father.

His dad perked up at the question and rattled off a list of the weapons in the Noble family armory. Then he had a brilliant idea.

“If you’re going to be the Great Defender of the Second Amendment, it might help if you knew how to shoot a gun. Your mother never let me take you when you were little, and by the time middle school rolled around…” Jason’s dad looked a little melancholy. “Well, we didn’t spend much time together. You want me to see if I can get us into the Fulton County shooting range this afternoon?”

Jason thought about it for a minute. They could sit in the house and risk another argument. Or they could spend a few hours at the shooting range. Maybe he would learn something that would prove useful in the case. Plus, it would serve his dad right-loud noises to exacerbate the hangover.

“Sounds good. I just need to be at the airport no later than eight.”

One month later

Judge Robert A. Garrison Jr. had been presiding over Virginia Beach Circuit Court, Courtroom 8, for the past seven years. Short, pudgy, pale-skinned, and bald, he looked more like an accountant who had just survived a hectic tax season than a judge. But with the power of the gavel, the man transformed into a monarch. He ran a tight ship, routinely starting court one or two minutes early. He liked to lecture criminal defendants and their lawyers, favoring prosecutors blatantly enough that nobody could accuse him of being soft on crime.

Garrison had a knack for finding the spotlight and ran into controversy a time or two over his unique ideas about proportional punishment. Two eighteen-year-olds accused of vandalizing public schools were told to return to his courtroom when they each had a half gallon of gum they had scraped off the bottom of public school desks. To make sure they didn’t cheat, Garrison appointed a deputy sheriff to supervise. Another defendant, accused of violating the noise ordinance with his car stereo, had been sentenced to twelve straight hours of Barry Manilow, again supervised by a poor deputy sheriff who hadn’t done a single thing wrong.

Garrison’s main qualification for the bench was not his intellect, demeanor, or trial experience. Instead, it was his daddy. Old Man Garrison was one of the most successful developers to ever bulldoze trees and destroy wildlife in Hampton Roads. Fortunately for his son, he used his largesse to patronize local Republicans now serving in Richmond. They returned the favor by appointing Robert Jr., a nondescript real-estate lawyer, to an open slot on the Virginia Beach Circuit Court bench.

The partisan nature of the appointment created a small uproar among the local bar, but soon the Virginia Beach lawyers discovered more pressing matters to complain about and left Garrison alone.

Garrison played the part of the proper Southern gentleman, donning seersucker suits starting on Memorial Day and wearing them under his robe at least twice a week until Labor Day. Other accessories included wire-rimmed glasses, membership in the Princess Anne Golf Club, a home on Sixtieth Street just two blocks from the ocean, a beautiful wife, two kids, and a membership in a large church in the Little Neck area of Virginia Beach. He seldom attended.

Garrison knew the other judges found him useful because he didn’t shy away from media attention and loved the high-profile cases. When the Rachel Crawford case hit the desk of the chief judge of the Virginia Beach Circuit Court, Garrison knew immediately that she would assign it to him. Nobody else would want to mess with all the cameras in the courtroom, the public scrutiny, the lawyers hotdogging for the TV audience. Nonetheless, the chief made Garrison wait until just one week before the first hearing on the case-a Motion to Dismiss based on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act-before she let him know.