Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

The warrant is for one DeLeel Love, residing at Apartment 9G, 5327 Grace Street, DuSable. On Saturday, September 10, according to the warrant, 'Defendant did commit the offense of deviate sexual assault against one Zunita Collins, aged twelve, a minor, in that he engaged in the unconsented and offensive touching of said Zunita Collins's breasts, buttocks, and vagina.' Wells points to the defendant's name.

'Guess he's just love all the time,' he says. A stout man, Wells smiles too broadly. He has dark, venous gums and snaggle teeth. Lubitsch continues writing, which means he has heard the remark before.

The last time Wells was in here, a month or two ago, he talked to Sonny at length about his son who was competing in the Special Olympics. But the crime – the projects – has brought something rougher to the surface. There are some cops who remind Sonny of her Uncle Moosh, in whose home she lived for extended periods throughout her childhood, men who seem to be the calm center of the world, quietly and confidently sorting good from bad with the cheerful conviction that it is somehow worth the effort. But neither Wells nor Lubitsch is like that. For them you can see that each case, each crime is personal, riling contentious feelings.

In this, of course, they are more like Sonny than she would prefer. In her prior job as a prosecutor, an advocate, it seemed natural to feel this intense connection to every case, to the world's need to punish, to be for the victims and their right to receive whatever poor amends they could. Coming to the bench, she welcomed the prospect of more distance, but instead, she frequently finds herself not merely touched by cases but, in ways that puzzle her, still deeply involved. Occasionally, she is gripped by the anguish of the victims. But most often – too often for comfort – it is the accused, the defendants, poor and always somehow wretched, who remind her in the most secret and fragmentary ways of herself.

The judge lifts a hand to the cops, letting them resume work on their warrant. They are amiable regulars here, particularly welcome because few other persons around this courthouse seem to fully trust her. Most of the clerks, the deputies, the PAs and judges regard Sonny as a foreigner, a former federal prosecutor who was one of a half-dozen lawyers of established integrity recruited to the state court bench by a Reform Commission created in the wake of the latest bribery scandal, which enveloped four different courtrooms. Sonny suspects that after only two years on the bench, she is regarded by her colleagues as unqualified to be sitting on felonies, a plum – and demanding – assignment. Certainly she is unwanted here amid people who have been entrusted with each other's secrets for years.

In the interior office of the chambers, the deputy sheriff assigned to the courtroom, Annie Chung, is arranging the array of multicolored paperwork that resulted from the tumultuous status call which Sonny holds each Tuesday morning. At the sight of the judge, Annie rises to relieve her of her packages, taking an instant to peer discreetly into one. Annie has begun night classes at college. She dreams of law school and, Sonny is sure, envisions herself someday in the flowing black raiment of a judge, on the bench, empowered and obeyed. To these hopes there is a heartsore quality, since Annie a few months ago married a sleek, wealthy boy from Hong Kong, far more traditional than she is. At times Sonny sees Annie staring at the wedding and engagement rings on her left hand, admiring them in the light, but with the startled, immobilized air of some discontent she cannot yet name.

'Reporters called,' Annie says. 'What about?'

'You god a new case, up for initial appearance at 2:00. Ordell Trent. A.k.a. Hardcore.' She has a distinct Chinese accent that softens the r's to the point that they are indistinct. Aw-dell. Hahd-caw. 'Murder in the First Degree.'

'You caught that one, Judge?' Lubitsch has come to absorb the light in the doorway. 'We had that goof in the station this morning. Big-time Saint. That's the one I was tellin you about?' He is speaking to Wells. 'Where we got to get over to General? Judge, that case's a doozy.'

Sonny shakes her head. Her dark hair is abundant and, as has been the case since college, is worn free to her shoulders. There is now more than a little grey, which in this job is thought to add distinction.

'Fred, come on. Don't backdoor me. I'll hear it from the P A in court.'

'Yeah, okay,' he says, 'but it's a doozy.'

'It's a doozy,' Sonny says and restrains, in the name of amity, a motion to Annie to close the door. She has taken her chair behind an enormous mahogany desk, which, with its tiered edges, reminds her of a steamship. From the tall old mullioned windows behind her, a grand view of the back reaches of DuSable city recedes. On her desk is a Lucite gavel, three feet long, given to her by her colleagues when she left the United States Attorney's Office. In jest, they had it inscribed Ms Justice Klonsky. There are also pictures of two children, her daughter, Nikki, almost six, and Sam, a knock-kneed boy past twelve, whom she helped raise during the years she was married to his father. Sonny left that man, Charlie, almost three years ago.

'It was on the radio last week,' says Annie. 'Those damn gangbangers or somethin. Some kind of drive-by shooting? And this lady god in the way. A white lady.'

'White?' says Sonny. 'Where in the world did this happen?'

Annie reads from the complaint in the court file, prepared by the PAs in Felony Review: 6:30 a.m. September 7. Grace Street again.

'What was she doing at Grace Street?' Sonny asks. 'Maybe she's with Probation? Children's Services? Somethin like that.'

'At that hour?' Sonny motions for the complaint. Reminded, she calls out to the officers to be sure they notified Children's Services about Zunita Collins.

'Already got her,' Lubitsch answers.

'Got who?' asks Marietta, coming through the door. Returning from lunch, she is still wearing sunglasses and carries a package of her own. Without a word, the two cops rise at once to make way. Marietta Raines is proprietary about every aspect of this courtroom, where she has been the clerk – and procedural ruler – for almost two decades. She throws her purse and packages inside her desk and immediately reads the pages the officers have drawn for the judge's approval.

'Lord!' says Marietta, shaking her head over Zunita Collins. ‘I don't wanna hear about nobody had a better weekend than me.' In a heavy-footed way, Marietta moves into the inner chambers, feigning to remain oblique to the dark look the judge has passed her. With barely a rearward glance, Marietta throws the inner door closed on the two cops still howling over her remark. She has on a long bunchy cotton skirt, summer wear that will outlast the season in this overheated building. Despite their nine months together, Sonny is still not certain whether the woolly Afro Marietta wears is a wig. Rather than further confront her clerk -always a challenge – the judge returns to the murder complaint Annie handed her, the one naming the gangbanger Hardcore.

'Oh my God,' says Sonny. 'My God. "June Eddgar"? I know June Eddgar. She's the one who was killed? My God. Her son's a probation officer, isn't he? Nile Eddgar? Remember when he was in here I told you I knew his family?'

Marietta, already familiar with the murder case, nods and with a flawless memory recalls the matter on which Nile appeared last

May. Nile, as Sonny remembers that appearance, was tall and poorly groomed; he wore a funky goatee and was far too fidgety to meet her eye. He gave no sign he might have any memory of her from so long ago.

'Oh God,' Sonny says again. 'June Eddgar. Do I have to disqualify myself?'

'What for?' asks Marietta. 'She your girlfriend or somethin? How'd you know her in the first place, Judge? You-all from the same neighborhood?'