Page 51 of Fish in a Barrel
“Go,” Jackson said with a crooked smile. “Big boys only. I’ll stay here with the kid’s table.”
Ellery glared and pulled the ibuprofen out of his suitcase. “Take it as soon as they get back with your soda and sandwich. Annette likes you. She won’t let you get away with dodging out.”
Jackson managed a creditable “Who me?” expression as Ellery packed his briefcase and then left, following the stocky young woman who was their bailiff today.
Brentwood’s chambers were tucked behind the courtroom, and they looked exactly like Ellery thought they should. Lots of heavy oak bookcases, with a massive oak desk right beneath the window and Brentwood’s Harvard degree on the wall. There were also pictures—legitimately warm, it seemed to Ellery, and he’d seen the other kind—of Brentwood and his wife, an elfin, charming woman in her late sixties, like her husband, along with what looked to be two grown children, a boy and a girl. The boy was photographed frequently with another boy, this one seen sometimes in his dress whites, so a Marine at some point, but many of the pictures were casual. Some of the shots were camping, some at Disneyland, and some were obviously taken earlier when the children were in their teens. Some had other people the kids’ age in the photos, and Ellery recognized the kind of family that attracted people to it. They probably had lots of people over for Thanksgiving, and judging by the photos, many of those people were not white, and there were at least two same-sex couples who were frequent visitors.
The pictures of Brentwood’s son and his Marine boyfriend were the most surprising—but all of it, as a whole, didn’t fit Ellery’s picture of who Judge Clive Brentwood really was.
It was hard to hate a guy when he seemed to be living a good life, regardless of what his politics were, and Ellery took a deep breath and tried to remember to be reasonable.
Arizona was already seated in one of the chairs in front of Brentwood’s desk, and Brentwood was behind it in his own massive ergonomic chair. He was over six foot five—sometimes that sort of height came with back problems, Ellery knew, and dammit, some of his hatred bled away.
“We have a problem,” Brentwood said after dismissing the bailiff, and Ellery was pleased that he wasn’t one of those people who minced words.
“We?” Ellery replied, keeping the archness from his voice. God, they’d brought in an alternative witness who’dconfessed,for God’s sakes, as well as provided proof for an alternative case theory.
Brentwood gave him a thin smile and closed his eyes, tilting his head back. “Fine,” he said. “We as in Arizona and I have a problem. Are you going to help or to gloat?”
“Did you see the wounds sustained by my investigator?” Ellery asked harshly. “Or the way Cody Gabriel’s hands shook? Did you hear Zeke trying to talk through a broken jaw? Not gloating here, Your Honor. This isn’t a game to me, where I get a notch on my belt if I win. We are talking about very real people here whose lives have been impacted, and that doesn’t even touch on the roughly two-hundred people who were forcibly relocated last night. You’re absolutely right—this problem involveseverybody,but itshouldn’tinvolve Ezekiel Halliday.”
Brentwood let out a breath. “No, it shouldn’t. But it does. And I can’t fix that. And if you’re telling the truth, and the DOJ is already involved—”
“I am and it is,” Ellery said. “Although your office and the DA’s office have yet to be implicated.”
“Well, aren’t we lucky,” Arizona said sourly. “Because Cartman’s the one who refused to deal.”
Ellery stared at her. “Still?”
“Here’s the truth, Ellery,” she said, sounding exhausted. “Raw and unvarnished. Clive here is a year away from retirement. He doesnotwant the DOJ investigating his tenure. My hands are tied by my boss. He won’t let me drop the charges. I’ve been begging him for weeks. And those fucking bozos who tried to kill your boyfriend aren’t going away soon, even if the DOJ brings up charges. And they should. And that doesn’t even cover how bad nobody in this room wants to see that poor kid in jail.”
Ellery blew out a breath. “We could always, I don’t know, trust the jury.”
She gave him a sad look. “Do you really think that bunch out there is going to draw the line at jury tampering? I’ve already spotted two people who look like they’re in the middle of an intestinal aneurism. Either someone’s got their nuts in a vise about the verdict, or they haven’t crapped in a week. I don’t want to lay odds it’s the second one.”
Gah! She was right. He’d noticed them too, over the past week. He figured Jackson had been too busy trying to hunt down Cody Gabriel. With Jackson it was all black-and-white. Hefoundthe bad guy. Shouldn’t it be over?
Ellery agreed with him, and not just in theory. He agreed it should be over. Even better, he agreed with Jackson that it never should have happened in the first place, but here they were, and his absolute—absolute—priority was to keep Ezekiel Halliday from going to jail.
“Wait,” said Brentwood, staring at Ellery. “You and Rivers are dating?” He cracked a weary smile. “How did I not know that? I thought I knew all the LGBTQ couples in the law community.” He looked embarrassed, like a tired dad and not a thundering authoritarian. “My family gets really excited that the community is expanding.”
Arizona gave Ellery a baffled smile, and Ellery shrugged.
It was like two different people, but he’d seen it before. Judges had to be infallible, and they tended to take law enforcement’s word for it. Even the liberal judges didn’t let a lot of humanity escape as they were sitting in front of the courtroom.
“We live together,” Ellery said, allowing a real smile to show. “Which means I’m on nursing duty for the next week. He’s already running a fever.”
Brentwood’s own smile faded. “Christ,” he muttered. “This needs to be addressed. But I can’t do it from the bench. The DA needs to bring up charges—or the DOJ needs to do it for them. But we can’t let what those officers were doing get in the way of justice for Ezekiel Halliday, and that’s what we need to work on here. If I declare a mistrial, not only am I under investigation, but Mr. Halliday is going to go through all this again. And I do not want to be implicated in the unholy mess that you introduced today.”
Okay. Ellery could work with that.
“How’s this?” he said. “Arizona, you call Cartman and tell him that if he agrees to drop all charges, hewon’tbe mentioned in the civil suit Galen Henderson is planning to file as soon as this trial is over. Right now it’s our four boys in blue out there, but given the evidence we have now, we can name the DA’s office with intent to cause additional harm.”
Arizona nodded. “That might do it. What about the DOJ?”
“Well, right now we’ve got the county buses and the boys in blue. Try to convince him that the DOJ might not look any further than that if he agrees to drop the charges.”
She gave him a level look. “Mightnot look any further?”
