Gwynne Forster - One Night With You

She reread the background information that the clerk had sent her on the first case, the suit of a woman who had bought a diamond bracelet over the Internet, had had it appraised and been advised that it was worthless. Unfortunately for the woman, she’d paid heavily for it. Either the buyer or the seller would learn a lesson.

She awakened the next morning after a restful night, got ready for her first day at work, made coffee and her thoughts immediately went to Reid who, she knew, had to settle for a cup of instant. She walked up Albemarle Heights thinking that she was fortunate to have found a house so close to her work, and so her mood was bright and cheerful when she entered the courthouse and showed her badge to the guard. The man nodded, but she wasn’t sure toward which direction.

“Where is chamber 6A?” she asked him, and he pointed to his left with his thumb much as one uses the thumb to hitch a ride.

She could feel her temper rising. “I am the judge in charge of this court,” she told him, “and nobody who works here should be rude to me and expect to keep his or her job. If you’ve got your behind on your shoulder because I bought a house in Albemarle Gates, it tells me how foolish you are. I came here looking for a house, found one and bought it. Neither you nor anybody else in this town put an ad in the paper or a sign near that property advertising your objection to that housing. So show me your best face and tell all of your colleagues to do the same, or this courthouse will have a completely new slate of employees. And soon! Now, where is chamber 6A?”

She had never seen a colder stare. “Yes, ma’am. Right over here, ma’am,” he said and walked with her to the elevator. “Sixth floor, and turn right.”

“That wasn’t difficult, was it?” she said and got on the elevator without waiting for his answer.

Fortunately, her clerk showed better judgment. “Good morning, Judge Rutherford. I’m Carl Running Moon Howard, your clerk. Court begins at ten, unless you’d like the time changed, and ends at three. We have an hour for lunch. Here are the keys to your chambers. How do you like your coffee?”

“Good morning, Carl. I’m delighted to meet you. That’s the warmest greeting I’ve received since I came to Queenstown. I like it black without sugar. Thank you.”

“I know, ma’am. It’s too bad you didn’t know about those burial grounds. It’s gotten to be political, and people are taking sides. I hate this kind of thing, ma’am.”

“So do I, Carl. I saw ads in the papers for the houses, came here and drove throughout the city looking to see what else was available, and that suited me best. I had no way of knowing what that builder had done. I’d give anything if I hadn’t bought there, but I am there, and I’ve put my money in it. So I’m staying.”

“People will soon know what kind of person you are, ma’am. I’ll get you some coffee. Incidentally, the previous judge had a little microwave oven, mini-refrigerator and coffeepot in that little storage room over there. It came in handy I don’t know how many times. Your cases for today are in that black incoming-mail box.”

He brought the coffee, and she studied her morning cases until she’d satisfied herself that she understood them and the hoopla surrounding them. The clerk had included half a dozen newspaper clippings about the cases she would hear that morning.

The jury had already been selected, and the morning session began normally enough, but within the hour, she found it necessary to put the defendant’s attorney in his place.

“Would counsel approach the bench,” she said after he ignored her mild reprimand.

“What may I do for you?” he asked.

Shocked, she quoted to him a section of the law that specified the conditions under which a trial lawyer may be cited for contempt. “I won’t hesitate to do it,” she said. “In fact, I’d enjoy doing it. It’s best not to play with me. Your client’s in bad enough trouble as it is. Do I make myself clear?”

With his face flushed and his lower lip sagging, he said, “I’m sorry, Your Honor. Please accept my apology.”

“I take it you told him what was what,” Carl said to her after she adjourned the court for lunch. “He was the attorney for a builder who tried to get that Albemarle Gates property and failed.”

“How did Brown and Worley get it?”

“They say it was bribery, ma’am, but who knows?”

The lawyer for the plaintiff brought four expert witnesses to prove that the diamonds in the bracelet were, in fact, zircons, and the jury’s guilty verdict did not surprise her. She agreed with it.

She left the court longing to tell Reid how her first day went. But why should he care? She went home, turned up the heat, changed into jeans and a sweater and gave some thought to what she would cook for her dinner. She had never been the object of scorn, and knowing that she was made her want to reach out to someone who cared. Dumping her troubles on her sister didn’t make sense, for Claudine would stagger beneath the burden of it as if the problem were her own.

She scrubbed a potato, dried it, patted it with olive oil, rolled it in a piece of paper towel and put it in the microwave oven. She was staring into the frozen food section of her refrigerator when the telephone rang. Please, God, don’t let that be a harasser.

“Hello.”

“This is Reid. How was your first day?”

“Reid! I wanted to call you…I mean, I wanted to tell you about it.”

“Well, how’d it go?”

“Good and bad.”

“You’re going to explain that?”

Why was she so nervous? “Wait a minute and let me get a chair.” She put the phone down, rushed to the kitchen for a swallow of water, dragged a chair to the console on which the phone rested and sat down. “I’m back. Well, first the guard was rude to me when I walked into the building, but a few choice words subdued him. I have a really nice and competent clerk, a Native American man, who’s gracious and helpful. But I had to put the defendant’s attorney in his place with the threat of contempt. Seems he was the attorney for a builder who tried unsuccessfully to get permission to build on the Albemarle Gates property. Have you heard that Brown and Worley bribed anyone to get that permit?”

“They’ve been accused of it, but the accusation didn’t hold up. I suspect you’ve had all the problems you’re going to have at court—news travels fast. All the same, it pays to watch your back.”

“It’s not a good feeling, Reid, knowing that people don’t like you although you’ve done nothing to earn their dislike. Besides, I’m a people person. I smile at folks, and I expect them to smile back, but nobody’s smiling at me here.”

“Nobody?” She imagined that his eyebrows shot up. “I smiled.”

“Yes, you did.” She settled more comfortably in the chair. “At least once.”

Laughter rumbled out of him, and she wished she could have been with him then to see those lights dancing in his eyes. “If I had another potato,” she said, throwing prudence to the wind, “I’d ask if you wanted to share my supper.”

“What goes with the one you’ve got?”

“Steak burger seasoned with onions, egg, mustard, ketchup and Maggi sauce, fresh asparagus and a mesclun salad.”

“I’ve got an Idaho potato, if that would persuade you to follow through with that idea. And I’m pretty good at cleaning up the kitchen.”

“You wouldn’t consider scrubbing that potato before you bring it over, would you?”

“You bet. Uh…what time would you like to have the potato?”

“About a quarter of seven.”

“Great. By the way, does Her Honor drink wine with her steak burger?”

“Whenever she has it in the house.”